Quantum Suicide

Good game, although I hated being forced into romances/friendships depending on the story branch.

Definitely worth it if you're fan of Danganronpa or Zero Escape. This game picks and chooses some of DR and ZE's best elements, like a high-octane VN plot, FTE-type character building, multiple pathways and endings, and, of course, a murderous mastermind in control of the ship. The writers and developers are true fans of the genre and it shows. Also, I want to highlight that this VN's art is so professionally done. Fantastic replayability value as well.

A fun sci fi visual novel with multiple endings, definitely recommend this for fans of the Zero Escape/Dangan Ronpa series as it takes clear inspiration from it! Scratched a particular itch for me!

I remember volunteering at a comic con at the anime station, and the producer lady was there advertising this game. Had lots of fun drawing the profile of Nikolas, and I was simply moved by the lady's passion and dedication. I am glad I came across this game after meeting the producer back in 2016 and wish the producer all the best. <3

I want to preface this by saying Quantum Suicide isn't a bad game. It's just not a very good game, either. Do I think it's a total waste of time? Not at all, I actually enjoyed many parts of it. It managed to hold my attention for hours, and I think you'll be able to say the same if you decide to play it.

== Story ==
This is, in my opinion, where the game falls flattest. I think it suffers from a lack of focus. It tries to be Danganronpa, Zero Escape, and a dating sim all at once, and it never quite succeeds at being any of them. I bought this game because I was starving for a game like DR or ZE, and while it sort of filled the role of both, it struggled to capture what makes those series enjoyable.

It comes closest to capturing Zero Escape's essence with its timeline hopping and sci-fi mechanics, but it definitely falls short. The sci-fi mechanics aren't as heavily integrated into the story, and the explanation for each one is vague, if one is even provided at all -- if you don't understand time dilation already, this game won't explain it to you adequately, even though it really should. It's a shame, as this was one of the aspects I was most looking forward to.

The Danganronpa aspects are much more lacking. It follows the general structure of a Danganronpa game, with several days of peace, a killing segment, and then an execution, but all of them have shortcomings. The executions in particular were kind of bland and uneventful, which is a shame, because they had a lot of potential for emotional depth. I never felt sad about any of the deaths, and for that matter, neither did the characters. The writing failed to accurately portray how the characters would be feeling. They've known each other their entire lives -- why do their reactions feel so apathetic?

I wish the game didn't try to be a dating sim. There were a lot of routes that I had no interest in because it really tried to push romantic tension with one of the men. In a few instances, you were even punished for rejecting their advances, even when said advances involved drugging you. I like some of the characters -- Kimiko and Beatrix were my favorites -- but a lot of them didn't really interest me, and I would've liked for each timeline to focus less on romance and more on story.

The conclusion felt like nothing but a formality, to be quite honest. It didn't feel like I had to work for it. Finishing the game wasn't rewarding, it was just a, "Oh, that's it?" sort of moment. This is by far the worst part, I think. Danganronpa and Zero Escape games both have very intense, bittersweet endings, but that's not the case with Quantum Suicide.

== Gameplay ==
It's a Ren'Py visual novel -- nothing too crazy. The only major difference is the timeline function, which works well enough. Many reviews talk about bugs, but I didn't encounter any. Sure, there was some dialogue that didn't have voice lines (which I presume was a bug), but for the most part everything seemed fine.

This wasn't really a bug, but a lot of the later segments only make sense if you picked certain people to spend time with in the earlier segments. People acted really close with me even though I had barely spent any time with them beforehand. One example that really struck me was that very late in the game, Melody called me "Monkey", even though she had never done that before. I was extremely confused, as I was just asked to input a password that I didn't know, and put "monkey" as a random answer and I thought I had somehow triggered an extremely obscure event. But no. Upon replaying earlier segments, I found out she started calling me Monkey during one of those. It was a really jarring experience, but things like that were all over the place.

One gripe I had with the gameplay is that it forces you to play as a boy to get the True Ending. I was under the assumption that you could choose your gender and play the whole game as that gender, and I operated fine under that assumption until I got very close to the True Ending before getting hit with a story lock instructing me to play a certain timeline on the male route. I was not happy about that. Sure, if you'd like, you can play as a boy and get a completely different set of endings and deaths that didn't appear in the girl routes, but I don't particularly want to.

My biggest gripe has to be with the Deletion Games, though. The second one is by far the most interesting, as you can actually try to figure it out yourself, which I found to be very engaging. The third one is the one you have to play the most, which is really frustrating as there's no strategy to it whatsoever -- I basically just picked random choices each time until I found a timeline I liked.

Something that mildly annoyed me was that dialogue that's the same across different routes is unskippable. That's a minor nitpick, though.

