MetaWare High School is a fantastic fourth-wall breaking adventure about five self-aware schoolgirl visual novel characters with no eyes, who know they’re in a game.
When is a demo not a demo? You’ll find out in MetaWare High School, a very inventive Anime-styled fourth wall–breaking visual novel adventure that’s packed full of fun surprises. As it’s a meta-visual novel about a bunch of schoolgirls then it obviously draws comparisons with Doki Doki Literature Club, but MetaWare High School is a much more enjoyable experience, with fourth wall-breaking oddity from the start, charming characters, a lot more humor (though there are a few dark moments).
The five girls who you talk to in MetaWare High School are all aware that they are characters in a visual novel and that you are the player. They’re also aware that the game is currently a demo but they’re very keen to show you as much of the game as they can and to get to know you. There are many branching pathways through the game leading to 10 main endings, a few bonus endings and one true ending – all of which allow you to get to know the girls better and endear them to you (even Nari, who hates your guts).
So when is a demo not a demo? When it’s a meta-aware demo. MetaWare High School is full of great moments that only work because it’s a demo – such as the placeholder art, the fact that none of them have any eyes (which leads to some humorous moments) or the fact that they don’t know what sort of game they’re in and are a little concerned that they might be in a dating game!
It’s a fantastic slice of visual novel meta-oddity that takes you through a gamut of emotions – there’s plenty of laughter, but there also some scary moments (mainly anytime you’re alone with Nari), some touching moments and lots of weird surprises. It’s all wittly written and the overall narrative of the true ending is very poignant. Highly recommended.
Check Out a Gameplay Video Here (All Endings)
Download MetaWare High School Here (Steam)
Is there any possibility that the game doesn’t assume you’re male?
Hey, Alpha Beta Gamer, I have a question
Do you know if there is actually a planned full game on this? Unlike most other games which are Demos in this day and age, I did not find any sort of Kickstarter, or Patreon campaign to fund this game. Tracing the developers is impossible, since they literally named their company as “Not Fun Games”, which just leads to a bunch of articles critiquing games.
Do you have any lead on this, any word from the developers themselves? It sounds to me like it is very possible this is not actually a demo, but is the full game, just propped up to be a demo.
I’m thankful for any bit of information about this game.
Replying Zoe => You can choose the gender in the starting dialog, which you get through a lot of times if you want do get all the endings
Replying Altoss => I dont know about that and i really would like to know more info, but i found the twitter of their company: https://twitter.com/notfungames
Thank you alphabetagamer for showing me this game.
The studio has a Twitter account (@NotFunGames) and in one of the threads about the release, the artist (@spark_bag) said “It’s still a somewhat full experience, despite being a demo. It’s a proof of concept for a bigger project, so yes its a demo, but there’s still a final true ending.”
So looks like there may be more to come…