Havenless Review

Release: August 31, 2020

“Spring, a few months after a mysterious infection of unknown origin started spreading… I got infected, but still managed to keep my humanity. Even in this situation, there is something I need to find.”

Havenless is the latest game by LucyDream, featuring a mystery otome game that takes place during a zombie apocalypse! This was my first game by LucyDream, so I was really excited to give it a shot.

Character and ending spoilers & thoughts below! To see only my spoiler-free thoughts on the good & bad of the system and plot, jump to "Final Thoughts."

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***Spoilers Begin***

Shane

Shane is Jae's childhood friend, and has been with her since the outbreak began. He constantly worries about Jae and is helping her look for her younger sister, Zoey. He's prone to crying easily (Jae affectionately calls him a "crybaby") and a serious insomniac. Jae used to protect him all the time as children, so now it's his turn to do the same. When Jae discovered she was infected, she and Shane made a promise for him to end her life if she turned past the point of no return. 

Their nighttime events are especially wholesome while simultaneously providing great angst material since they have lots of history together.

P.S. His sprite icon as a child is so cute omg??? I also love how Jae gives him chin scritches?? Adorable.

I'm so glad that one of his memories you can read is when they find and save Lily, since that was the event that resulted in Jae becoming infected. His second memory takes place after the events of the Normal end, and how worried he was about Jae being taken away. Also includes another scene that makes me want to give him a blanket.

Noah

Noah is a mysterious and aloof cinnamon roll figure that wanders the streets alone, refusing the sanctuary of places like the church. He's seen feeding blood from his fingers to the infected, and surprisingly is immune to becoming infected himself! He's distrustful of the church for good reason, and Noah takes it upon himself to help rehabilitate those he's saved with his blood.

Noah is idealistic and literally like a "guardian angel" for Jae, but some of his events fall a little flat. His second night event though is nice, and gives him some backstory and showcases his ideals. I'm a little sad that he doesn't go live in the safe zone with Jae in his ending, so they just have accidental rendezvous every time she has to leave the safe zone. Out of all the characters Noah's ending felt the least romantic, like they're maybe at the beginning of a crush stage.

P.S. If he's immune to the infection... then couldn't they technically have a kiss scene because it would just cancel each other out? Lol.

Samantha

To no one's surprised, I was most excited for Samantha lmao. Samantha is one of the patrollers at Father John's church, and shows Jae and Shane the ropes. Turns out she's following her own mission to uncover the secrets of the church, her job pre-apocalypse giving her an advantage.

I felt so cheated!! Samantha's night events are so much shorter. Even her memories have so much less Samantha/Jae content, and the first one doesn't even have Jae in it at all. (It's an interesting memory regardless, but no one else had memories set so far in the past.)

Both are very headstrong and independent in their own way, but Samantha wants Jae to be able to view Samantha as someone she can come to for support (and companionship heh). It's of course a little odd for Jae since she's also used to doing the leading, but I enjoyed how they slowly begin to be pillars of support for each other, and learn that it's okay to depend on others. There's lots of subtle yearning and teasing which is *chef's kiss,* but again her content in general is a lot shorter than everyone else's.

Lance

Lance is from one of the government sanctioned safe zones, but at one point ended up tagging along with Jae and her gang on his way back to a safe zone. He calls Jae "captain" just to tease, and is always a bit of playful-flirty around her.

Are you curious about Lance? Well keep guessing! He hardly appears in the story due to acting as Lily's babysitter, and anything revealed about him just raises more questions. His night time events are vague at best, and ironically the Normal end reveals more plotlines about him than his own route. A prime example of how not to give exposition to your character lol.

Imo his ending and memory events are mostly filler, although his second memory helps show who he really is under the easygoing mask...

Normal End

Lmao I didn't expect the normal end to actually reveal more plot!?

So after safely leading the remaining church residents to the safe zone, the soldiers at the entrance tell everyone to get tested here. Jae has an episode where she starts to vomit blood and "turn" and tadah, suddenly Lance appears and reveals himself as the head researcher of this Citizen Protection area, aka safe zone. He orders the soldiers to contain her and take her to the research lab, smiling as he watches...