== Visuals ==
I like the art! It has a nice anime style, and the CGs were really well drawn, especially some of the executions. There was a panty shot CG which made me really uncomfortable, though. I also didn't like seeing shirtless men so often. Other than that, I don't have too much else to say.

== Sound ==
The music was alright. I feel like the soundtrack was too small, if anything. A lot of the time, the music just didn't fit the situation. While it was usually serviceable, it didn't really have any impact to it.

The voice acting was less than ideal. I'd heard bad things about the English voices, so I played in Japanese, and I can say they really weren't that great, either. A lot of the voice acting felt really monotone, even during executions. It definitely added to the problem of executions not being emotional. I understand that the voice actors were all amateurs, so I can't fault them too much, but it really broke my immersion when a character was about to lose their best friend since birth and the tone of their voice only managed to capture the feeling of "Damn, this sucks."

== Conclusion ==
I just said a lot of negative things about Quantum Suicide, but I want to reiterate that I don't think it's a bad game. I still enjoyed many aspects of it, but the more I played, the more its flaws started to reveal themselves, and the more frustrated I became. As a fellow woman game developer, I know how hard it is to make a complete game, and I think it's remarkable that MoltenCherry released this game! I also admire the work she puts in continually patching bugs out! I'd like to see future games from her, because I do think she has a lot of potential to improve.

Overall, would I recommend Quantum Suicide? Not really. If you're a Danganronpa/Zero Escape fan and you're really desperate for games similar to those and you've exhausted all the other possibilities, then this will sort of scratch the itch, but I think more than anything else, it'll just leave you wishing you had replayed Virtue's Last Reward instead.

Awesome game! Only played a few hours so far, and have already died 3 times hahaha. The characters and dialogue are super funny and I can't wait to see more.

I definitely enjoyed, but I can see many reasons why others would not - if you're looking for a finely polished VN with a tight story and mystery, this isn't it.

Instead you've got here something with a big ambition and a lot of heart put into making it, some fun characters with not a single one I dislike, some gruesome and horrifying Bad Ends, and some saucy CGs with flirty Romance Options too, the art is good, the rollback feature is smoother than any other VN I've seen, and there's a branching tree you can jump back on if you're hunting for another route

Heavily inspired by Danganronpa (a bit too heavily by all the references!) and Zero Escape

You awaken to find yourself aboard the Spaceship Everett, a deep space generation ship on its hundreds of years long mission. Your own memories are hazy, and the crew don't seem happy to have picked you up. As it turns out, your presence has activated a previously unknown dormant AI called D.A.I that has decided the ship is over capacity, and clearly the best way to solve this issue is via lots and lots of killing.

Day to day you'll spend time with the crew members learning about your new home, before being sat down by the murderous DAI to explain the rules of the latest social deduction game that will weed out someone for execution, and over time try to think over a way out of this situation. Old research left in the labs may hold the key, but time is running out!


On the plus sides, I really like all of the characters. They're not hugely fleshed out but they all feel warm and amicable under the right conditions, if you're on a romance route with someone their flirting is exceptional, and everyone shines a little bit in some routes or others

The art, CGs and much of the dialogue is great

The opening track is great, been stuck in my head for a week now

There's quite a few juicy mysteries left in different routes that had me taking a lot of notes and theorising which I love to do!

The Neutral

Voice acting is hit and miss, it's amazing to see it feature JP and EN audio for such a small studio, and for once I actually preferred the EN voices! Very unlike me. Some like Dai, Shizuka, Katashi, Yoshiki and Melody absolutely nail their roles, others do have talent clearly but their recordings are very poor quality or lines are delivered flatly in bizarre places. Dai feels like quite a different character when you flip the voice language!

The Bad

The interface feels harsh and basic, everything from sprites/text/menus are hard cuts

There are some bugs, particularly around the Bidding Wars game, the results display is a catastrophe and you have to ignore it totally

The branching is... formulaic. The Deletion Games have highly over complicated rules that take ages to explain and fully understand, where betrayal and trust seem to be a big part of them, and where almost anyone could die from our actions! but in reality the game results will cheat, shift around and give us only give us 2-3 options, and when you boil it down, almost none of your choices have any effect, even your romance is dictated by who died recently, not who you've spent (any) time with

The story is rough, you've got clear good elements A B and C but the pieces between them are in general paper thin. 95% of the game is spent going over in fine detail how well we did or did not sleep the night before. We'll have maybe a 5 minute conversation with someone, then go back to bed.

