VNs for a 12 year old girl

My daughter recently played through Magic Diary: Horse Hall and really liked it. I'm looking for more similar games, preferably on the PC.
She doesn't mind romance, but obviously I'd like to avoid sex. I'd also like to avoid incest and abusive relationships, for obvious reasons. I'd also like them to be in English.

I don't really play these games myself, so I have no idea what's out there, and what's suitable. I did play through Magic Diary: Horse Hall (the demon boy route) and didn't see anything I didn't want her to see. Can any of you make some recommendations?

She might like Spirited Heart by the same company? I haven't played it myself, but I don't believe there's anything overtly sexual in the storyline. If she likes the stat building aspect, I'm pretty sure this game features it. But I haven't played it, so I really can't say. Here's the beginning of a LP for the game, though, so maybe that will give you an idea?

Sorry I can't be more help.

Cinders is excellent.



Lucky Rabbit Reflex (Tokimemo but British).

RE: Alistair (is free).

Castle Chase (okay, not really a VN, but it's free and quite good).

Scheherazade at the Library of Pergamum

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll look into those!

If she likes stat-building and Harry Potter, she might like Academagia. There's a pretty steep learning curve, so you might want to play it with her for a little bit, though. And there's no romance. Cherry Tree High Comedy Club is completely adorable and features a lot of the same mechanics of a stat-based VN in a non-romance context. It's rated T, so you might want to look at the LP of it to see if you think the jokes are too adult for your daughter.

They're not actually made by the same company, they're affiliates.

We have Academagia actually, but neither she nor I could make heads nor tails out of it. I'll have a look at your other suggestion though, thanks.

keifufairies , she's playing the demo for Spirited Heart at the moment, and seems to be having fun so I might pick that one up, thanks.

She is planning on looking at some of the suggestions Nebty posted tomorrow :)

She might also enjoy Long Live the Queen (same developer as Magical Diary), which is basically a more streamlined, tightly-designed version of Academagia (only, you know, you're a 14-year-old queen-in-training instead of a mage-in-training).

Long Live the Queen can be incredibly frustrating and requires careful note-keeping to get a good ending, and the main attraction is dieing in a variety of horrible ways. If this doesn't sound like your daughter's thing I wouldn't recommend it.

B-b-but! You get cute chibi pictures of the protagonist whenever she dies!



S-see? Isn't that just ADORABLE?!

(This is in the screenshot section of the game's website, so I don't think it counts as a spoiler. It's more like a special feature of the game, really, all the deaths.)

More seriously though, I think part of the fun of this game is also customizing your character to be whatever queen she wants to be like, since there are so many different skills and not enough time to raise them all. You also have unlimited save slots, which makes save-scumming a breeze. My little sister who's the same age did enjoy it for quite a while, but then she stopped playing when my 17-year-old FPS-loving little brother breezed through the game in one afternoon by going all out MASS DESTRUCTION with a mage/war general Elodie. Granted, that was with me helping him along slightly, but still. I think this is a game both parent and child can enjoy, and might even be best played together? :D

Oh, I think it's a fantastic game. I'm just saying it's very different from Magical Diary, where it's basically impossible to mess up, it can be a bit of a shock if you try to make her a lovely dancing princess and then get impeached because you suck at trading negotiations. Or, y'know, die.

Thanks :) No, I think she prefers happier endings ^.^

Can I just say that I loved Magical Diary? I really wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did, but it's just so much fun.

Mirriam: By the way, what did your daughter think of it?

I second the recommendation for Cinders, it was a really fun game that focused more on building up your character's personality through choices than just romance.

There are a lot of games (free and commercial) posted over on the LemmaSoft forums, so that's as good of a place as any to start.

Good luck on finding VNs for your daughter ♥

Me too! At first I looked at the art and went "psshh, I'll just play the demo and be done with it", but then I JUST COULDN'T STOP PLAYING.

