What Happened the Night Before
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android
Mikage and Noah are as different as it’s possible to be. Mikage is a fairly average guy with fairly average grades, while Noah is an honour student and the son of a wealthy businessman to boot.
Under normal circumstances, Mikage and Noah would never have become friends — but, by a twist of fate, the two wind up bonding during a particularly intense game of basketball in elementary school.
Noah’s athletic abilities shocks Mikage, given how short and slender Noah is, and from that moment on they become BFFs.
Mikage and Noah are inseparable throughout their school years, and Mikage is confident that they’ll always stay together.
They have to stay together.
Mikage loves Noah too much, after all, to ever let their relationship fall apart.
Friendships are fleeting things, and their lives diverge rapidly once they both graduate from high school.
Before Mikage knows it, ten years have passed: ten years during which his childhood bond with Noah has deteriorated.
Is it too late, Mikage wonders, to salvage what they might once have had, or is their relationship doomed for good?
- 20k words of text (approx 40-60 mins of reading)
- A kinetic story with no choices/branches
- Original character artwork
- A couple of clueless childhood friends
- Lots of kissing!!!
- A gentle, touching romance story
- One cute, consensual sex scene
- Which makes the 'is their relationship doomed?' question in the story summary moot, but there you go!
Story/programming: ebi-hime
Character art: Saitoki
Background art: Creative commons assets edited by Elduator
UI: Elduator
Music: Amachamusic, Conte de Fees, Music Material, and Senses Circut
Download
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Development log
- Android build addedApr 02, 2023
Comments
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God this game is amazing
thank you very much! <3
god i love mutual pining
me too 🙏
how do you play the game??? im dumb, and this is my first time downloading a game on itch
15/10 would read again.
Thank you! I'm glad you liked it!
I can't believe the serotonin boost this gave me. It was short, sweet and to the point, but I never felt like there was anything missing from the plot - the little blanks left from the narration were easily made up for in my mind, which attest to the splendid storytelling job from the author. I will highly recommend this to anyone asking me for cute and wholesome VNs recs, AND I will definitely be checking out all the other products ebi-hime has to offer -- and if you're reading this while being on the fence whether to give it a try or not, DO IT !! You won't regret it.
This is very sweet of you! Thank you for taking a time to leave a comment 🙏
Since this story was written for a month long game jam, I had to be a bit selective about how many scenes I could feasibly write in the timeframe. I thought establishing the characters as teenagers, then doing a timeskip to their adult lives, would be pretty fun, since it'd give the readers a chance to imagine what might have happened in these missing years for themselves. I'm glad it worked out!
ADORABLE GAME
I reactivated my 5 years old account just to comment here
This game is amazing. REALLY. There were some moments where I was genuinely at the vergue of crying, others where I felt like the happiest person ever for the two boys
This is a masterpiece! Thank you for making this game
Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed it! <3
Albeit I played/read not a lot of them, BL stories were always sort a guilty pleasure of mine, and since I stumbled on this while I was scrolling away bored on a sunday, I was like "Hey this could be interesting, lets try it!" but oh boy was I wrong, it wasn't interesting, it was so amazing it blew me away. The way the writer masterfully gets into the character's heads while also making their dialogue flow smoothly and fluidly yet akwardly at the same time really impressed me. This game also played with my heart strings by targetting my massive weakness for hurt/comfort (i did not realize i even had that weakness until i finished this game and took a while to self reflect) and it nails the asmosphere its going for very well. One last thing I want to add, I think that this game's size is one of its strongest points, It could have very easily dragged on for too long and ruin its own charm, or for the writer to get distracted with giving the player multiple choices, but no, every phase from the begining where it sets the tone and shows us the spark between the two right up to the bittersweet ending, I felt more immersed and invested than I remember being for any other story, BL or otherwise, in recent memory.
Phew that was quite a rant, its probably clear that this game got me quite worked up, heck I probably can go and praise it for another 2 paragraphs but I need to force myself to stop, because, as I'm writing this its 1 am and I'm supposed to wake up in 5 hours. Regardless, I enjoyed this wholehartedly for the story and for the care put into every aspect of this game, from the art to the UI and I look forward to try ebi-hime's other projects.
