Limerence is a freeware original English-language visual novel by Zalor, a solo independent visual novel writer/developer and commentator. It is written in Ren’Py and was first published on March 5, 2026. Zalor describes it in a brief, poetic introduction on its online home, Itch.io:
This is a story of love not quite unrequited but unrealized. Of two souls longing for etheric purity over the grounded. For the subdued comfort of a dreamy haze over the real. It is all that, and a wish granted.
Zalor (Itch.io page for Limerence)
I read Limerence and will review it here.
Readers who are familiar with my visual novel reviews (this is my 49th review of a novel I had no role in making) may do a double take upon seeing that I am reviewing a “new” visual novel, noting that a majority of my extant reviews have been of novels published in the 2000s. While I do plan to review some “newer” visual novels in the future, there is a special reason Zalor’s Limerence landed on my radar. Moreover, that reason is related to one of the 2000s visual novels I reviewed, as I explain below before the review proper.
The Backstory of my Limerence Review
From 2021 through 2024, I reviewed the 31 visual novels officially contributed to the al|together visual novel festivals. As to not reinvent the wheel I will refer readers to my al|together introduction and collection articles for a full explanation of al|together, but for a Reader’s Digest version: al|together refers to three visual novel translation/localization festivals which took place in 2005, 2006, and 2008, wherein individuals and circles localized 31 freeware doujin Japanese visual novels into English (unofficially 32, but that is a story for another day).
I had multiple reasons for undertaking the al|together project. One of those reasons was to shine a light on an interesting era in visual novel history and to bring attention to a few genuinely good visual novels that people can read for free in English. I managed to make one concrete contribution in helping make it possible for people to play Midsummer Haze (localization of Manatsu no Kagerou) by finding the original Japanese executable required to use the al|together English patch.
While perusing my backlinks in Yandex Webmaster, I came across a curious link from the forum at agoraroad.com. When I followed the link, I was taken to a March 4, 2026 post by forum member “lain is here” titled Finding Inspiration In The Forgotten Freeware Visual Novels Of The Mid-2000s. “lain is here” begins with an on-point introduction to al|together before discussing how he learned about the festival from yours truly. Not long after I found this forum post, “lain is here” sent me an email after I followed him back on Itch.io from my Circle New Leaf Journal account. There, he linked to the canonical version of his article published on his blog on Fuwanovel Forums under the pen-name Zalor, which he also uses for his visual novel development. While the posts are identical, I will explicitly discuss the Fuwanovel version of the post, Al|together and Sovl: Finding Inspiration In Forgotten Freeware VNs.
How did Zalor stumble upon al|together? I yield the floor:
Which I must confess, was something I myself was unaware of until about a year and a half ago when I stumbled into this blog (The New Leaf Journal) that aimed to catalog and review each and every visual novel brought to us under the Al|together umbrella.
Zalor
Having noted in my 2021 al|together project introduction post that I hoped to bring attention to the localizations, I was heartened to read that my efforts has played a small role in bringing the collection to the attention of a visual novel analyst and developer.
After musing1 about sifting for hidden gems in a collection of relatively obscure visual novel localizations, Zalor went on to single out some highlights:
I adore The Letter, and like Narcissu it’s one of the Al|together VNs I would recommend everyone read. As it’s genuinely well written, and tells a short story that is well worth the modest amount of time it takes to read. Given its visual style (plain photographs with no sprites), you can tell the author’s approach is a more literary one, which resonates with my own approach.
Zalor
I was also a fan of The Letter, ultimately ranking it as the 6th best of the 31 official al|together visual novels, two spots ahead of the better-known Narcissu. As I noted in my review of The Letter, its literary sensibility and broadly accessible theme makes it one of the easiest al|together visual novel localizations to recommend to general audiences. But had Zalor left it there, I would have probably only published a short reply piece on The Emu Café Social instead of a full article here.
But more than anything it was a short little postscript at the end of the work which is what ultimately inspired me to work on something of a similar tone myself.
Zalor
Now things are getting interesting. Zalor explained further (note the post has screenshots of the postscript with all of the text):
A combination of the music used in this postscript and the author candidly addressing the reader with his own reflections touched me greatly. In many ways it was like literally reading a time capsule. As here’s a guy in 2007 reflecting on something he originally wrote in 2004, as I’m reading it all almost 20 years later. A work that to most people has been forgotten, but that nonetheless, is still reaching a handful of people decades later. As though it were a letter in a bottle waiting to wash up on shore and reach the right person’s hands. It exists, and as long as it exists, a potential audience for it will always remain. All I can really say is that there’s something poetic to that, sparking the initial embers for me to strive to do something similar.
