Flour Hour

This game is so beautiful and I love every bit of it. I WISH there was a walkthrough though, I went through so many plays and gave up to find Souma's good end but I went through a few comments to find it. Struggled a little more on Izumi's even though it shouldn't have been that hard. BUT ALL IN ALL, IT IS A REALLY WELL-MADE GAME WITH A GOOD STORY <3 

Thank you for making the game!! 

More like a gay shooter since they're not straight, wink. Sorry, I'll see myself out for this joke.

I loved this game it had a lot of different routes that you could go and I'm still not done with the endings! However, unlike a lot of comments, I'm seeing I actually think Izumi is more toxic than Souma, and tbh not as good of a route as Souma. 

Izumi seems really nice and caring but as soon as Yuki kisses Souma at his house, he immediately turns on him and demolishes his business. I understand Yuki hurt him but Yuki still worked hard on his business and didn't deserve it to be taken away just for not returning Izumi's feelings. It came off as an abuse of power to me. Souma is abrasive at first sure but he doesn't do anything to hurt Yuki. He helps out at the shop during Izumi's absence, works in the garden every day, and makes sure Yuki is ok even if you choose to be with Izumi over him. He even encourages you to move on even if it hurts him. Plus Souma has piercings. 

Ok so it was really good but I struggled for a long time to get the Souma route.

Here are my tips for anyone trying to get a good ending for Souma

The first one is that you have to invite him to your bday party and then wish for him to be nice to you when given the choice.

Another choice in the game will be in the garden where he talks about how he's not hot. You will be given three choices: Choose the one which says leave him be: then choose primrose flowers. 

Idk if this tip counts but I made Yuki boop his nose and I got to the good ending so.

These sound really minor but they actually change the whole course of the story. Every time I did every other choice the same but these two I would stab the president.

i need a walk through for ending 7. i cant figure it out

How long is the game play? 

TL;DR, because I wrote half a book;

If you like modern settings and a bunch of humour in between the dramatic/serious plot, I think you’ll like this game!

The (main-)characters are multi-dimensional and the author makes great use of different expressions of their sprites to match whatever is going on at the time. The writing is well done and engaging.

The two love interests differ well from each other and bring an interesting and changing dynamic to the game.

Also, as a personal recommendation; Play Izumi’s route first for extra heart-break feels when you later on go pine for Souma (´v`).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Warning: Everything below is very detailed and contains spoilers! 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Writing

Your writing really sold it! I don’t remember ever being bored while reading, even when you described their workday – just prior to Flour Hour, I read a VN that was about the MC’s workplace as well, and… yeah, it wasn’t bad, but often dragged on and didn’t really captivate me as you did.

Things like Yuki's humming when specifically frying garlic made me go "aww". It's really nice to see even small things like this or choices I made come up or being referred to again. That really feels like cohesive writing, instead of just random cute moments being strewn in between or choices I only make for the sake of getting points towards a character’s route.

Speaking of choices, it was also nice that you had the chance to pick a third/neutral option several times. It wasn’t always just a stiff choice between one or the other guy. Pretty much all choices also felt very organic to me and fitting to Yuki’s character. It felt nice to see him become bolder towards the end of the game (at least I perceived it as such) and mature along with the story, to be able to stand up for himself.

The small switches in perspective were also neat and short, just to give the reader some insight. Overall, I also think that the pacing was completely on point.

The humour despite all the drama going on was nice and felt mostly natural – and had me laughing a bunch of times. Just Mei’s birthday plans kinda came out of the blue, but I can see that just being part of her character really.

Also. Nyah! (The achievements were a nice touch)

- - - - -

Art

I’m glad, that the sprites of the three main characters had the same style (and I do like the art and especially all the different, often subtle, expressions). The rest was a bit of a culture shock compared to the main cast, though especially Rei and Mei looked still rather fitting. The only one that jumped right at me, was grandma’s sprite - maybe that’s also because she was pretty huge on the screen (^^’). It was a great touch that you made use of animated emotes for the side characters, though!

The art overall was still very nice to look at, even though the backgrounds had some heavy style-differences and the CGs broke style as well – but they were cute (´v´). As a personal nit-pick though; I didn’t really like Izumi’s blush being so... extreme? He looked like he just had the heatstroke of the century or slammed face-first into a door – Yuki’s and Souma’s blushes were a lot more natural and nicer to look at.

- - - - -

The Routes

I liked both, honestly. They felt quite different to me, because you wrote the characters well in my opinion – even if they might’ve initially seemed like common tropes, their personalities gained more depth the further I read. The first time I ended up on the neutral (bad) path, when I behaved naturally (aka, here and there be reasonable polite to Souma, but overall preferring Izumi) and had to figure out how to end up on the path I wanted.

