Sweetest Valentine: Sweet on the Outside, Deadly Within
It’s almost Valentine’s Day. The air is sweet with promises, your heart flutters as you choose between the boy next door who’s always been by your side… and the perfect classmate who barely knows you exist. But beneath the pastel skies and shy confessions, something darker stirs—whispers of disappearances, secrets too heavy to say out loud, and love that might just kill.
If that sent a shiver down your spine (in the best way), then Sweetest Valentine is a must-play. We sat down with its creator, Syllphana, to talk about the game’s twisted charm, unforgettable characters, and the wild ride of developing it from start to finish.
Syllphana: “My biggest inspiration behind Sweetest Valentine are games made by Caron. They made smaller games like visual novels and RPG Maker and they feature Yandere girls doing crazy things, and I used to really like their games when I was younger. I also wanted to show how love can change people for both the better and for the worse. I really wanted to convey that with Sweetest Valentine.”
Syllphana: “You play as Aimi, or the MC. You can change her name, but I’m going to refer to her as Aimi from now on. It’s nearing Valentine’s Day and you can choose to go on a date with Ichigo, your childhood friend whom you love platonically, or Yuzuki, your crush and the quote unquote perfect student. There’s also been disappearances in your hometown but I’m sure that has nothing to do with the entire story.”
Syllphana: “Yes, I did make everything myself except for maybe the backgrounds. Those are royalty-free images, also the soundtrack too. But other than that, for the programming, the writing, and the art, yes, I do that myself and it’s a torture.”
Syllphana: “In the end, it’s love and also obsession. Obsessive love versus healthy wholesome love, just the way these two bearings contrast each other and how each character shows a different ways to love the other.”
Syllphana: “I usually try to think about what the main event or the cause or like what the catalyst is. In this case, the main event would be Ichigo murdering someone and Haruto witnessing it. And I just asked myself questions like, ‘so Ichigo’s main motivation is that he doesn’t want anyone to find out’, and the answer to that just leads to more questions.
Syllphana: “I knew from the very beginning that the twist of the MC being—you know—just as crazy, if not crazier than Ichigo would catch people by surprise. Some people did say that that twist came kind of out of nowhere and I just wish that I could have put more foreshadowing and hints. there’s only one mention of it and it’s very vague.”
Syllphana: “Yes, they were inspired by a lot of archetypes. With Ichigo, I took the classic Yandere archetype. I wanted to subvert that a little bit. With Yuzuki, I took the archetype of the perfect classmate, but I wanted to change that by making him like actually just a normal guy. And as for Haruto, I want to take that and actually make him into basically the hero of the story.”
Syllphana: “I like Yandere with great motive and backstory. I really like Yandere who’s very shamelessly a bad person. Let people hate your character. I think that’s the point. Just if you want your character to be bad, let them be bad. Like, let them sin. Let them do the nastiest things.”
Syllphana: “The main thing that I try to focus on is just keeping tabs with each character motivations and just imagining how they would act accordingly to that motivation. Like, what’s in line with Ichigo’s goals and motivations—things like that.”
Syllphana: “It’s actually my first time touching digital art. I try to find a style that’s appealing but also easy enough for me to do at the time. I noticed that a lot of Otome games have this soft feel to their art style. So I really want to imitate that, fool people into thinking this is just a cute, soft game.”
Syllphana: “Yuzuki’s route, with me not really planning it as much. For the illustration—especially the scenes where there’s action involved like Haruto getting stabbed. Whenever I look back to that scene, I always just cover my eyes just quickly.”
Syllphana: “Honestly, the fact that it’s kind of blowing up. I truly only expected it to get like—I don’t know—like 500 downloads max. I’ve made a discord server and a lot of people there are really nice. It’s my first time to finally chat with my own followers and it’s been a really nice experience.”
Syllphana: “The most challenging aspect would have to be coding because it’s something that I’m not used to—moving one button was really difficult for me at that time because it deals with numbers. I’m so bad with numbers.”
Syllphana: “Three months. Pretty much I would just wake up, code, and maybe do some classes if I had one, and then I just go to sleep.”
Syllphana: “By this time, I think I’ve released like four other visual novels and I’m currently developing one right now titled Coalesce. Also, a project that I’m already currently thinking of—that project is titled Skin Deep Ligature and it’s basically a BL visual novel.”
Syllphana: “I’m not making any promises, but I do have some thoughts of making a remake. I think it would be fun to try and make a remake. I’ve also really released a short comic prequel about Sweetest Valentine.”
Right before we said our goodbyes, Syllphana treated us to some exclusive sneak peeks from her upcoming project! Here we have some screenshots of game, as well as sketches. This one is headed for more of a moody sci-fi settings, and still promises super intriguing characters. Looks like she has more drama and mystery in store for us.
You can play Sweetest Valentine from the Game Page here. Also make sure to keep an eye out for future projects by following Syllphana for updates, or join her growing community on Discord.
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