Zalor
The Letter itself is of course centered on a letter from the past. Everything is coming full circle. Not every al|together novel came with a postscript or similar author commentary, but like Zalor, I appreciated the ones that did. For example, I published an article centered on the postscript in Midsummer Haze. Playing that novel was a traumatic experience for me thanks to its heinous random trigger mechanic, but I appreciated the postscript wherein the author noted that he was writing it during the 2004 Summer Olympics.
The Letter inspired Zalor to create and publish Limerence. Once I saw that my al|together project had inspired someone to (A) play/read the al|together visual novels and (B) make an entirely new visual novel inspired by one of the al|together visual novels, there was only one thing for me to do as the internet’s leading contemporary al|together visual novel critic.
Let us review Limerence.
Limerence Review
Below, I will review Limerence in my usual largely “spoiler-free” fashion. However, this comes with some notes and caveats for people who may be interested in reading the novel for themselves. Firstly, the current Itch.io description of Limerence is as vague with respect to specifics as many of the al|together translator introductions, so even general details in my review may be revelatory. Secondly, while Limerence is short in the grand scheme of visual novels, I will venture that it will take most readers a bit over an hour (perhaps close to 90 minutes), making it relatively long compared to most of the visual novels I have reviewed thus far. Zalor employs a certain reveal that almost necessarily requires disclosure for a proper review. Thus, for anyone who may go on to read Limerence, I append a reader’s discretion notice for those who would prefer to go in blind.
Details
As I noted at the top, Limerence was first published to Itch.io on March 4, 2026, although its Visual Novel Database Page lists March 5. While Zalor was inspired by The Letter, which was an ONScripter-EN-based localization of an NScripter2 game, he used Ren’Py, a free and open source visual novel engine that is a popular choice for English-language visual novels, to create Limerence. Its Itch.io page has downloadable versions for Windows, MacOS, and Linux (I read the Linux version and did not encounter any technical issues).
Zalor, who wrote the piece and put together the art and music in Ren’Py, previously published a visual novel called Digital Seclusion, which is also available on Itch.io. Zalor maintains a visual novel blog on Fuwanovel and a YouTube channel with a growing collection of videos on visual novels and related topics.
Zalor credits Zakamutt, who has a blog and a significant number of credits as a Japanese-to-English visual novel translator, as editor. (Note that, despite Zakamutt’s background, Limerence is a fully and exclusively English-language piece by a native English speaker). Limerence makes use of freely-licensed audio and visual assets from a number of sources.
Prefatory Note
I have exchanged several emails back-and-forth with Zalor and offered my own detailed feedback on Limerence, much of which will inform my review. However, we did not discuss anything about the contents of a potential review of Limerence. All thoughts, imperfections, and errors are, as always, my own.
Review Proper
Limerence is an almost entirely kinetic visual novel, meaning that there are no choices or player input beyond advancing the text. I say “almost” because there is a single late-game choice which leads to two late-diverging endings – a structure more reminiscent of (albeit not on all fours with) al|together entry Shooting Star Hill and a recent “horror” non-al|together novel I reviewed, White Printer, than Zalor’s inspiration, The Letter, which has three comparatively inconsequential choices. I noted in the introduction to this article that Zalor’s Itch.io page description for Limerence errs on the cryptic side, especially when compared to his debut work, Digital Seclusion. While Zalor’s choice is not without basis given the script, this is a review – so I will as always try to strike a balance between offering enough information for readers to have some idea of what Limerence is about without divulging so much as to spoil the experience. In this case, I will foreshadow that I had some issues with the opening section of Limerence, so my introduction may encourage readers to read on into the stronger middle and ending sequences.
The reader begins Limerence from the perspective of an unnamed boy who appears to be a high school student. Both the visuals and his description indicate that he is lingering, seemingly alone in school after school hours, enjoying the reds of the sunset. But something seems off, giving the reader the feeling that what is being presented is a sort of dream. While wandering the empty school, the boy encounters a girl from his class, standing alone with an umbrella in an otherwise-empty classroom.
The girl, like the boy, seems to be a wistful dreamer, hanging around vaguely waiting for something “unusual” to happen. The boy reveals in his monologue, and in his actions, that he harbors some feelings for this girl that he has long had difficulty turning into action. Here, he seizes the moment – or technically speaking, the girls hand and makes the decision to show the girl something beautiful from the school roof.
