Cabernet

Cabernet has a compeling story of Morality and Humanity above it all and i loved it. Those who are fans of this kind of vampire story will appreciate how vampires are not Shaddy and mistrustfull all the time like the ones from vampire the masquerade, Wich is a little uncanny at first, but that might be just me. Speaking of witch, its clear the game was inspired by VTM but it IS diferent enough to not distract. Although a few story beats are quite obvious for those who know the cliches of this vampire genere, but i digress. Elizaveta Morozva, is very Charmings, her Morality inclinations are Well Characterized, and its a joy to be on her shoes. The Side Characters are also briliant, and a few of them really steal the show, such as Anastasia, the music teacher that keeps surprising me talking about music, and as a musician she is great representation. Roman the librarian, who will talk endlessly about Folklore. Hussar who manages to bring Sassy back. (spoilers!) And Lastly Petya that manages to become quite the character once he returns as his Doll. Bugs, unfortunatelly if has a few of those, but the worst one i came across was a sequence break when doing the quest "Sunrise, Sunset" before "Matters of the Heart", in wich Alisa shows alive when she shouldn't inside her bar and outside on the next day, and to make matters worse, as if to make fun of the situation, Hussar is there! telling you she is alive in his dialogue. Final thoughts, the game is far from perfect but it has A Compeling main Character, Replayability, Some Great Characters and most importantly Heart. There is a thirst (pun intended) for more vampire novels out there and specialy this kind, and the fact that this one exists is why i love indie games, and so should you.

The animation is bad and the gameplay is only so-so. Given the low quality animations and general cheap feeling of the game I would wait until a sale. That said the story is incredibly intoxicating, too bad they didn't put more effort into decent visuals.

Didn't expect to love this as much as I did. Played a bit "at a friend's house" and decided to buy it to support the devs. The quality is very impressive for an indie, well written characters, high quality voice acting and music. The gameplay is fairly basic but it does enough to help make the game more than a simple visual novel and the artstyle makes it feel like you're walking through an oil painting. The game does have choice & consequences and an interesting "morality" system that doesn't railroad you into always having to pick one side. The last third or so of the game felt a bit rushed but ultimately it delivered a satisfying ending.

The narative is nice and the characters are charming.