[WIP] Romantic Comedy of the Damned (Slice-of-Life / RomCom / Psychological) — 54K Words | 6/30/26

[artwoo]

SYNOPSIS

“To accept kindness is to willingly put on chains. To offer it is to hold the key. The only truly free person is the one who stands outside the transaction entirely.”

They call youth a season of boundless freedom. In truth, high school is an invisible marketplace of debts, credits, and quiet obligations.

Every dropped pencil returned, every sympathetic smile shared in the hallway is not an act of charity—it is a calculated deposit into a social bank account, compounding interest in silence until the lender decides to collect. The masses call this harmony. You call it a gilded slaughterhouse.

At Kanagawa Prefectural Minato High School, you have spent your youth perfecting the art of non-interference. You are the resident cockroach of Class 2-D: unsociable, hyper-observant, and safely buried beneath the noise of the classroom hierarchy.

That carefully guarded peace dies on an ordinary afternoon in May.

Caught preaching your cynical philosophy in a mandatory essay, your homeroom teacher sentences you to forced labor in an unmarked classroom at the far end of the cultural wing. Your mandated task? To serve as an unofficial complaint bureau, resolving the messy, volatile, and deeply suppressed problems of the student body.

Your only colleague in exile is Kanashiro Kana—a girl whose solitude is not a misfortune, but an unyielding fortress built from razor-sharp logic, weaponized politeness, and utter contempt for human weakness.

Together, you are dragged into a web of locked-corridor mysteries, high-society sabotage, and predatory social games orchestrated by the school’s elite. To survive the semester with your sanity intact, you must navigate an escalating war of psychological attrition. But in a comedy where every participant is armed with an impenetrable defense mechanism, the most dangerous act of all is allowing yourself to be seen.

FEATURES

• Step into the shoes of a fixed, hyper-cynical male protagonist. You cannot choose your melancholic worldview, but you dictate the exact architecture of your survival.
• Track your coping strategies in real-time. Deflect social pressure with Sarcasm, deconstruct reality with Morbid observations, or risk everything on rare, inconvenient moments of Genuine honesty.
• Balance your belief in cold Transactionalism against your suppressed, lingering capacity for Vulnerability.
• Romance and camaraderie here are not built on sweet confessions or blushing meet-cutes. Intimacy is forged in the fire of ideological clashes, intellectual cross-examinations, and mutual psychological damage.
• Experience a tightly written, visual-novel-style narrative where every line of dialogue is a chess move and every silence carries weight.

ROMANTIC OPTIONS

Kanashiro Kana (賀城 佳那) —

The founding president of the unnamed club. An untouchable figure reading by the window, detached from the mundane currents of the student body. She speaks in pristine, immaculate grammar that cuts like a surgeon’s scalpel, viewing human incompetence not as a flaw, but as a biological disruption to be excised. A slow-burn battle of wits where yielding an inch of rhetorical ground is a fatal mistake.

Fukami Reika (深見 怜華) —

The administrative secretary of Class 2-I’s elite International Liberal Arts Track. Soft-spoken, impeccably tailored, and radiating an atmospheric, hollow elegance that feels entirely alien to ordinary high schoolers. She operates from the shadows with the unyielding authority of an apex predator, weaponizing polite diplomacy and structural power to turn every conversation into an interrogation where you are the one on trial.

Hiiragi Shino (柊 志乃) —

The undisputed prodigy of the athletic wing and the sole heir to an archaic martial arts bloodline. She moves through the campus not with social grace, but with compressed, terrifying physical discipline. To encounter her is to witness a force of nature that has no business existing in the modern era—blunt, lethal, and entirely devoid of cheap social pleasantries. Earning her affection is indistinguishable from earning her friction.

CONTENT WARNINGS

• Cynical, nihilistic, and melancholic worldviews
• Frank explorations of social isolation, trauma, and chronic anxiety
• Psychological manipulation, toxic interpersonal dynamics, and emotional warfare

‎Hello everyone, I’m leaving my short demo here… I hope you all enjoy it. This is my very first CS project, so I’m a complete newbie when it comes to this.

‎If you are a fan of anime or visual novels that feature heavily cynical, sarcastic protagonists navigating the exhausting politics and drama of high school, then this game isn’t for you. Just kidding. That is the exact plot. It’s heavily inspired by Japanese romantic comedies—specifically Oregairu (My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected)—so when you encounter scenes that feel oddly familiar to that series, consider it a homage.

Demo
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AI Disclosure:

No — This project does not contain the output of Generative AI
Yes — This project contains the output of Generative AI

[artwoo]

the second coming of samurai of hyuga lmao high school edition

[Crimson_Blood]

I played visual novels before and obviously this kind of platform as well. Both have their charms but one thing that made IF’s interesting is the fact that we can shape our character’s personality to a great degree. Now, if your target audience are specific type of people, this work will do but if not, then I suggest you consider my opinion.

Still, personally, I am looking forward for the next update. As a visual novel player, I like your protagonist. They have personality and not just some donkan guy

[Carloshmc2812]

The MC is a man, right? I have no familiarity with Japanese culture to recognize the names.

