Eternia: Pet Whisperer

I'm not a particularly big fan of visual novels but the premise of this game most definitely is my thing.
You get to rescue talking, time-travelling animals that live forever. What's not to love? Who wouldn't want to take them all home?
The game is charming and sweet, utterly bonkers and very funny - there's been so many laugh out loud moments for me throughout the game (especially the reference to the size of ratty nads!).
The artwork is just lovely. A gorgeous watercolour, painterly style. Perfect for the tone of the game. The UI is simple and intuitive. The music is adorable and suits the game so well.
The writing is strong, with such distinct voices for each animal and a talent for inspiring empathy and pulling at your heartstrings (my god I just wanted to scoop that lizard up and hug her!)
There may perhaps be some strangeness with the time travel depending on the order in which you talk to various animals through each loop - but it's honestly very minor stuff and on most playthroughs it's not an issue at all (and obviously is a consequence of the time constraints from a deliberately short development cycle).
There’s not a huge amount of replayability, but it is fun to see the differing text of each animal if they are the first one you take home. What I really like though is the design which governs the different days that each animal makes an appearance in the shelter. If offers a great non-linearity to it which is more obvious on multiple playthroughs.
The game is light and fun, yet there's an element to the story that gives it more depth - these animals have not been dealt the best hand in life, some even suffer mental health issues. The game doesn't focus too much on these things though so you're not left feeling sad, it's still light-hearted and positive, but there's a seriousness that's hinted at, just under the surface, and it helps to bring a depth and realism to what is otherwise a delightfully bat-s**t crazy story.
Another thing I really appreciated was the level of animal knowledge, just subtly hinted at. Whether it was rat behaviour like power grooming, canine calming signals or tools to help with behavioural issues (like ThunderShirts) - it's mildly educational and makes me hopeful that anyone playing it who doesn't know what these things are might do a bit of googling to learn more.
And there's good messages in the game too; before adopting any animal, be like Alex - do your research! And like it says in the credits, support your local animal shelter.
To say this was made by a team of 3 people in a 2 week game jam is seriously impressive. It's a beautiful game with a serious amount of polish. And there's just under 20,000 words, so it might be classed as a short game but there's actually a lot of content here.
Oh and if you manage to get through the credits - which feature photos of the dev's pets - without a lump in your throat then you're dead inside!
tl;dr: Utterly loved this game, it's a lot of fun and will leave you with warm fuzzies. Worth every penny.
10/10 would race a Koala and a C-Rex again!

Two hours well spent.
This is a cute little game. The pets have interesting personalities, the dialogues are well written, and the music and the hand-drawn pets create a great atmosphere. The difficulty is zero - just relax.
It should be noted that this is just a quick side-project of the developers, so don't expect too much content.

A nice short VN about adopting talking animals. Each animal gets 5 scenes in which you get to see their quirks and entertaining personalities.
Player interaction is quite minimal, and there are sadly no dialogue choices. Only at the end you are given a choice to keep adopting pets or to end the game right away.
I'd say it's a game worth its price. If you're an animal lover, give it a go.

I dont normally leave reviews but think i may have stumbled upon a gem and feel the need to point people in the direction it. The visuals are lovely and i particularly like the fade when the screen changes. Not to mention how hilarious it is. Dont think i've ever laughed out loud during a game before.

That was fun. I had decided to go through every pet's storyline and the game is gracious enough to let me do that without having to start a clean playthrough, there was no need to repeat scenes this way.
It all came together as a well written sweet little story. It certainly didn't take long to get through, only an hour and half of me, but it also didn't cost more than pocket change. While not every scene has fitting or unique art for it, what it did have made up for it well enough and the writing filled up the rest. All the characters do feel unique, sympathetic, and just a pleasure to read the dialogue for.
I didn't run into any technical issues with the game after the initial patches that soon followed the release. For those I did end up sending a bug report, but that was fixed within the same day. Menus are a bit wonky, but playing the game itself had no issues whatsoever for me.
All in all I'm glad I sat down to get through it. Made a nice little read while I had my dinner.

This game is a journey of true friendship. You get to know each animal and are given plenty of time to talk around before settling in and making a decision.

So you've read the description and now you're down here in the comments trying to figure out what's it all about. Click the video above to see some of the gameplay, mechanic and hear my thoughts on the game.
Eternia: Pet Whisperer is a visual novel with underlying tones of a dating sim. The graphics are beautifully drawn, the music is a constant bop and dialogue/story is easy to follow. Now that last point might seem weird to mention, but I have played too many visual novels where the story and/or dialogue is the biggest detractor of the game; so hats off to the team for that. The game lets you decide how long you really want to play, want to adopt just one pet? That's ok. You want to adopt all six? You can do that to. Each pet has a unique personality/quirk and some of them are horny (so be warned).
Overall, I highly recommend picking up Eternia: Pet Whisperer if you are a fan of visual novels, pets or escaping our mundane life to experience something fun. The price is right Bob, so buy while you can and get dem pets.