I've Been Here The Whole Time.

Nemlei, the creator of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, also has a handful of earlier visual novels. Unfortunately, these aren't easily accessible because the developer was harassed off the Internet by arseholes, but the files still exist if you know where to look, or, in my case, if an extremely lovely person sends them to you (thank you!).

Anyway, I've been playing Jack-in-a-Castle! As far as I know, this was Nemlei's first published game, so I went in expecting something a little rough around the edges. I was surprised and impressed! It's a very cute, polished little visual novel. The art style is charming and distinctive, and the branching is more ambitious than I expected.


( Notes on Jack-in-a-Castle. )

I doubt this is going to become a fandom for me, and I'm not currently planning to play through the other routes (sorry, Bunnie), but it was a fun diversion, and I'm very impressed by it as a debut.

('I doubt this is going to become a fandom for me' is famously the sort of thing I say just before writing six fics for something in a row. I... don't think it'll happen? I don't think it'll happen. Oh, huh, there are no Jack-in-a-Castle fics on AO3; maybe someone should fix that? NOT ME.)