Helena's Flowers
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
Helena of Achaea is said to be the most beautiful woman in the galaxy.
After her elopement with the neighboring Wilusan princess, Achaea declares war on Wilusa resulting in a years-long bloody conflict. As the war is drawing to a close, Helena is escorted back to her rightful place in Achaea. However, something goes wrong and their ship crash lands on a desolate tiny planet, killing everyone on board except for Helena and a single soldier.
Now stranded in the vastness of space with only a strange soldier for company, Helena finds herself thinking about what sort of fate awaits her. And more importantly, does she even have a place to return to?
Loosely based on a futuristic all-female version of Homer's The Iliad, Helena's Flowers is a visual novel that explores the ideas of beauty and self-image. It was developed for the 2015 Yuri Game Jam and features 6 different endings.
Warning: One of the endings contains gore.
Credits:
Concept, Writing, Programming - Heiden
Backgrounds, Sprite lineart - Reikun
GUI, Sprite coloring - laniessa
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The game was super cool! The interactions between characters were interesting, and I really liked the artstyle. However I can't seem to get the last ending and it's bugging me a lot... lol
[Spoiler warning?]
So far I have the Best Crash Site Ending, Best Flower Ending, Good Flower Ending, Good Crash Site Ending and the Bad End (plenty of times... lmao). Am I missing something?
Glad to hear you enjoyed it!
[Spoilers below]
Looks like you're missing the best overall ending. In order to get that you need to find both items.
So you would visit crash site for 10 days until you uncover something, then visit flower fields for 10 days until you uncover something.
That should work!
Ohhh I got it! That's so sweet <33 I can't believe I almost missed that lol Tysm for the help <3
Hello!
My name's Ross, I'm a researcher at the University of Liverpool, UK, and I'm contracted by Bloomsbury Academic to produce a book all about the use of ancient Greece and Rome in videogames.
I hope its acceptable to you that I played and analysed your game (along with Skarn's Melos) as a case study in the book.
As well as letting you know my intentions, this is also a request for your permission to use images from the game in the publication. I manually took screenshots and use images from the game to support the analysis, and require your consent to use them in the book.
I'm afraid I don't have any real social media presence, but I can trade email addresses if you'd like further information (the book's release date, ISBN number etc.) or have any questions.
I greatly enjoyed the game, by the way, and really, sincerely appreciated your thoughtful take on the Helen of Troy character :)
Very best,
Ross
Oh, oh wow. This is amazing??? Yes of course it's totally okay to put it in your book (!!!). I would love to know which book, so I can buy a copy! You can email me at mitsukootsuki@yahoo.com !
Thanks for getting back to us! I'll throw you an email shortly :)
Where can I get this book
:) its not out yet, though its available for pre-order (its expensive, mind, being an academic press):
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/ancient-greece-and-rome-in-videogames-978135015719...
There's also a collection of papers in the same series, which I'm also in!
self-promotion, over
I adore this game!! even though it was made four whole years ago... Late to the party I guess? Initially I worried that I would find Helena difficult to sympathize with, but her characterization is genuinely one of my favorites from any retelling of any myth. Every interaction with Penthesilea really gave me a good impression of who they were and how genuine they were in their kindness to Helena, especially after living her whole life being judged by others. In short, thank you for making this!
Oh I'm so glad to hear you liked it!! I really like writing flawed characters-- while also trying to make them like-able and understandable from their own perspectives-- so hearing that about Helena is a big compliment! Thank you so much for playing!!
It's gay and it's Iliadic, two things I'm particularly in love with. (To be fair, the Iliad in itself is already homoerotic what with Achilles and Patroclus). I enjoyed playing it for a number of reasons.
1. It's interactive. Kinetic visual novels are great when all you want to do is read and not have to think about the many endings you could reach, but interactive VNs are still the best.
2. It's short but it doesn't really sacrifice the characterization of either characters, especially if you play through all the endings. In addition to that, the endings are all very in-character. (I've never liked, much less loved, bad endings before and disliked good endings, but hey here we are. The best endings, especially the two with Penthesilea, are still my favorites though.)
3. The characters aren't perfect. Holy shite if I don't have a thing for really flawed characters.
4. The Iliad holds a special place in my heart, it's gay, and IT'S FRIGGING SET IN SPACE THANK U VERY MUCH
I'm so glad I accidentally discovered this game (while I was supposed to be doing my papers oops).
I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
I had a lot of fun trying to write deeply flawed characters like Helena while still keeping them sympathizable, so I'm glad to see it came through. :)
AND YES THE ILIAD IS SO GAY, it made it fairly easy to turn it into a GxG scenario just by transposing the character's genders.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment and I hope you were able to finish your papers, despite the distraction~! :D
We absolutely loved playing this game! The art style was extremely gorgeous, and each storyline was worthwhile. If you're interested, part one of our ongoing Let's Play is here.
Hey! I've been really enjoying watching your play through, can't wait to see the next part! :D
does it have some kind of romance?
Hey! There's an option for Helena to end up with Penthesilea and there are a few short romance scenes between them, but the focus of the work is more-so on Helena moving on from her past failed romances. Hope that helps! :)
Got four of the six ends. It's really well made, you guys did a great job ^^