Strange house - DGM doujin fangame scenario B
I finished another ending in Strange house, the doujin LaviYuu fangame made by MOONLIGHT CAFE circle in Japanese in 2010! this route was called “Coming Home” and was 1 of 4 story routes in the game. (yes, I played these slightly out of order)
this is the route in the guidebook, where they give you a brief glimpse at some of the CGs (cutscene artworks) for the route and which choices you need to pick in order to get the true ending. every route has multiple endings, but only one good / true ending with the rest being bad endings or dead endings.
the route starts by Lavi saying they should find a place to stay and end up staying in the town nearby. Toma is able to secure them a place to spend the night - but rumor has it that the manor is haunted. according to local legend, the daughter of a lord lived and died there while waiting on her husband to return home from war. now, everyone avoids the place.
the three of them arrive at the manor and as soon as Lavi and Kanda walk inside, the door slams shut behind them - even their innocence can’t break down the door and all of the windows show no sign of letting them escape.
they tell Toma to sit tight and that they’ll sleep the night in the manor and it’ll hopefully be resolved by the morning (or they’ll be able to sleuth out a solution in time).
after doing some more exploring and finding nothing too abnormal, they decide to call it a night - in separate rooms, despite already being a couple (or maybe just coworkers with benefits?). Kanda tells Lavi he’ll come get him in a few hours. of course, Lavi can be impatient, and if you do then nothing really happens aside from Kanda yelling at Lavi.
once Lavi waits, he hears something and goes outside his room to investigate...
...and there’s a strange-looking Kanda there! Lavi is confused but naturally lets him in his room. Kanda immediately gets close to Lavi, sitting right up next to him on his bed.
and here you might notice, “wait, this is a different artist!” and you’d be right! it’s not uncommon for visual novels to have a separate sprite artist and CG artist, but it is uncommon to have multiple CG artists (at least where they’re each doing separate CGs rather than 1 artist doing sketches & lines and 1 artist doing the coloring). this route has several artists tackling CGs (and the most CGs in a route so far I believe?), which we’ll see more of soon.
another side tangent but I really love the music in this scene. I think this is the only part that the piece plays in which is a shame because it's really lovely in a romantic but incredibly melancholic way. just perfect for the setting of this game.
anyway, Lavi has 2 choices - denial (“this can’t be Kanda!”) or acceptance (“how could I deny my Kanda?”). if you accept Kanda’s affection, he pulls Lavi close and pulls out a knife. the end.
I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a dead end or what - it just says he pulls out a knife and cuts to the title screen. and given what the true ending is, I’m not even sure what the point is here, but I digress.
Lavi has to deny Kanda twice, pushing back on him and saying he’s an illusion. if he does this, the seductive Kanda disappears. Lavi hears something outside his door and finds the real Kanda there.
Kanda says he had a dream where Lavi was there, except something was wrong - he was really calm and competent, no matter how much Kanda yelled at him. Lavi takes the jab and avoids telling Kanda what he saw, instead saying it was a weak Kanda. the two decide to explore the manor some more now that things are really suspicious with Kanda pushing Lavi to get up. Lavi realizes this is definitely his Kanda, but he’s still a little sad...
they find a sprawling corridor full of similar-looking rooms. the corridor goes on for seemingly forever - Lavi takes the initiative to investigate while Kanda gets increasingly frustrated. not long after, Lavi realizes Kanda isn’t beside him anymore. he frantically tries opening doors, only to find...
...a woman who looks incredibly similar to Kanda. she asks him why he’s disturbing her, to which he asks if she lives in this manor despite being told it was vacant. she doesn’t answer and disappears behind a door. when Lavi follows her...
he finds himself back in the Order’s dining hall. Lavi tries to correct himself that this is only a room that looks similar to the dining hall, since he’s still investigating the manor, but someone calls his name.
Allen and Lenalee appear, much to Lavi’s confusion. they tell him they’re about to leave on a mission - just the 3 of them, though. Lavi asks about Kanda.
when Allen asks him who Yuu is, Lavi hopes it’s a mean joke and asks Lenalee to correct him. but when she also says she doesn’t know who Yuu is, Lavi starts freaking out internally. he calms himself by going back over everything and coming to the natural conclusion that this is another hallucination.
while he ponders if this is the work of akuma or innocence, the Order (along with Allen and Lenalee) fade away and he finds himself in a room at the manor. in front of him is the same woman once more.
Lavi tries asking her some questions like if she’s the cause of the illusions but she remains silent, only staring at him sadly. when he asks if she knows where his partner is, she looks stern but points towards the door, fading away once more. Lavi hurries along.
except, when he finally finds Kanda, he’s in a bit of a Mood. apparently Kanda has been fighting off illusions of Lavi and thinks this is just another one.
the two immediately start fighting.
