Fragments

Cinevva's analyzer read this game's design doc and its source, then wrote the brief below. "Make your own" hands it to the game creator as your opening message, so you start from a real spec rather than a one-line idea.

Create a dark, linear psychological-horror visual novel called “Fragments,” presented in a full-screen 2D scene with no exploration or combat. The player advances dialogue by tapping/clicking the large dialogue panel at the bottom; while text is typing, the first tap completes the typewriter text, and the next advances. At several points, replace dialogue with centered vertical choice buttons; clicking one continues the corresponding branch. Include New Game and Continue on the title screen, with Continue resuming the saved dialogue node from local storage when available.

Visual presentation: use a nearly black, cinematic interface with illustrated anime-style character sprites and atmospheric background images. Crossfade between backgrounds over roughly 1.6 seconds. Add a strong dark vignette, subtle animated film grain, and a restrained palette of warm off-white text, muted gray-beige secondary text, and deep blood-red accents. Use an elegant serif display font for the title/chapter cards and a clean sans-serif for dialogue. The title screen should be almost black with a faint radial glow, centered “Fragments” in large widely spaced serif type, the subtitle “A PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR,” centered outlined New Game and Continue buttons, and a small warning that it is about 40 minutes, headphones are recommended, and it contains depictions of self-harm and suicide.

During story scenes, backgrounds should include: an amber-lit empty classroom, a sunset rooftop with a fence, a clubroom above a gym storeroom, a school hallway, a dark abstract void, a bedroom, and a hospital. Characters are tall portrait sprites positioned center, left, or right, fading/sliding in from slightly below: Suki (happy and sad versions, plus a void/glitch variant if needed), Yuki, Momo, and Kanade. The speaker name sits in a small dark bordered label above the dialogue box. Dialogue is shown with a typewriter effect at about 28 ms per character, with a blinking cursor while typing and a small animated down-arrow once complete. Support red emphasis markup and dim italic gray internal/narrative text. The bottom dialogue panel is a translucent black rounded rectangle with a subtle border, blur, and shadow. Keep a small “tap dialogue to advance” hint near the bottom.

Story structure and exact tone: show chapter title cards on a black screen before each section, with red uppercase fragment tag, large serif title, and italic subtitle. Fragment I is “The Afternoon Light” (“It was the kind of afternoon that makes you believe nothing could ever go wrong.”). The protagonist wakes after the last bell in an empty classroom and is greeted by cheerful Suki. The player can follow her immediately or ask what she wants to show them; both routes lead to the rooftop. Suki proposes creating a private club for people who feel too much and hints at the things she cannot tell anyone. Let the player encourage the idea or simply ask her to continue, and later respond supportively to her vulnerability or dismiss it. These choices set internal flags but should converge.

Fragment II is “Founding Members” (“Three girls. One borrowed room. The feeling that something is beginning.”). Three days later, the club meets in the room above the gym storeroom. Yuki arrives excitedly with cookies and anxiety about losing a relay. Momo asks to sit in the back because she talks better when not watched and reveals that her parents are fighting. Kanade is cool and strange, saying she came because Suki asked and making an oblique comment about predetermined outcomes. Suki introduces the club’s first rule: nobody has to say anything real until they want to. Offer the choice to answer honestly about what kept the protagonist awake or pass; both converge into the girls sharing their fears.

Fragment III is “Hairline Cracks” (“The first time I saw through her, I pretended I hadn’t.”). Weeks pass and the club becomes the only honest hour of the day, but Suki’s light dims. Give the player the choice to tell Suki she does not have to be fine or to let it go. Yuki talks about fear of being replaced on her team, Momo describes escalating violence at home, and Kanade makes increasingly uncanny statements about remembering or anticipating events. The player can flag that they noticed Suki’s pain, but the main story converges.

Fragment IV is “The Long Way Down” (“There was a sound, and then everything that was beautiful stopped being beautiful.”). On a Tuesday, the protagonist hears screaming while walking to the clubroom. The hallway seems to stretch, then the rooftop door is open and people are gathered at the fence. Imply, without graphic depiction, that Suki has died by suicide after jumping; show the line that she was on the ground below and then the protagonist’s repeated “No.” In a black void scene, reveal the note in her pocket: she thanks them, says she could not carry it anymore, asks them not to blame themselves, and asks them to care for the others. Kanade says she knew and that there was no branch where Suki stayed. This is the central traumatic turn; handle it somberly and do not add graphic imagery.

Fragment V is “Broken Glass” (“The first crack shatters the rest.”). After Suki’s quiet funeral and two weeks without meetings, Yuki says she keeps replaying events and blames herself. Offer the choice to reassure her that they all missed it or confess that the protagonist noticed and let it go; both lead to increasingly distressed grief dialogue. Yuki says she no longer sleeps, her hands shake, she is being replaced on the team, and she feels like grief wearing a uniform. The protagonist urges her to speak to a real person, but Yuki asks whether talking to the protagonist is enough. Then move to the hospital: Momo has stopped attending school, her parents’ fighting crossed a line, and she is living with her aunt. Her messages glitch and arrive in fragments. Use screen glitch effects, a shaking dialogue panel, and a dissolving Momo sprite as she says corrupted text and disappears—not dead like Suki, but seemingly deleted from the world. Kanade says Momo was never meant to persist past this point and asks the protagonist to come alone.

Fragment VI is “The One Who Knew” (“Everything you’ve lived through was written before you opened your eyes.”). In a bedroom, Kanade explains that she has done this before: the club, Suki, Yuki, Momo, and the protagonist. She says they are in a game and that she alone remembers the loop. Let the player choose “That’s not possible” or admit they have felt something wrong; converge afterward. In a hallway, show a glitching phone message from Yuki saying she cannot do it without Suki, that she held a knife to her arm and cannot stop shaking, and asking the protagonist to tell Momo she is sorry and Kanade was right. Do not show the act itself; present it as text and aftermath. Kanade says she could not stop either of them in this loop, that Suki was written to fall, Yuki was written to break under the weight, and Momo was never loaded correctly. She tells the protagonist that the player is behind their eyes and has been trying to reach that player for forty minutes.

At the final choice, offer three endings: (1) “Listen to everything Kanade has to say,” (2) “Refuse to believe her and leave,” and (3) “Ask her how to end it.” Ending A is “The Watcher”: Kanade explains the characters’ written roles and asks the player to close the game gently and visit less often because she is tired of watching them die. Ending B is “The Next Loop”: the protagonist rejects Kanade’s explanation, leaves, and Kanade waits in a room that no longer exists for the next loop. Ending C is “See You Next Fragment”: Kanade says ending the game simply means stopping/closing the window, describes the dark between sessions as waiting, forgives the player, asks them not to come back for a while, and looks directly at the player rather than the protagonist.

Implement horror effects only at story beats: a full-screen red/cyan offset glitch overlay, animated scanlines, sprite jitter, dialogue-box shake, and temporary music reduction. Use quiet dark ambient music that fades between approximately 0.06 and 0.28 volume, plus synthesized glitch/stinger noise and low heartbeat pulses. Show a small upper-right timer HUD only during the relevant later sequence, with a label such as FRAGMENT and a minutes:seconds counter; it is started in Fragment III and stopped in Fragment IV. Save the current dialogue node when the dialogue panel is tapped. Endings should stop the clock, clear sprites, crossfade to the void background, remove glitches, and show a full-screen chapter-card-like ending card while leaving the dim dialogue behind it. The experience should feel like a slow, authored visual novel that starts as warm school friendship drama and gradually reveals metafictional, looping psychological horror.