INCOMPLETE: This game quit development early, marking it incomplete.
STORY
Lucy Brightwater - also in The Keymaster - spends her days living with her older sister Nicky. They're pretty close and enjoy summer holiday before Lucy heads off to college. Their aunt, Jessica Brightwater, requests them to come over and spend time with her. So they both head off to Upper Derelll in order to meet their sister. Lucy heads there a few days earlier to meet with Jessica beforehand.
While living in the house, Lucy encounters a locked room full of secrets. She's physically aroused by the room and this feeling makes her anxious to figure out what's inside. After a lot of trying, she finds a way in and discovers a magical artifact - The Carnalorean. This book allows users to travel in between realms and worlds using a personal form of magic. Lucy attempts this and is caught by an elven-eared fairy named Malory.
With the basic premise out there, the rest of the game features conversations between the sisters, the aunt, Malory and Lucy and two other characters that pop up near the end. It's passable and the story on the Carnaloreon is interesting, just never properly explored before the game was abandoned. That's what the Keymaster is for, although the Keymaster dives deeper into the keystone instead of the Carnaloreon.
Ptypoe's writing is romantic and fantastical, but struggles to find an even tone or pacing here. It switches between a narrator voice and Lucy, before making Lucy the narrator and finally swapping into the head of aunt Jessica. The writing simply isn't diverse or strong enough to differentiate the roles and in the end, it sadly becomes more of the same.
PRESENTATION
The Carnaloreon is 2017 types of rough, to the point where dialog is in a box on the top left side of the screen and renders are grainy. Developer Ptypoe clearly wanted to write for this game and came up with a compelling core idea, but the presentation is rocky by today's standards. It does pick up in the third chapter, but barely enough to keep a player captivated through it's 30 minute runtime.The introduction of older sister Nicky finding magic in her nightgown is promising, only to have the game cut short at that point. This game is a couple scenes short of being a balanced experience.
Lucy and Malory look different from the Keymaster, which only adds to the work done for that game. Aunt Jessica is a bit of a mixed bag while sister Nicky is the highlight that gets left out of everything. There's a dog in the story, Max, who seems keen to sniff women's panties - and that's about where his story ends. It's more than just a series of themes renders with a story pasted over it, but not much more, I'm afraid.
While the intimate scene in the first chapter is outrightly skipped, the second and third chapters do show their respective sexual scenes. It's simple, yet lovingly, and the sexual dialog is slightly better than in The Keymaster. There's a second sexual scene that introduces group intimacy and is fun, but it's an idea that also returns into the Keymaster quite similarly - but still fun to look at.
Presentation is passable, but that's about what I can give to the game. It's a definite step up from reading a book, but with a story that's mostly stereotypical and visuals that only trace outlines of the story - it's still only a passable experience.
GAMEPLAY
Visual novel, so there's no gameplay.
OVERALL
The Carnaloreon is hard to recommend. With the visual style dated and text-heavy and the gameplay being a book, all you have to go on is story. And besides the Carnaloreon idea, the story just isn't that interesting to experience. You'd do better to watch a playthrough in order to prepare for The Keymaster, although Lucy's backstory doesn't do much for it.
Rating: 5.5/10
Developer: Ptypoe
