Title	Heart Cage (18+)
Credit	Rice Love Coffee
Media	Otome Game
Platform	PC
Genre	Romance, Drama, Mystery
Year	2025
Character Type	5 Yanderes

Orli was planning for a well-deserved holiday when her boss and guardian, Clark, suddenly send her for a detective assignment located in the mysterious Usodar town. A serial killing case which involves a “Heart Ripper” who murders the victims by ripping their hearts out have become rampant. Orli sets out to solve the case, unbeknownst to her that she is much more involved in these happenings than she thought.

SPOILERS AND PERSONAL OPINION

*Note: This game features non-consensual acts, kidnapping, and violence.

Orli, the protagonist is an orphan that grew up under the care of her guardian Clark, and she works under him as an employee in a detective agency solving cases. An ongoing case of a “Heart Ripper” who murders their victim by directly ripping their hearts out have caught their attention, and Orli was sent to deal with the case in the reclusive Usodar town.

The game is supposed to feature 6 love interests. At the time of this post, the game covers 5 love interests, each route has 4-6 endings, and a separate secret ending to discover. There are many CGs per route, which makes things fun (but the CGs include SFW and NSFW images, so don’t play in the public LOL). It took me 15 hours to obtain all the CGs and endings.

Very amazingly, the entire game is FULLY-VOICED, which is extremely rare for an indie game. Even better, those voice actings are HIGH quality! Sometimes, games force in some voice acting for the sake of it, which can become cringey and even lowers the value of the game and become a distraction. This is certainly not one of those cases. I really enjoyed the voice acting and each voice actor portrayed the characters so well, which alleviated the gaming experience. The background music is simple and appropriate.

The UI can be improved, as the save and load option is not the most convenient, and there wasn’t a “quit game” option in the main menu. But these can be easily navigated.

As a detective solving a case, the story often features instances whereby Orli gets to examine and investigate things around her. While that can be fun, it would have been better if we as players are involved in making some sort of deductions which actually affects the game outcome. Unfortunately, the “investigation” element falls short, as we basically just click on the icons and read some observations by Orli, which can be entirely skipped without affecting the storyline at all.

The game also features a mobile phone aspect where Orli exchanges text messages and sometimes phone calls with the characters. When I saw the screenshots, I was excited to try it out. Sadly, this aspect also fell short as the calls and messages turned out to be just a part of the visual novel experience where we just click through the texts without any inputs. I felt that this element could have been expanded to make things more interactive, where players can actually choose what to reply and have it impact the narrative as well.

Nevertheless, I like that each character route have many endings, as it makes me feel like what I choose have an impact on the story direction (in contrast to games that have just 1 good and 1 bad ending). The creator also added a secret ending that involves breaking the fourth wall, which adds another fun element to the game.

The game creator promised a yandere-centric otome game, and she held true to her words. ALL the characters are yandere. Now, as much as I love them, I thought it would be a challenge to avoid character repetitions with all the love interests being yanderes (Infatuation being an unfortunate example). At most, I would have expected something like Crimson Flower, with many yanderes, but not all, which will provide a wider space for character design.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that despite all the love interests being yandere, each one have clear personality traits, identity, appearance, and behaviors. And with these differences, it makes things interesting, as I am always curious to find out what each one will do under the given circumstances, and what yandere moments will come next that was different from the previous one. I want to pick a favorite, but it is really so difficult because all the characters were so endearing and special.

Now, I know a fellow yandere lover when I see one, and Rice Love Coffee is definitely one of us. She has her yanderes down to a T, and I dare say must have studied the arts of yandere as faithfully as a researcher would on her PhD subject HUEHUEHUEHUE.

Another thing I like about this game is that in any one character’s route, you don’t just see that character’s yandere behavior. Other yanderes can also play a part in that route, and in some bad endings you end up with those yanderes. Given the game setting where all the characters are obsessively in love with Orli, I felt that such dynamics is only right. This is unlike some other games where once you chose a route, the other characters who are also supposedly obsessed with the main character just MAGICALLY, TOTALLY, disappears from the plot (while not entirely, I find Butterfly’s Poison; Blood Chains to have these moments, though I still really enjoyed the game).

Arts-wise, I liked that each character design were so distinct from the other, perfectly capturing their personality and style. I also like that there are so many backgrounds for the different scenarios, which allow me to visualize the surroundings and immerse myself in the storytelling. The main gripe I have would be the character design for Orli, our protagonist. I just can’t understand how a detective is supposed to work and investigate crime scenes properly in a tiny spaghetti strap top, sexy mini denim shorts, an a constantly off-shoulder hot pink jacket. Am I just getting old now?

Also, her boobs are almost twice the size of her head, which made me think that I am playing a male-oriented game rather than an otome. But then again, the guys in this game also have minimally C-cup boobs, so I guess all is fair.

Overall, the price might seem a bit steep for an indie game, but I say it is really worth it as I fully enjoyed every route and looked forward to playing more. The unique plot, awesome voice acting, and the distinct yanderes kept me interested throughout all my playthroughs. In fact, it is this game that made me want to do more yando reviews again after such a long hiatus. Do try out the game and support this indie developer so that she can continue creating more high quality content for us yando lovers!

CHARACTER SPOILERS