So many mystery elements.. go nowhere. A lot of important sounding statements are made, rules laid down, then broken elsewhere without so much as batting an eyelid. Huge hints are dropped, then are never brought back. I feel like there was so much room to weave a story within the story, to turn Ai/Dai's dynamic up to 11, to flesh out characters or tie up a ton of loose ends, but.. no such luck here

The game did really grow on me, I was able to gloss over the downsides and just enjoy what is a really impressive effort from such a tiny studio, there are things I wish I could fix or change, but I'm glad I played it.

As a lover of death puzzle games and dating sims this game really hit the spot for me.

While the influence of games like Zero Time Escape and Danganronpa are quite apparent, Quantum Suicide still manages to deliver a very special and unique experience.

I had a great time playing this game and if you're a fan of dating sims or death puzzle games, I would strongly encourage you to give this game a try. There's a lot of content and the male and female routes have their own unique routes and endings.

Honestly, I thought all of the routes were intriguing and I had a fun time trying to discover all of them.
If you're not used to visual novels, especially dating sims that branch out into different routes, some parts may seem very repetitive but that just comes with the territory. Also the skip read text feature functioned great and made filling the flowchart a lot smoother than I'm used to.
The art and music are very nice.

Now for some personal preferences:
I played the game with Japanese Audio and I recommend it.
My faves were Nikolas and Katashi, although the entire cast is very enjoyable.
I really enjoyed the Danganronpa references, some of them really caught me by surprise haha.

But anyways, the passion that was put into this game shows and it was a very lovely experiences. Thanks CottonCandyCN for the great game :')!

This game is just fantastic! Good art, music, voice acting, story, and replayability! I have played 6 hours and I am still having fun! It's also quite affordable. Plus it's a life and death game which is the best kind of visual novel like Danganronpa 1 - 3!

I like the game overall.

First experienced it at PAX AUS last year (wish that was still a thing, thanks Covid), that taste then made me want more.

After now completing the game, there are some flaws to it. Bugs and quality issues are still in the game, though they are been patched out develop. Like some other reviews, I also found I wanted more from the ending as well.

But I do love the art. I also like the characters and the VA (played in English). And I do like the story overall, Overall I enjoyed this game.

This is a tough one. It really is. The inspirations are on its sleeve and this is probably by all accounts one of the most fitting definitions of "A labor of love". I'm going to try my best to explain why.

I've had my eye on this game since it was a fledgling Kickstarter project. It was 2015 and around that time I was dying(no pun intended) for a game like this. It looked cool, the art style caught me eye, and I really wanted to get to know the characters. Shizuka interested me the most because I'm a shallow jerk who likes gamer girls. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I didn't end up backing this game at the time due to money constraints and not being ready to back projects like this.

Quick Side Note: I mentioned this in another review, but there is some sort of Indie Visual Novel-verse that's going on here. I found out about this game before The Letter or Blankspace or the woeful Bloody Chronicles(Sorry Teo). Expect references or call backs to each game in certain points in other games. It's done out of love and I enjoy the camaraderie going on here.

I loved the Zero Escape series with a passion(save for the third one), absolutely adored Ever 17, and love visual novels in general. Danganronpa, probably one of the larger inspirations for this game, left me cold. I was never a fan of it and I found myself quitting that series after the first game. From now on, I'm going to add spoiler tags to as much as I can.

The titular villain Dai of this game definitely took inspiration from Monokuma and Zero The Third, so I was a bit concerned that it would take more after the former than the latter. I usually prefer the latter for this sort of character because After a certain point in the beginning, Zero the Third basically leaves after he wore out his welcome. Neither Dai nor Monokuma do this which got irritating. I understand that's the point, but it tends to sour the experience if you don't enjoy the villain. This is a personal gripe and a bit of a spoiler, so I added the appropriate text.

The story is fine. It's about what I expected. Not too many surprises except what you ultimately have to do to get the True Ending.
When it said that each character has their own sexual preference, I was wondering if it would be possible to romance Shizuka with the gender I ultimately chose. Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised and I honestly thought the romance was really sweet, if a bit underdeveloped. One interesting thing I noticed is that during Shizuka's route, if you choose to partake in the so-called bad endings...they end up as funny or awesome endings instead. We get a Dungeons and Dragons session that gave me a Netflix Voltron vibe and a beach episode as well as a psuedo happy ending where none of the events of the game ever happened. In short I can't help but think Shizuka is the best due to how laid back she is, how laid back her route is, how cute her ending is, and basically how cute she is. So yeah, I really enjoyed Shizuka.
What else did I like?:
-The other characters are good too...most of them. Some make me wonder if there wasn't more planned. Some make me wonder what is genuinely wrong with them in certain situations and I don't mean the death games or the aftermaths/reactions. They're generally fine.
-I did say the art drew me in and the art is pretty to look at. It's clean, it works...mostly.
-When a good half of the jokes land, they do land. Even when I was in a bad mood playing this game, some moments had me rolling.