I did not experiment too much with it, but it felt like you had to stick nearly 100% to one guy from the start to really get to their (good) endings respectively. That’s something I kind of dislike personally, as I want to make my own choices instead of being forced to sidle up to a character right from the start (especially since you might usually not even really know who you want to end up with when you play it for the first time … and Souma is a bit of an angry, not very likeable, furball to work with in the beginning). However, that is a minor complaint and also it was pretty easy to figure out the correct choices, honestly. So, no sweat there to actually get to the route wanted.

- - - - -

Izumi

The reason why I picked Izumi’s path first actually, was because I skimmed through the comments before playing and someone mentioned that it ruined Izumi’s path somewhat for them, after seeing his nasty side in Souma’s. I gotta say, I am really glad that I played Izumi’s route first, because knowing what is actually going on in Souma’s route when Izumi keeps vaguely mentioning family problems or helps Yuki secretly was just heart-breaking.

Funnily enough, I was somewhat hoping for Izumi to go full yandere at some point (I just love fictional psychos, sorry lol) since he did have the potential to be quite manipulative, (in theory) if Yuki would stay too neutral, but still ended up on Izumi’s route somewhat – sadly, Yuki lost his marbles and just knifed the prez instead. But that was nice in its own right really. Old man had it coming.

Moving on in the end felt like Yuki maturing and letting go of someone else’s dreams to pursue his own and Izumi finally being free of his own shackles for real, so it felt really satisfying. Also, I liked as well that it wasn’t your “classical” ending, where the “heroes” succeed with the initial goal they had set, but rather evolve along with the story.

I’m not sure how to feel about Izumi’s grandfather trying to patch up things after all the quite terrible stuff that guy pulled… but since it’s been a few years, I can appreciate the sentiment, that even an old man stuck in his own negative mind would want to try and reconnect with his grandson again – eventually.

Regarding Izumi’s personality – how can one not love the guy, despite his lies (T_T)! The sheer amount of work he put in to help Yuki was just so heart-warming and admirable, I can’t even. He felt so genuine and star-struck with Yuki. While it could be a bit off-putting, that he was so incredibly defensive towards Souma… I mean, it makes sense – and Souma really didn’t make it easy, especially at the beginning.

Izumi going hysteric in the bad ends is a bit… yeah, leaves a bad taste. But I think that is intended? He only reacts like that when Yuki basically lies to him, despite the things Izumi has done for him, though, and he’s also a bit more openly emotional than a certain pink haired dude. So, I guess it’s understandable that he flips his sh*t, though it’s a complete 180 without much forewarning.

- - - - -

Souma

Well, wasn’t he difficult to work with at the start! If I hadn’t tried to get on his route intentionally, I think I would’ve only ended up there initially, cause I’m too nice. I really like that he isn’t just purely a mean guy though, whom Yuki hopelessly pursues – you can sort of tell rather soon, that Souma does care about Yuki and the situation he’s in… but is utterly terrible at wording it and not letting his emotions and frustration get to him. The way he just barges into the shop and picks up the garden work though demonstrates, that he’s sort of better at showing rather than telling.

It's good that Souma comes around on his own (Well, depending on it if Yuki hears him out or not) and admits his faults, owns up to it and really does change his attitude afterwards. The little sweet gestures always made me melt too – Souma towards the end just became more and more of a complete sweet dork (´v`).

In regards to the ending; While Yuki goes to study later on, I’m not sure anymore what happens with the store? It sounded like he kept it at first. So that felt a bit off (only compared to Izumi’s Route, where they yeet the shop immediately), especially since Souma was the one so passionate about Yuki pursuing his own dream.

One thing I guess I would’ve ideally liked, is a possibility in Souma’s route to still stay in contact with Izumi though, after he had done so much to help Yuki out. Made it feel extra sad, that he just sort of faded away with Yuki never really knowing the truth. Then again, I like tragic stuff in fictions, so oh well.

- - - - -

So.. uh .. I ended up writing two pages in Word for the review. I’m sorta sorry for the long wall of text like that, but I mean what I said – I really enjoyed it!

Thank you for putting in the work and making this a very enjoyable Visual Novel to play!

I think I’ll go check out some more of your stuff down the line~

I really enjoyed playing through this bc I really enjoyed the characters and it was easy to care about them right off the bat.

spoilers: I was very underwhelmed by Souma's route honestly, and playing it first kind of ruined my desire to do Izumi's route after learning his identity. His pettiness from Souma's (bad??) ending also just really made my opinion of him sour...  I really wish there felt like more of an actual choice as to who could be the true ending but I still ended up completing and enjoying Izumi's route. And for only needing to sink a few hours in, it was really good! The art was solid (especially the sprites/expressions) and the soundtrack was simple but used effectively. 

