Frozen Essence
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
In a world balanced by essence, Mina is unsealed from her crystal prison. Without a memory of her own, she follows the guidance from the oracle and is protected from those that fear her dark power. With the guidance from the oracle and protection from her bodyguards, her journey begins.
This is an otome visual novel, an interactive, romance story with choices that affect the ending. Each path's story differs greatly depending on the path you land on.
This is my first release and it is free. Since it's my first project, I apologize in advance for the grammatical errors, low quality art and other assets. If you like this, check out my current works at unbrokenhours.com
Extra: I have lost the raw files to update this game so if the game does not work on newer versions of mac, I apologize.
Download
Install instructions
Extract the files and run Frozen Essence v2.exe
If your computer cannot view the contents, download and install Winrar. Right click the file and extract contents to the location of your choice. Then open Frozen Essence v2.exe
If this game doesn't work with your version of mac, I am sorry, I cannot update the game because I lost the raw files a long time ago.
Development log
- Frozen Essence OST addedMar 10, 2023
Comments
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I still think about this game all the time, was one of my first introductions to visual novels and still stands up as one of my favorite experiences. The depth of the branching story paths is still unmatched in most modern games of this genre! Much love, happy to see this content still around!
man, this gives me so much nostalgia. this was one of the first visual novels i have ever played. way back when i was 14-ish. i will always hold this one close to my heart
I played this when I was 17 or 18, it was the best christmas break of my life. I was looking for games to play and ended up finding this through the ren.py website and downloading from the gamedev site. I swear, I was glued to it for the next 3 days just playing through all the storylines.
I chose Rune first, and the cloak dude last (sorry can't remember his name right now) and let me tell you, that final ending being my last one made the whole game SO CATHARTIC. I had seen my story from every perspective except for the complete one, and OML... >>!!!
Highly recommend this game to anyone and everyone. The story is so intricately woven and satisfying. Absolutely riveting. Glad it's on itch now.
So I played this Visual Novel a long long time ago, I'm not even kidding. I was like 16-18 when I first stumbled upon your original website. At the time you only had this game, Heartstring Bugs, and I think, a nother smaller visual novel game with PIper in the title. And Princess of Ruin was being worked. I want to thank you for making one of my first and favorite Visual Novels ever.
I played the game for the first time in 2023 . it's obvious 12 or 13 years after game published. BUT IT IS DEFINITELY WORTH .I must say I love the game(just finished caius route) and this one is the first visual novel I choose to play over 1000+ visual novels. I'm glad to play this gem.It is a great start to get in to visual novels. Even if it is old, I love this art style.I like caius's personality. l got the good/light ending at my first try and it's so beautiful.(•‿•)
hey i came here to tell you that i m glad that you made this game it really open eyes specially with the edge-lord, god i hated this game so much because it ruin my edgy teen perception of edge-lord romance but then i realize i was living in fantasy land wanting something that was dangerous and not possible so thank you so much for making this game and #$# you for opening my eyes
also the edge-lord thing turn into a fetish thing which i consider is much more safer i hope you keep making games like this to wake up this young teenage minds like you did to mine so many years ago Kudos!!! Bunch of KUDOS!!
<3 Thank you for all the amazing hours I spent in this game in secondary school. I remember mentioning this game to a member of my school's anime society who knew about otome games and dating sims, and they had actually played it, ahaha!
I definitely intend on replaying this at some point, hopefully soon!!!
Played this many years ago now...Hakuouki, Queen of Darkness ~ The Second Reproduction, and Frozen Essence were my introductions to Visual Novels...circa...2011 onward? This game is still very dear to my heart after all the many I have played over the last 10 years. The secret/true route is was one of the most fulfilling storylines I've played through. Just wanted to come by and thank you (received email regarding key for past purchase of Princess of Ruin - ty!!!). Thank you so much for all the good times! <3 Look forward to your future projects!
Thank you for leaving this message. I failed to see this as I got overwhelmed moving everything here. Thanks for the review!
I'm so glad to see this game getting more hype. It was my first visual novel and it remains in my top ten for its unique set up and story break down. I still haven't managed to find all the routes because there isn't an easy formula to follow and I love that! It's easy to create a new story each time.
The story feels organic and you have to think on what you know about the characters and the world around to find the good endings. It's not a matter of simply romancing the characters either because at least a couple of them don't care for you at all. You have to work for your relationships and your future. I stumbled on my second favorite route, the secret route, by trying to find another path. The true ending continues to rend my heart to this day, and I will never forget stumbling on it and not leaving the game, literally staying up until dawn (fitting for the end for that story). If you like fantasy and emotional stories with twists, if you want more than a love story, this is the adventure for you.
It's free too!
P.S. It's too bad that the music tracks won't work anymore, but I still have my old mac and will play it there.
Thanks for your review! Really appreciate it. When you mention the music, do the files not work on your new computer? Or do you mean I forgot to include the link to the OST?
Thanks in advance!
I'm glad I was finally able to leave one! I've been in love with your game for years!
To clarify, I can play the game with music on my old mac, but sometime last year, the music stopped working on this computer. The sound effects are still there but not the music scores. When I did some research, some people said the sound card doesn't work with the newer RenPry - or something like that. I tried running the older RenPry on my newer mac and it still wouldn't run with the music. I ran into a similar situation with the old version of Selavi's Summer Found Me before they released an updated version.
Hope that helps!