Despite having read Zalor’s blog post about his inspiration for Limerence and checking the Visual Novel Database page, I was expecting a fairly short piece – so while reading this first section between the boy and the girl, I thought on my initial reading that it would be the whole ball game, so to speak. However, this is not the case. The opening sequence on the school roof runs its course, and we switch perspective to the waking world, this time taking the view-point of the girl.
From there, we follow her as she goes about her daily life on a school day and reflects on her perspective of an interesting dream, although I will set aside for the purposes of this review the nature of her dream, and whether it was the same dream we saw in act one. I will leave the connection between the dream and the real world, and its dramatic personae, for readers who are interested in tackling the story for themselves.
With the brief introduction aside, let us turn to the merits. I will note as a threshold matter that I have nothing notable to say about the game’s menus or basic visual novel features, all of which are standard and common to most Ren’Py projects.
I begin with the textual presentation. Limerence, like its inspiration The Letter and many other visual novels written in NScripter, displays text from the top of the screen to the bottom, overlaying the backgrounds, in what is called NVL mode. Ren’Py, the underlying engine, supports NVL mode and has detailed documentation. I will opine, having worked in Ren’Py on Little White Lies, that the engine favors ADV mode, which confines text to a text box (contrast with Nscripter/ONScripter, which The Letter was written in, which favors NVL-style presentation). I had actually started writing Little White Lies in NVL mode before deciding it was too cumbersome given my time constraints, although I did use NVL mode for one scene. While there are many Ren’Py novels which utilize NVL mode, it is not the most common configuration, and having battled with it briefly – I tip my hat to Zalor for writing a long piece in NVL mode. Zalor was correct to use NVL mode in Limerence, both on account of the material (long monologues and descriptions without standard character portraits) and overall NScripter-esque aesthetic. Here, the text is presented cleanly over backgrounds and the translucent NVL text box is accompanied by a nice visual flourish at the bottom. But I will offer one critique of how NVL mode is applied. One advantage of NVL mode is the display of a significant amount of text on the screen at one time. Like a book, readers can take in more dialogue in one glance than with the more illustrative ADV-style visual novels. However, Limerence is very aggressive in clearing the NVL window – often after just a couple of lines, for fresh dialogue. At times, it feels as if Limerence is an ADV novel with an NVL configuration. From my perspective as someone who was reading an often-densely written novel closely with the intention of writing a review and offering feedback, I found myself having to sift through text history more often than should have been necessary in an NVL-style piece.
One stand-out point of Limerence is its audio-visual aesthetic. While the story and themes are not obviously similar to Zalor’s inspiration, The Letter (save for one distinct similarity that is beyond the scope of my largely spoiler-free review), one can see that its artistic direction infuses Zalor’s work. The Letter’s art consisted of photographs with filters. Zalor instead collected an interesting collection of background images from freely licensed sources, most (but not all) of which appear to originate from a common set and cohere together, for the visual component of the novel. (The background art style reminded me a bit of a different English-language visual novel I reviewed called Save the Date). Zalor’s use of reds in the initial dream sequence is effective in conveying to the reader that there is something ethereal about the scene, this contrasts effectively with the bright and autumnal colors of the day scenes when we switch to the girl’s perspective, signaling to the reader that the story has shifted from a dream to a crisp autumnal morning. However, there is a trade-off to Limerence’s visual consistency. Granting the effective use of colors in backgrounds, there is a sense of visual flatness in the early-going (less so in the later stages).
In contrast, The Letter, which was admittedly not visually impressive even by the modest standards of the al|together set, arguably had more variety with its use of photographic backgrounds to depict a greater variety of locations.3 With that being said,Limerence is more visually interesting than its inspiration.
Most scenes in Limerence do not feature character sprites, but there are several scenes – beginning in the opening sequence, featuring a “shadow” sprite. This reminded me a bit of ACE Academy, a commercial (sadly no longer available) visual novel which used shadow sprites for characters that the team did not have the resources to draw. Some of the shadow sprites – namely the girl with the umbrella – are decent enough. But others, I will note cryptically a set for a single character, struck me as inconsistent and looking a bit too old in at least one case.
Returning to the good, Zalor sticks closely to the spirit of The Letter in his background music choices. Like most of the 2000s doujin visual novels that were localized as part of al|together, Zalor limited himself to royalty-free music, including TAM Music Factory, which had its works featured in a number of al|together pieces, and HomeMadeGarbage, which I recall was also used in al|together visual novels. I was consistently impressed with both the selection of soundtracks and how Zalor matched them to different moods. The stand-out tracks, for anyone who sifts through the file (more on that toward the end) is nice_day.ogg, which is used during a certain walk shortly after the dream sequence, and the hopeful_piano.mp3, which is the best overall track in the piece (in my humble estimation).4
In one minor sound demerit, Limerence did not make as effective use of sound effects as it could have. Firstly, there were not many sound effects given the length of the piece. Secondly, some of the sound effects were too quiet when compared to the music, causing me to miss them while reading in the first instance. Contrast here with The Letter, which made very effective use of sound effects in conjunction with its soundtrack to provide what was ultimately a very strong depiction of “summer” with limited resources.
