HRT Simulator 2023

You wouldn't know this from the page you navigated to this one, but today is march 31st, the trans day of visibility. So, we're doing an explicitley trans narrative today. Seemed fitting. If you're this deep into my website, you probably deserve to know that I'm a trans woman, so I do have a degree of experience with this topic. Unfortunately, what I don't have experiences with are visual novels, and this game is one of those.

I don't know what standard people really judge visual novels on, so here are my brief thoughts. This is a very short game. That's not to it's detriment, because I don't think this would be able to be a very long story given what it's trying to convey. The art is fine, there's not a lot, but it's servicable. The voice acting is a bit odd in some parts, it's a bit "anime", if that makes sense, but it does manage to convey a lot of emotion.

The story itself is about someone taking HRT for the first time, specifically, injecting HRT. For everyone in the back seats, HRT encompasses a fairly wide selection of drugs that basically let you change your sex. They can come in a bunch of different forms, but a common administration method is via injection. This visual novel tries to explore the anxiety of a trans man who's injecting testosterone for the first time.

I have a pretty strong fear of needles. I donated blood once, and I nearly passed out when they stuck the needle in my arm. That's not conjecture either, the blood drawer said I looked like I would pass out and moved in to catch me. Anxiety is a bitch sometimes. So, final verdict; do I think that this visual novel portrays this fear acurately? Honestly? It didn't really hit hard for me. That might be because I can barely feel any emotions anymore though. I would've appreciated seeing more relief from the main character after getting it done, but that's more of a nitpick than anything.

I'll put this at a 3.5/5. It didn't really impact me, but it's by no means poorly put together. (what's the point in a 5 point score when i add a decimal. might as well be out of 10.)