Five Years

It’s the first time I’ve read a visual novel quite like this one. I have some background in psychology and trauma, as well as a bit of personal experience—though not to this extent—which made the story hit even harder.

Despite its short length, it captures the themes of domestic abuse, loss, and neglect with a level of authenticity and emotional weight that’s rare. It’s the kind of story that will resonate deeply with people who have been in similar situations or know someone who has. The message it carries is important, and I genuinely believe more people should be aware of it.

The visual, audio, and narrative elements work together incredibly well to bring the experience to life.

Kudos to the writer and artists for creating something so impactful.

Wow, heavy stuff. Some sequences had my skin crawling and I think that's definitely a testament to the storytelling. The sound effects definitely added to the experience and the story felt like it was handled in a realistic and respectful way. I really like the way you chose to wrap up the story at the end as well, it was a really nice sequence. Amazing job keeping the tension and dread high throughout the story, I felt like I was always waiting for something terrible to happen just like Logan!

I did notice that sometimes the text would hang down over the quick menu and a few things were misspelled or sentences were a bit off. Despite this you can still feel the tension and how well it holds you throughout the story.

Well done!

So, Five Years.

I gotta say, for a Valentines jam this is a very bold decision of a topic to do, and more surprisingly is how well is portrayed and showed thru both visual, text and audio.

The content warning in the third paragraph is not just for show so I do advise if you have some sort of trauma, bad memories or even if not experienced yourself but is not a topic you might enjoy seeing, I still recommend reading but with more caution, it's a very brutal depiction of abuse.

Some spoilers forward:

The VN is very short but that only works on it's favor, every text and paragraph Logan's fear and pain was masterfully replication of what a abuse victim can feel or go through. Seeing his fear and how he tried to cope was so painful, even if the game is about half of hour long it made me care for Logan as he clung into feelings of a love already withered.

Overall I think it's an amazing VN, the usage of the sprites offered by the Jam was very well used and the music really fit the scenes. I was not expecting vocalization of the choking but it made it even more real. But I'm glad it had a happy ending one of the VNs with an amazing message said in so few words.