
The Case of the Serialized Killer

When a popular illustrator is found dead, disgraced demonologist Harold Ludicael is hired to summon her ghost. Ghosts are the one thing he can't summon, but with sharp insight, perhaps he can solve the mystery, and resurrect the most important thing:
His career.

We hope you enjoy our Edwardian-inspired visual novel with creeping monsters, summoning magic, and a cast with Queer main characters. It has:
- 20,000 words/about 3 hours of playtime
- Point & Click Investigation
- Traditionally painted watercolor characters and locations
- A journal which keeps track of a colorful list of suspects and lore
- A content warning document
- A variable set of bad endings, and one true ending, depending on which suspect you choose!


Shortlisted in the judge ranking, and ranked #2 out of 133 in the public voting for The Spooktober 3rd Annual Visual Novel Game Jam!











Project head, Writing, Art: Alexis Royce
Writing: Tsushi
Coding, Photography, Editing: Cammie
Music: Nicolas Gasparini (Myuu)

For more misadventures with Hawley and Harry:

| Status | Released |
| Platforms | HTML5, Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Rating | Rated 4.7 out of 5 stars (126 total ratings) |
| Authors | AlexisRoyce, Tsushi |
| Genre | Visual Novel |
| Made with | Ren'Py |
| Tags | Bara, dark-academia, Gay, LGBT, Multiple Endings, murder, Mystery, Transgender, Yaoi |
| Average session | A few hours |
| Languages | English, Russian |
| Inputs | Keyboard, Mouse |
| Links | Steam |
| Content | No generative AI was used |
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Ver. 1.25 ReleaseFeb 08, 2025
- Sketches and Comics 2Jan 22, 2024
- The Case of the Serialized Killer is on Steam!Dec 12, 2023
- Art Book Now AvailableDec 10, 2023
- Coming Soon to Steam!Nov 23, 2023
- Ver. 1.22Nov 14, 2023
- The Case of the Serialized Killer version 1.2Nov 12, 2023
- Extra Sketches and ComicsOct 20, 2023












Comments
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hi i dont know if this is just me but the main menu is in russian. its just the main menu, non of the other side menus are in russian just the main, and i cant see an option to change language? thanks and im so looking forward to playing this game!!
ok edit, turns out the entire game dialogue is in russian
ok edit 2, it seems that manually downloading the game from the itch browser is the way to go. yeah for some reason the go to download for the itch desktop app is the russian version.
HELLO?? I absolutely loved this! The characters are all charming, I love the watercolor style, and everything's just so cosy!! Definitely going to play the other one now; thank you for this amazing gem dear developer(s) :) :)
100/10 game. The art style is wonderful, of course, and it was a really perfect balance in the mystery aspect. I've always appreciated when games put the clues in the suspects' dialogue and actions, instead of something like "Oh, there's black hair here at the crime scene!" I got the true ending on my first play through (because I'm a murder mystery fanatic) and I got a great amount of "Oh, I didn't think about that :o" and "Ah, yes, I figured that already :D". Now I'm off to play Hoping This Finds You Well.
I can't BELIEVE I forgot to write my thoughts on this game. Anyway, I love this and its prequel! I got too invested in the characters lol. The designs and worldbuilding are very yummy. The art, too. :D
I finished playing this one and Hoping This Finds You Well in one sitting just now! I made the mistake(?) of playing the latter first, but at least I got a bit of insight on their endearing relationship beforehand. I expected Hawley to be different based on Hoping This Finds You Well (very sweet game, made me a little sentimental too), but I wasn't disappointed. It's just that his personality didn't quite fully come accross to me in that game yet, up until he was being spoken of as 'really rude' (for the lack of better word due to my minimal english vocabulary), which surprised me at first. As for this game, I fell in love with Dea DeLuse (especially) and Deborah Vance at first sight! I don't see many people talking about them, but for me, they stood out the most and I adore their design and personality. Overall, both are amazingly well-made games and I loved them! <3 I can also somewhat relate to Harry.
PS: Live long Dea DeLuse!
Just finished replaying Hoping This Finds You Well and this one. Enjoyed them both immensely the second time too. :3
You love to see something hold up to a second reading. Thank you! ^u^
Deborah Vance... Hacks reference???
Nope! Just a coincidence!