I found the opening segment with Yuki's dream really relatable and intriguing with how it implied he was too scared/anxious to actually voice his concerns with his loved ones but I so wish it was expanded on a liiiiittle more. Also Mei and Rei are totally together in my heart uwu

tldr: really great and short and sweet! Good, likable characters and compelling plot. Recommended!!

Great characters and story! I liked Izumi more but it was easier to get on Souma's route :') . Also I'm just gonna talk about spoilers now.

I think the ideal ending would be with Souma since you still get to keep the shop. But who knows, maybe Izumi's grandpa will give back the shop after they've fully made amendments :/

It was such a struggle figuring out how to stop Yuki from stabbing an old man. If there isn't a guide, I wouldn't mind making one, although it'll be like the second guide I've ever made 0-0

Can you please make android version please i really wanna play it

Just finished my first playthrough last night, now I gotta start over and get the other achievements 😁

got all the achievements (took a long, frustrating time though.) the storylines and endings are great!! kudos to the devs who made this game a great success :D u guys did great :D

Do you know if anyone has done a walkthrough yet? to help with unlocking the other achievements??

Oh god I really like this gam but got so frustrated when I keep stabbing the president because I didn't get a good ending. After experimenting and reading th comments, I have to say I officially completed the Souma route.

At first I wasn't interested  in getting back together with my ex because , ya' know , who would want to get back with someone who hurt you.Despite that, after playing  the Souma route, I can say that I really liked it. Might replay someday with the Izumi route.

Also I don't know why I feel this sene of accomplishment when  I stabbed the president (Q.Q)

Is there a guide?  Ive been able to get all but two endings and I have an idea on how to get one but everyone keeps talking about stabbing the pres and i am uterly lost

For a free game, this is FANTASTIC! I was disappointed by some other visual novels and this lifted my spirits. I still didn't want to go for Souma (his character type isn't my cup of tea) but I will admit that I didn't dislike him by the end of the game; I just didn't want to romance him.

Spoiler talk below:

I see all these comments about stabbing the president and I'm really curious what dialog choice causes it (if I had to guess, maybe the "Nothing" answer when Yuki sees the garden, or maybe picking the wrong options when choosing if he takes care of himself or not ("soldier on" instead of "take a nap", and then "take a cup of hot milk" even though he doesn't like milk that much). The first ending I got was with Izumi and Yuki running away together which... I don't know, that FEELS like the best ending you can get (just gonna presume that stabbing the president leads to consequences so I won't do it even if I want to lol) but I'd hoped that there was a way to save the bakery too, and I'm afraid of doing another run because getting bad endings make me feel like such a failure and I don't know what I could've done better anyway.

I just find myself really sad because I wanted Izumi but I also wanted the bakery; like, spite the president AND take the president's son, y'know?? Like, "HA, YOU MIGHT HAVE YOUR MONEY BUT I HAVE DETERMINATION AND A MAGNETIC PERSONALITY FOR ATTRACTING BLONDE CITY BOYS."

My whole strategy was, "Be nice to Souma when he's reasonable (I might not like his character type but I don't just rudely dismiss him when he doesn't deserve it), let Izumi help when he wants to, try and take care of Yuki's needs whenever possible." It sounds... well, sound, but maybe I'm missing something? The whole thing where, "oh, Izumi's actually making up with his grandfather," caught me COMPLETELY off-guard and kinda made me angry (let's just say that I have some family troubles so things getting patched up with the guy who literally took the bakery away from them left a sour taste in my mouth), so I was hoping there'd be another ending I'd like more? It just feels... wrong that the whole point of the game was to get the bakery back but that's not what happened. I'd take Izumi over the bakery, sure, but it doesn't leave me feeling wholly satisfied.

(I know that sounds like a lot of complaining but I really enjoyed the game; it's just that the ending is the freshest in my mind but I'd gladly gush if given prompting to.)

I was so excited about this game! I managed to get a good ending first try, probably helped I chose Souma. I feel like things got more complicated on Izumi's route lol It was pretty clear to me when Izumi wouldn't go what was happening there. I'm glad how things worked out re: the debt at the end. Izumi seems like he'd be a nice boyfriend and all but how can he possibly compete with the weight of all that history and heartbreak? I feel like when I was playing Yuki only even noticed Izumi was into him when Yuki felt awkward explaining he was going to go to Souma's house and hang out and stuff. Because, like, he was not over that ex sorry Izumi lol

I got so invested into this and I wanted to be with Izumi so much :( but I ended up stabbing the President haha what a surprising twist. I'll have to play again and try and change a few things up and hopefully get that ending I want. I really enjoyed the game and how helpful Izumi has been, and Souma helping out with the garden was a pleasant thing as well. I also loved having Rei and Mei to balance out the male characters and bring some lightheartedness.

Update: I played Izumi's route and I cried a little bit, it got me so emotionally attached :') I absolutely loved it and them being together.