You have entered the Neverplace. You are lost to the world that you once knew. Answer all questions but ask none.  (No, you do not have to do this. You can escape). 

You play as the Crooked Man's apprentice, waking in a dark realm you don’t recognise. You meet a mysterious creature that sits waiting patiently for you to open a box. What is inside it is a mystery, it could be a precious commodity…or it could be a trap. It doesn’t know, and neither do you…

This is a short visual novel project for Nanoreno 2024 and part of a series of games set in the world of the ‘Folklore’ series. It is a sequel to 'Do you like sweets?'

Information:

❗️ This game contains flashing visual effects.

🌘Content warning: Contains suspense, psychological horror, unsettling sounds, visuals and atmosphere.  

📕 2905 words (around 15-20 minutes of gameplay)

💎4 endings

🗣️  Accessibility options available

⌨️Keyboard Accessible

🔊 Screenreader accessible (press 'v' to activate)

🎤 Fully voice acted

🐉Part of the upcoming 'Folklore' game series

For the best experience, I'd recommend downloading the game, as some features and effects may not work as intended in the browser version. 

Cast 

The narrator and Jill are performed by Maria Corcobado

The Creature, Man Who Isn't there and Crooked Man are performed by ManniDP



StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5, Windows, macOS
Rating
Rated 4.6 out of 5 stars
(58 total ratings)
Authorseraten04
GenreVisual Novel, Interactive Fiction
Made withRen'Py
Tags2D, Atmospheric, Creepy, Fantasy, First-Person, Horror, Ren'Py, Singleplayer

Download

Download
inside-the-box-win.zip 192 MB
Version 2 May 21, 2024
Download
inside-the-box-osx.zip 187 MB
Version 4 May 21, 2024

Development log

Comments

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I so wish there was a way to stay with crooked like man I was looking forward to it couldn't he I dunno come back for me another time in another game :(

Hi BrokenEnd, thanks for playing 'Inside the box', there's good news! This whole series of games (bar a couple) focuses on the Crooked Man! One half focus on his history, the other half focus on the apprentice trying to find him). I would reccomend you find the 'Chaos Prince' in 'Only when you sleep' - you might someone very interesting 👀

Also, if you want to continue the apprentice's story of finding him, 'the Pursuers of Mythic truth' might work for you ✨

Thank you! I am so far really enjoying the story of your games.

Thank you very much! I really appreciate your feedback ✨

BITES YOU(/pos j) THE SET UP FROM THE BEGGINING IS ALREADY SO GOOD AND INTEREST PIQUE-ing. And the rest of the game only DELIVERS on this set up entirely. The mystery is interesting, the folklore/fae-like feels continue perfectly on from the prequel. And the addition of new characters to the Crooked Man's side(Jack and Jill)? OMG. I'm literally so invested in this world you've created

Thanks so muchhhhh :D It was nice to see your comment on this game also, so thank you so much! 

Jack and Jill have had their proper mad-cap debut in the series, in Purusers of Mythic truth...I hope you enjoy those crazy kids and their shenanigans. 

Crooked is hiding in one of the currently released games and his story will unravel even more in 2025! More coming soon :D

Thanks again for commenting. Makes me super happy to see comments like this

I Love This series and excited to play more! It was great to see The Crooked Man again and get little pieces of his lore. The artstyle is lovely and the writing is fantastic! 

Thank you so much Sparrow! Really enjoyed your playthrough. I strongly feel that the creature would prepare M&Ms... I can't really explain why, it's just a vibe I get 😂

I hope you enjoy the rest of the series. Don't worry you will definitely be seeing Crooked feature in the story, and you will be playing as his apprentice in the future. 

If you're looking for 'creature lore'- I reccomend 'bloodlines', 'only when you sleep' and 'pursuers of mythic truth'. 

For dear cru-chan, 'only when you sleep' has a particular ending (ending 6) you might want to check out. 

If you want to see Jack and Jill...Pursuers of mythic truth is the way to go 😉

Happy gaming and thanks again. May your pillows be fluffed and tea be warm in the Neverplace 😂

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LOVE CROOKED MAN AND THE BLUE GUY SM.

Thank you so much! I'm glad that you enjoyed it 🫶

So Crooked Man is back... And he charms us with his character again)) I love these little stories. Thank you for sharing your creativity!