Just finished my first run of the game and I loved it! The writing was amazing and the art was incredible!!! I love the worldbuilding and all of these characters. Goose is my new gender icon with Harold and Maggie in close shared second. Can't wait to dig into the art book.
Thank you so much! I hope you enjoyed all the extra info in the art book. :3
The character designs are great! Love it!
Thank you! 😊
This game was really beautiful and I love the worldbuilding! Dea was my favorite character she's very entertaining!!
Thank you so much! Dea's a blast to write for, and I've been having fun writing her when she shows up in the next chapter. :3
I really enjoyed this game. Marvelously written, with both a fascinating world and fascinating characters! The dialogue was great, both entertaining and always dropping some sort of information. The game constantly kept me wondering and intrigued, I loved that every character was treated as a bit of a mystery in themselves, that we spent time uncovering and learning about them, including and especially our two protagonists! A perfect example of "show, don't tell" the whole way through. I really liked that the academic looking nerdy guy, Faraday, very much "has a spine." And that the alchemist genius sorta guy gives doormats a run for their money, feels very nice departure from the archetypes I've got in my head, but most of all they are simply lovely characters.
One quote that really struck me was the string that started with "Harold had always been the sort of person..." (keeping the quote largely truncated/kinda vague to avoid spoiling anyone perusing through the comments). That was real good. And might be an odd thing to say, but well placed/timed. I appreciate that the player was given the a chance to start putting a picture together, and THEN having it laid out and expanded on in such a cutting matter. Does an excellent job of selling just how devastating it is. Loved it.
Would love to see more of Harold, Hawley, and this world in general, be it another game, a book, or really any medium. So kudos, thanks for such an enjoyable game!
This comment was such a joy to read. Harold being a pushover and Hawley wanting to fight for his ideals are vital aspects of both characters, so I'm very glad that both traits read clearly, and that you found them enjoyable! I'm also grateful that you mentioned that "Harold had always been the sort of person..." part. I wanted to touch upon those very difficult feelings for Harold, without spending too long leaving them in the spotlight. Just like Harold, the Narration is doing its best to not linger on those thoughts for very long, and I'm happy to hear that I got the pacing right with it.
If you had fun with this, please consider checking out Hoping this Finds You Well, which is a prequel with Harry and Hawley! We are planning to make another chapter, so please keep an eye on this page, or sign up for our newsletter, so you'll know right when we announce it!
Just finished it and got the True Ending first try. To say I enjoyed it would be a severe understatement. The art, the music, the plot, everything was picture perfect, and the humour was just my taste! I will definitely play it again and yap about it to my friends. Before I knew it, I was having a little party with voice acting everyone. Goose was my favourite character, I wish I was them. I'll keep an eye out for the rest of your work!
I want to talk about the imps for a minute. I think the imps represent people's repressed negative feelings, and so they're different for everyone. For example, Faraday's imp seems to represent lots of negative self talk and crushed confidence, while Maggie seems more like Harry's feelings for Faraday, or the dysphoria he felt, or both, and maybe more.
Thank you for this great game!!!!!!!
Thank you so much! I'm delighted that you and your friends had fun reading it together. Thanks for sticking around; I'm planning to make another chapter sometime!
They were a joy to add! We never really need an excuse to reference Lupin III, but they both rounded out this cast nicely! They got other characters talking, and DeLus and Goose were a fun comedy matchup that I never would have expected!
i've only just started playing (i promise i'll come back once and give a better comment once i've gotten to at least one ending, but i'm already enjoying it quite a bit), but i thought i should mention that on the game page, goose has two profile pics and miss bell isn't there at all, which i assume is unintentional, but could be foreshadowing now that i think about it. i have no clue, i literally just entered the house XD
edit: i predict ms. vance will be my favorite character. something about her design just tells me i'll love her
Oh thank you for catching that mistake! I've deleted the Goose deuce, and the page looks much better for it. I hope you have fun with the game, and that you enjoy your time mystery solving with Vance!
I've been enjoying it so far! And Vance is definitely one of my favorite characters, but I can't think of any I dislike (aside from nowak but. i would be astounded if he was intended to be likable)
This was the first game I downloaded out of the Palestine Relief bundle, and man, this was a delight! I was intrigued because Harry and Hawley gave me a Sherlock/Watson vibe, but I definitely fell in love with the characters as they are pretty quickly. I loved jumping in, in medias res, to their divorce era, but I will def check out the prequel at some point. I think Maggie was my outright favorite character. That's my demon wife <3. I read Harry/Maggie as being two sides of a genderfluid character, dunno if that's what you were going for. One of my fave touches was Maggie being green text whereas Hawley's imp/demon was red text...they're perfect complements for each other <3333 (And, happy to report that I got the mystery right on the first try, hehe.)
