All the Words She Wrote
A downloadable game for Windows, Linux, and Android
Takaoka Mayo is a twenty-four-year-old woman without any particular plans in life, nor any particular career goals. For several years, she’s been drifting between low-paid part-time jobs, while living with her parents: her nagging mother and her kind-hearted father.
Mayo is unmotivated and lazy at the best of times, but she does have a passion: namely, Princess Luluna from the popular light novel series, The Forest of the Elves and the Pressured Princess, written by one Tsuchimi Rui.
Mayo’s love for Princess Luluna is so great, her room is full of Elf Forest merchandise. Her walls are covered in posters of Luluna’s smiling face, and she owns several Luluna figures, much to the bemusement of her best friend, Nina.
Despite Mayo’s intense, borderline obsessive love for Elf Forest, she’s content to pine after her fictional waifu from afar – that is, until one day, when a friend of her family’s, Sae, offers Mayo an incredible job offer.
Sae works as a publisher at a company called Horizon, which – as it happens – is the very same company which publishes Tsuchimi Rui’s Elf Forest.
Sae tells Mayo, to her disbelief, that she knows Elf Forest’s elusive author personally – and, what’s more, she’s worried about them. Rui has been in something of a slump during the last few months, and the creation of Elf Forest’s ninth volume has stalled. Sae is looking for a housekeeper to take care of Rui’s chores, so Rui can focus exclusively on their writing: a job she decides to delegate to Mayo.
Mayo, of course, is overjoyed at the prospect of meeting her idol, and instantly accepts – but soon, she learns Tsuchimi Rui isn’t at all like she imagined.
Contrary to Mayo’s beliefs, Tsuchimi Rui is not a middle-aged man, but a young woman only a few years older than she is: a reclusive, awkward hermit who, despite being sub five feet tall, has a biting tongue and a needle-sharp personality.
This woman’s real name is Komikado Hijiri – and, at Sae’s behest, Mayo finds herself living under Hijiri’s roof.
Mayo and Hijiri get off to an uneasy start, but as time passes, the pair begin to grow closer. Mayo begins to grow fond of Hijiri, yet still, she finds herself wondering: who is her real waifu? Princess Luluna, or the misanthropic author who created her?
- 100,000 words of text (approx 4-6 hours of reading)
- A linear story with no choices/branches
- Detailed character and background artwork
- An original soundtrack
- One short, grumpy writer
- A cute lesbian love story
- A happy ending!
The adult patch for the Steam version of the game can be downloaded here for free.
If you want to patch the all ages version of the game, download this file, drop it into the 'game' folder inside All the Words She Wrote, and rewrite the existing adult.rpa file with the new one. You'll know if the game has been patched correctly because the window title will change to All the Words She Wrote (18+).
Writing: ebi-hime
Character art: Purinfuwa
Background art: Background TK, Son Huynh, Thai Chau
Extra art: Kuroneko, Nana, Sysen
Music: Mock Off
GUI: Re.Alice
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $12.99 USD. Your purchase comes with a Steam key. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Small update + Android build added76 days ago
Comments
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I really loved this story! The art is gorgeous, the music is lovely, and I did notably like the sound effects for the buttons, hehe.
I didn't expect to come into this relating to Hijiri so much, but, as a writer myself, perhaps that was shortsided, haha. I can relate to both characters, actually -- Mayo's fan behavior and her tendency to not worry about the future (though I mostly tell myself to not worry about the future as a coping mechanism for anxiety, ha) and Hijiri's woes with creative burnout.
I was a little worried at multiple points about the direction the story was taken. I was worried that, with how Mayo was berating herself, she would end up bearing the narrative burden for the final conflict, with Hijiri's side of never being addressed. In fact, I was worried about Hijiri's nasty traits never truly being addressed. Thankfully, both of those things got proven wrong though!
The only issue I have with this VN is a rather minor complaint, and that's the subject of Hijiri's grandparents. I am about as white as white bread, so take my opinion with a grain of salt (especially given that I don't know the race of the author!), but I found it discomforting how it was established that Hijiri's grandparents were xenophobic / racist, and that they were then, in Hijiri's words, "Proven right". There are a number of ways this could've been addressed; they could have disapproved of Hijiri's father for a reason other than him being a foreigner, being the one that immediately jumps to mind. If you wanted to keep that plot point, you could've had Mayo respond when Hijiri said 'they were right' about her father, with something like, "But they were judging him based off of where he came from. They weren't 'right' for that." And then Hijiri could respond, "That is true." I dunno, something like that would've been a little less discomforting.
