A Circle of Charity
The fall semester at UofX, 2003.
Two graduate students gather to speak with an angel girl.
Meanwhile, the ties that bind three women tighten and twist.
Only files remain. Trace your fingers around the circle carefully.
Click to navigate menus. Advance text by clicking or pressing space. Control volume by clicking and dragging the music visualizer.
Content Warnings (click)
gender dysphoria, transphobia, illness, needles/blood, assault A CIRCLE OF CHARITY
a gifpunk angel VN
~25-30 minutes in length
music by bagenzo and fotocopiadora
made with spectacles engine
Did you find what you've been looking for?
Status | Released |
Platforms | HTML5 |
Rating | Rated 4.8 out of 5 stars (178 total ratings) |
Author | Bagenzo |
Genre | Visual Novel, Interactive Fiction |
Tags | Female Protagonist, Lesbian, LGBT, Narrative, Queer, Singleplayer, Transgender |
Average session | About a half-hour |
Languages | English |
Comments
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replayed this, 10 months after my abuser left. red and blue remind me of them, scarily so -- all that's missing is being called "disgusting" for thinking i could ever be a woman. 'twas just a broken little thing in their eyes. there's a certain kinship only trans women have with each other.
SCREAMING!!! /pos
hssjskkskk i wanna play this but is there needle penetration??
there's a hospital and an image of an intravenous line in an arm, no textual descriptions of it. i added that warning to be on the safe side
thanks so much!!
This game is so incredibly unique! The surreal 90s internet visuals remind me of the kind of dreams I get if I eat too much chocolate before bed.
omg i've been lookinggg for ur game. such a good game a played a while ago but ur game is amazing and has been on my mind for idk maybe a year. just a great game with great excution (imo) of these serious topics.
i don't know what to say but i needed to say something. i watched this turn from a silly little fun vibes game to a masterpiece that cut to my very core in real time. i'm scared.i'm terrified. i don't know what to do. thank you.
just came back to play this again after playing it for the first time a year ago; every couple of weeks since, something always comes up that makes me think of this. such a great story.
god this hurts, but thank you for making this.
What an intense, but fascinating story.
not a trans woman, but a genderfluid person, and a lot of this hit me pretty hard, i cried at the end. i worry a lot about the future, and how it will be for other trans and nonbinary folks. and because of that i often feel like i have some sort of responsibility to take on to help and protect and guide other trans people, especially other nonbinary folks, because of how scary and confusing it can be to navigate through the gender binary, and how many people outside of the community dont take us seriously, not just identity wise, but also as human beings, and thus we will internalize that and not take ourselves seriously. and you can get so entangled in these actions of putting other peoples needs and safety before yours that you start to wonder if its all youre good for, if thats all youre here to do. you start to treat it like thats the task youve been "built" to do, so to speak. and then you start to hurt people unintentionally, without even knowing, because you dont know how to approach these things in a healthy way, and all you so badly want to do is to snuff out this flame thats been giving other people just as a hard time, and for many others, even worse, for other folks that are just like you.
and its hard for me to not doomscroll, or to not watch content that discusses transphobia, because it only strengthens the feeling of "i have to be there for other people in this community". and at first it feels empowering, to want to help and be there for others, but after a while it can evolve into something that i would even say your brain is mainly doing to help keep you alive, because its easy to get sucked into the "whats the point in living when i cant live peacefully" mindset, but then you realize you can help others, and then the only sense of purpose sets in. and then it has the ability to snowball into feeling like this is what youre "built" to do, like i mentioned before.
so all this to say that this game is fucking amazing lol.
i read this for the very first time on sunday, and jesus christ did it hit hard. i am not a trans woman, but i am an intersex woman (+ genderweird, you know how it is), and charity's rant about being reduced to that of a helper and patience talking about how her estrogen was taken away was what truly struck me. the way charity called herself a "desexed faggot" and a "parody of a woman" hit far too close to home for me.
i love this visual novel. its genuinely the best visual novel ive ever read. the presentation and aesthetics and everything else is nothing like ive seen before. this was truly lightning in a bottle. every scene is like a punch to the gut, a look into the psyche of someone, a look in the mirror. it's beautiful. i might even go as far as to say this isnt a vn; its an experience.
ive been thinking about this constantly and already i think im due for a reread. this is a masterpiece, genuinely. thank you for making this.
This is amazing, I can't describe this well...but wow. As a Trans Woman some lines hurt like a train
sincere, real, and wonderfully presented
thank you so much for this
This is the type of thing art is meant for. This is poetry, I feel, in a way.
this was so beautifully written. i did not expect the events that transpired, and it hit me so heavily. thank you for making this
as someone who is a trans woman.. god this hit so hard and close to home. Some of this isn't something I realize I was even doing, feeling need to be useful otherwise... what am I doing? I'm here just to fulfill a role, but what is it that I want myself? Are these done out of love or a sense of duty or a need?