привет! а здесь в этой игре есть персонаж-мужчина из игры "off the cuff"? очень любопытен этот товарищ
Да! Рыжеволосая женщина тоже одинакова в обеих играх! 😁
ну, тогда придется 5 звезд игре ставить и хвалить разработчика)
THE JAMES J. HILL HOUSE??? I THOUGHT I WAS IMAGINING THINGS WHEN I RECOGNIZED THE ORGAN, I'VE BEEN TO THAT PLACE MULTIPLE TIMES SINCE I WAS LIKE 7. THAT'S ACTUALLY KIND OF CREEPY. amazing game btw i binged the whole thing instead of sleeping and i do not regret it.
Hahahaha, Hill House jumpscare! It's cool that you got to have that experience; sometimes when I read a novel or watch a movie that takes place somewhere I know, it adds a lot!
New banner I see! I like it. 😍
Thanks, I needed new capsule art for the Steam release! I would’ve liked to have been able to paint it in watercolor, but I had only a limited amount of time, so digital was better than nothing. 😁
I really loved this story! I'm so looking forward to new investigations and more lore about the imps and of course Hawley and Harrold and their respective imps. Also want to see more of Maggie, as I'm seemingly a bit confused bc I thought Harrold is a trans man but somehow other comments seem to suggest he's not and Maggie is the manifestation of his trans identity being repressed. But why does everyone know about Harrold being trans?
Want to see Hawley's pirate moms and honestly I
would die forwould not at all mind a reappearance of Lupine and Goose, they're kinda cute together, I ship tbh. Plus their story also seems interesting to me, with the literal hole in gooses chest and the lore about their imp. Liked Dea as well with her imp and its reaction (was that her dad or smth. connected to him? or was it something else connected to Dea's being considering they asked whether she's okay when that imp cried and said "let me out"). Regardless, that was such a time well spent and a genuinely interesting story leaving hopes for more!!Hey there! Thank you so much for reading, and I'm really glad you enjoyed it! ^u^ I'm very happy with this cast too, and would like for some of them to return in future chapters! They've got some important arcs that are just getting set up. :D
Harold is trans, and it's totally fine if you found what was going on with him a little confusing. He's feeling something that is pretty common to a lot of trans folks, but it's something that is a little more complex than a lot of mainstream media likes to depict. If we get to make more chapters, then we'll get deeper into the topic, but if you want a bit more of an explanation, Harold lets slip a little bit more in this prequel game:
Brilliant game, I really enjoyed the story, and I got the true ending on my first playthrough, the art style for this game is beautiful, and I really like all of the characters, the music is also excellent and fits the different scenes very well. Thankyou so much for an amazing mystery visual novel! This game is a masterpiece!!<3 My favourite character is Luipin. :3
Thank you so very much! I'm glad that you liked Lupine; when I was updating the game, I had to sneak a new CG of him in there:
woooo more of the gays hawley and harry!!!! really enjoyed the story and worldbuilding and music and humor and everything
perfect vn for almost spooky month!
except im such an incompetent detective lmao it look me like three or four tries to get it right
P.S. the first half of the game really got me searching up the definitions of words every other second, thanks for expanding my vocabulary
Heeheehee, no worries if it took a couple tries, it just meant you got to see some more endings! And I'm super flattered that you were using a dictionary while playing. Some of my favorite text based games have me right-clicking the "define" option in my browser all the time so I can learn more words. XD
Such a compelling and exciting story! The jokes were amazing, the characters were deep and fun to explore, and the artwork was incredible !! The watercolors really pulled the setting together. I am at a loss for words for how amazing this game is!!
Thank you, that's incredibly kind of you to say! We very much loved making this game, and I never pass up a chance to break out the paints.