[artwoo]

Thank you for the constructive feedback!

I appreciate the honesty, and yes I know that by writing a fixed protagonist rather than a blank slate, I’m purposefully isolating myself to a specific niche. Plus the fact that it’s also gender locked. I’m still debating myself if I should include a female option, but that would come when I have the general story all planned out.

There is no choice that allows the MC to say, “No, I’m going home,” and successfully escape the club. The plot events are fixed, however, even though the destination is the same, the journey changes drastically based on the player’s choices.

Since it’s a prologue, I wanted a fixed sequence of events to set the stage, but with heavy flavor text so the MC’s personality feels customizable. I love (right) using those micro-branches and callbacks to make previous choices actually matter later on, and I plan on leaning into that much more in the coming chapters.

I also plan on using those relationship stats for some branching, especially in how the characters would treat your character depending on your choices.

Everything is still a work in progress, so things are definitely subject to change.

[artwoo]

I realize preset names like Rin or Shiki can lean unisex if you aren’t familiar with Japanese names, but he is definitely a guy. That said, you can absolutely input your own custom name if you prefer. I really hope you enjoyed the prologue, and hopefully, this can serve as a fun introduction to the genre.

[wenus]

Hi, can you tell us more about romance options? I would be grateful

[Yasmim_Bandeira]

Your story has a very interesting premise; I really enjoyed the main character’s socialization problems. This adds a curious touch to the story and is quite different from what we’re used to reading. I read the comments below and saw that you said the main character is a boy, but to clarify, I’d like to point out that sometimes there are spelling errors that leave the reader wondering if you’re referring to a boy or a girl when mentioning the main character. I believe this can be corrected, especially since you’re just starting to write the story, and I’ve already mentioned that it has good potential to reach a large audience. Another suggestion is to add more information to the statistics and also include those achievements that we find in all games, or at least most of them, just to add a little more shine to your story.

[artwoo]

Thank you so much for the kind words and the feedback!

I’m really glad the MC’s socialization problems are resonating with you.

You make a great point about the gender clarity. Since the story is in first-person, it can definitely get a bit ambiguous if you miss the one or two times Shinohara-sensei uses a pronoun.

“One glance is enough to see that his spirit is deeply fractured. He is a miserable person who has lost his way entirely, and he clearly lacks the social grace to find his way back.”

A detail like that could easily have been skimmed. And so, I’ll go back through the prologue and Chapter 1 to drop a few more clear markers so there’s no confusion going forward.

As for the stats, that is a great idea. I will definitely add some flavor text to the stat screen in the next update to better explain what the Worldview and Coping Mechanisms actually represent, and a few more explanations of how relationships work.

Achievements will be added once the story reaches a reasonable length. In the meantime, feel free to dive into the game’s code to read my comments—including a sneak peek at one of the RO’s name.

Looking forward to your thoughts on the next update.

[artwoo]

Right now, the closest thing to a primary romance option you’ve met is Shinohara-sensei… No. Stop it. Don’t be tempted.

The actual only RO so far is the icy, book-reading girl in the clubroom. Your dynamic is a slow-burn, high-friction, mutual annoyance type of deal—which is pretty much the baseline for any relationship you choose to have here. Mutual irritation comes standard. It’s up to you if you want to double down on the toxicity or accidentally stumble into a stable development.

A formal RO list will go up on the main post once the others actually bother to show up in the upcoming chapters.

Also, am I being petty by withholding their names just to artificially boost the impact of the next chapter? Absolutely. Would you guys hate me for that? Probably.

[artwoo]

Chapter 1 is coming along well. Expect half, if not more of it ready for the next update soon.

[Akasha_Pendragon]

Man, this might just be a sign from the universe, cause I was legitimately debating on re-watching Oregairu for days, before I came across this and now I’ve made up my mind Legitimately excited to see where this goes, cause SNAFU is arguably my favourite high-school drama anime ever, and the 8man’s in my top 5 best written anime protagonists (though this re-watch when I’m older certainly makes it apparent that he’s more of an awkward loser than I remember… But that just makes him more endearing and relatable in the long term lol) Also, your writing captures the essence of Hachiman and the cadence of his inner monologues very well, so kudos on that!

Okay, now that I’m done fangirling over the concept of this IF, one criticism that I’d like to give is that I hope you expand upon the story/choices/plot-lines------I’m quiet possibly jumping the gun here cause this is literally the prologue, but I hope you make this YOUR story and not just the anime with a different texture on it; I’ll still read it and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it, but it’ll not be an [inspiration] and much more of a case of [plagiarism] at that point lol.

Also, as a straight guy, I’d recommend you add the option for the MC to be gender-selectable to reach a wider audience------You already have a female name on the list lol (PEAK referenced again, including Tsukihime, you truly have phenomenal taste). This is ofcourse my personal opinion, but I think it’ll be better for the longevity of the game + an added element of deviation from the anime’s plot if done well. Again, this is your story and you’re free to write it as you wish, it’s just my opinion on the matter​

[artwoo]

Oregairu is a classic, honestly. That’s a really nice compliment. I appreciate it.

