Last Days

Last Days is a visual novel adventure game set in a post-apocalyptic world where the Moon’s destruction, known as ‘The Event,’ has plunged society into chaos. The story unfolds through a retro-futuristic 1950s-inspired lens, following the rise of Orbital Industries and its AI creation, the Huggatron, which once symbolized progress but now serves as a relic of a fallen civilization. Players explore this anime/manga-styled world from a first-person perspective, uncovering secrets of corporate greed and the catastrophic consequences of humanity’s technological hubris.

Last Days: An Ouroboros of Divinity and Humanity in Retro-Futurist Collapse

Introduction: When Gods Wear Sailor Suits
In the crowded pantheon of indie visual novels, Last Days (2021) by Chinese developer Garakowa Marshmallow emerges as a paradox—a delicate porcelain doll crafted from post-apocalyptic rubble. At first glance, its anime aesthetics and yuri undertones suggest familiar territory, but beneath the sailor-suited divinity lies a narrative ouroboros devouring its own metaphysical tail. This is not merely a story about gods and mortals, but a deconstruction of creation myths filtered through retro-futurist collapse, where the bomb shelter and the chapel become interchangeable sanctuaries. Our thesis? Last Days stands as one of gaming’s most audacious thought experiments—a visual novel that weaponizes intimacy to explore how belief systems calcify in dying worlds.

---

Development History & Context: Ren’Py and the Art of Apocalypse

The Incubation of a Cosmic Tragedy

Developed by the niche Chinese studio Garakowa Marshmallow (translating to “Gelatinous Flower Candy Production Group”), Last Days was built on the Ren’Py engine—a tool synonymous with grassroots visual novels. Released August 7, 2021, during China’s indie game renaissance, it arrived amidst titles like Sakura Succubus and Grisaia, yet defied expectations with its theological ambition. According to MobyGames data, the team leveraged Ren’Py’s accessibility to focus resources on CGs and voice acting, with Steam credits revealing only 6 core contributors.

Technological Constraints as Narrative Fuel

Running on specs as low as a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo (per Steam), Last Days transformed limitations into virtues. The fixed/flip-screen perspective (MobyGames classification) became a metaphor for cosmic inevitability—players witness New Canaan’s collapse through static vignettes, evoking the feeling of flipping through a doomed civilization’s photo album. Voice acting was prioritized exclusively in Chinese and Japanese (via translator Yuhan), rejecting global accessibility to preserve cultural specificity in its Shinto-Buddhist influences.

---

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: The Third Collapse as Performance Art

Synopsis: A Ballet of Deus ex Machina

Sister Ginsetsu, a nun in the god-blessed city-state New Canaan, discovers the goddess Mary is neither omnipotent nor eternal. Their relationship unfolds through four acts mirroring apocalyptic cycles:
1. Discovery: Mary reveals her mortality via Schrödinger’s sailor uniform (both divine relic and childish affectation).
2. Inversion: Ginsetsu absorbs divinity via obsessive intimacy—less romantic than cellular cannibalism.
3. Revelation: Flashbacks to three “Great Collapses” caused by orbital hubris (expanding on krulunio.github.io lore about Moon-destroying nuclear tests by Orbital Industries).
4. Metamorphosis: The birth of Ginsetsu-as-god necessitates New Canaan’s destruction—a Gnostic twist where enlightenment requires world-immolation.

Themes: Apocalypse as Female Communion

The game weaponizes yuri tropes to dissect:
– Sacrificial Ecology: Every god requires a civilization to consume, visualized via the recurring “Cocoon” shelters from the Orbital Industries backstory.
– Temporal Entrapment: New Canaan’s 400-year stasis mirrors gameplay’s text-advance mechanic—players enact the illusion of choice in a pre-scripted world.
– Post-Industrial Guilt: Environmental collapse (pollution, nuclear winters) is framed as generational sin, with Mary embodying the “Machine Goddess”—a sentient AI from pre-collapse Earth (tying into BananaJeff’s Funeralopolis lore about Huta-Grobno’s eternal clouds).

Key Symbol:

The crack in Ginsetsu’s chapel wall—directly referencing BananaJeff’s Funeralopolis teaser—is not a glitch, but a metaphysical suture between player, character, and developer. Interacting with it prompts fourth-wall-breaking dialogue: “Do you enjoy watching worlds burn?”

---

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: Visual Novel as Confessional Booth

Core Loop: The Liturgy of Mouse Clicks

• Dialogue Trees as Ritual: Choices are sparse but ceremonious—opting to “Touch Mary’s Hair” vs. “Observe Orbital Calculations” branches not endings, but perspective filters altering scene backgrounds.
• Archive System: Unlockable documents (e.g., Orbital Industries memos about “Helium-3 stripmining disasters”) contextualize lore but require observing environments like a detective—a nod to Funeralopolis’ peephole mechanics.
• Temporal UI: The in-game clock speeds up during philosophical dialogues, forcibly rushing players toward doom—a brilliant subversion of VN pacing.

Flawed Innovations

The “Divinity Meter”—hidden unless debug-enabled—tracks Ginsetsu’s transformation via subtle sprite changes. While technically impressive, its obscurity diluted thematic impact. Similarly, mandatory minigames involving radio frequency tuning (echoing Funeralopolis’ radio-check mechanic) disrupt narrative flow despite their atmospheric intent.

---

World-Building, Art & Sound: A Dying World Rendered in Watercolor

Visual Design: Ukiyo-e Meets Fallout

Backgrounds blend Edo-period landscapes with decayed futurism: shattered skyscrapers host cherry blossom groves; Mary’s shrine is littered with pre-collapse relics like Huggatron blueprints (from Orbital Industries lore). CGs use a “fading ink” palette—blacks leaching into blues as the apocalypse nears.

Soundscape: Lullabies for the End Times

Composer “Marshmallow-sama” (credits via SteamDB) employs Ghibli-esque music boxes layered with geiger counter rhythms. Key track “Event-0” syncs piano chords to the Moon’s destruction chronology from krulunio.github.io lore. Most chilling is the absence of voice acting during deaths—silence accentuates the vacuum left by vanishing gods.

---

Reception & Legacy: Cult Canonization and the Burden of Obscurity

Launch Reception

With 94% positive Steam reviews (178 ratings), players praised its “emotional weight” and “Cthulhu meets Revolutionary Girl Utena” aesthetic. However, linguistic barriers limited reach—no English localization existed until fan patches in 2024.

Retroactive Reappraisal

The 2024 release of BananaJeff’s Funeralopolis: Last Days spurred renewed interest, reframing Garakowa’s work as part of an accidental anthology. Scholars now dissect shared motifs: cracks as dimensional fissures, radios as time-communication devices. Its influence surfaces in 2025 titles like Slay the Princess’ unreliable deities and Citizen Sleeper 2’s corporate eschatology.

---

Conclusion: The Apocalypse as Intimate Act

Last Days achieves the impossible: transforming cosmic annihilation into a whispered confession between two girls. It is flawed—overambitious in its fusion of Orbital Industries sci-fi and theological drama, occasionally stumbling under Ren’Py’s limitations. Yet like New Canaan itself, its imperfections calcify into beauty. Garakowa Marshmallow crafted not just a game, but a funerary urn for modernity’s hubris, where every click advances both narrative and doomsday clock. In the pantheon of arthouse visual novels, this stands beside Umineko and The House in Fata Morgana—a masterpiece that reminds us all worlds end, but endings birth new myths.

Final Verdict:
A flawed 9/10—essential for students of narrative design, albeit impenetrable without contextual deep-dives. Not merely played, but excavated.