Really loved playing this game, all the characters were enjoyable (even the guy who is the worst XD)
I like the symbolism of each of the imps and how they relate to all the characters. Also the fact they have been commodified gives some big capitallism will sell your soul if given the chance XD
The whole image of missing a part of yourself being reprehsented by a massive hole in your chest, kinda metal ngl, also cool party trick XD. And Bell having a creature that almost forces her to do work and how it's obviously unhealthy but also it's actively rewarded by her publishing is really unfortunate. Having cool eyes that force people to do what you say as long as your indimedated sure gives off dictator vibes, what a dick. Exit just being her classic chaotic self is always a plus and love how she's just waiting for the chance to off her husband XD. And I still dont know what the little ballerina paper really means but it's cool too (maybe it's a delacate performer who needs to appear graceful but could give you a paper cut if your not careful?) :)
It seems like Hawley has some sort of ability to overanalyse the world which leads him to critise and question his own value as a person :( I'm guessing that his insecurities have gotten alot worse since the letter game, probably since that incident with the demon and not being able to help Harry.
Harry seems to have repressed the side of himself that wants to be a girl so much that he's made a sentiant being (I'm interpreting this as bigender panic mayhaps?). Seriously impressive how much bagage she has to unpack there. He really needs to accept the demon instead of finding more convoluted ways of hiding them. The way she appears gives me the vibe that Harry sees himself as both too clingy and highly toxic to Hawley + love obsessed and dangerous to everyone around him is very sad :(
Overall Hawley and Harry are having some old sad gay issues but also they love eachother very much and I'm glad they at least get a relatively nice ending.
I thought the mystery was well thought out even though I kinda got the right answer by vibes alone, it was nice to walk through all the stuff I missed XD
Hope I get to see more of these characters in other games :)
Thank you very much, and especially for sharing your thoughts on the imps! I quite like getting to hear what people have picked up on while playing; metaphor is much better for communicating these sorts of emotional things than just plopping them down in a wiki or something XD
Got this in the bundle. The imps are fantastic, the way they're used to show the main characters' problems are fantastic. Don't know if Gareth traditionally being a male game means anything, but Maggie's appearance was both terrifying and also... kind of charming. Kind of want to hug Harry. Would love to see more. While the mystery might be simpler, the characterisation is subtle - DeLus's eyesight issues being slowly hinted at; Marek's awfulness, Goose being, well, goose... Clarisse's jumping into acting to scare Marek off... it's just fantastic.
Thank you very much! And you're correct, Gareth's name (and nickname, Gary), were chosen because they're usually male names.
And I very much appreciate that you liked the characterization! One of the things I enjoy the most about mysteries is getting to peel back the layers of characters and see what they're hiding.
Goose is delightful, even as only two-thirds of themself! Harold is perfect!
I said perfect, goddammit, and I mean perfect. I wish to feed him bonbons and listen to him bitch.DeLus is, in fact, the light of the party, and every scene I waited to see what tactless horrors she'd unleash upon us next.And the end! I flipped through the notes again, going 'this can't be right...' but there was only one conclusion that made sense! Wonderfully horrifying!
I shall now go loot your creator page for more treasures!
Thank you so much! these characters are very near and dear to my heart, and Harry would be very consoled to know that someone liked and accepted him just the way he is. ^u^
Absolutely amazing on so many levels. I'm struggling to articulate it but I feel really seen as a disabled person and trans and nonbinary person both in body and mind. Also would do anything to make sure Goose lives their best life
I'm so glad that the game spoke to you! It's a very personal game for us, too. ^u^ And the Goose love is profuse! XD
My saga of reviewing begins [ehehe, I have no idea if this will spam your inbox, Royce]
I loved this game! I think the concept alone hooked me from the start, and the point-and-click aspects made it a lot more fun. Not to mention just how great the art is, I think you could make a game about listing the entire dictionary and I would still play it just to see your artwork. Especially with all the details in this game, they make it environmentally astounding, as well as a joy to look at, even in some of thesadder aspects of the game. Overall a very fun play!
Awww, thank you for playing it, and for such high praise! Though I gotta admit, the dictionary's got a lot of cool words in it, there's fodder for something interesting in there... 🤔
Sadly i can't play i tried playing it on my laptop but it always says something failed to load "Check Javascript console for details"
Thanks for checking it out! If you’re having trouble with the browser version, you might want to try downloading it instead.
This game was AMAZING!! It was super entertaining, and I loved the story elements and world building. The are is gorgeous, the characters are fun and unique, and the storytelling was marvelous. Hawley and Harry had a great dynamic together and were some of my fav characters, including Goose and Clarisse!
Thank you so much! I'm so glad to hear that you had a good time. ^u^
Wow! If you ever continue this series, please let me know bc this was AMAZING
Thank you so much! I was about to mention Hoping This Finds You Well, but then I noticed you'd already seen it! :D
I LOVED IT!!!
