htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary

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In htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary, players guide two fireflies to help a lost girl named Mion navigate through a dark and eerie world. Solutions to puzzles and obstacles often rely on clever manipulation of light and shadow. The game features a hauntingly beautiful art style and a somber, atmospheric soundtrack that adds to its intriguing, mysterious narrative.

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Single-Player

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63%

Audience ScoreBased on 372 reviews

story96 positive mentions

grinding14 negative mentions

The game features beautiful visuals and a captivating art style that enhances the dark atmosphere.
The story is intriguing and told through collectibles, allowing for multiple interpretations and deeper engagement.
The puzzles are unique and varied, providing a challenge that encourages experimentation and critical thinking.

The controls are clunky and unresponsive, making precise movements difficult and leading to frustrating gameplay experiences.
The game suffers from artificial difficulty spikes, particularly in boss encounters that require perfect timing and execution.
The pacing is slow, with long backtracking to checkpoints that can detract from the overall enjoyment of the game.

story
280 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
34%
62%
4%
The game's story is conveyed primarily through collectibles and visual storytelling, creating a mysterious and layered narrative that can be both intriguing and confusing for players. While many appreciate the unique approach and emotional depth, some find the pacing slow and the gameplay mechanics frustrating, which can hinder the overall experience of piecing together the plot. Overall, the art style and atmosphere complement the story well, making it a worthwhile endeavor for those willing to invest the time to uncover its secrets.
- “The story is quite touching and the overall presentation is very beautiful.”
- “The artwork is great, the story is interesting and well transmitted to the player via pixel-art flashback scenes (even though not a single dialogue is used in the game) and the true ending reveals a heartbreaking twist which does this game justice.”
- “The story itself is told in small fragments hidden throughout the levels that let you relive parts of your past and try to piece it all back together.”
- “The story is honestly quite confusing and vague at times, and even after collecting every memory fragment, I'm still unsure of what exactly the story is. I can kind of tell certain points but not everything, and I'm certainly not understanding the whole story, that's for sure.”
- “It instead makes the incomprehensible decision to hide the story behind hidden collectibles and impossible-without-a-guide hidden mechanics.”
- “I just don’t understand why you’d go through all the trouble to create this story and then make it so a huge swath of players will never see it.”
gameplay
238 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
18%
69%
13%
The gameplay of htol#niq is widely criticized for its clunky controls and frustrating mechanics, particularly when played with a mouse and keyboard, leading to a challenging experience that often feels unfair. While the game features unique puzzle mechanics and an intriguing shadow system, many players find the trial-and-error nature of the puzzles tedious and the overall gameplay experience lacking in polish and coherence. Despite its beautiful art and compelling story, the gameplay issues significantly detract from the enjoyment, making it hard to recommend for those seeking a smooth and engaging experience.
- “A dark and gloomy yet charming fairy tale, featuring exceptional design, captivating art style, innovative mechanics, and challenging gameplay.”
- “The gameplay is quite unique.”
- “The visuals, sound design, atmosphere, story, and gameplay are all amazing!”
- “The gameplay is generally frustrating and poor, with imprecise controls getting you unfairly killed, often sending you back minutes due to checkpoint scarcity and slow movement speed.”
- “The gameplay is more about fighting the controls of the character to do something you want than actually spending time on puzzles, and the game actively punishes you for it when precision and timing are called for in some areas.”
- “Absolutely amazing visuals coupled with a soundtrack with the same power are both astonishingly ruined by some of the most disappointing gameplay I've had the misfortune to suffer through.”
graphics
124 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
55%
43%
2%
The graphics of the game are widely praised for their unique and charming art style, which blends cute character designs with dark, atmospheric environments. Many reviewers highlight the exceptional visual design and captivating aesthetics, noting that the visuals significantly enhance the storytelling experience, despite some gameplay flaws. However, the game's challenging mechanics and occasionally clunky controls can detract from the overall experience, leading some players to recommend watching gameplay instead of playing.
- “A dark and gloomy yet charming fairy tale, featuring exceptional design, captivating art style, innovative mechanics, and challenging gameplay.”
- “The art style is gorgeous.”
- “This game is a tale of visual splendor, with a plot told through visuals and metaphors, with no spoken lines or dialogue.”
- “Where there wasn’t a specific sprite designed, there’s just the classic pure black no-graphic wall.”
- “Don't let the charming graphics fool you.”
- “Poor hitboxes and sometimes unclearly marked visuals frequently send me back to the last checkpoint.”
music
84 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
45%
50%
5%
The music in the game receives mixed reviews, with many praising its beautiful and atmospheric qualities that enhance the overall experience, while others find it basic and lacking in variety. Some players appreciate the calming ambient tracks that suit the puzzle-solving gameplay, but there are complaints about looping issues and a perceived lack of depth in the soundtrack. Overall, while the music contributes positively to the game's aesthetic, it is not universally acclaimed and is often overshadowed by gameplay criticisms.
