Nepenthes
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
How Far Would You Go to Sate Your Hunger?
A stolid buck looks into a string of disappearance sourced to the shell of the once famous Darlington Botanical Gardens. He discovers, however, that Darlington may not be so dormant as he initially thought.
This project was made for the NovemBuck 2025 Game Jam . Please go check out the other submissions made by some seriously talented developers!
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Development log
- HOTFIX (Also Mac/Linux Build lol)Jan 02, 2026
- Possible Startup Issues?Nov 30, 2025
- NEPENTHES LAUNCH YEEENov 30, 2025
Comments
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Is this VN choice based or linear?
Linear
wild, wild ride. fantastic polish in every single way. that being said, i'm not much of a fan of purple prose, but i think it served this project well. fascinating story, went to places i could never predict, and absolutely swallowed me whole. it feels weird finishing this and coming back to reality.
Hi!
So, I noticed there may be a small issue with starting the game up. If you look in the files, you'll see another copy of the game in there which I think is because Github desktop wrote it as such. If your game isn't starting, then try deleting this and see if it works. A bit frustrating but so long as it's playable that's all I care about now. I will be having to make some adjustments in the future though.
I was wondering what this issue was, as my laptop's Task Manager would show that the program was running but it never actually booted up. Deleting that folder did just the trick, thank you.
Yeah it's pretty frustrating. I can't change the file 'till the end of the month as per jam rules, so we need to just tolerate this issue until then. I will release a hotfix version as well as builds for mac, linux, and android as soon as I am able to!
I was absolutely entranced! Insanely refined prose, phenomenal sprites/bgs that perfectly embody the surrealness, and lovely music to finish it off. I think it was perfect how the plot touches something so abstract yet personally relatable. A true work of art!
Hmm plant animals...
I wonder how they taste.
(Joke comment)
Damn, this one was cool! The art was awesome (as per usual with Jimmy lol), and the presentation is fantastic, even with the default Ren'Py UI. Between the tense atmospheric buildup, the intelligent prose, the themes and the way the narrative connects everything, I would consider this a worthy entry to the Gothic horror genre of FVNs. Great work!
Quite the elaborate setup for a vore scene!^^
Quite an intriguing story, but I have to admit, I’m not really satisfied with how it ends: partly a me thing, but also the turnover in our investigator feels a bit sudden. The prose is really ice to read through, but its “conversation”, not “conservation” (that’s something else^^).
The art is really beautiful. The design of the creatures is great (the eyes represent the various people forming Darlington, and the strings and wood handle show those manifestations were only puppets). The dream sequence about the bear and fox shows a black screen for too long, but that’s a game jam for you.
The sound design is adequate. It doesn’t stand out, but that’s the kind of story where it shouldn’t, so good!
Overall, a really nice read, even if I’m a bit disappointed by the ending.
Also, the inspector is committing a big ol’ survivorship bias wondering if everyone who came decided to stay: there would have been no missing person report for those who left, dummy.^^
yeah making the ending feel earned was my biggest hurdle i think and yeah there were def some limitations of artwork i could not quite get over but thank you for playing :3