I love the characters, the world, the lore, the art, and the gameplay<3.
PLEASE TELL ME YOU WILL MAKE MORE GAMES WITH THIS WORLDBUIDING AND THESE CHARACTERS
PLEEEASE, I NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THEM
P.D.: I noticed your nod to your other game Lupine x Disuke, I love how you recycled the characters to make them your own and how they would be if they existed in that world XD
Thank you so much! I absolutely want to make more stories with Harry, Hawley, and the rest of this world! If you want to see more, please tell your friends about the game! Spreading the word helps more than you can imagine. ^u^
How fun and delightful! The writing is brilliant and the artwork is so unique. I should like to see these two boys at work in some other case perhaps.
Thank you very much! We would quite like to make another proper mystery game with them, but if you're interested, I do have a prequel game over here: https://alexisroyce.itch.io/hoping-this-finds-you-well
Thank you for the link, I will definitely check it out!
I loved this!! This was an absolute delight; I enjoyed the writing and the characters so much, and particularly partial to Harry and Faraday. I'm also a painter, so it was so lovely to see a game rendered in watercolors like this.
Thank you so much! Harry and Faraday are very special to me, and it still feels incredible to me that they exist outside of my head now!
Also what kinds of paint do you use? I always love to talk about paint :3
Watercolors and gouache, mostly! I loved finding ways to completely ignore the rules of using gouache and build them up like thick oil paint or just use them as hyperpigmented watercolor. It's been years since I've had the time and space to paint, so I miss it a lot sometimes. Seeing paint on paper again (and in such an unexpected place as a game) was deeply satisfying.
Я игрок, но переписал начало под свой вкус:
"Двери закрыты, на окнах решётки."
"Редкие лучи дневного света пробивались в полумрак и яркими пятнами выхватывали элементы обстановки."
"В наружную дверь постучали. Эхо резкого звука разошлось по залам особняка."
"Послышался слабый стон."
"Тишина."
f "Мне снова всё решать самому?"
"Сказанные с досадой слова молотом ударил по голове. Казалось, что она расколется на двое."
q "Я болен."
"Руки судорожно прижали накрывавшую подушку."
f "Ты не болен. У тебя похмелье."
q "Сжалься, Хоули. Я этого не выдержу. Не сегодня."
f "Ты не выдержал бы ни вчера, ни сегодня, ни завтра.{w} Твои шансы как у лобстера в кипящей воде."
"Не оказав сочувствие Холули Фарадей пошёл к наружной двери.{w} Стук в дверь продолжился, стоны тоже."
"Открыть дверь было далеко не простым заданием."
"Он мысленно прокрутил в голове кучу заковыристых заклинаний,{w} разломил над дверной ручкой кусочек мела{w} и отодвинул десяток мелких задвижек."
"Все эти обновки, сила которых в ритуальной магии, надоели ещё несколько месяцев назад."
"Печать разрушилась - дверь распахнулась. Свежий воздух, ворвавшися в дом, принес с собой запахи осени. От яркого света Хоули часто заморгал."
"На пороге стоял курьер с письмом. Своим высокомерно-невозмутимым видом он демонстрировал важность своей миссии - кто бы ни был отправитель, он заплатил за доставку прямо в руки."
deli "Срочное письмо мистеру Ле... Дух... Кайл?"
"Правая бровь Хоули поползла вверх. Значит, за доставку курьером заплатили,{w} но разборчиво написать не удосужились? Любопытно."
f "\"Лу-ди-ка-ил.\” {w} Лудикаил."
"На мгновение понимание озарило лицо курьера и тут же сменилось невозмутимой маской."
deli "Да, он."
This is game was so fun to play with, i honestly loved the whole cast and im kinda sad for the victims in the game, still it was a 10/10!!! experience for me thought i think finding the killer was kinda easy just going based off gut feeling sorry if theres any spelling mistakes english is not my first language
I played this game to completion in one sitting. I absolutely love everything about it. The art, the characters, the dialogue, everything, Lupine and Goose have to be my favorite, but I still adore everyone else. I would love to learn more about everyone in the game. 20/10.
Thank you so much for playing and this kind comment! Hopefully your wish will come true, we really want to make more games in this setting to reveal more about the characters and the world :) We'll need to save up some money to be able to fund it but we really hope to someday make sequels!
