- No, you can’t date the dragon.
April was a Fool is a free (for now) visual romance novel set in a RPG like fantasy universe created by Flydragon studios in 2015. You can download it here
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Two years ago, six heroes triumphed over the evil Overlord. Which is great! Except that a new evil force has risen and wants to conquer the world once again: Evil. The king of the land decided to summoned the six heroes to fight it…
…But their leader, April, is dead and with her the spirit of the Team. No one has the heart to tell him what happen to her but at the same time has to see him before going on their journey. That where May (the MC) comes in: thanks to her uncanny ressemblance with April, they deceived the king and can go on adventure to defeat Evil!
Of course, the story doesn’t stop here, as May Jumped at the Call to accompany the World Class Heroes… And maybe, have a smooch with one of them. Maybe. Mainly because everybody is an idiot and things can get really dark at times.
Tropes found in the game:
- A Dog Named "Dog": Evil is, well, evil. Foxy is a fox. And Overlord seems to be a kind of demon or something.
- Anti-Hero: Heck, every character can fit!
- Anyone Can Die: In some bad endings, the Team can be killed by a member party under the influence of Evil, being eaten by a Dragon or just tear each other apart. Even the MC isn’t safe from a horrible fate.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Evil, Overlord, the Dragon and Evil!May.
- Black Comedy: This visual novel loves this trope a lot. You can thank Gunn for this most of the time.
- Character Level: Played with. Everybody has a level but no one will level up during the game. However, you’ll notice they can lose both MP and HP.
- Darker and Edgier: Occurs as the game nears its end.
- Demonic Possession: Evil seems to be fond of this along with Mind Rape.
- Descriptiveville: Many of the locations the cast visits have simple titles ("Castle City", "Eastern", "Winter Village", "Perk City").
- Foreshadowing: In every route, there are hints of the background/capacities of the other characters you didn’t choose. Especially Kent's berserker side, Erwin and April's past relationship and the bullying Blake has to deal with.
- Identical Stranger: May is this to April.
- Love Confession: Depending the route, it can be played straight, downplayed, played for laughs or averted. It’s played straight in Kent's and Blake's routes, downplayed and played for laughs for Gabby's as she struggles to put her feelings into words, and averted for Gunn and Erwin.
- Love Triangle: Kent loved April but she was with Erwin.
- Multiple Endings: 11 endings are obtainable, one being common (minus Gunn). Six are Bad Ends and Five are Good Ends.
- Obviously Evil: Lampshaded and played for laughs by the cast. Let's see, the first villain was named Overlord and the new threat is named Evil. What could go wrong? Doesn’t stop Kent from wanting to pacify it, though.
- Replacement Goldfish: Lampshaded by Kent in his route and he blames his teammates for this. Justified as May is the Doppelgänger of April and the group misses her a lot.
- The Power of Love: Implied to be the case of the Good Endings. The lack of it can leads to terrible consequences…
- True Companions: The Team was this for each other before the death of April.
- Two Girls to a Team: Both in the past, with April and Gabby, and in the events of the game with May and Gabby.