- “It's beautiful, the music is amazing, and some of the puzzle designs are super satisfying and fun to navigate.”
- “The atmosphere, music, and art are also top-notch, with a sweet ending, so if you're into artistic puzzle games that require timing at times.”
- “Soothing soundtracks that ease into your consciousness and guide you along the way into the puzzles this game has to offer.”
- “The OST is bland, the gameplay is boring and/or frustrating, and the storytelling isn't really worth the time investment.”
- “The 'soundtrack' is certainly fitting to the general tone of the game, but it's really basic and really boring.”
- “The music, on the other hand, is simply lackluster all around.”
atmosphere
66 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
58%
37%
5%
The game's atmosphere is widely praised for its beautiful visuals, immersive sound design, and intriguing narrative, creating a thick, engaging environment that enhances the overall experience. While some players find the atmosphere compelling despite gameplay shortcomings, others note that the game struggles to maintain its dark tone consistently. Overall, the atmosphere stands out as one of the game's strongest elements, appealing to those who appreciate artistic and atmospheric experiences.
- “Gorgeous art, atmospheric level design, intriguing world with a mystery lying beneath.”
- “The art direction is beautiful, the atmosphere is thick and immersive, the narrative is intriguing and mysterious and incredibly engaging despite not even featuring any dialogue, the game is full of clever symbolism and foreshadowing throughout.”
- “Even after finishing the game, I'm delighted to play the whole game or at least some chapters again - not only for the achievements but simply for the experience and great atmosphere and for the very moving background story.”
- “Hotaru no nikki is a lukewarm puzzle game that doesn't ever truly shine with its atmosphere, puzzles, or story.”
- “It has many unpolished aspects and oversights within its gameplay, has an insane difficulty spike in certain places, and does not fully commit to its tone and atmosphere.”
- “The game fails as a creative or engaging puzzle game, fails at maintaining a dark atmosphere by not being committed to it, has lots of unpolished nuances that result in frustrating waiting segments on the player's behalf, has unjustifiable difficulty spikes, has one-dimensional characters but an intriguing story, and has good art but poor music.”
emotional
16 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game delivers a deeply emotional experience through its touching story and beautiful pixel-art presentation, effectively conveying its narrative without dialogue. Players appreciate the heartbreaking twist in the true ending, which enhances the overall impact of the game. While it poses significant challenges, those seeking a unique and experimental emotional journey will find it worthwhile, especially if they enjoy games with complex or subtly told stories.
- “The story is quite touching and the overall presentation is very beautiful.”
- “The artwork is great, the story is interesting and well transmitted to the player via pixel-art flashback scenes (even though not a single dialogue is used in the game) and the true ending reveals a heartbreaking twist which does this game justice.”
- “The art style is fantastic, the story is mysterious yet extremely tragic and emotional, and it's an extremely challenging game.”
grinding
14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be largely tedious and monotonous, with many describing the platform design as frustrating and unforgiving. While some appreciate the art and clever moments, the overall experience can feel laborious, often requiring guides to uncover hidden secrets and lore. Those who enjoy a challenge may find value in the grind, but it often detracts from the fun.
- “I wish it were 'fun' rather than tedious.”
- “Rooms are built specifically to kill you, be a danger to you specifically, and slow you down with tedious and monotonous platform design.”
- “So you will miss most of the potential lore, and have to tediously work just to get scraps of it; and if you don't then you don't get any lore at all and the whole game is just puzzle solving.”
stability
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
67%
Overall, the game demonstrates strong stability with no significant bugs or glitches reported, and it runs smoothly on SteamOS. However, players have noted that the slow movement speed can lead to frustrating regressions, especially when facing unreasonable losing conditions.
- “It runs great and I haven't had any technical issues yet.”
- “The checkpoints are plentiful, but the incredibly slow pace at which Mion moves still makes regression very frustrating; particularly when the losing condition was something unreasonable or buggy.”
character development
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
Reviewers praise the character development for its charming and cute designs, highlighting the quality of pixel art reminiscent of the studio's previous successful franchises like Disgaea and Yomawari. Overall, the character aesthetics are well-received, contributing positively to the game's visual appeal.
- “The character designs are what you would expect from the company that gave you the likes of the Disgaea franchise, the Yomawari franchise, and A Rose in the Twilight.”
- “Everything looks good, the character design is cute, and the pixel art is also great.”
optimization
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
50%
25%
Overall, the game's performance is solid, with no reported frame drops. However, there are suggestions for improving the optimization of the menus for a better user experience.
- “Performance doesn't have any frame drops.”
- “Menus could be optimized a little better.”

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70%Critics’ scoreBased on 4 critic reviews

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9h Median play time

9h Average play time

4-20h Spent by most gamers

*Based on 8 analyzed playthroughs

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