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Thank you so much for your kind words Malia_Gede. I really appreciate it - I look forward to sharing more stories  with everyone soon :)

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🤍🖤🤍🖤🤍🖤

I cannot lie! I played the games out of order ^^; BUT now that I have actually played both games I definitely need more! I wanna know more about this creature and his box as well as the Crooked Man! The voice acting made the atmosphere even spookier which I hella loved!

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Waaa thank you so much. I feel like 'do you like sweets' probably feels way less intense when played second 😂 

Absolutely giving credit for Manni who was a fantastic VA adding all the spoopy vibes. 

I also loved how sensible your playthrough was too, I've seen so many people want to open the box - if I were in the situation, I'd have done the same as you and yeeted myself out of there! 

Thanks again for bringing a smile to my day 🥹

Oh my stars Im so glad you liked my playthrough!! I really did enjoy it besides my goofyness at the beginning lol Im glad I was able to make you smile!!!

Okay I'm not lying to y'all I was panicking with making choices, but I had a blast! The voice actors and music was incredible!! Thank you creators for this awesome game!

Thank you so much for playing! I really enjoyed watching your playthrough! (He's such a sussy guy...that creature man, isn't he?) 

I'm a solo dev so I was really happy to hear you liked the writing and arting... The Voice actors are absolutely amazing, massive kudos to them.

:) If you want to find out how the Crooked Man became your mentor...well ;) here's the tea! https://seraten04.itch.io/do-you-like-sweets
The Crooked Man, The Creature and your journey as his apprentice is going to carry on with more games coming out this year! :D

Thanks again :)

OMG! I get a backstory w/ crooked man!?!?  I'll definitely check it out!!

 Thank you, I'm ready to fan girl. (>ᗜ<)  So excited to see more of your future projects.

Thank you so much 🙇 I hope you enjoy your time with the Crooked Man (Cru-chan to his friends). And there's a big game with him and the creature coming out next year 👀 

Thanks again! 

OMGosh!! The suspense and the voice work was phenomenal!! I was so happy to see the Crooked Man pop up as well and now I'm very invested and curious about the lore of these two!
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AH HI ESPOIR

HALLO!!

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:DDDDDDDDD

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🫶

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Thank you so much for the kind words and the playthough, I can't wait to watch it back 🥹

Manni blew it out of the park with his voice acting ✨

The pair will get a full length game all about them in the future - with Jack and Jill featuring! 🙊


Thanks so much once again. I really appreciate it 🫶

the voice acting and art are superb!!!

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Hi Mari, 

Thank you so much for playing 'Inside the box' and leaving a comment, I really appreciate it. ❤️

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Oh my, a sequel

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:D yes indeed...and it's also a prologue for a future installment :)

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Decent VN, good job!

I left a slightly longer review for you, as well.

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Hi Hanako - thank you for your review. I have read it and I'll need to investigate the issue with the 2k res, thank you for bringing it to my attention and the fonts, I'll try to find out what is happening there. 

I'm sorry that you didn't really enjoy the ending of the story, I've learnt some lessons from that and probably should have been a little clearer that this is acting as a prologue to an upcoming title, but I realise I didn't really make much comment to that, and it was also a semi-sequel to 'do you like sweets' - I'll take that onboard for the future.

Thanks again for playing and for your feedback :)

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You're welcome. I'm happy the feedback helped you. I also didn't know at the time when I wrote my review that it was a prologue for a future installment. Good to know, and thanks for telling me!

If I had a laptop, the text size probably would've been fine; I just wanted to inform you what happened to the text if someone had a bigger monitor, because I liked the overall work and writing in aspects. It was enjoyable, regardless, and I appreciate all your efforts! <3

I'm definitely looking forward to any other future work you do! ^^

This was such an IMPECCABLE experience. From the very beginning there is an incredibly eerie atmosphere, with the BGM and the textured backgrounds and the WONDERFUL voice acting. The choice to narrate the narrator is an excellent one and creates such a fantastical, almost "fable"-like atmosphere (I really love the use of second-person present tense for this reason as well). It's incredibly immersive. The background effects are really neat and really created this sense of being "suffocated" by the darkness, and I enjoyed the design of the Creature - how he almost blends into the darkness. (The variant of his sprite where he was shrouded in darkness, with only his eyes and fangs visible - was absolutely spine-tingling!) The writing is wonderfully poetic, enhanced by the VA! The sound design is PERFECT, and I especially loved all of the different voice effects you used for the different characters (I would never have guessed there were only 2 VAs here without looking at the credits!) 

