About This Demo

Death, salvation, distortion, love,
and,
you are the Reason.

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You Are the Reason is a story-driven pixel psychological horror RPG about death, salvation, distortion, and love.

This demo follows Youyuan, a 15-year-old girl known as the “Savior,” as she begins investigating the “Reason” behind the distortions consuming the world. Her search gradually draws her closer to her classmate Weiyue, who has been identified as the primary target.

Explore the school and the surrounding county town as Youyuan, investigate abnormal phenomena, and navigate the boundary between everyday life and distortion as she attempts to gain the “Reason’s” trust—and ultimately erase it.

This demo includes:

30+ game maps
60+ character sprites
21 CG illustrations
135 character portrait and expression variants
Approximately 20,000 Chinese characters of story text

This demo contains the opening chapter of the game and typically takes around 1–2 hours to complete. Playtime may vary depending on reading speed, exploration, optional dialogue, and side content.

Character Art:

Main Character: You Yuan

“Reason”: Wei Yue

Core Gameplay:

• Explore a Warped Reality: Control the protagonist, You Yuan, to investigate this twisted world. However, you must keep a close eye on your Fear meter to avoid being consumed by the world's will to die.

• Save the Innocent: Follow the storyline to investigate supernatural anomalies and solve puzzles to save as many lives as you can.

• Shape the Narrative: Alter the course of the story through your choices and by uncovering hidden conditions. Unlock multiple distinct endings, or perhaps... do something unspeakable?

Game Features:

• A Unique Blend of Genres: Combines the classic puzzle-solving elements of traditional pixel-art horror RPGs with the immersive narrative style of a visual novel.

• Authentic Hometown Setting: Explore a world inspired by the developer's actual hometown. Experience the authentic atmosphere of a Heilongjiang county-level city and the high-pressure academic environment of its only key high school as the story unfolds.

• Most of the game’s main characters are students living in the small county-level city of Zhuhe in 2019. Deeply shaped by internet culture, they are drawn to anime, games, and various online subcultures, while often remaining outside the mainstream social circles of school life. Through their perspectives, players will experience the everyday lives of these small-town teenagers, as well as the ways people communicated, connected, and expressed themselves within China’s online subculture communities in 2019.

• Striking Visual Contrast: Features high-saturation, solid-color binary pixel art for in-game CGs, contrasted with low-saturation, realistic map designs. This sharp visual divide immerses players deeply in the dizzying intersection of reality and distortion.

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

This demo is a story-driven psychological horror RPG featuring mature themes, including suicide, suicidal ideation, self-harm, psychological distress, violence, and death.

The story includes a scene in which a high school student attempts suicide. In an optional bad ending, the student dies by suicide, and the protagonist subsequently takes her own life.

The demo also contains stylized, non-photorealistic depictions of blood, injuries, and disturbing imagery, along with narrative descriptions of dead bodies and psychological suffering.