Hidden End

So the Hidden End is a bit tedious but thankfully LucyDream tweeted how to obtain it. A walkthrough that I used also states that you need at least 3 characters' affections maxed out, one of which include Lance. Personally my order was Normal > Lance > Hidden, but plot wise I think it's better to go Lance > Normal > Hidden. I thought Lance's ending would tie better with the hidden ending but... apparently not lmao. 😂

If we're doing the whole "small world" thing then where is Samantha?? This is sapphic erasure, in this essay I will-

Okay but all jokes aside... wtf is up with this hidden end?? It answers NOTHING and honestly is just a bunch of filler content. Apparently everyone (minus Samantha) met each other when they were younger, but only Lance remembers this especially with Jae... which is very, very vaguely referenced in his own ending. 

(Also why were they even all in the same area in the first place? And how does that even work in the future considering Jae and Shane are implied to have hopped around areas a lot before arriving at the location the game takes place in...?)

Apparently young Jae and Shane are at a hospital because I'm assuming one of them is sick. They hear crying and find a tall teen with dark hair "bullying" a younger kid with white hair. Eventually they go find a nurse, and then young Lance offers his hand to Jae since apparently she doesn't look that great either. 

This heartwarming scene is interrupted by a loud ringing, and Jae finds herself back in the present strapped down to a table. Lance unstraps her once she's conscious and although wary she starts to ask him his intents and call him out for using her as a guinea pig without permission. He explains everything about the "vaccine" he injected and the reason she hears the noise, saying that the government is in the early testing phases of making an agent that can "control" the infected, and that he's personally interested in "abnormal" cases like Jae. Tl;dr Lance then blackmails her into cooperating for his experiments like the shady mofo he is.

If there's one good thing about this ending: adorable younger sprites. 

The Heroine: Jae

I think it's really interesting to have a protagonist that's infected! Of course the rate of which the infection progresses through her is a lot slower, she still has to deal with the repercussions of being a host. Besides her episodes where it seems like she's turning, Jae also has to be extremely careful to make sure no one comes in contact with any biohazardous fluids such as saliva or blood... Which means no kissing! It's understandable why she currently can't but still... I want a kiss scene yknow? Lol. 

One of Jae's traits is that she's pretty altruistic and stubborn, always willing to help others, even if that means forgetting to take care of herself. Being infected has its hassles, but she doesn't regret it since she was able to save another person's life. As the "captain" of her ragtag group, she takes it upon herself to always be the one leading. She's also pretty stubborn, never giving up on something once she sets her mind to it. Overall she also feels like she has to take responsibility for everything that happened because she's the one who led her group to the Church, feeling guilty that they're in this mess because of her.

On a visual level, her design is very cute! Honestly her design alone was one the first things that drew me to the game. Her grey eyes are an interesting aesthetic choice too, but make sense in the context of the game.

***Spoilers End***

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FINAL THOUGHTS

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System

Havenless has your standard array of options, like backlog and auto. The auto speed is a bit fast imo. I'm a fast reader so it usually doesn't bother me, but in general I can see it being a problem of text advancing before has had a chance to finish reading it. After you complete your first playthrough, a skip button is now available to use, and it's extremely helpful when you want to just breeze through the game quickly to unlock another ending.

Edit: I think sometime around October, LucyDream added a feature where you have to watch an ad every time you try to view the backlog so... that's annoying. Especially since there's already ads that play every time you finish an episode.

In general, Havenless' UI is very sleek and mostly lag-free, and doesn't detract at all from the player immersion. However it did almost make my phone overheat before I adjusted the settings so.. just be careful with that lmao.

I wish there was some sort of confirmation before a choice selection. It's easy to accidentally tap the wrong choice when you're just tapping to advance or if your finger slips, so I'm surprised there wasn't something like that implemented. The exception to this would be during "Critical" moments since those are timed events. 

And speaking of timed events - it's definitely an interesting mechanic, but the time limit is so short! I understand it's meant to be a stressful situation in the plot, but players should feel the stress because of what might happen next, not because of "oh no I haven't read all the choices and I need to pick one now, help." Even adding a couple extra seconds would be a great benefit without losing the suspense.

I was surprised but LucyDream is very generous with gems! There was also a double gem campaign when I started playing, so that was also pretty helpful. Of course there are microtransactions, but it's completely doable to finish without paying a cent. You also constantly get small amounts of gems: 10 for daily login (or double if you watch an ad), and 1 (or 5 with ad) for each chapter you complete. You can even get gems for sharing certain events on social media. Gems are needed to purchase outfits for "Critical" checkpoints and to unlock certain choices that give extra affection to a character. There's also never any sort of "repurchasing" - anything you unlock with gems remains unlocked forever. Out of all the "big name" mobile otoge I've played, I feel like LucyDream has the easiest and most rewarding system for players. 