===MINOR SPOILERS BELOW===

I came out of this with a few more questions than I had answers, but on the whole I was very intrigued...I think that the story does an excellent job of setting up a lot of different plot points while still giving the player a cohesive, "full" experience. I'm guessing that "The Creature" is the entity that haunts the box, while "The Man who isn't there" is the man whose body that the creature stole (at first I thought that he was the Crooked Man, but then the Crooked Man appeared later, so hm...maybe it's someone else?) The entire game put me on edge from the start as I navigated this encounter with this strange entity, evading his questions while also making sure not to anger him (it reminded me a bit of a Rumpelstiltskin-esque fairy tale, where the protagonist needs to outsmart a mystical creature in order to make it out alive). I found the Creature to be both scary and oddly charming...I think there's a lot more to this creature's backstory than what was revealed here, and I'm more than a bit curious to see how he relates to the Crooked Man...

In the "Freedom" end, I won't lie I was disappointed that the Crooked Man was kicking us out already - I JUST BECAME YOUR APPRENTICE IN THE LAST GAME, I didn't even learn anything yet!! Please take me back!!! 

I'm looking forward to the continuation, fantastic job!! :) 

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Thank you so much for your comment Chatter - I'm so glad you enjoyed the experience and I really appreciate all of the feedback :)

I was opening so many cans of worms and I was like 'NO STOP, STOP IT YOU'RE OPENING TOO MANY' and then I eventually realised that because I was learning lots of new things, I wanted to focus on making it a smallish but rich experience. I'm so glad that came through visually. The voice acting is absolutely superb, I'm so lucky and honoured that the VAs put so much into it.

I don't think we'll be away from that Crooked fella for too long...after all, his familiars can only do so much on their own ;)

Thanks again for playing.

i love this game sm :D i got all the endings and i really loved ending 4! im just really curious on who the creature is tbh. Great game :>

Hi Bread! Thank you so much for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed the game ❤️

We'll find out more about the creature in some games I have coming up, but a little clue I can leave here ✨

OMG IM LATE BUT AHH IM EXCITED!! Im definitely gonna be that guy once more games come out <3

(2 edits) (+1)(-3)

Ahsjkdkd help, I can't get Ending 2-- Tried everything I could think of! Is it important enough to the game that I should play it before telling you my thoughts? 😭🤲🏻

Edit: Oh! You have a walkthrough! I'll check that out soon then 😂👌🏻

Edit 2: Huh-- I guess I've already got all the endings?? Must've seen the numbers wrong then 😂😂👉🏻👈🏻

Anyways, my thoughts! I really like how mysterious everything is, but we still get answers in the end from show don't tell alone! The writing is great 😌👌🏻✨💞 

The art direction is even more impeccable than the prequel! I love the patterns for the background and the fog and the text effects! They're so cool! Not to mention the creature fading away with a smirk on the title screen! Really sets the mood! Overall, I could go and on about the art! 😤🤲🏻✨💞

The sound direction is awesome as well! The music and VA really sucked me in! I didn't even realize there were only 2 VAs until I peeked at the credits! They're so good 😂😂👌🏻✨

But yeah, other than minor typos here and there and Ending 4 feeling a bit abrupt for my taste ( I'd like to stick around The Crooked Man and learned more stuff. Maybe a route where he allows us to stay, seeing he was already quite hesitant about it. ) Overall a really good short game tho! I enjoyed it a lot 😁 I'm guessing there's gonna be more? Ending 4 feels quite open ended~ 👀👀💞

P.S. You probs don't mind, but sorry for getting back late even after I promised "tomorrow". I should really stop saying that since my schedule can be quite unpredictable ahskls-- But yeh! Glad I could come back and had this blast of a run! 😌🤲🏻✨💞

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I'm so sorry, this is totally on me not explaining it well in the game guide. To get the trapped ending I have updated the game guide 🙇 apologies again. 

Thanks for such amazing feedback 🫶 I definitely need to send out for proof reading next time - because of the short timescales I think I could have done a little more QA on it - memo for next time. 

