Ellaria: Cotton & Cream

Making a good visual novel can be quite the challenge sometimes, depending on whether you have a good idea to begin with or not. However, there’s much more to the medium than a good idea, even if the story itself makes up 90% of the game. Thus, the artwork is important as well, not to mention the dialog and the soundtrack that should theoretically create a unique atmosphere at all times.

Ellaria: Cotton & Cream is a fantasy story about elves and fairies, in which you play the role of an elf who also happens to be a ranger. The game is an interactive visual novel, which means that you get to make choices and decide how the story evolves at certain plot junctions. On top of that, it also means that you can reach multiple endings depending on the decisions you make along the way.

As for the actual story, don’t expect anything too complicated, mainly because the whole thing is pretty lighthearted and amusing. The dialog is pretty humorous, and there are also a lot of situations when the characters break the fourth wall in an attempt to make you laugh. Whether they manage to do that or not is entirely up to you, but the point is that you shouldn’t go in expecting a serious story.

Naturally, your goal throughout the story is to help the elf ranger get close to one of the characters, but as of right now, only one of the possible routes is written and available in-game. Granted, there are still a lot of possible endings you can reach, but it still feels like you are a bit constrained by the lack of possible partners.

As for the technical aspect, the game runs very smoothly, as one would expect from a visual novel written in Ren'Py. While the artwork itself is pretty nice and colorful, it’s a bit of a bummer that the resolution is very low, since we are way past the 4:3 aspect ratio and tiny images. However, you can probably look past that and enjoy the rest of the game, not to mention the jolly soundtrack that keeps you company.

When it’s all said and done, Ellaria: Cotton & Cream may not have the deepest story out there, nor the most relatable characters, but at least it’s joyful and entertaining. Hence, it can easily eat up a few hours of your day if you have nothing better to do.