Having read Limerence through to the end, I praise its ideas and did ultimately find reading it both worthwhile and instructive (reading it was a good lead-in to my first ONScripter-EN project, Under the Alien Sky), but I had some quibbles with asoecrs of the execution. Because I am about to venture into some criticism, I will lead with noting why I think it is worth a read for readers who are interested in the themes and in visual novel design. To that effect, I offer a quote from some character somewhere in the novel which I think captures one of its core ideas in an effective way:
The allure of unrequited feelings contains a deep potency. Preserved by unstained bitterness, it remains irresistibly pure.
This is one of the better lines in the piece, and a line which helps realize the promise of Zalor’s cryptic introduction. Limerence does, in its best moments, consider interesting ideas such as the aesthetic qualities of unrequited love, qualities that arguably cannot exist in the same form in love realized.
But in order to appreciate Limerence as a whole, one must read the whole thing – but the first act of Limerence, the dream sequence, poses something of a barrier to entry. Where The Letter had a sharp intro featuring the protagonist recalling a letter his late father left him while returning to his hometown to visit his mother, Limerence’s opening is comparatively disorienting in a way which does not advance the piece’s literary objectives. See the opening sequence:
The sky burns with scarlet intensity. As a violent conflict of colors stretches across the horizon.
In light of the fact the player is looking at what appears to be an abstract depiction of the late afternoon sky, this opening description struck me as unduly dramatic and difficult to picture. I would not have singled it out had it not been harbinger of a trend in the opening dream sequence. But when we scroll down a bit further to when the view-point character sees the girl:
Stirring my tranquil mood, and evoking feelings I can’t comprehend. Passion? Bliss? Bitterness? Regret? I reckon some blend of all of them.
Here again, the first sentence is awkward. The view-point character’s immediately following his assertion that he cannot comprehend his feelings by apparently comprehending them made me do a double-take as reader. Then a bit further down, the protagonist stumbles in trying to express that he does not have close friends at school:
“Acquaintances” in lieu of “comrades of convenience” would have better served the script’s goal of portraying the boy as thoughtfully introspective. Fortunately, we see a similar idea expressed later in the piece more naturally with acquaintance.
The main issues in the first section, which exist in a lesser form in later, stronger stages of the novel, are word choice, occasionally discordant metaphors, and word economy. As indicated by the strong quote I began my script assessment with on the subject of unrequited love, the ideas in Limerence are strong and it is an intelligent piece. But that shows most clearly where the script gets out of the way of its ideas. While there are many more positive examples after the first dream sequence, I will note there is a strong sequence in the opening section where the girl opines “[t]he moon is wonderful tonight, isn’t it?”
I trust New Leaf Journal readers will appreciate that line in moonlight of the fact that one of my most-visited articles is a history of Natsume Soseki’s apocryphal translation of “I love you” into tsuki ga kirei, desu ne (“the Moon is beautiful, isn’t it?). While Soseki almost certainly never translated “I love you” into a question about the Moon, the story almost certainly stuck because it is an aesthetic idea, conveying shared feelings through the joint appreciation of something beautiful. In this sequence, Zalor uses a version of the line correctly and in a way that I suspect someone unfamiliar with the Soseki story would pick up on in context. Moreover, it fit perfectly with the overarching themes of Limerence. Here we have a case where the script subtly supports rather than obfuscates its message.
On my first reading, I came away from the dream sequence nonplussed for the reasons I noted above, but my enthusiasm for the piece improved when it takes leave for the real world. I credit Zalor for writing the female character in a generally credible feminine voice, something that is not a given for male doujin visual novel authors (see e.g., my review of the localization of Night of the Forget-Me-Nots). I dare say the best written part of the novel may be the sequence when the girl describes her evening routine – while there were a couple of descriptive terms I would quibble with – it served a purpose of giving the reader an idea about who the girl is as a person while also being charming in a down-to-earth way. There are more examples of concise lines which subtly pointed toward bigger ideas, for example: “Although only a dream, there was some distinct quality to it that was undoubtedly real.” This is a clever idea in the context of Limerence, albeit I will refrain from unnecessary details. Of course, I did note in my more detailed feedback that the girl had her share of word choice and word economy issues as well. For a small example – “The hard pavement of the road guides me further and further towards nature as my mind remains within the clouds where I know it belongs” raises some word choice (“pavement of the road guides”) and economy issues. While the issues do persist throughout, the ratio of interesting lines that read well enough to cumbersome sequences improves as the novel goes on.