I know! The art seemed like your bog-standard anime stuff at first, but I fell head over heels in love with my MC's expressions. She's adorable.

She loved it, thought it was an awesome game. She ended up with the younger brother of one of her roomies, Donald I think his name is?

I loved that one as well actually, I went for the demon guy and it was an interesting path to say the least. I keep meaning to replay it.

Edit: actually we have Cute Knight Kingdom as well, and she played that a lot. That's by the same people as Spirited Hearts I think. Both games are rather finicky though, it can be hard to balance raising your skills, getting enough rest and not running out of time.

I thought so. Donald's the most "normal" dateable dude in the game.

Ah yes, Damien. His path was...interesting, to say the least. I really didn't like having to go against my friends in that path (especially since they are totally totally right). The whole relationship has Bad Idea written all over it. Still, the good ending was quite sweet in a disconcerting sort of way. I dunno, I'm ambivalent.

Same thing for Grabiner. I love the character and I enjoyed all of the drama and stuff but...ehhhh. Enjoying it made me feel kind of weird (as all good Teacher Routes should, I guess).

Yes, the Damien part was weird and uncomfortable, but I think it was meant to be that way. You were warned about him several times and I was never sure whether sticking with him was a good idea.

I completely forgot Grabby was eligible, hmmm may have to try his path next!

Sarah has given up on Spirited Hearts by the way, it's too hard. She liked what she saw of RE:Alistair though :)

I would recommend Frozen Essence. It's non-commercial so the art isn't that good but the storyline is fantastic and interesting. It also has fantasy elements so she might like that. No stats though. Something to note: it's a pretty long game.

I recommend all the Flash games by Pacthesis, they're short, free, and generally pretty light in terms of the romances.

Except maybe Idol Days, which treats the idea of suicide a little too lightly. But even Idol Days is fine, as long as you keep her off of Devin's path, which isn't too hard to do as he's not one of the main three guys and you have to work a bit harder to unlock him.

Some of the content of Frozen Essence would be a little too much for a 12-year-old, in my opinion, but I was raised fairly conservatively, so your mileage may vary on this one. I'd just suggest giving it complete playthrough yourself before you decide because the plot does get darker once you get further in and if you play the game right wrong you can turn the main character into a revenge machine who is given the option to either kill her enemies or turn them into her minions.

She might like Winter in Fairbrook by Winter Wolves. It is cute, easy and light. It also has a little gardening sim. :D

Maybe Other Age by Zeiva? It could be fun going through picking her personalities and what not and exploring the different routes. It's all ages and I can't see anything 'bad' in it.

Other than the fact that it's super hard to get a good ending. It frustrates me at 22, so it would probably frustrate a 12 year old too.

I happen to be outlining how to get good ends in my LP* of this game, if anyone is interested in finding answers to the thinking games. The 'PRESS BUTTONS REALLY FAST!' game takes mind-numbing practice though, I can't help you there.

Most of Zeiva's stuff is gear toward a prett all-ages audience so it shoul dbe perfectly find for a 12 year old. However, if she's playing full-fledged life sims already, they may not have enough content to keep her interest for more than a couple days. They're relatively compact little flash games. Fun though, years after they came out I still play them.

*My LP may not be all ages appropriate, but you can write down answers from it at least to help the daughter, lol.

Wow, you people rock! All those suggestions will keep her busy for quite a while :)

She was playing Re: Alistair before she even had breakfast, so it's a safe bet she likes that one, lol. She'd also Googled the MMO they play in there because it looked cool and she wondered if it was real ^.^

I've bookmarked all the suggestions, and will take a look at them with her later on, thanks!

My only comment would be that this may not be true for all their games. I've only played Other Age and X-Note, but I don't think X-Note could be considered all age, as it has death, including a fairly bloody CG and the main villain of the game is pretty strongly implied (in fact, it may even be past the point of implying) to be a pedophile. One nice thing about Zevia games though, is that even the ones that aren't free have pretty extensive demos, so you can get a taste for them yourself before letting your daughter play them.

