Through Time

Got the true ending.

While the premise is in itself common, it's delivered in a way that makes this my favorite romance on the site, and the only one I've read more than once.

Jacob: Honestly, I feel for the dude. It's easy to criticize him for not doing anything with his life, but plenty of people tend to just live until they die. The amount of bad stuff that happened to him and his loved ones is a lot, and it makes sense why he ended up pulling away from Alison when they got older. The idea of inventing time travel just to help the person you love, while a little corny, is also beautiful. Honestly, that's how love should be.


Alison: So while it's clear from the getgo that she is somehow involved in the protagonist time traveling, the author is able to write this in such a way that her involvement is foreshadowed, but not glaringly obvious. Her rhyme about each of your friends, and the way she seems to pop up whenever you're having a difficult time (especially with your sister) hints that she knows more about why you're there then even you do. The revelation and eventually the true ending was an incredible way to bring the entire story full circle.

Ian: It goes to show that even in the 'bad timeline' the two of them are working together, and it can be argued that Jacob spends more time with him than anyone else.
What I like about his character, aside from the loyalty aspect, is that unlike Jacob, he actually has ambitions to be a doctor, and an actual plan to meet those goals. It's honestly heartbreaking seeing that it was his brother's imprisonment that ruins his life, although I was a little irritated. In most cases, being surrounded by a group of thugs meaning to do you imminent bodily injury is legal grounds for the use of deadly force. For example, the Kyle Rittenhouse case.
Ultimately, I was very pleased that Jacob had a chance to set things right, and while I'd love to think Ian managed to get his doctorate, the story unfortunately does not tell us that.

Olivia: Oof. This one clearly has self-esteem issues. Besides the fact that her best friend completely forgot about her, the fact that she's over at the house of her Cro-Magnon boyfriend a lot tells us she most likely has no parental influence as well. This may be the reason why she says "Why does everyone leave me." following her suicide attempt.
I will say, there were signs of her showing suicidal tendencies after the school scene, but I am glad that she manages to get past all that and make human connections to people who actually have decency, such as Ian. As far as characters go, she was one of the lesser memorable.

Tina: so out of all of the characters here, I have genuine empathy for this one the most. To be treated like a doormat at school AND home simply because you're doing well in school? This right here is when I started to get genuinely mad at Jacob. Sibling resentment following the move is understandable, and even expected. This is the same move that separated him from Olivia, after all. But to hold a grudge for YEARS? It made me think, and Jacob does eventually realize this, that he's been essentially using her as a scapegoat for everything that goes wrong. Once he manages to realize this (with Alison's help), the dynamic between the two of them vastly improves. Jacob seeing himself in the bullies was a nice analogy, although the leader talking like a '50s husband who just got out of WW2 with his "beat women back into their place" speech did dampen the scene just a little bit.

All in all, it was an excellently written storygame, and outside of a couple instances where the dialogue was questionable, I was completely engaged the entire way through.

Haa.... This game, man... You just reeeaaally had to punch me in the feels toward the end there, didn't you?



TO PLAYERS:: So. This game is great. Anybody who's just sifting through stories on this site needs to read this one. FINISH IT. Don't be giving up half-way through (like I wanted to) because you'll be depriving yourself of the whole story, which ties up almost everything quite neatly.

I really, REALLY wanted to quit partway through my second route ((My Order: Olivia > Tina > Ian > Allison > True)) because I found the main character INSUFFERABLY apathetic. He didn't care about anything, question anything or feel anything. I hated the character because he wasn't real to me. No real person would behave this way for no reason. After completing my second route, you get the STRONG sense that there's a reason behind everything. Continue on, players. This story's a good one.



TO THE CREATOR:: Quit yanking on my heart-guts, you brilliant evil mastermind, you! This story has many good points and very few bad. I'll try to get through it without writing an essay.