I will refrain from discussing the plot in detail for “spoiler” reasons, but I will note here that I think Limerence’s sole (and decisive) choice is interesting. I had watched a lengthy video Zalor produced several years ago about the potential of visual novels as an art-form (discussed and linked here), and noted his interesting discussion of choices where (A) one choice seems right but (B) the writer wants the reader to see both choices. That tension exists to a point in Limerence’s choice, although granting that one choice should (correctly) strike the reader as the better of the two, neither is obviously wrong per se. Zalor clearly thought about how to make both choices meaningful and successfully ensured that the reader gains something from seeing both to the end. I deliberately made the subpar choice first, and seeing it through to the end added to my understanding of the “better” ending. The same would work in reverse, although I would recommend making the lesser choice first. Both endings provide a fitting emotional climax and catharsis while delivering on some of the promise of Zalor’s themes. I will, however, offer two cryptic critiques of the ending more generally. One of the character’s problems struck me as too abrupt and heavy-handed without sufficient foreshadowing, and another character’s surprise followed by acceptance struck me as unrealistic even in the context of a piece which begins in a dream. I would have preferred to see a more delicate and foreshadowed set-up, or, alternatively, an event that was genuinely abrupt.
Completing the good ending unlocks a brief “epilogue” chapter which appears on the title-screen. The epilogue is valuable in filling in the blanks from a character’s perspective that we miss in the main story, all while tying into a key point which appears in both endings but only likely resolved in one.
Easter Egg
The novel does include an Easter Egg if we define “novel” and “include” in a broad sense. While I am loath to reveal its exact whereabouts, I offer a clue in the source code repository for the unrpa tool or an online version of the same.
Conclusion
I undertook the al|together visual novel review project back in 2021 to shine a light on an interesting area in visual novel history, both in Japan (the doujin works of the 2000s) and in English-language localizations. Even had Zalor not cited to The Letter as an inspiration for Limerence, his thoughtful piece, and many other interesting freeware projects in different languages, highlight that the spirit that animated those individual Japanese developers and circles in the 2000s is alive and well in the hearts of current and prospective visual novel writers and developers.
Taken together, I am glad I came across Limerence – first on my own and then through Zalor’s email. Seeing how he infused his own work with the spirit of The Letter and other al|together pieces was interesting as someone who has read and reviewed the entire collection. It comes with a strong recommendation for anyone who has perused some of the al|together collection (especially The Letter) and are interested in seeing a “modern” take on that style of visual novel design.
I offer a qualified recommendation for people who are not already interested in the visual novel medium. Limerence is less approachable than its inspiration The Letter, which makes for a good entry-visual novel for readers with literary sensibilities. But Limerence is worth a look for readers who are interested in the themes Zalor dedicates the piece to tackling, namely (not quite) unrequited love, looking for something intangible or unusual in a mundane world, and, noted here in the final sentence of this article for the first time, FLCL references (which I submit I very much appreciated).
I conclude with my gratitude to Zalor for publishing an interesting and ambitious freeware visual novel and, in crediting my al|together research and writing with pointing him to his inspiration for the piece, giving me an interesting al|together-adjacent article prompt for The New Leaf Journal.
Footnotes
1 I cannot let pass without mention Zalor’s opinion that he “can’t really call good” Hoshi no Furu Oka, which was submitted to al|together 2006 as Shooting Star Hill. I rated that as the third best visual novel of al|together. See my review, full analysis piece, and section on it in the final ranking for my admittedly contrarian argument. I do however concur with Zalor’s assessment that it “contains such ineffable charm of innocence to it, that it’s hard … not to like it.”
2 Tegami, the Japanese game on which The Letter is based, was originally written in Yuuki!Novel, as I discussed in a research article. The Japanese developer re-released it the better-known NScripter version, which played a decisive role in its being picked up by Insani for an official English-language localization for al|together 2008.
3 The shading/filtering was not present in the original Yuuki!Novel version of Tegami, which had the effect of making that piece a bit brighter. However, the images themselves appear to be the same.
4 One advantage Limerence has over The Letter to me is that some of the tracks in The Letter had been used in other al|together novels I read and reviewed beforehand. But my favorite track in The Letter was unique (at least among the al|together set).
