#seriously that last game is crazy I want to play the full ver so badly

[negamekos]

Various games Himaruya has worked on: a small compilation

(Warning: 3/4 of them are horror games)

With my newest hyperfixation now being visual novels, I've recently turned my attention to some of the visual novel-style games Hima has made in the past. There's a few super short personal project ones like Noto-sama and Cleaning Prussia which he made in pre-anime adaptation times, but I just want to share the more notable/interesting ones I know about.

Gakuen Hetalia (2011-2012)

You've probably heard of this one. Given that it was released in the early seasons of the anime adaptation, it has that art style, for better or for worse. I honestly thought the existence of this game was a joke when I first heard of it but no it's a real game, developed by the one and only Otomate and released for the DS and PSP. It's an otome game with Seychelles as the protagonist, and is fully voiced. From what I've heard about this game, there's not much romance and has mostly platonic interactions. Also Gakuen AU.

Since this is pretty much a game adaptation of the anime, this is probably the one that Hima least had a hand in making, as compared to the ones I'm about to talk about. Still a neat game in its own right.

The Hetalian Horror Show (2015)

Another one you might have heard of if you browse Hetarchive, which has a partial translation for this game. This one's a fairly short free game set in the Gakuen AU (again) with Bulgaria as the protagonist. It's basically about a couple of the nations gathering to tell 'scary' stories (whether they're actually scary varies). Features highlights such as:

Robul moment

America casually revealing Classified Government Secrets

Bear Grylls

Iggy bullying

Low-key nsfw illustration of Bul butt-naked and tied up

And a twist ending you will not believe! (not clickbait)

Like the other free games he's made, Hetahorror is completely made by Hima (even the background images were taken by him). You can download the game here from his blog. And Hetarchive's partial translation is here.

Now here are the non-Hetalia ones (which I think are a little more interesting)

Apathy Midnight Collection: Volume 1 (2007)

See those characters in the top right? That's Hima's art. Yeah. This game is a horror anthology game released all the way back in 2007, with three different stories and each having different writers and artists. The first two stories are the longest (apparently they have over a hundred different endings combined), and if you look around I think you can find some posts about them, they're quite interesting. The one Hima did the illustrations (and direction) for is the final story, Hashira no Kizu (or Scratches on the Pillar), which is the one that I heard leans the hardest into the horror atmosphere, and is quite different overall from the other two stories.

If you're curious about this game, you can purchase it here on BOOTH, and you can find an English fan translation here.

By the way, this game is a retelling of sorts of a much older game (from the 90s!) called Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi (Scary Stories at School). Which leads me to this game...

Inaka no Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi (2014-2016)

Edit: I have since played this game and boy what a wild ride it was! Full overview here.

This is a full-length visual novel made by Hima's doujin group Shimaoka Kenkou Land, and it's a homage to the aforementioned Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi. It's pretty similar in setting to Hetahorror (in fact that game was probably inspired by that too), with students coming together to share their horror stories. It's very atmospheric, with a lot of ambient noises and background images which really drive home the 'inaka/countryside' part of the story. Hetahorror had shades of this too, so consider this a 'deluxe' version lol. Except unlike the Hetalia one I feel this game is actually pretty scary ngl...there's a lot of comedic moments, but also just as many genuinely gruesome scenes (I'm not kidding, some of the images are quite violent)

I only played the demo (which can be downloaded from the same page as the Hetalia game), and man the stories really range from 'I saw this lady walking her dog and holding a cute plush toy from afar so I asked if I could take a picture of it, but it turned out it wasn't a plush toy, it was a bag for dog droppings' to 'my friend and his entire family were mauled to death and it wasn't an animal that did it'.

The full game apparently has voice acting too, but this was a super-duper limited release (like it was sold in Animate stores for less than a year back in 2016) and I really liked the demo so I'm just considering getting it second-hand at this point. It's so obscure I can't find much info on the game in Japanese, much less English...

Just to show how atmospheric it felt, I have here a recording of part of the game which I can't stop replaying (sorry for no audio)

Anyway looking at the games he made really makes me wish he had the time to make one nowadays....he could probably make an amazing official Hetaoni horror game and I would pay real-life money to play it. This has been a PSA.