Bring Back A ██████ For Me
Your name is Tsubame Shin'yashiki, and you are helping someone you love recover from the trauma of your death.
You were executed for a murder that you never committed—at least, that's what everyone thought. There are a lot details about that incident, but that's not important right now. Your dear Celeste lost his memories of you out of grief, and even months after your return, he can't remember you. With the help of your partner Gray and boyfriend Ghost, you need to retrieve three important memories from the blank period in Celeste's mind; one from the beginning, one from the middle, and one from the end.
The current version tied for 1st in Best Visual Design and received 3rd Overall in the Spring Clean Twine Jam!
For the most part this is a game made as a gift for a friend, but those without an understanding of the characters or the plot leading up to this point in the characters' stories can enjoy it as well.
Quick info:
Style: Text with minimal images (non-critical to story), no audio
Type: Linear, with puzzles
Narration: Second person
Content warnings: 16+ for swearing, discussions of suicide, descriptions of violence, and other content. See the "How to Play" in-game for more detailed content warnings. NOTE: There is an option to remove descriptions of the character deaths in the game. One non-violent death is still shown if this option is toggled on.
Download
Install instructions
The downloadable files are earlier versions of the game. Once downloaded, open the html file to start the game. If you're having trouble on mobile, try playing the games online through my neocities site.
Development log
- Version 4 is out!May 22, 2020
- Full version release!Oct 26, 2019
- Version 2 update!Oct 15, 2019
Comments
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this was suuuuch a good experience... i really love stories exploring memories and trauma in ways that allow people, especially those with personal stakes in those memories, to interact with them
(spoilers below!!)
i really loved how creative you got with the gameplay elements - simple but effective! i had to make sure i was truly paying attention to order the memories correctly. they were written vaguely enough that it caused a challenge but not so vague that it was hard!
the final memory left me running around in circles unsure what to do (a result of me not catching that i'd permanently triggered everyone noticing the mirror's reflection and kept trying to recreate the conditions - oops!), and i really felt for Tsubame every time i realized i'd failed and stumbled into yet another Celeste death. it almost made me feel sick, but not in a bad or upsetting way at all, rather in a way that made me feel truly invested in helping Celeste heal. i felt genuine relief when i realized i was on the right track to helping Celeste get Tsubame back
i don't feel i'm very good with my words, but this was a story that made me want to draw! i could really picture the scenes in my head. i felt like i was looking at it through glass with frosted edges, if that makes any sense..? it had a really nice atmosphere to it throughout. the scene where Tsuki and Hichii first appeared felt suuuper cinematic to me, i was composing the shots in my head as i read. i loved it!
i actually played this the day after playing REVIVE, i couldn't get Ghost and Celeste out of my head! they're such interesting characters even between these two different version
i hope you continue to make stories exploring themes like these! you write wonderfully and i'm interested to see how you utilize Twine next ^^
Thank you! I'm really glad to read this because all of the things you've praised here are all things I was really worried wouldn't come across well LOL I'm not much of a puzzle maker so the puzzles were a difficulty for me to make not too hard but also not easily brute forced. In an earlier version you could just sit there and click all the options and make it through within four attempts or so per room.
Getting the visualizations across was the hardest part of writing this for me, making sure that the settings would come across to the player the way I imagined them. The surroundings are heavily reflective of the state of Celeste's mind so it was really important to me that it be easily visualized.
I'm definitely pushing to make more Twine games in the future, including a possible remake of Bring Back! I hope you like those games too :)
I love everything about this. The emotional impact, even just the concept of going through memories, the "sometimes a family is four dads and their polygender son," I just. love it a lot. 💕
Thanks! I had a lot of fun making this version since a lot changed between v3 and v4, I'm glad that it delivered on the emotional impact the way I wanted it to!
My dude, the title image is missing
yeeep, it is! thanks, I fixed the image link