That's kind of where my praise ends. The game is still in the middle of being patched. I won't mention my experiences with bugs and glitches as even at launch you could comfortably get through the game. I wasn't a big fan of the music. With these sorts of games, some great tunes go a long way to enhancing the experience. That's not what I got at all. The opening theme and true ending themes fell flat for me. The in-game music felt flat. The romance endings and romance in general of each character but one felt rushed, even if the moments are cute.(And that one is not Shizuka sadly)
The puzzles weren't too interesting. They boil mostly down to dialogue choices. The final puzzle is an outright red herring anyway by design. Not a fan of any of them, but they get the job done.

That's where my negatives end too. I didn't hate this game by any stretch of the imagination. I just didn't find myself enjoying it as much as I hoped.

This game had a rough history and I am fully aware of it. I obviously can't sympathize. I don't know what it's like to slave on a game for 5 years. I don't know what it's like to lose your partner in a two (wo)man team after the first week. I don't know what it's like to run out of money and have to fund this game with part time work. I don't know what it's like to be locked in a legal battle for the IP. Yes, you read all of this right. I was wondering how this game was doing for years as I was watching it and I was a bit concerned. Most of the posts on kickstarter seemed to be mostly having fun or fan fiction. I didn't see that as red flags, I just thought she needed a break or something. I didn't give up hope on her(Cotton Candy Cyanide) and she clearly didn't give up either. I can't sympathize, but I can empathize and I have way more respect for her than I already did. If you're reading this Triple C, good luck!

This is why I find this difficult. This game is my definition of "OK" in its current state. I enjoyed it more than Danganronpa, which was one of her bigger inspirations, so I don't know if she'll take that as a compliment given what I said earlier. It also makes me disappointed in Steam that there is no middle option to the binary "yes" or "no".

Therefore, I will say go ahead and get it on a sale. Forget everything I said. Maybe you will get more out of this than I did. Maybe you won't. Maybe Cotton Candy Cyanide will magically add more content and sort out those legal and money issues. There's infinite possibilities. :)

Alright, i believe it is time for someone write an actual review about this game.The reason why there are so many negative reviews is because there were a lot of bugs in the game when it was first released. Don't worry, the developer(s) are still actively trying to fix them. If you are reading the review right now, chances are high that most of the bugs have already been resolved.ART 8/10Personally, I love the designs of all the characters. The art style is beautiful and there is a lot of variance in colour schemes. However, there is this one thing where some of the sprites were a bit hazy (perhaps due to being unfinished or made by a different artist?). STORY 7/10The story of Quantum Suicide is extremely solid. I like the setting of science fiction and space, really brings a lot of originality to the game. The progression of the story is immersive natural, although i had wished to see more variance in the different timelines. Getting to know the characters was fun and interactive, and you can see some character development as well. Personally i would've like a bit more of an after story after the endings, as i feel like they were a bit rushed! C:VOICE ACTING 4/10You do not want to play this game for the VA. While I do have to say that some actors were great, some definitely weren't. There were emotional scenes in the story where there's just the most monotone, neutral voice coming from the character. That is just terrible voice acting. Or perhaps a lack of communication. Either way, the VA is definitely not the best.All in all, I have to say that this game is definitely worth the buy. While there are definitely some flaws, the general experience is worth it. Please do not expect AAA production quality from indie developers. The game is only 15 bucks!

I just finished my first ending and, from what I've experienced so far, this game is unfinished. As many have already pointed out, there are multiple jarring errors that are incredibly difficult to ignore. Lines differ from what voice actors recite, sprites can linger on the screen when that character is no longer present, in addition to many other bugs, glitches, and oversights (see below for a more thorough list). The game gets noticeably less polished and more rushed as you progress through the story. The third Deletion Game requires presents you with results screen that you need to view in order to properly strategize, but the information is covered up by the dialogue box and the results screen doesn't give you enough time to see all the information! It is very hard to keep track of information in general, so even if you do manage to gather what information you need at superhuman speed, you will be expected to remember it, as the game does not provide you it to you after the first presentation. This happens in the second Deletion Game, as well, where I expected the game to keep track of my clues for me and it did not (there were many, and each contained multiple pieces of information). Finally, the game rushes through pretty much everything and takes no time to flesh out the characters in any real depth (at least in my playthrough). I somehow ended up in a romantic relationship with a character I barely even talked to, the game literally just thrust me into a scene where my protagonist found their self waking up next to the character in question with no build up at all! My ending was abrupt, brought up multiple questions, and answered none. I understand these Zero Escape and Danganronpa-inspired games have mysteries, but they need to at least present these mysteries in a way that promotes intrigue, not confusion! I will try and finish all routes and see if my opinion changes, but I doubt it will. I was really looking forward to this game, but I'm left baffled as to how it made it out of beta testing with all these problems that are easily spotted in one playthrough alone.Further issues:1. Melody's sprites are missing legs (not sure if this is intentional, but it's strange that every other character's lower bodies can be seen below the dialogue box while Melody's just disappears)2. Vladimir's English audio is of noticeably worse quality than the other VA's3. Some of the English voice acting completely misses the mark in certain scenes (mostly referring to Beatrix)4. Spending free time with Melody in the route I experienced made me go through the same exact scene when it later gave me the choice to spend more free time with her (don't give me this choice if that's the case!).5. In general, the game didn't provide enough information as to anything that was going on. Or, it brought up information that was later completely dropped and never addressed again. This led to a subpar first playthrough experience and would NOT encourage people to do another playthrough.