I... cried so much during this game. It really made me rethink on things, and is a wonderful, beautifully made game. Thank you for making this game
this is amazing work!luv the soundtrack also <3
is this supposed to be a horror game cus it gives me horror vibes
holy shit what a game <3 everything was amazing, the visuals are just stunning. looooved the ost <3
wow uhm. i didn't know i needed this until i finished it and was in absolute shambles.
this is a scary story, well i think help can be given without conceit that it'll work. add some other people to talk? open peoples attention to act itself out. thinking trial and error cant be afforded or doesn't pay back i want to say is a big mistake.
This writing is absolutely beautiful and I am so thankful to have gotten to play this game and to hear a story like this. It really hit home in a lot of ways and it is a story I think I'll never forget.
I don't usually comment on games but I felt the need to on this one. This game is beautiful. The writing and story is incredible and so painfully relatable. Thank you for this, I loved it.
This was agonizing and it hits really close to home. There will be times when I'll go above and beyond "to be of use" to other people, and I think I'll be doing something good because technically, I am still helping out and benefitting other people. But upon dissecting why I do stuff like that, a lot of it more geared towards "fulfilling a role". After being chatsised, scrutinized, berated, and battered down a lot in childhood, you feel obligated to render yourself palatable to others, and so you do that. And you exhaust yourself helping others because "someone has to. who else will?" In gearing so much of your energy towards others all the time, there's a part of you that wishes you had been loved and cared for in the very same way. That someone were to pick up on the pattern and recognize it in you. It feels like wanting to be there for others, less because you actually want to help them, but because you wish that someone - anyone - could have been there to comfort you the same way. The line between gestures done out of love versus those stemming from a sense of pattern and duty "because it needs to be done" blur after a while. I've been doing a bunch better in terms of that mentality, but it just reminded me of that a lot. I don't know where I'm going with the rest of this, but it was really, really good, and I cried a bunch, and the way the events of the story pan out is so interesting. I loved all of the sounds and music too!!
god this hits hard
real
The only thing I can wish for after this fantastic visual novel is for a better society to come, where people would no longer experience what has been depicted in this work. Thank you for making this.
Damn, this is so good, so many layers(I think lol). Beautiful yet distressing.
This is game is incredible and beautiful. I loved the visuals and the music. It added a lot to the overall aesthetic. Charity is super relatable and I loved how angels are depicted.
this game is insane but in a good way
I love the entire aesthetic of this game, and also it put me in chilling headspaces I'd rather not dwell on for too long.
Genuinely though, thank you for this.
"we've gotta be strong now charity"
this was really really really good, thanks so much for writing and sharing this.
this hurt so bad thank you so much for this ar
Incredible writing, and the UI adds something cheerful and sinister. That last "I can hold you if you want" repeated hit me hard. I really enjoyed this
I just wanted to tell you thank you for making this. It's fantastic stuff and I am so glad I got to play it.
Thank you for making this. I'm not entirely sure I understand the ending or even if the player is meant to have a concrete understanding of what comes next - hell, I'm not even sure if some of the characters being angels is meant to be taken literally or is meant to be taken as something that the unknown character at the start who may or may not have edited any of this might have changed in order to get at the emotional truth of something that can't quite hit right when expressed in plain words - but I really want to thank you for talking about care and obligation in a nuanced and humane way.
People can definitely burn themselves out trying to help others, especially when everyone involved is falling apart on the outskirts of a society that doesn't really care about them, but the strain of thought where you should cut people off when their problems are too difficult to deal with and they'll probably be okay anyway because something something professional help... it's ignorant, and it's cruel, and the people who say these things are often very quick to change their tune when they're the ones who want something. There's no easy solution to the cycle of caretaking and burnout among people who have very little to give but almost definitely won't be saved by anyone except each other, and I came away from this story thinking that maybe the more sympathetic characters could've made a few choices differently, but the reasons things ended this way had a lot more to do with who and what the rest of society values than with anything these characters did.
I don't know if that's what you wanted people to take away from this, but as someone who's been all three of the angel characters at different times to different people, it rang very true.
This reply has helped me understand the ending a bit more. I think I get what Patience is now. What she represents. Now I just need to consider what Temperance is. Is she perhaps a representation of someone who understands "help" in a healthy way?
A really great game! It felt a bit eerie at the end which was kinda cool and what red and blue did was..weird. I really felt for charity at the: "Just a parody of a woman" part, love the game!
i love this ...a lot thank you so much for this
woah- i enjoyed this a lot more then i thought i would, you did an awesome job with the visuals and story