Far From The Tree

A child changes everything—any parent would be quick to tell you that. But for Kieran, becoming a parent also means new fears—and old ones—visions of blood, visions of worst-case scenarios—new and omnipresent thoughts that threaten to swallow him whole.

How do you move forward, when you've got no name for what's happening to you? When you're afraid to even speak the words aloud?

A short visual novel about parenthood, relationships, past traumas, and undiagnosed OCD, featuring gay elfs.

A little under 5.5k words. About half an hour read time.

Made for menhera vn jam!

There are currently some minor issues with typos and text bleed in a couple spots in the current version of the VN—these will be fixed in a future update.

The PC version works for both Windows and Linux!

Content warnings:

Abuse, car crashes, death, blood, religious trauma

Contains mentions of childbirth and pregnancy, illness, implied SA, drowning (mostly metaphorical, but I want to include it just in case), and drunk driving.

No violent imagery is shown; everything is described in text, but this is about harm OCD and past abuse. Please take care of yourselves!

All art, music, writing, and programming was done by me. Some of the backgrounds are screenshots of my Sims 4 builds I edited in Clip Studio Paint! Soundtrack was composed by me using my keyboard and improvising a score via this virtual piano: https://virtualpiano.net/

Also, while you're here, please consider donating to Direct Aid for Gaza, the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, or helping families in Gaza, Sudan, and the Congo directly by checking out Operation Olive Branch. Thank you!