This game was pretty good. I would like to see these characters in a future game because all the characters are so unique and interesting. My favourite characters have to be the main two and also Goose. Really liked their design and personality. I was able to get the true end on the first try because of all the clues that the game gave you. My second suspect was Miss Myers because she just acted strange. I hope to see future games about these characters in the future as I would gladly play them. I'm also interested in learning more about Goose and their imp/their backstory as I feel it would be very interesting to see since we don't know that much about them yet. Would also be fun to see how Goose met Lupine as well. Overall this game was really good so keep up the good work!
Congratulations on the translation of the game into Russian! I hope that new players will discover your amazing game! :D
I loved your world, and Harold and Faraday, and I hope one day to find them in a sequel. <3
Thank you! We're so honored to have the game accessible to more people, it actually gets sometimes MORE downloads in Russian than English!
I'm reviewing this after I'm finished playing the game and it is phenomenal. The story and world is really interesting with the characters and their imps background and personalities, the watercolor art style fits the tone nicely and the writing is well done with good humor, pacing, and characterization. I would say that there's a little error of Lupin referring Goose as "him" instead of "they" but that can be fixed, along with the characters facial expressions can be still at times though with the watercolor that is understandable. As for how the mystery is written it is logical and satisfying to solve it, though for someone who have read and play mystery media it's too easy solve but I'm really impressed that it's tied in a neat bow especially since it's the first time you've ever did a mystery.
I'm hoping that you'll be planning to make a sequel of the game and explore more of the characters and their backstories (especially DeLuse, she's my fave). I'm hoping it would have a nice twist of the mystery next time and the character sprites have more lively animations. Looking forward to your future projects.
Thank you so much for the review!
For that Goose error if you happen to remember the scene it was in even vague details of around when it was that will help me hunt for that, please let me know. I tried to catch all of those for the most recent build, I hate to have still missed one.
It's completely fair to say the mystery was more on the easy side, I definitely underestimated how hard it is to write a puzzle that is not too obvious but also not too difficult. I really hope if we have more chances to make games in this universe that we can refine that level and get it to feel satisfyingly challenging but not unclear. Ace Attorney makes it look easy, sheesh!
As for Dea, Royce writes her amazingly and I love her so much too, I feel like she has 1000 watt personality hehe she has been in a few other games we've made in different iterations, though they are NSFW. I really hope to expand this universe further if we can! Thank you again for the support and feedback!
Here's the typo I found, it's the part where the player picks "How did you find out about this party?"
And since you have mentioned making other games I can check them out in my spare time and review them also. Don't sweat it trying to make a good mystery, one advice I can give that I've learnt after playing the DGS Duology is to trick the mind of the players. Make it subtle and have the player think of the obvious answer, then when new information is discovered it could change their minds in a new light.
Good luck on your future projects!
Thank you so much, that's incredibly helpful! We'll work on patching that and updating the game in the next week.
Hello! I just wanted to say I played your game last night and I loved it! The lore was sooo great (really enjoyed every little thing you told us about imps and their possible meaning), characters charming and the plot entertaining. I found the art (specially the art made for the sprites) very appealing: full of personality, giving me kind of a "One Piece Characters" vibe. And I LOVED the change in the sprites for the main characters when changing pose: a bit rough but like, really, really charged of charm. Btw I understand it'd been hard, but actually I think backgrounds made with that combination of watercolors plus line would have work marvelous too !
Personally I would have liked an ending a little bit happier for Harold (some development for their situation, because they end up almost the same way they started), but if this is the presentation for characters and their world, I can get why.
And that's it! Congratulations for your game (because it was amazing, yes) and good luck with all your future projects!
Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed what we made! Some of our shortcuts were due to the time constraints of the competition which meant making most of the game within only a month. We have added a few things since then (such as unique bad ends for each wrong choice) but yeah backgrounds being this combo of photo and watercolor definitely helped us have the ability to have this many.
As for a happier ending for Harold (and Faraday too) we really hope to tell more stories with them and to hopefully give both of them a longer arc to resolve some of their current issues. The hope would be if this ever becomes successful enough to pay the bills, we want to do about 4 or so more "chapters" that explore more of the world and give Hawley and Harold a chance at growing and healing. But for now that stuff is kinda outside our reach until we have more firm footing moneywise. But I certainly won't say never!
Thanks very much for your kind enthusiasm and I'm pretty sure we'll make more games in the future, though what they might be I can't be sure yet :D