Playtime is based on a full flowchart minus secrets. This review is intended to be entirely constructive, not insulting.

I'm a big fan of Uchikoshi's work. Zero escape made me start loving life or death drama visual novels, and visual novels in general. When i see a visual novel with a concept similar to Zero escape, i'm immediately intrigued. So from the moment i saw someone retweet this game a year back or so, i looked forward to its release.

I bought the game day one and went in completely blind, other than knowing the concept of the game and its promises on the Itch io page. Now, after having finished it, i'm disappointed in the game i played.

I'll start off by saying that the concept of the game is very interesting and my driving force for actually completing it. The location, the premise, the goal, all of it makes for an exciting experience. Every new event, you wonder what will happen next, where will this lead? Every comment from any person could be a hint to what is to come, or could turn into suspicion as one person may know more than they let on. However as i played more, i felt my excitement fading, until i eventually just hoped that at least the true ending would finish things off with a bang.
As another reviewer pointed out, immersion is incredibly important for these types of games. Breaking that immersion is equal to breaking the experience. The more i played, the more things seemed broken. Spelling and grammatical issues, sprites that would incorrectly stay on screen, a movie for the last game literally missing. Personally, the crowning jewel of these issues was in one of the last routes i played, where a text box told me "CG is not here, just pretend!", which just made me laugh.

Technical issues aside, the way the characters were written didn't allow me to immerse myself into the story. I didn't care about the characters because it felt like the characters didn't care about each other. Essentially every character forms a pair with another and only really cares about that character. One dies, and only the other really reacts. The characters don't feel human because of this, which is a waste. I feel like one of the most interesting parts of these types of stories is bringing out the ugliness of human nature, with the author giving that a personal spin. I was missing this throughout the story, and the only real example i can think of didn't get a proper resolution and got ignored in the end.
The voice acting ties into this issue. I'm not going to comment on the quality of the English voice acting itself, as i turned it off (forcibly because of an update), but from what i heard in chapter 1 and part of chapter 2, i believe that a lack of humanity in the characters did not allow the voice actors to live up to their full potential, no matter how good they would be.

The writing was not very descriptive, which made the game lack a feeling of distance and time. The protagonist goes to an area and back to their quarters in the blink of an eye, making days pass without you even noticing it. Because the setting is outer space, you don't even have outside lighting to give you an idea of it being morning, day or night which is understandable, but needs to be compensated via writing or a system within the game. Sometimes the character performs an activity, with the game stating that they spent many hours on it, with the very next line of dialogue having the quarters CG without any kind of transition where they woke up in the morning after. Multiple times in the story half a day passes in 5 sentences of text and you don't even know at what time they went to bed and how late they wake up.

The first two games were fun. I got most of my enjoyment out of figuring out what all the ideal Make Ten combinations would be and where everyone's location was in Logiship. However, the moment the game confronts you with a choice for the games, you realize that it's all luck. You don't have to think for the games if you just randomly press one of the buttons, so there's no incentive to actually master the games. You can't deduce which character will perform what action, as a different choice gives a completely different outcome. You aren't the deciding factor for what happens in the games, you only throw the die and hope you get the face you want. For every game after that, this problem grows. I respect the idea of using multiple games, but i think the way you enter your answer was not fleshed out enough to make them work.

As a person, i have a lot of respect for what this game tries to be. I love to see people try to make their own version of something that inspired them, something they loved. I absolutely do not regret buying the game, because i like so many ideas that this game tries to bring to life. I look up to the creativity that inspired this game.
As a player, i didn't enjoy my time with this game. The scale of this game is so big, it collapses under its own weight. So much quantity, not enough quality and polish.

