Air Pressure

Air Pressure is a short, and decidedly unromantic, visual novel.

It focuses on the unnamed protagonist who tires of his relationship with Leigh, a girl he's been with since high school. He feels stuck and oppressed, and wonders how to bring this subject up with Leigh on his birthday.

It's short and melancholy, and will take more than two playthroughs to "get" it. (Don't worry--it's short enough, takes around five to ten minutes to play.)

The flash version is here. You can download it for Windows, Mac, or Linux here.


 * Alternate Character Interpretation: On a meta sense, Leigh stands for something (see below). Depending on the path you take, Leigh is either a selfish, controlling Jerkass, a girl that genuinely wants you to be happy, or a girl stifled by the romance.
 * Animesque: The art style is meant to look Japanese.
 * Deconstruction Game: The game initially appears to be a Romance Game Visual Novel where the main goal is to repair the protagonist's relationship with his girlfriend, but doing the "nice" actions that would normally get you a happy ending leads to a far more disturbing outcome instead.
 * Destructive Romance: The protagonist's relationship with Leigh can come across like this on certain paths, with her verbally abusing him and convincing him that he would be worthless without her.
 * Does This Remind You of Anything?:
 * Downer Ending:
 * Gainax Ending:
 * Inner Monologue: Most of the game, though if you decide to walk around without Leigh for a while, the protagonist will go people watching for a while. His monologue will either decide that he feels bad without Leigh, or feels better without her.
 * Interface Screw:
 * Jerkass: Depending on the player choices, Leigh will either be an asshole to you, or you can be callous to her. And depending on the choices afterwards, Leigh will quickly show remorse, and/or the protagonist will also feel bad and apologize.
 * Mind Screw: Deliberate.
 * Minimalist Cast: Aside from the protagonist going people watching and nebulous references to other people in some dialog situations, it's just the protagonist and Leigh.
 * Multiple Endings:
 * Even these have permutations--
 * Out with a Bang:
 * Shrug of God: The author's admitted it's up to the viewer to decide what the game's metaphor and what Leigh represents, but has said Leigh's not meant to be drug addiction or heroin, but something similar.
 * Tsundere: Type two, depending on the paths you take. Towards the end, if you've spent the game pushing Leigh away, Leigh will get rather nasty, bringing up the fact that . If you get angry at her, she calms down and is regretful at yelling at you, but pushing her away further and keeping your resolve gets her a bit more angry. Some paths, even if you push her away, she isn't angry at all, and even seems remorseful or sad
 * Utsuge: Not "in your face", but once the Fridge Brilliance sets in...
 * White-Haired Pretty Girl / Blondes Are Evil: Leigh.