Ahahaha oh no, when I started to read your comment and I got to the "I wrong, it wasn't interesting" part I was like, "Oh no, did they hate the game..." ;;;
Aha, but in any case! Thank you very much for your kind comment! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Writing dialogue is my favourite thing (particularly between more energetic/outgoing characters like Mikage and more quiet/pensive types like Noah), so it's nice to know that shone through!
I'm also a big hurt/comfort fan; it's my guilty pleasure genre. I would write nothing but hurt/comfort if I didn't think it'd get boring to read about haha ;;
Thank you so much once again! I'm really glad you enjoyed the story! I'm sorry you stayed up so late to write about it though! ;a;
I hope you were able to wake up on time!
I played What Happened the Night Before after It gets so lonely here and wow, what a difference! While not without its complications, Mikage and Noah's love story is blessed, darling cuteness. Ebi-hime balances realistic family struggles and besties-to-lovers schmoop. The signature touch of angst and uncertainty makes the happy ending that much sweeter and hopeful. The art, UI (I did love the cute basketball!), and CGs make the love story pop in a way I think it wouldn't if What Happened the Night Before was a novella. The integration of art & story are essential to capturing Noah and Mikage. I'm very much looking forward to more of ebi-hime's games.
They're two pretty different stories indeed, hahaha ;;
Night Before is a lot less ambitious than Lonely, and isn't doing interesting things with the VN medium or with the narrative itself, but I'm glad it's enjoyable all the same!
I love writing emotional drama and romantic confessions, so this VN was just an excuse for me to write some of my favourite things haha ;;; It's all very self-indulgent.
And I like the UI a lot too! The basketball icon is really precious ;w;
Thank you very much for checking it out! <3
I love hurt/comfort like these, this was so sweet <3
Aaa, thank you very much!
I have a huge soft spot for hurt/comfort; big emotional confessions are some of my favourite scenes to write.
If I wasn't worried it would get stale, I'd write nothing but stories like this one hahaha ;;;
anytime I try to open up the game I get this what can I do?
I haven't received any other reports of an error like this and I can't reproduce it myself, so it could be that the game didn't install properly for you or your antivirus software is causing problems.
Maybe checking this post will help: https://github.com/renpy/renpy/issues/1795
oh shit that was the problem ok I'll check it out
You said this story didn't have a lot of substance to it, but I actually liked seeing Mikage's attempts to cheer Noah up and make him appreciate himself more. It made me feel more inclined to like him too, even if he was a little frustrating at times. I also enjoyed the UI!
Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed it \o/
I like writing big emotional confessions, so this short story was just an exercise in being self-indulgent haha ;;;
I'm glad there's enough to like in it for other people too!
And the UI does look very good: I'm very happy with how it turned out!
This was so sweet!! 😭 I love their dynamic and the way they played off of each other, the art's wonderful, and the execution of the story was spot on - my heart is healed 💞
Thank you very much fo your kind words! I'm glad that you enjoyed it!
Mikage and Noah were a lot of fun to write; I'm very fond of writing cute hurt/comfort stuff hehe >w<
Nice little story about two childhood friends finally following their hearts. The basketball themed GUI looks very stylish.
I love their combination (๑♡⌓♡๑) what a good visual, Saitoki drew it so well wahh (｡･ω･｡)ﾉ♡ the plot is also well written
This was a very cute VN, thank you for making it. I enjoyed it a lot.
Thank you! I'm glad you liked it!
{This review contains SPOILERS}
Story:
I really like the dynamic between Noah and Mikage, seeing how they were in the past / as students and how their relationship had developed over the years. - Seeing how both struggle to understand what they feel for each other and how they overcome what's making them struggle to pursue those feelings.
For Noah it's his strange (I'd say abusive) relationship towards his father, trying to please him by going into a loveless marriage by sacrificing his own wishes.
And for Mikage wanting to see Noah happy with the decisions he makes himself.
I really appreciate how ebi conveys these feelings to the reader and how she shows the revelation these two characters have.
Art:
Saitoki's very cute art style really fits to the setting, the story and the characters; how each character sprite and CG is drawn really adds to the story told by ebi!
Programming:
Ebi did a beautiful job implementing the art assets, writing, music and effects into this Visual Novel - adding much more depth tho this kinetic vn!
Thank you for making this beautiful short Visual Novel and introducing Noah and Mikage and their story to us!