THE GOOD:
-The Story: I really appreciate that everything came full circle. I want to talk about it SO BADLY, but anything I say would be a spoiler. All things that are great about the story are spoilers!
-The Characters (Main): I hated Jake in the beginning. It was terribly annoying to play as him, but I'd be lying if I say I still hate the guy. I can't spoil anything here, so I'll just say he's not all bad. He was just a teenager. Each of the route-owning characters make sense in their own right, as well. After completing their respective arcs, I had a sense of deeper understanding for why they behaved the way they did. It made me reflect on myself a bit, and I like that.
-The Message: The story's theme is read loud and clear. If you don't get it in the beginning, you certainly will by the second or third arc playthrough.

THE BAD:
-The Grammar: You've actually done quite well in this area. Toward the end (True Route in particular) a couple your/you're and then/than mix-ups slipped through. One extra proofread should do ya in future stories.
-The Characters (Secondary): I know next to nothing about Jake's mom. In fact, anyone who isn't a part of the main 5 characters (Peter being an exception) is just... kind of flat? I'm not saying everyone needs development, but I would like to have learned a bit about the other people in Jake's life. Deeper dialogue with the rest of the Wolves or his mom or even other classmates would have helped breathe life into the world.
-The Length: This isn't even really a bad point. I wish the game was longer. I wish the game had CG's. I wish this game was a Visual Novel, is what I'm getting at. I realize that its current length works for what it is. You can easily sink a couple hours into this if you get immersed and you have enough time for the characters and story to snowball on you. I would loved for each arc to have been longer; to explore more on every corresponding character's backstory and epilogues. However, maybe that would have hurt the game's impact in the long run. Who's to say? All I know is, I like the current version.

...I wrote an essay. Dang it. I'll stop here.

tl:dnr - People. Play this game. It will make you feel. It is very good.

After reading this story, I've come to equally like and dislike a few things about this story game.

The Amazing, Good, Bad, Ugly

The Ugly: I feel the story is weak in really developing the characters. I don't feel a strong connection to them. To me they seem just people that play the parts of a romantic story. I feel like the characters would be more overall more memorable and like able is if they had some more distinction in their personality and seemed to treat other characters more realistically.

One of my main criticisms is that the main character's conflict seems weak. I mainly just disliked the way that this conflict with himself pushes the plot and that made the plot overall weaker in my opinion.

The Bad: I just have an issue with the way the character you play as resolves some of the conflicts with the other characters. I mainly react like "Why am I suddenly acting like... and why are they reacting like?" and "If this actually happened, this wouldn't make sense"

The Good - I liked the actual concept of the story and how the actual gameplay was executed. Although the choices weren't tough, the game is built around continuous replay. And the "True Ending" was a pleasant way to tie up the story and explain everything.

The Amazing - This story really captures the emotions of the characters and makes it them seem more human. I loved the individual stories of each of the characters, and it really was interesting to discover their stories.


This definitely isn't a terrible story. I think being in the romantic genre, most of my criticisms regarding the characters and plot probably stem from me not liking the romantic genre. Overall, I feel like this story does deliver a lot of interesting story and it kept me reading until I finished the end.

eh, don't mind me. i kinda skimmed through it anyway

Totally recommended. The whole story is totally fire, and while I didn't expect to actually do it, I did play it multiple to reach all the good ends. There are very few typos here and there, but they are so minor one will likely not even notice them.

I'm an apathetic mess who is just living by inertia and i'm struggling to find any meaning in things. Thank you for making me feel like something might matter at some point in life. Cheers and i hope you are doing well.

Fantastic story that I wanted to replay until I got all the endings! I'd recommend everyone give this story a chance, and if you're like me, it might end up being so personally relatable that it might make you feel actual emotion. I take one rating point away for some grammar and spelling errors, but I stress that they did little to take away from an otherwise captivating tale of a man losing his grip on life and falling into the abyss of existence. Loved it!

actually that game was really fun! i managed to get all the endingz but i even felt bad ignoring allison and tina while trying to talk to olivia and ian. olivias was the hardest imo

Loved this story. Emotional piece of work. I really wanted the characters to be happy as I went on this journey.

Very short