Lavi tries talking Kanda out of it and proving he’s the real Lavi but it doesn’t work. he has a choice to counterattack, call Toma for help, or do nothing, but the end result is still the same. Lavi can either fight back or run away.
if Lavi fights back, the resulting fight is so explosive they destroy the ground and end up on the floor below them. they’re able to walk it off, now agreeing that they’re both the real person, but the ghost appears once more - and takes Lavi off into one more eternal dream. this is the last “dead” end of the route.
the real answer is to run away - he doesn’t want to hurt Kanda but he also can’t talk his way out of it, so Lavi runs. they end up on the floor below where the ghost girl appears in front of both of them.
she explains that she just wanted Lavi to stay home. when Kanda asks why she created illusions where Lavi was attacking him, she says she just wanted him to die. her name is Yuno Moreta and this is her manor.
Lavi realizes that they won’t be able to escape until they help Yuno realize that she’s dead. Yuno has been waiting for a long time for her husband to come home and believes Lavi is him.
she admonishes Lavi for showing up at home with another partner, there’s a mention about Kanda looking like a woman, and Kanda and Yuno begin arguing. if Lavi tries to stop Kanda it results in a bad ending where Yuno disappears, letting them escape but not resolving anything. if Lavi waits for them to resolve it themselves, the story continues.
(this is probably my favorite CG in the route, I really like this artist’s style)
Lavi is unable to really say anything and just watches them resolve it themselves, saying it’s kind of nice to watch them both argue since they look so similar. Yuno admits she knew immediately Kanda was a man and apologizes for saying that. now that they’re not at each other’s throats, Lavi explains that he’s not her husband. again, she admits she knew that in the bottom of her heart because her husband is much nicer. but she kept them here because she heard a voice in the back of her mind telling her that that was her husband and she needed to trap him here.
the voice was strongest when she’s at the entrance to the house, which was where all of this mess started in the first place. the three of them head over there.
Lavi explains that they couldn’t open the door, to which Yuno easily opens it. the three of them step outside the manor and hear Toma’s voice over the golem. he says that while they were stuck, he heard another rumor from the locals - the woman’s husband did eventually return, but died on the front door step before being able to see her and was buried in a grave by the manor. Lavi and Kanda thank him before pulling Yuno off to see it.
the name on the grave is Lavil Moreta (because of course it is). seeing her husband’s grave is almost enough to bring Yuno some peace - almost. she asks Lavi and Kanda to move him to be with her grave, admitting that she’s had the feeling she was dead for quite some time. Lavi agrees and she disappears for the final time.
while digging up his grave, they find the cause of all this - a notebook with innocence. the notebook reads that Lavil is worried Yuno will be lonely without him and that he hopes anyone who stops by will keep her company.
Lavi and Kanda reflect on the love Lavil and Yuno had for each other and Lavi hopes he’ll be able to spend more of these precious moments with Kanda.
and that’s the end of scenario b!
closing thoughts
overall I enjoyed it, as this was written by the author from the first scenario, Dolly. scenario a is still my overall favorite but this one is definitely second. it felt very close to the source material but did feel rather short and most of the dead endings don’t make sense here.
for one, I wish some parts of it were a little longer. this route by far had the most artwork in it, as not only did it have 3 CG artists across 6 CGs but it also had artwork for Allen and Lenalee (who don’t appear in scenarios A & C) but was only used for maybe 10 lines total. I hope scenario D ends up using those sprites, because as a VN dev and artist it feels like such a waste of good art!! this scenario also had at least 2 brand new music tracks which were very welcome changes - there’s a really sweet but melancholic romantic piece that plays when Lavi first sees illusion Kanda. lots of assets went into this route so I wish it was a little longer to make better use of them. for example, it would’ve been fun to see Lavi get stuck in the illusion of the Order with fake Allen & Lenalee for more than a few seconds, have him reconsider if he was even on a mission, but see through the cracks of the illusion and find out some kind of information on Yuno or Lavil in the process (maybe a book? a portrait?).
secondly, this scenario had several dead endings which didn’t make complete sense to me. I can understand why Yuno wanted to kill Kanda at first, but why does Lavi end up dying in parts? why does illusion Kanda stab (???) Lavi? if this was Yuno keeping Lavi here forever, why the mention of a knife? maybe I’m misreading it but that felt like an odd detail that could’ve easily been rewritten to something like “and Lavi never woke up again”.
it’s pretty funny though that the basis of this scenario is basically an alternate Kanda & Lavi where they’re a straight couple, given what we now know about Kanda & Alma... this game released in September 2010, so it was in development before (?) Alma’s full backstory was released, and well before Lavi's past was delved into. truly, soulmate stories are intrinsically d.gray-man.....
I am very curious though on what went on while making this scenario - the other 2 scenarios I’ve played felt more confined but this one felt like the scope kept ballooning. 2 brand new sprites that are only used for 10~ lines, 2 brand new music tracks, 6 CGs by 3 different artists… in a way, this route feels more akin to what fan projects end up being like - a lot of “yes"s to ideas which keep increasing the scope because everyone is a fan and pitching in and the directors/producers/leaders don’t want to say no to a good idea. let’s have Allen and Lenalee show up for just a few lines and make out sprite artist draw 2 brand new sprites and 2 face sprites that won’t be reused! let’s have 2 new music tracks that aren’t in the other routes!
still, it’s a cause for celebration that any fangame sees the light of day. making a game is hard and making volunteer fangames might even be a touch harder, especially ones like this that received a physical release.
