NOTE: Read below on how to support the creators!

You can support Josh Powlison by using the "Support this Kinetic Novel" button above, but that money'll just go to him! Thank anyone you want by choosing that and/or the other creatives' links in the credits below!

Trigger Warning

Drug abuse and suicide

Are you new to Kinetic Novels?

What is a Kinetic Novel? It's like an old-school video game cutscene. Kinetic Novels show pictures of characters along with text.

Usually, character images will change to express different emotions, music will play in the background, large images will cover the screen... the medium will throw quite a bit at you, but at its core it's character text with character images!

Present tense. Most Kinetic Novels are told in the present tense: "this is happening" versus "this was happening".

First-person perspective. Most Kinetic Novels are told from the perspective of the Main Character (MC). You don't usually see the MC in a Kinetic Novel, because we're seeing the story through their eyes.

Some readers will imagine they're the MC as they read, although this isn't necessary- it's up to you and how you want to enjoy the story. I'll often read it as a narrative, not as if I'm actually the MC.

All narration is from the MC's perspective, and so may or may not be reliable.

Who's talking? The name at the top of the textbox shows who's currently talking. If the name is "Me", the Main Character is talking (since the story's told from the first person).

If no character name is shown at the top of the textbox, the text is the MC's narration or thoughts.

How do you play it? Click on the screen to go to the next line of text. If you're not sure if all text has been shown, you can wait for an arrow to show up at the bottom-right of the screen, signaling for you to continue.

If you click while text is still appearing, it'll display it all immediately, but you'll miss some of the animations and timing of the characters' tone.

In some cases, text may continue automatically, maybe to give the effect of a character being cut off in conversation or stopping themselves mid-thought.

What's the difference between a Kinetic Novel and a Visual Novel? Kinetic Novels play the same way every time, whereas Visual Novels allow you to make choices within the story. You read that correctly. The terminology is weird, but it's what it is.

Controls

Hover near the top of the screen to access the menu.

Click on the button in the top-right of the screen to toggle fullscreen.

Action	Keyboard/Mouse	Gamepad
Continue	Left Click, Touch, Space, Enter	A/Button 0
Go Back	Mouse Wheel Up (Fullscreen only)	-
Scrub	Drag on Menu	Left Analog Stick/Axis 0
Pause/Unpause	Click on Menu	Start/Button 9
Jump to Beginning	Home	Left Trigger/Button 6
Jump to End	End	Right Trigger/Button 7

Credits

Support these awesome people through their links! Just let them know it was 'cause you loved their work in Breakdown!

Writer, Programmer	Josh Powlison	"Support This" button
Character Art, Background Art	Puppetbomb	Requests supporting Captain Awkward
CGs (fullscreen images)	Inkhana	PayPal
Music	Joshua "Mussar" Nussbaum	PayPal

Additional: Logo by Josh Powlison, engine by Josh Powlison, textbox design by Puppetbomb, static effect by Josh Powlison

Uses the Showpony engine and Looper.

Known Bugs

If any of these bugs are getting in the way of your experience, please let me know!

• Mouse wheel up resets music tracks. This is due to how Showpony fundamentally backtracks and how that affects Looper, and will need to be fixed in a future version of the engine.
• Tiny gaps in audio playback may occur between loops. May be inevitable due to Web Audio API.
• Some music crushed a bit. May be a limitation of the Web Audio API.
• If you scrub around a ton, or speed through (holding spacebar), sometimes music messes up.
• The engine technically works on a phone, but I've had trouble with: A) getting it into landscape mode and B) having it run smoothly. It's not a good experience on a phone in my experience, so I can't recommend it unfortunately.