Other than that, though, I really enjoyed this VN and would recommend it in the future!
Light-hearted story featuring a grumpy writer and her fan. Or rather a fan of one of her characters, graceful princess Luluna. There are a few dramatic moments, but for the most parts this VN is cute and funny. Mayo and Hijiri make a very cute couple and Sae is a cool side character.
P.S. I was happy to see a cameo of Amu from The Way We All Go ^^
How cute! Mayo made me laugh at times with her antics, and Hijiri's desperate clinging to her pride also at times made her really funny. I loved to see their relationship develop, and now I'm hungry for pancakes.
My favorite part was all those little light touches of Hijiri failing to be as above it all she thought herself to be, like when she dressed up nicely for Mayo in that scene.
Great read, thanks so much.
Anyone else having issues with the audio? I can't hear the music/sounds. I noticed this was made with Ren'Py, so I tried updating my versions of Python 2 and Python 3 to the latest, but that didn't fix anything. I don't want to install the Ren'Py SDK unless I have to, but I'm unsure if there is an easy way to modify compiled Python code because I normally write in other languages.
Even if there's no sound, I can continue going through the story - I just feel like it would be more enjoyable if it were working. :/ Maybe I should try running it in Linux, instead.
Anyway, this seems like a good game, so far. I'm at the point in the story where I'm just about to meet the author at her house.
Thank you!
Update 2022/07/07
I should add that I've tried other Ren'Py games from ebi-hime, as well as a Ren'Py game not made by her, and all of them have this issue. This used not to be the case with Ren'Py because the other game I tried had working sound when I played it about a year back. This is not an issue with non-Ren'Py games.
This story was a fair bit darker than I expected, so I have some mixed emotions about it.
The writing is high-quality, and I was very interested in the exploration of toxic fandom, idol worship, and creative struggles. This lent a different angle and depth to the story that I wasn't expecting. In particular I related a lot to Hijiri's impostor syndrome and distaste for her past work, and her inability to accept praise for it. Was this drawn from your own experiences at all? It rang very true for me.
On the other hand, I had a tough time rooting for the main couple. Maybe this was intentional? Hijiri at her worst is quite despicable, whereas Mayo's desperate and obsessive behavior was disturbing, bordering on frightening at times. I couldn't help but see shades of Misery here.
I was glad that the two of them recognized their toxic behaviors by the end of the story and began to move past them. Mayo does point out that they both have work to do on themselves and that that doesn't make either of them undeserving of happiness, and that's a true enough lesson.
Hey, it’s fluff but it has some considerable depth to it too. Touching on things like the relationship between the author and their work and fans, obsessiveness on the part of the latter, or the demands the industry puts on creators gave it character in addition to the cute romance, and I am definitely happy I picked it up. Also, I won't complain about the length - I guess the trimming already done must have helped.
A very cute, chill experience. I caught myself wishing some parts were a little more condensed, but overall, I had fun with this. It was a lot longer than I expected, though, which I still think is only in part because of reading it out loud.
Thank you for the feedback; it's appreciated!
I did recently put out an update that removes some of the extraneous descriptions, since other people also said some scenes felt too long, but maybe I didn't cut enough out. I might read through the script again, if I have the time, and do another update to pare the wordcount down even more, if people think it would be beneficial.
Ah yes, I didn't mention it here, but I did see the update on Steam. I was already mostly finished with the game when the update dropped, so my comment refers to the previous version.
Maybe I can take another look at some point in the future, regardless, and see if anything else could use culling. I'll see if/when I have the time to get around to it.
I loved this! I played it straight through, all in one night. I kept telling myself I would go to bed after the next scene... and then failed to. I loved the story and the slow-burn elements. I'll be getting back into it soon to figure out how I missed the last two CGs. Maybe I needed to wait through the credits.
Anyway, thanks for making this! I'll definitely be playing some of your other games.
Thank you very much! I'm glad you liked it! \o/
If you're wondering about the missing CGs, there's an epilogue that plays out after the credits. You get the final two CGs by reading through this. I hope this helps!
Kawaii