Tulpa: Imagination Games / Tulpa: Imagination Games (2014) PC

Tulpa:Imagination Games is one of the most interesting visual novels from a Russian developer known under the pseudonym MIDERY. The project first appeared on the Internet in 2014. The age rating of 18+ was assigned to the game not at all for the presence of explicit erotic scenes – this is one of the "dark" novels with a tragic ending.

Plot: one step to madness

The teenager Ishiro's whole life is one continuous rainy day. His father ran away immediately after his birth, and his mother became mentally unstable because of this and took out her anger on her son. In addition to everything, the guy is diagnosed with a terrible brain tumor. Ishiro sees no hope for the future, his warm feelings for his classmate Natasha also remain unanswered.

Trying to find at least some meaning in life, a teenager creates a tulpa - his personal hallucination in the image of his beloved. His imagination draws a beautiful girl next to him, with whom he can communicate. But a tulpa named Luna does not want to live only in Ishiro's subconscious, trying to escape into reality. And this means that the hero loses touch with reality and becomes a madman. Or maybe he's always been one?

Gameplay: the player decides nothing

Tulpa refers to kinetic novels, it can be called a book with music. The player only delves into the plot, but he does not have the opportunity to launch it in another way. In fact, the gamer makes only one choice that affects the finale of the novel, but not dramatically: it will still end sadly.

The game consists of four chapters, in some places the events lose their sequence, leading to a misunderstanding of what is happening. However, the authors reveal the cards closer to completion, and everything falls into place.

Design: tangible depression

The game has a rather unusual style of drawing, but gamers note that the artists managed to convey with the help of colors, images of heroes and the background an atmosphere of despondency and hopelessness from the first frames. It is complemented by nineteen musical themes created specifically for this novel.

Advantages of the game:

• a deep plot that makes you think about yourself and the world around you;
• the story is told on behalf of the main character, revealing all facets of his personality and psychopathology;
• an unexpected denouement that negates all the speculations o