In closing, i wish for everyone involved in this project to learn and grow and to continue to create with their dreams and inspirations in mind. I see that work is being put in already to fix a lot of the issues i've mentioned. I don't agree with having to bring in fixes for what should already be a finished product, but i admire the dedication to make this game better. I hope to see that someday, this game will be received favorably by many new players.

Thanks for your hard work on this ambitious title.

As it stands, Quantum Suicide is not perfect by any means. While the core idea, characters, and plot execution is extremely well done, the game is staggered by the various bugs and mechanical issues that plague the game in it's current state.

I'm recommending this game solely due to the fact that the developer has responded to these and is planning to address the issue plaguing the current version, as well for the fact that the plot is honestly pretty good and well written. If you are the type of person who is a fan of games like Zero Escape and Danganronpa mainly for their plots, then you'll fall in love with Quantum Suicide's as well. However, if a mechanically stable game is required for you to enjoy such a thing, then you may be better off putting this on your wishlist and checking back in a few weeks to see if the various issues have been fixed or not.

OK. Looks like a patch is on the way to fix the route bugs.
Putting that aside...
Wow. Just wow. Great story. Great art.
I just spent seven hours taking serious notes so I could finally get a fraction of us out alive. And that isn't a complaint. I like that there is a flow chart so I don't have to skip thru the game to get those alternate scenarios.

I really want to like this game sooo much, but it is had so much bugs, from characters not leaving the screen and overlapping other characters, to the audio (Eng) that either won't play or doesn't match up to the text. The achievement is jumbled as well since I was able to get a bunch of it without triggering the right amount of actions. The "CHOICES" hardly matters, its really linear, and when the choices does gets to be important, it boils down to (good/bad end) it doesn't matter. The "GAMES", which I was soooooo looking forward after hearing about this game, are hardly games at all.

I know this game takes inspiration from games like DanganRonpa, Zero Escape, etc, but I think it's flaws comes from trying to be a-lot or everything, like even the blatant easter eggs shows that it wants to be a mix of all those survival-VN games, but it's just too much to handle. Time Dilemma has a complex narrative (arguably with lots of plotholes) but it has an awesome branching storyline and a thoughout puzzle games that really makes you think (And makes sense to say the least). This game tries to have a complex narrative (for me its just confusing) and thats that. I guess the only thing i appreciated was that this game has a romance system which other games of this nature hadn't done yet, but that doesn't excuse it from janky controls (i used a controller first) and just being a mesh of other games that sadly makes this game lose it identity.

If there would be updates to it, I might change my mind of this game, since it just release in steam, but being released in the current state that it is? I DON"T RECOMMEND YOU BUY IT

*Final Note: After sleeping on it and playing the game for a little longer today, I’m going to go ahead and stay firm with a final “not recommended.” It might be unfair to the developers if they make significant bug changes in the future, but the game just simply doesn’t work right now. I would understand if “minigames” were buggy and broken, but there are no minigames…this is literally just a visual novel. Mistakes happen, sure, but these guys are asking $15 USD (at the time of release, anyway), and this game was worked on for about 5 years, give or take, post-Kickstarter. It honestly doesn’t feel like it was tested (or, if it was, the tester’s notes were ignored), because the current problems don’t end to the points that I made in the below review. Routes completely break during casual play and skip to other unexplored routes (no skipping, jumping, or anything like that; language audio settings are irrelevant when it comes to this), and I didn’t pay to be a bug tester. My experience is more or less broken beyond repair at this point, and I hope for the best for any potential, future players. But, if you really must check this one out, I advise saving your money until the game is fixed.*

I’m sorry for the long review, but I was really wrestling with mixed feelings about this game. And, throughout this review, I genuinely do not want anyone from Cotton Candy Cyanide to be discouraged or anything like that. We need more games of this genre. There are great ideas here. There is a ton of potential here. However, there are also some problems that can’t be ignored.

Also, for disclosure, I did not play Japanese audio until about midway of Chapter 2 of my first run, and the only reason I did that was for bug reasons (I'll get into that later). The Kickstarter was in English, and the game was made by an Australian team, so I saw extraordinarily little sense in listening to Japanese audio. I must also clarify that I did not fund the Kickstarter, because I hadn’t heard about the game at the time. It’s probably irrelevant, but if I did hear about it, I probably would have thrown a lot of money at this. I love Zero Escape and Danganronpa, so this project seemed to be up my alley.

Pros:

First off, I appreciate the sudden drop on the store after an insane development cycle. Not many people can say that they’ve released a game, especially with storied histories. That’s something that the developers should be proud of. Kudos and congratulations to the team!