I'm glad our suggestions are proving to be helpful. :) It's nice that she has a mom who is willing to put so much effort into finding stuff for her to play, my mom never really put much effort into understanding my interests.

Oh, speaking of which, there was also a Sailor Moon RPG released for SNES called Sailor Moon Another Story. It was never officially released in English, but it has an English patch, so if you don't mind playing on an emulator that's a really fun game, especially if she's as interested in Sailor Moon as I was at that age or just likes strong girls who are princesses and kick butt. I won't link to it, since that's against the rules on this site, but it should be pretty easy to find the game with just a Google search. (It was the second link from the bottom of the first page on an experimental search just now.)

(That would actually be a pretty fun game to LP... Hmmm...)

Thanks Nekochi :)

She actually finished Re:Alistair today and loved it, so that was great :) She was looking at the Winterwolf site and was curious about Loren: Amazon Princess and Winter in Fairbrook. I'll grab the Fairbrook demo for her. How is Loren? She likes the idea of the RPG part of it...

I haven't actually played Loren, but I do know that there's an LP of it, currently, so you could always take a gander at that.

Also, I hope no one thinks I'm being super negative and shooting down other people's ideas because it seems like I'm doing way more of that than actually suggesting games. That's not my intention, I'm just trying to bring up some points about the games that might be sensitive since I know how hard it can be to protect kids from things in the digital age, especially if it's media you don't have much experience with yourself. So I hope I'm not accidentally offending anyone or anything. (Also, it's entirely possible that I'm being too cautious as it's been awhile since I was twelve and, as I said, I had a pretty conservative upbringing. Not saying that's a bad thing, I honestly didn't really mind it, but it could easily be different from how someone else wants to raise their kid and that's find too.)

I think Loren: Amazon Princess might be a bit too 'adult' for a 12 year old. There's an ongoing LP of it here by Madar Foxfire if you want to see for yourself.

Edit: Winter in Fairbrook is a cute game, though. I'd recommend it. The protagonist is a university student I believe, but the characters don't go any further than kissing.

I'd think it's definitely too adult for a 12-year-old. Even with the "less revealing" option for the armor, the clothes that the female characters wear are still pretty skimpy. Plus I'm pretty sure it has sex scenes.

EDIT: Yep, it does. Here's an example of one of the CGs. Not explicit, but NSFW.

Yeah, I've played Loren. It is probably too mature for a 12 year old. It does have "sensual" sex scenes.

I've played Winter in Fairbrook though it and it is definitely fine.

That is adorable. Not gonna lie, I did the same thing. Just in case.

I think you're right (I've never played the game but I'm following the LP). Thinking back, I probably would have been shocked by this sort of thing when I was 12.

yes, it looks like Loren will have to wait a couple of years ^.^

Nekochi I don't think you are being negative at all. I appreciate your input. Some 12 year olds are more advanced then others, but I have to admit my daughter is still very innocent and naive, and if I can I'd like to keep it that way for just a little bit longer ;)

I'll grab the Fairbrook demo, it looks like a nice game :)

Heartful Chance and Witch Spell are pretty light and fluffy! No chance of getting a bad end, which can be a bit of a let-down if you like a dash of challenge with your love stories, but the art is really adorable and it has a nice sense of humor. They're basically oneshot shoujo manga in game form~ The producers are even called Studio Sprinkles!

Oh yeah, plus those are free! I never played them, but I think they'd be very good for her age group.

http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18332

This game is being given away for a short time. You guys might want to snag it while you can. Also: I am not sure if it is appropriate for a 12 year old, but it is free for now and maybe someone else can take a peek and see if it is appropriate.

Hence why I wrote 'most.' I can't speak for the newer, pay-to-play games. But the free flash ones are rather on the mild and fluffy side, I know for sure.

I'd read that LP. xD

Thanks, that's great! If no one knows I'll play through it to see what it's like first :)