Also, the good news (?) Cru-chan is getting a big old game, this effectively serves as a prologue for that title (announcement on that coming sooonnn) 

The apprentice is also going to feature in adventures and will their paths cross again? 👀👀👀 Never say never 🥹🥹🥹

Any review and feedback is appreciated, never apologise 🙇

Thanks again ✨

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No, no, it was on me for not seeing that first! Sorry that wasn't clear! Glad you care enough to help us out more tho 😁🤲🏻💞 

No prob! The typos were seriously minor! I only remembered seeing about two, I think? So you're already doing a great job even without proofreading! Mad props 💪🏻😌✨💞

Omg, yes!! Hyped for it! 🥳💞💞 Also, Cru-chan is a cute nickname, ho ho. Wish we could tease him with it in the game 👀👌🏻💞  

Never say never indeed 😌💞

Thank you! Happy to give feedback! Will be looking forward to what you'll release next 😁🤲🏻💞💞

I'm super normal about this game (I'm not) and I enjoyed it so much!

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

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.

.

First of all, it was a fantastic sequel to Do You Like Sweets? 
I was thrilled to see more of this universe and of the Crooked Man's apprentice (as well as the man himself, because I have missed that sharp-toothed grin so much) and I love knowing that the apprentice gets their self into some fairly sticky situations such as this one.

This was honestly such an interesting premise, though. If one didn't play the other games in the Folklore series, this would serve as a very fun introduction to this universe. (Although I do highly recommend that other folks at least play Do You Like Sweets, since it introduces the Crooked Man at the very least.)

Besides enjoying a chance to see more of this particular universe, it was a lot of fun to get more backstory (mostly in the 4th end) and it was delightful to meet the creature! 
The creature was so intimidating, and yet strangely alluring. I like him a lot as an antagonist and as a character in general. 

Of course, my favorite part was finally escaping and seeing the Crooked Man again. I was surprised that he has such a normal name. It was nice to see a more human side to him, too. Even through his frustration, it was very obvious he cared.
I definitely hope we get to see more of him and his familiars.

Besides loving the story, the voice acting was phenomenal and the art was lovely as always!

Overall, Inside The Box was a fantastic experience. It was a little spooky, a little mysterious, and a whole lot of fun!

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Thank you so much for the playthrough and kind words. 🥹 I can't wait to watch it 👀✨

I have good news about Cru-chan and his familiars, you'll be learning a whole lot about them as they will get their own title... 'the man who isn't there' - which will serve to really join up some of the things we've learnt in the different parts of the series so far. Also the apprentice will be going on a little journey of there own and... I suspect they and John will meet again one day. 

The Voice acting was absolutely superb - I'll be sure to pass it along to them 🙇

Thank you again for your support in the series and I can't wait to share more of the story in the future with everyone. 

(I absolutely meant to reply to this earlier 😅)

I am looking forward to getting to know more about Cru-chan and his familiars, as well as see more of the apprentice's journey!
All of these characters are delightful, so I'm delighted that we get to see more of all of them. This series is turning out to be a great deal of fun!

And thank you for passing on my compliments to the voice actors too 😊

I'll definitely keep an eye out for the future installments of the Folklore series.
Thank you for your hard work!

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Cant get ending 2 😩

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I'm so sorry, this is totally on me not explaining it well in the game guide. To get the trapped ending I have updated the game guide 🙇 apologies again.

Thanks! No worries!

Can you add it to Android please?

Good game

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Thank you for playing ✨

Great game! I had a lot of fun with my playthrough; I really enjoyed 'Do you like Sweets' and this is another great addition to the series. Honestly could not resist the temptation of the box, it took me until my 3rd playthrough before I even attempted to escape. 

The voice acting was perfect, really created a calm yet sinister feeling to the Creature. You did a really great job on this game! 

Thank you so much Meeka! I'm glad you enjoyed it and I can't wait to watch your playthrough as always 🫶

The voice acting is so superb. Credit to Manni, he did a stunning job. 

The creature will be delighted that you stayed for so long. Both he and Crooked will be back in more games, so I hope they're enjoyable as well 🙏

Thanks again 

Loved it! I got all the endings. I loved the art style! Great work<3

Thank you so much for the comment. I really appreciate it 🫶

Congrats on getting all the endings also. Thank you for playing once again 🙇

Will there be android soon??

Hi! Thanks for your comment. I've never done an android release, so I'll take a look into it, if it's possible, I'll try.