Arches

Arches is a psychological horror game where players and their companions return to a ghost town to investigate supernatural events. Facing the deserted town of Echoes and the deepening investigation, players will discover various mysterious evil forces lurking within. What will happen to you and your companions? Faced with various terrifying events, players must make different choices to advance the plot and trigger various brutal scenarios. Will you ultimately be able to survive Echoes?

Story of Arches:

CW: Arches is a horror story that can be an emotionally intense experience for some readers. Themes of drug addiction, mental illness, and physical and mental abuse are explored, along with descriptions and imagery of brief, but intense violence. Please consider your mental well-being before downloading.

In March 2020, boyfriends Cameron and Devon arrive in the ghost town of Echo to conduct a paranormal investigation. It has been five years since the mass hysteria supposedly left the town completely abandoned. While it does seem empty at first, they realize that something evil still lurks in Echo, evil enough that it has kept the horrors alive. 

Arches is a standalone story that takes place after the events of Echo.

Changelog:

All music swapped with new masters from the official release.

Most music now loops seamlessly

CG gallery has been remade

Music player added

Cameron’s short story: CG edited and given an alternate, with additional lighting effects added.

Cameron’s short story: Extended by adding both of his short stories into one. The first story was previously a Patreon exclusive.

Devon’s short story (Vessels): Added to the main game, accessible after the credits. 

Devon’s short story (Vessels): An additional CG and slightly extended intro has been added. 

CG update: Animation added to a CG from build 2 (Cameron and Devon in the car)

Preferences menu appearance altered.

Updated end credits.

Typos corrected.

Few scene transitions slightly altered.

Player Comments of Arches:

I started crying after playing this. What happened at the end of the main story, plus the extra stuff (if you know how to find it out) is equally messing me up even more. Although, I’m not gonna say I’m hating on this, I really love it because this means I wasn’t mentally prepared for any of this, which means this vn had an even more impacting change on me for the better. Thank you.

Nice pictures nice animals but animals are gay?! I hope is good game and maybe not gay but animals just beast friends and say no homoseksual and have good time togethar.

As hard as it may be to believe, Echo (the game this is a sequel to) was an emotionally grueling, traumatizing roller coaster of suffering. Honestly, Echo barely even fits on this site as there was practically PG-13 levels of sexual content, instead it was all about the suffering and death and despair.Think more Silent Hill 2 in VN form, where there were occasionally things that were sexualized but usually in a disturbing way.

Although they fit the same horror genre, Arches is building up as early as build 2 to be a better horror experience than Echo was. The smaller cast and focus on our two initial protagonists fits the setting that Echo never fully achieves.First off, if you guys are new to Arches, try to check out Echo, the original game, which is at least finished, to get a full sense of the setting Arches is in. There's also the prequel VN for Echo which is Echo: Route 65, and a spin-off fan-service-y VN Echo: Benefits. Lastly, there's also The Smoke Room, which is currently still in development but is set many years before the events of Echo.While Echo tries to ease you in to the tension of unresolved childhood feelings and unsolved mysteries, Arches wastes no time getting in the dark gritty horror that awaits you. This is one of the things that somewhat gave me mixed feelings for Echo in the beginning since I was expecting romance/horror with an emphasis on romance and not the latter. I was expecting even a full true good ending in lieu of my assumptions of it being a dating sim, but instead get a full on psychological horror experience. Which isn't bad, but definitely not what I expected to find.That being said, if you've ignored the yellow text in the main post, this game will DEFINITELY contain dark and heavy themes involving drugs, death, mental illness, etc so be aware. The game at least makes it clear early on in the story, but should probably have warning tags on startup (which it doesn't) like other psychological horror games (DDLC, BFtD, etc). In any case, if you enjoy furry, gay, and horror, are comfortable with all three tags under the same game, and have read the warnings above, you'll be sure to have a fun time.