Review: Secret Little Haven (2018)

Original post: https://misthold.dreamwidth.org/11462.html

Secret Little Haven (2018) is a visual novel (with some puzzles) set in 1999. You play as Alex Cole, a teenage trans girl stuck in an unhappy situation with only her computer for a creative outlet.

If you're a fen who grew up in the late 90s/early 00s then this will hit HARD on the nostalgia feels. Alex and her friends are fans of a Sailor Moon-esque magical girl show and Alex spends most of her time hanging out on a fan forum and chatting in ICQ-style program. There's also a doll maker, a desktop pet, and other early 00s computer stuff that sent me right back to my early teen years.

There's some really clever little things in this game. At one point you have to use terminal commands to do a little hacking past some parental controls! Another puzzle put a text file on my ACTUAL computer (not the game computer), breaking the fourth wall in a neat way.

Gameplay is basically clicking and reading text, centered on interaction between Alex and her friends (and father). You can choose certain dialogue, and depending on how the conversation goes you'll end up with more or less friends at the end of the game– important because SPOILER FOR ENDING (highlight to see)

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Massive warning for flashing lights/jiggling screen when chatting with Dad. There's an option to turn off the worst of it, but it's till pretty jittery even then. Also, a content warning for parental abuse, gaslighting, emotional abuse, etc.

Took about 3 hours to beat. I very much enjoyed it and recommend it for people who like both visual novels and odes to early Sailor Moon fandom.

Price: $5

Available for Windows, macOS, Linux. I played the Mac version.