The story revolves around a young woman who is whisked away to a newly founded colony on a recently discovered Earth-like planet called Talaam by her new husband (their default names are Kelly and Jack respectively, but they can be renamed by the player), enticed by promises of excitement and adventure. He is eager to play an important role in this new community as a farmer, while the protagonist is signed on to work as either the colony's mechanic, carpenter, teacher, or doctor (as decided by the player during the prologue).
However, as it turns out, life on a strange, unknown world isn't quite so peachy. In a brand new colony with a small population, few modern amenities, and very limited resources, life is difficult and everyone must work very hard in order to survive. The protagonists thought their love would be strong enough to hold them together no matter how difficult the circumstances, but they quickly learn that they will need more than love alone to face life's challenges.
The game is free, and can be downloaded here
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This visual novel provides examples of:
- Absent Aliens: Talaam is devoid of any sentient life, and the subject of sentient aliens is never brought up in the story.
- Altar the Speed: Your boyfriend proposes and insists on getting married immediately because he wants you to come to Talaam with him. It turns out he actually had some ulterior motives, though...
- Ambiguously Brown: The protagonist's husband.
- Awful Wedded Life: The PC and her husband can end up having a marriage made in hell.
- But Thou Must!: You can't opt out of getting married or going to Talaam. However, you can choose to get divorced and return to Earth at the end of the game.
- But We Used a Condom!: If the PC sleeps with Brennan and has declined to try for a baby with her husband up to this point, she will learn that she is pregnant two months later. At first, she is confused and does not understand how this could be, because she and her husband have been very careful about using birth control - until she remembers that she had unprotected sex with Brennan.
- Childhood Friend Romance: If the player chooses to say that the PC and her husband have known each other since childhood.
- Closed Circle: Earth is four light years away and the shuttle that brought everyone to Talaam was only meant for a one way trip. However, the PC can choose to leave at the end of the game when the next shuttle arrives and makes a return trip to Earth.
- Death of a Child: Tragically occurs when one family's young daughter is killed in a farming accident. Worse still, if the PC is the colony's doctor, she is the one who must examine the body and prepare it for burial.
- Determined Homesteader: The PC's husband.
- Disappeared Dad: The PC can decide what her relationship with her father is during the prologue, this being one option.
- Fourth-Date Marriage: If the player chooses to say that the PC and her husband have only known each other for six months.
- Handsome Lech: Brennan.
- Happily Married: Depending on the PC's actions. Her relationship with her husband has its share of difficulties, but in the end, they can still end up being quite happy together.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The PC and her husband's default names are Kelly and Jack, but they can be named whatever the player chooses.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: If the PC doesn't want to have a child, she and her husband faithfully use birth control... but if she has an affair with Brennan, she gets pregnant with his baby as a result of having had unprotected sex with him exactly once. Go figure.
- Mandatory Motherhood: The colony is not so subtly trying to enforce this on its residents, which is the reason why they mostly only accepted young married couples or families with young kids. As the PC notes, they brought a very limited supply of birth control in the shuttle, but quite a large stock of pregnancy tests...
- Meal Ticket: As it turns out, the reason the PC's husband suddenly insisted on them getting married so quickly is because the colonist program was mainly accepting married couples - plus they were in need of someone with the PC's occupational skills, so marrying her guaranteed he'd be accepted.
- Morning Sickness: How the PC realizes that she is pregnant.
- Multiple Endings: As is typical of visual novels. The game has three different endings, the details of which will vary depending on your choices.
- "Separation": The "bad" ending - or maybe not so bad, depending on your interpretation. You get this ending if the PC's relationship with her husband and the community are very low. The PC divorces her husband and returns to a comfortable life on Earth, and if they have had a baby, she takes the baby with her. If she has had an affair with Brennan, the two of them will be together. Being with Brennan always nets a Babies Ever After ending; if the protagonist has already had a child, he becomes her daughter's adoptive father. If not, she is pregnant with Brennan's child, and they are seen together with their baby at end.
- "Making It Work": The "normal" ending, which you get if your relationship with your husband and the community are not super low, but not very high either. The PC's relationship with her husband is far from perfect, but they decide that by working together and accepting their differences, they can make it work.
- "Love Grows": The "best" ending, achieved by having a very high relationship with both the community and your husband. The PC realizes that though life has its challenges and their relationship has its ups and downs, their love is something that they have to keep working on and building over the course of their lives. They are very happy together in spite of everything, and if they persevere, they will always be happy.
- "Just the Two of Us"/"Face of the Future": Not individual endings, but an extra part of the "normal" and "best" endings. Which one you get depends on whether or not you've had a baby by the end of the game.
- Nice Guy: The PC's husband is intended to be this, though he does have his flaws.
- Optional Sexual Encounter: With Brennan, if the PC's relationship with her husband is low enough.
- The Pioneer: All of the colonists, including the protagonists.
- Pregnant Badass: Being several months pregnant doesn't stop the PC from going on potentially dangerous expeditions around the planet.
- Relationship Values: The size of the red heart on the monthly planning screen indicates the PC's relationship with her husband.
- Screaming Birth: If the PC and her husband decide during the prologue to start trying for a baby, she becomes pregnant about halfway through the game, and you later get treated to this.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The PC in the "bad" ending.
- Settling the Frontier: The premise of the entire story. Whether it proves successful or disastrous is up to the player.
- Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Brennan.
- Single-Biome Planet: Thoroughly averted, as Talaam is explicitly stated to have a large variety of different biomes, much like Earth.
- Space Clothes: The uniforms issued to all the colonists. They're said to be made of especially durable and breathable material, but it's unclear exactly why everyone needs to wear them.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The protagonists had a romantic dream of their farm being their own little slice of heaven where they could live happily ever after. However, life on the frontier quickly proves far less romantic than they had hoped, because unfortunately love can't regrow failed crops, protect against deadly radiation, repair broken equipment, or cure disease, among other things.
- Team Pet: Lettie, the PC's husband's beloved and faithful horse.
- Time Dilation: Makes for an unusually realistic depiction of space travel — Earth and Talaam are four light years apart, and only about a month passes inside a ship traveling between them, but on the outside four years pass during the trip. This is a major cause of distress for the colonists, because any news from Earth will already be four years old by the time it reaches them, as will any news sent from Talaam back to Earth.
- Which makes the heroine's future that much more uncertain if she decides to return to Earth at the end — for her, it's only been about two years, but back on Earth over a decade has passed since she left.
- Video Game Caring Potential: The PC can go out of her way to be extremely loving and supportive to her husband, and a hardworking pillar in the community.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: ...or she can totally shirk her responsibilities, treat her husband like absolute crap and even dump him for another man. Doing so locks you out of the "good" endings, though.
- What the Hell, Hero?: If the PC cheats on her husband with Brennan, he becomes suspicious and later confronts her about it. She can either come clean or deny it - if she admits to the affair, naturally he's very angry and heartbroken. If she denies it, it's clear that he doesn't really believe her and is still heartbroken.
- Who's Your Daddy?: This trope comes into full swing if the PC opted to delay having children with her husband during the prologue, and then has an affair with Brennan. She falls pregnant, and has no idea if he or her husband is the father. If they didn't opt to start trying to conceive during Month 14, the PC's husband both already suspects the tryst and that the baby is Brennan's; though if they did, he suspects nothing, but in either case, it's heavily implied that Brennan is indeed the father.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Knowing that they are four light years away from Earth again and will never see it again weighs heavily on every character to some degree. You discover near the end of the game that you do have a chance to return home, though.