I’m not an artist, but I think the art looks great! It is a nice mix of a traditional anime/manga style with a western edge. Colors are fun, expressions are lively, and the backgrounds are satisfying. Even the black space windows with tiny white blotches for stars look good juxtaposed with the reflections of the crew members' rooms. The visual atmosphere is lonely but lively, distant yet comforting, uneasy and cold. Great job on that.

Also, there are some great English voice performances. For example, Dai's and Shizuka's actors nailed it. I could easily picture them voicing dubs professionally. Kudos to you, too, Vladimir, and your muffled microphone setup. The talent is not limited to that, but I cannot comment positively on any further performances due to bugs at this time.

There are some extremely likable moments so far, and I'll bite my tongue on any and all spoilers. But for a quick example, during my first male playthrough, I chose to "bro-up" with Vladimir (I wanted that Space Vodka, son), and I can safely say that my run was rewarding, fun, emotional, and suspenseful (I'm looking at you, Chapter 2). I was thrilled. That's the kind of agency I want to have with my main character. When this game has those moments, the whole experience is warm and satisfying.

Oh, and Ai having the tiny hat? 10/10 on that decision.

Cons:

Now, I'll get into the bulk of my mostly-disappointing first experience. I’ll start off by saying this, and I can’t stress this enough: immersion is fundamental for these types of games (your Danganronpas, your Zero Escapes, your Ace Attorneys, etc). If immersion breaks, the game instantly breaks. You can only experience a story for the first time once. These types of games are unique in that regard.

I won’t comment much at this time about the story, because I haven’t experienced it in its entirety. I also don’t want to risk spoiling any deaths for those of you who are on the fence about picking this game up. I will say, though, that the survival game eliminations I’ve seen so far lacked any real impact. I attribute this to pacing - characters are killed off quickly, a CG is quickly flung up, and life moves on for almost everybody without any real hiccup. I just simply didn’t feel much weight to anything that happened.

Holy s**t, the English audio is a mess. I’ll keep this point short and impersonal, but some of the performances are on the level of a bad fan dub. Also, there is currently no such thing as synced English audio in the later chapters. Sporadic lines from far into the future are just randomly blurted out during certain scenes. Random spoken English lines can and WILL spoil events that you, the player, haven’t experienced yet. I literally started writing this review because of poor and broken immersion. I found myself at points madly skipping and speedreading through text dialogue just so I wouldn't be “as” spoiled on the premature English voice audio. There are grammatical errors, sure, but that's the most forgivable part of this game. Anyone can mess up at typing on a keyboard or creating an improper sentence; that's completely fine. But the game, in its current state, is actively trying to ruin its own suspense with the English voiceover. I apologize to all the English voice actors, but I cannot enjoy your performances at this time.

You like puzzles? If you do, too bad, there aren't any. The game is a pure visual novel with near-binary choices (save for a few, but honestly, those choices are very artificial and lack any real consequence), and while I don't inherently find anything wrong with that, the game seemed to be pushed as a Zero Escape/Danganronpa-styled game. Not a huge deal-breaker for me, but if you were looking for adventure or investigation game elements, you'll need to look elsewhere. AI: The Somnium Files might scratch that itch better.

To put it nicely, the soundtrack leaves much to be desired. Intro song aside, it sounded like the whole thing was composed hastily in FL Studio (no offense to you, FL Studio. I love you, I promise). For example, there’s a generic “space” theme that cuts off at an awkward point, creating a scratched record effect. Sure, we all can't be Akira Yamaoka or Shinji Hosoe, but the soundtrack is missing much-needed life and love. Put plainly, it's not as awful as Resident Evil: Director's Cut, but the soundtrack being bland really, really hurts this game.

Summed up:

I think the bottom line is that this game is extremely ambitious, but it comes up just short of fully scratching my Danganronpa/999/VLR/ZTD itch that I’ve had over the last decade. It has issues and shortcomings, sure, but I think this is mainly attributed to how tall of an order the team had to fulfill. To sum up my entire impression on this game so far in a quick statement: I recommend this game, but not to the uninitiated. I think there are better examples of this genre that you should try first, but if you’ve been as hungry as I’ve been for these types of games, I think you’re in for a nice, shampoo-scented snack. For an indie game, there is a lot to praise here! But as for the casual Steam-goer who may be used to something polished like Hollow Knight, you may have to wait a minute to appreciate this one; I just can’t recommend Quantum Suicide to you yet in its current state.

Now that I have finished the entire game including its special paths and after waiting a little bit to see how the fixes came in, I'm unsure of what to say about it. Note that this is a revised review and the original text is mostly gone now. Despite everything I'll leave this as a "Not recommended" but there is more to it so please stick with me. Just like before, there may still be a bit of dissonance with my review, so pardon me if I get scatterbrained about it, especially since it's kind of long as I have a fair deal to say about it.