Unlike most mobage, Havenless doesn't use a daily free ticket system. You can binge play as much as you want, with only "Critical" scenes stopping you from advancing since you need to wear specific outfits to pass. Technically you can even "pass" those without the outfits, but the outcome may be a little less than ideal... (And you'll probably miss out on raising affection)

There's lots of content in the game: 25 chapters, 2 night scenarios per character, 2 memories per character, plus a total of 6 endings. And of course, the more ends you do, the more that is revealed. Scenes can be replayed in the "diary" section, and there's also some slight character info there as well. How much you enjoy said content though can be debatable.

Another tiny feature is finding "puzzle pieces" to complete & unlock an illustration. Puzzle pieces can be found randomly by either doing patrols or receiving them as post-chapter reviews. Any duplicates can be traded in for 30 gems. However, they're very elusive and a bit of a pain to complete. I've played through the game probably at least 10 times by now and my puzzle still isn't complete haha. 

One thing that's definitely an oversight is the lack of an epilepsy warning anywhere. It's usually during extremely tense or critical scenes, shown when the edges of the screen become white with a grey pattern. An alternate one is a red and white pattern at the top of the screen. However, both include flashing in quick succession, often with no warning to when it'll occur. While I don't have epilepsy, it caught me by surprise the first time it happened. It can add tension to the scene, but it shouldn't come at the expense of the player's health.

BGM/SFX

One of my absolute favorite tracks is the piano track that plays during tense moments. There's something about it that just really keeps you on edge. I also love the awesome guitar bgm on the title screen.

Some sfx can be balanced better imo. Hearing the scream sfx for the infected for the first time surprised me since it was louder lmao. The sound effects in general though are nice.

One sound effect that really bothered me is a drawn-out flat ringing, like when you hear ringing in your ears. It's very piercing, and also very loud compared to the rest of the music. I'm not sure if LucyDream ever nerfed it in future updates, but I always have to either take off my headphones or cover the speaker every time it appears.

Art

The art is very lovely! Although I wonder if the cgs and sprites used 2 different artists. There aren't a ton of cgs, but each character gets 3 throughout the story, received during the Night scenarios and the ending. If I had to nitpick a bit I'd say that things got a little wonky for Noah's cgs, but they're still very enjoyable.

Blushy appreciation post! Some of these aren't a true blush but I tried my best haha. I also think it's adorable that the sprites sometimes have little speech bubbles that also show how they're feeling. 

Shane wins best blush award

The chibis are also super cute!

Characterization & Plot

Interestingly, Lance isn't involved in a lot of the action throughout the game, and is in the background as either a playmate for the child Lily or just being a sketchy mofo in general... for plot reasons. While it's an interesting decision that has its pros and cons, I'm surprised that the game also takes place mostly in all one specific area. 

In general I feel cheated on Samantha's route. More Samantha content!!

Apparently there's theories that this game also takes place in the same universe as another of LucyDreams' games, Dangerous Fellows. Havenless is my first game by them, so any potential references would fly right over my head haha. 

Any of the route endings can be accessed as long as you max out the affection meter, with the exception of the hidden ending, which remains locked until all other endings are completed (with a couple of extra conditions). Imo, I think it's best to save Lance for last due to plot reasons and the fact that he's the most expensive to max out. My route order recommendation would be: 

Any order of Shane/Noah/Samantha > Lance > Normal > Hidden.

Where to Go From Here?

Just need to say real quick, Jae's design is super cute and her circumstances definitely make her an interesting protagonist. Ironically none of the guys were really my "type" but of course I enjoyed our lovely Samantha, even though she has less substantial material lol. Speaking of Samantha as a Love Interest, thank you LucyDream for just letting her and Jae... exist. And slowly gravitate their way towards each other like any other budding relationship would, instead of narratives like "oh no we're both girls" or "if only I was a man..."

One major gripe I have about this game's story is the lack of any sort of completion. It's a very intriguing game, but doesn't answer a majority of the issues revealed through the gameplay. I can understand why some events might not have closure, which would create the perfect opportunity to give Havenless either some DLC or a Season 2! But there were so many plot-holes that should've had some sort of resolution by the end of the game, so that's a little discouraging. I'll be writing a separate post soon about loose ties in Havenless.

Overall the game had potential, but a weak execution about events in general left me feeling a little disappointed. My immediate thought after finishing all the regular and locked content was... That's it? However it's still an engaging game regardless, so I would still recommend it if you want something simple to pass the time.

Until next time!