Saint Maker is a horror visual novel, by developer and publisher YangYang Mobile, involving a haunted convent and its dark past. You play as Holly, a 15-year-old girl staying at Saint Idelora’s convent to undergo a religious recollection. There you meet Sister Adira, the Mother Superior of this convent, who is your teacher and Gaberiella, your roommate and the only other girl to show up for the recollection. Soon things take a turn as statues seem to move on their own and sourceless voices that sing at night. Will you be able to uncover the dark truth, or will you simply pay the price to become a faithful saint?
Minor Spoilers: When you start the game, Holly is walking through the woods on her way to a religious community to partake in a recollection. When you get to the building, however, you don’t immediately find anyone, venturing further inside you find a room full of nuns praying. At which point, someone approaches you and after a brief interaction you are pointed in the direction of the nun who was supposed to greet you. Following those instructions, you find Sister Adira who tells you she will be overseeing you for the next few weeks. She inspects your bags and finds a fiction book about magic which she confiscates from you. After which she takes you to where you will be staying and you meet Gabriella who seems to be the only other one to show up for the recollection. She leaves the two of you to settle and informs you that lessons will begin the next day. At night however is when things take a scary turn, nightmares of Holly’s past plague her and when she tries to wake up she finds her body unable to move on her own. Each night gets worse with strange singing and statues that seem to move all on their own. As you play you find out not only about Holly’s past but you understand more about Gabriella and even Sister Adira and the convent you find yourself in. The game features full voice acting for each of the characters, interactive choices, great horror visuals and art as well as atmospheric soundtrack and effects. Playing through the game takes around 4 – 6 hours is overall a very rounded out horror experience perfect for a dark and stormy night.
The visual novel is very well made, however, there are a couple things I would like to mention. While there are many choices to make as you are going through the story, some choices don’t actually change the overall outcome and become more inner thoughts than something actually said out loud. It can be frustrating when the choices you intended to make aren’t actually said but there is a change in the internal dialogue. The only other thing I wanted to comment on is there are a lot of religious terms and phrases that might not be common knowledge and some players may not immediately understand it all. Though it’s not hard to look up a few words here and there if you need help. Those are really the only things I had issues with, and they are not that big of issues.
Saint Maker is a short horror visual novel that takes place in an old convent with a dark past. At night, you’ll find singing voices and moving statues roaming the halls because, after all, becoming a saint isn’t meant to be an easy task. Overall, this is a well rounded out visual novel perfect for a late-night thrill. The choices can be frustrating, and the terminology might be confusing at first but it’s not too much of a takeaway. I am giving Saint Maker an 8 out of 10 because it is a very atmospheric game with very few drawbacks.
Saint Maker is available for PC and Mac for $13.99 for Steam, Itch.io, and Nintendo Switch.
Related: Reviews by Brianna Keller
I enjoy a wide variety of games from intricate survival/adventure games to simple platformers. I am also a sucker for a good story game.
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