The next part is still the same as the original review:

First of all, I want to talk about my initial experience when I bought this. I'd missed the kickstarter back in 2014 but I know the development history of the game, more or less. I'm aware of the extreme difficulties surrounding some legal issues and the many delays that have unfortunately befallen it. I'd been looking forward to this game for many years and it has inspired me on many occasions. It's a tale of a product made by fans of Zero Escape and Danganronpa to produce more in that genre and that intent is great. I bought the game day one, I installed it, I was ready to play a whole day of amazing mystery story full of twists and turns.

The initial bits were fine. There were a little issues (I played in English, with English voice acting) and the VA felt a little amateurish at times but I can stomach it, and in fact I think it has a lot of charm for that too. There is dissonance between the sprites and the backgrounds but I got used to it. However, I wasn't ready for the quality of the game to take an insane dip really quickly.

And when I say quality, I don't mean bugs, even if there are still many of them as of now. Here begins the revised part.

This game isn't bad - it's just not really good. The game places itself in the "kind of so-so" category over one single reason alone even if it is far from the only reason I had issues enjoying my time: the pacing is kind of terrible. There is a certain "story loop" the game follows which works well. Starting point of a chapter, slice of life / information gathering, Deletion Game, execution and back to the starting point to the next chapter. That part's fine. The problem comes with how each element follows up on each other. The executions are gone by before I can even feel anything. The slice of life segments have tons of choices that are ultimately almost meaningless as you get locked into character routes without, possibly, even having interacted with them. The main mystery element of the game builds itself up but it falls flat at expanding beyond a certain point because...

Every path is more or less the same. If you go down one path, you'll find an object, you'll work on it, then you'll get to a point where you make an important choice (twice in a row). Depending on the options you pick for both, you'll get into a short (but somewhat intriguing) bad end that will give you food for thought plot-wise, or you'll get locked out of a "good end" by a password which isn't too hard to find. Unfortunately for those good ends, I found the bad ends more interesting because unexpected things were happening and the good ends were kind of... hastily written? As if the game was in a hurry to be done with this path, instead of building the ending you've fought so hard to get.

Sadly, though, even the build up of the bad ends didn't end up being satisfying at all. One of the main mysteries they brought up was resolved so quietly I didn't even realize it had been explained. When I figured out "that" was the explanation, I thought, "that's it?" Never mind the fact that the primary mystery of the game builds itself up really early on, yet never really expands too much and doesn't really have any resolution at all. Sure, the "true end" paths (if we can even call them "true end") have something but just like everything else, it's over before I can even take it in.

This part is from the old review (again, as this is still the same).

Now, another point that I felt the game was a little weak on. This may also be a bug, but I don't know. There are no transitions between anything. Characters change sprites instantly, which isn't too jarring, but if they have to move it's also instant, and backgrounds don't fade in, it's always just that, instant. When you cut to a CG, it's instant, by default the text writes instantly (can adjust in options), and even the end of routes comes instantly. There is no transition, it just cuts back to the main menu which gives a very sharp, slightly alienating experience when it happens in the middle of a scene you think would go on to tell you that you have died and instead you find yourself immediately back to the main menu with no fanfare, wondering if you skipped something with how sudden it was. No death message, no transitions, no "end" to the paths.

Final rebuilt section of the revision. The Deletion Games weren't especially amazing. I liked the second round the most. It had the most potential but we end up having the worst designs for the last ones instead, which are the ones you have to play through the most due to how the paths work. The first one was fine too, I would've taken the first one every round, but the best one was without a doubt the second one. It's the only time in the game when I legitimately decided to really try cracking the solution by myself based off what the characters said.

As a final point of weakness, the game also lacked the fitting atmosphere I'd expect. The music was atmospheric... but it wasn't really poignant for the scenes when it needed that the most. It was a generic kind of atmospheric. Especially during important scenes like Deletion Games or executions or if something really bad was happening - there needed to be some tension and there just wasn't.

Apologies if this was long-winded. Like I said at the beginning, I'm still not recommending it but you can buy it if you still want to play this for yourself, I guess? Just don't be fooled by the first 3 hours or so. They're the best polished ones. As you keep playing, the quality declines further and further. And just like I said, it's not terrible, just a little disappointing.

Over 6 hours and I'm yet to reach a "satisfying" (at this point I'd settle for non-bad) ending, which is good. Lots of choices, lots of routes that reveal various things. Just keep in mind that the is a deletion (killing) game is key part of the story and people WILL die, sometimes in very disturbing circumstances (it's less about the deaths themselves, but the implications of them and how it affects other people). If you can get past that, it's a very complex and enjoyable VN. Definitely recommended.