Regarding your first critique—no, you’re not jumping the gun, it’s a fair thing to flag.

So like I said in the main post, this isn’t meant to be a 1:1 copy. The prologue leans hard into the homage on purpose—I wanted to nail the vibe and the archetypes before going off on my own. Think of it as training wheels. Chapter 1 and beyond is where it starts doing its own thing. The school drama, the themes, the actual character arcs—all branching off from here. I really do want it to stand on its own eventually.

As for the current gender-locked status, the argument I’ve had in my head could honestly become a scene of its own.

To summarize, the main thing making me hesitate isn’t technical difficulty—it’s the protagonist’s fixed psychology. A female MC navigating these exact social dynamics in a Japanese high school setting would be a genuinely different story, not just a reskin. I would essentially be writing a Josei and a Seinen at the same time—two completely different stories. That said, I really do appreciate the suggestion, and it’s something I’ll keep in the back of my mind as the project grows.

Whatever my decision, it will probably lock me out of a specific audience, but that’s fine. At the end of the day, I just want to tell the best, most coherent version of this story possible.

Speaking of Fate, yeah, “Rin” is a direct reference, and so is “Tohsaka,” so technically you could already be playing a genderbent version of her in some weird roundabout way. Which I didn’t fully think through when I added those options but here we are.

The name itself is interesting though. In Japan it’s used for both, but it skews pretty heavily female in practice. Which, yeah, has already caused some confusion with readers. But when it does show up on a guy, it carries this very specific energy, like if someone’s described as ririshii (凛々しい), it means they come across as sharp, composed, someone you’d instinctively trust to have their head on straight. Dignified, basically, but in a quietly cool way rather than a stuffy way.

So that’s the justification I’ve been telling myself anyway. Totally intentional. Definitely not just a Fate easter egg that I’m retroactively building lore around.

Thank you so much for playing, for catching the Tsukihime/Fate easter eggs, and for the awesome feedback. I hope you enjoy Chapter 1 when it drops!

P.S. I just noticed your pfp is literally medusa lmao, being both the root and claiming to be of pendragon lineage as well is some next level void shiki camlann type shi or moon. My username is Minecraft is relatively similar in structure, AvalonArt. No wait, mine at least makes sense since Art ties back to Artoria. I must have been a genius when I wrote that.

[Romaan]

Good start I must say I really enjoyed this. Though it reminds me of an exact anime I used to watch though it was long ago…OMG yes it was Oregairu, didnt finish watching it though. I just hate happy beautiful animes. Makes me so depressed about my life, how I didnt get such a high school life, and the ending is the worst part seeing something so perfect end…

[Carloshmc2812]

It would be great to date the teacher, a little more drama.

[SnyperPyper]

Good start it definitely sets the tone well for chapter one

[artwoo]

It definitely does! The prologue is an introduction, and part of a good introduction is setting up the sequence for the main story. It does the job it was intended to do, and I’d say I’m proud of it. However, the next update will bring a few changes—especially to the stats, which I overhauled.

[artwoo]

Shinohara-sensei would probably sucker-punch you if you said that to her face lol

[CrazyDriver]

oh man, i loved Oregairu! one of my favorite romcoms.

Sadly, i only play Female MCs. Wish you luck on your project though!

[artwoo]

UPDATE: Chapter 1 (Part 1) is Live! + Major Stat Overhaul

I’ve just updated the demo with the first half of Chapter 1.

Here is what’s new:

I decided to split this chapter into two parts for pacing reasons. Part 1 is essentially a “bottle episode.” Before the actual school drama kicks in and the rest of the cast shows up, I wanted to trap the MC and the icy, book-reading girl in a room together to establish their baseline dynamic. Consider this the “preparation stage.” It is highly focused on banter, psychological fencing, and arguing over who has to clean the dusty chairs.

(And yes, for those of you annoyed at my pettiness, she finally drops her name in this update. You’re welcome).

Major Update: The Stat Screen Overhaul

If you check your stats page, you’ll notice it looks completely different. I gutted the old system. Rip.

• No more opposed pairs. I realized that standard sliders didn’t fit the MC’s psychology. Transactionalism and Vulnerability are now tracked independently because a person can absolutely be a cold, calculating cynic while secretly harboring a desperate, foolish hope for genuine connection.
• Added “Deflect”: A new coping mechanism for when you just want to dodge the awkwardness entirely.
• Affection vs. Friction: I’ve formalized how relationships work. You can build Affection, or you can lean into the Friction. Earning Friction points doesn’t mean you’re failing the game; it just means you’re building a relationship based entirely on ideological clashes and weaponized snark. Both are valid.

Your Coping Mechanisms (Sarcasm, Morbid, Genuine, Deflect) will now actively unlock hidden internal monologues and change how the MC perceives certain scenes. Try experimenting! (Or just look at the code if you can’t bother. It’s not a spaghetti mess I swear. Gulps.)

Part 1 ends right as the outside world finally intrudes on their quiet little club. I’ll be working on Part 2 (and introducing our first actual headache of a client) soon.

Let me know what you think of the banter, and as always, thank you for reading!

Demo