Secret Little Haven

The world's on fire in mutiple ways again and I meant to have this out last month but my laptop isn't taking screenshots again and Pride isn't confined to just June, babes!

Secret Little Haven is a visual novel created by Victoria Dominowski and originally released in 2018 with an update as recently as 2021. At this point in this project I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on what visual novels are and how they work but also, as someone born after the new millenium and who came into conciousnessness after the web 2.0 boom, there were a lot of graphics and sound pieces that probably went straight over my head given that my nastolgia eras tend to exists around the later 2000s and early 2010s. But still, this is definitely one of those games I'm going to have to dig around YouTube for play through videos of.

Also though, if we can please note how smooth the game feels? And the aesthetics?? Going through the different DM chats and the different forum pages and the doll maker and everything? Just the mechanics of everything held my attention probably way too long, especially seeing as I spent at least half an hour poking around the home screen cause I didn't think to double click on any of the icons.

Also also! The nightmarescape of the chat room with Alex's dad? Terrifying. The glitching and the ominous background sounds and the sheer audacity of that whole conversation? It felt basically the same kind of vaguely gutwrenching as hearing a friend fight with their parents while you're just out of view while hanging out. Like I know the game started with the content warning page but I really didn't expect the sheer effect of those scenes.

But also, I was around for the LiveJournal days and some of the pre-Strikethrough Fanfiction.net era and got onto Tumblr way too young, so like, I've been in my fair share of fandom spaces, right? This game was a surprisingly strong throwback to those days for me.

Like, I definitely also got misgendered in chat rooms and stuff because of specific interests and icons I'd had at the time and had definitely felt that weird twisty ball of euphoria and dread when realizing you're maybe not being misgendered and going with it? But also, the way the game's storyline takes you down into the real depth of what Alex is going through is just? So nice to see?? Like it doesn't shy away from the bad internal reactions that can come from exploring your gender identity online or how it can bleed into real life or the friends and little victories you have and make while coming into yourself.

The Johnathan chat room is still terrifying though.

I'm going to leave this one here before I start gushing too much, but Secret Little Haven is absolutely one of my favourite games so far on this list.

But that's enough from me. I'll try to get screenshots on my next playthrough to add in if I ever figure out why it's not working! Good night and happy dreams!