so i’ve come to learn that my demographic has been mostly queer people over the age of 20, with the majority over the age of 25, going into 30s, 40s, and even 50s and 60s in some cases. this makes me happy. it’s not that i don’t like kids or teenagers, but let’s be real, this ain’t for them and they should not be playing this shit, but the content of what i make aside:

it makes me really happy to know that the people who are reading this thing are entire adults with jobs and shit, and that they come home, and they want to experience the art i have made for their enjoyment with the little free time they have in their stressful lives in this stressful time. i am incredibly honored to be a source of enrichment in your busy lives, and the fact that you engage with my work as the world falls down around us means so much to me.

being a queer person in america right now sucks. you really gotta take care of yourselves, guys. and queer people in other places? you too! parfum nostalgique was always a project about self-preservation for me. it is something i took up making after i became disabled from overwork. i used to run a business of my own, and keeping up with it was so stressful that i had a mini-stroke and ended up hospitalized multiple times. when i quit, i had developed several chronic illnesses that i still deal with today. i decided to work on this project that i wanted to make so much to care for myself. for this reason, i’d like for parfum nostalgique to be a part of caring for yourself, as well.

you can read this visual novel in whatever conditions you like, and experience it however you see fit, but this is how i picture the most ideal conditions for making parfum nostalgique into the ultimate relaxation experience.

if you are a game dev and you’re reading this: whether you see your game as a relaxation experience or something entirely else, make one of these posts for your project. i want to read it. i think it’s cool! i’m tagging you! what are the most ideal conditions for experiencing your art?

let us begin.

• experience the joy of clean sheets. do you have them? don’t let it stop you if you don’t, but clean sheets feel really nice. i picture parfum nostalgique on a laptop in a bed. if you’re playing this on a desktop PC… you better have one hell of an office chair, my friend. if you’re one of those people who has a wall projector instead of a TV? hook your computer up to one of those. but ideally: laptop, bed. clean sheets. make your bed feel nice.

-is your room a fucking mess? it would be cool if you cleaned it. you could totally play parfum nostalgique on like, a saturday where you’ve reluctantly spent the day cleaning the shit out of your room all day after you’ve collapsed onto your bed feeling all Dusty. sandwich a nice bath in between cleaning your room and playing this thing. if your room is too much to clean and you are too tired to do it, at least put some clean sheets on if you can. if the clutter overwhelms you, but you desperately need rest, do not pressure yourself to clean your room. i want you to convince yourself it’s romantic to have this kind of mess. what you’re working with is the kind of mess that looks like shit in real life, but if it was in a ghibli movie with the right lighting? it would be all over those ghibli aesthetic accounts. look, i don’t know what kind of mess you’re working with. but i want you to look at it and think how wonderful it is that you get to spend a night, safe in your home, surrounded by all of these gifts the universe has given you. wouldn’t it be nice to have a glimpse of a mess in a room you’ve had in the past, maybe your childhood room, your old college dorm room, or your first apartment with a partner? one day, you might long for a glimpse of this mess. so convince yourself that the mess is romantic.

-play this at night, it’s a vampire game. or, play it on a rainy day. or… if you’re REAL freaky-nasty, play this shit on a day in spring where it’s sunny and your windows are open and the breeze carries in a nice smell.

-if you wear perfume, wear perfume in your house as a little scent treat for yourself. pick whatever fragrance you have with the most throw, and make sure YOU can smell it. if the perfume is… nostalgic, hehe… make sure it isn’t for a relative. let’s just say there’s a lot of scenes where you’re really not gonna wanna think about your grandma. this is more of a “the girl i had a crush on smelled like this” or “i used to wear this in another time” kind of nostalgic.

-candle it the fuck up. candles. candles are both a light feature and a smell feature, though. and i am of the belief that you should not have more than one smell feature, so if you’re wearing perfume, maybe go with unscented candles, or yankee candles because oh my fucking god i swear their scents are so WEAK! unless you wanna go all-out and pair your scented candle with your perfume. dark room with a bunch of candles is cool, but don’t make it Only One candle. you wanna be able to see the room. only one candle is too ominous.

-another awesome lighting feature is if you have colored lighting or special projector lamps. if you have an aurora borealis/underwater aurora lamp, disco ball, lava lamp (!!), neon sign or any color-changing lamps of any kind, fire them up!! let it change colors or set it to a calming blue.

-if you have the executive functioning to prepare it, tea and schmisches. prepare your tea in whatever way you like. if you’re wearing perfume, match your tea with it. you can go on fragrantica.com, look up your scent, and then see if you have any tea in your pantry that’s main flavoring is one of the main notes, and pair accordingly. “schmisches” (pronounced “shmee-shez) are what my uncle richie calls the little fuckin crackers with the seeds in them and the cheese slices and the prosciutto that gets put out at family gatherings. it can also mean little snack morsels arranged as a general smorgasbord. an assortment of snacks. personal suggestions include but are not limited to: –bread and jam. or get yaoi about it and put scandinavian cloudberry jam on italian bread. –shortbread cookies like trefoils or lorna doones to dip in tea –marie biscuits –box of assorted italian cookies from local italian bakery if you wanna get lupino –tiramisu in a jar if you wanna get val about it –lemon pound cake if you want dash’s favorite –sushi rolls straight from a to-go carton

the wonderful world of schmisches <3 you can bring your tea and schmisches to bed on the prettiest tray you own!

-val is showing you his most sincere self, because he doesn’t know how to show you anything else. you gotta step up to the plate and bring your most sincere self, as well.

• finally, play this alone. it’s fun to start with friends if you wanna do voices and stuff, but you’re gonna get real tired, real quick with this one. i made this with the intention of someone sitting in their room and focusing on reading, letting the conversations play out in their head.

growing up, i didn’t have any siblings. my parents didn’t get along. i didn’t have many friends. sometimes, my mom would stay home from school, because all the kids at school bullied me for being autistic. my mom would let me play my favorite video games all day (mostly harvest moon and rune factory) when that would happen. one time, there was a rumor that went around school that i had a hit list, and the girl who started the rumor got her mom to come into the school and scream at the principal until they put it on my permanent record. we didn’t find out that part until i was applying to go to college, but it was a pretty bad situation overall, so I remember my mom was like, “come on, we’re going to gamestop,” and we bought a used ps2, harvest moon: save the homeland, and innocent life. i’m only 26, and from the time i’ve been 21, a pandemic has kept me inside because I am immunocompromised. a lot of my memories in my short life have been of experiencing cherished video games alone in my room. i can sort periods of my life by which games i’ve played at the time. i cherish every moment of playing those games, and i’ve gotten to have lots of great memories outside of them as well, but i really do cherish every moment of my life that i get to live. so the idea of someone playing parfum nostalgique in their room, alone, or even just while their roommates or partner goes to do their own things, it makes me feel privileged that i would get to be part of that snapshot in time, where you were simply just being a person.

when i was close to finishing this thing, i felt really sad, because i knew i would be alone in my room, and that the star of my show could not even take a bow with me when it was finished, because he was not real. but i was not sad for long, because i knew that this was only the beginning of making games for me, and that if anyone else were experiencing this visual novel alone, safe, and warm in their home, i would feel nothing but honored that my work had a place in such a comforting place. it didn’t matter to me that i didn’t have anyone to take my bows with, it mattered to me that parfum nostalgique gets to be born again and live through everyone who decides to play it henceforth.

thank you.