A Friend in the Funny Business

Out of the blue, you receive a text message from your coworker who resigned two years ago to follow other opportunities. She wants to reconnect with you! Can you carve out a little time to visit Al's Diner and meet with her this Saturday?

A Friend in the Funny Business is a cozy clown-versational visual novel, created in Ren'py. You'll learn what makes you a valued friend and determine your own relationship with the heroine, Maddy. There are no wrong answers! Sometimes, being a friend just means being there for somebody.

This game is a visual novel developed in one month for the March 2025 NaNoRenO game jam!

Features:

• 3 (4?) colorful characters, each with partial voice acting, animated sprite expressions, and a heart of gold
• Almost 20,000 words, estimated playtime a little under an hour for one ending
• 4 sub-endings based on your charm points and 4 endings based on your relationship with the heroine
• They/them pronouns POV protagonist
• Family friendly!

How to play:

You can play in browser or download the attached winRAR file, extract files to the location of your choice, and launch the FunnyBusiness.exe (Windows OS only) . Mouse and keyboard are recommended, gamepad has not been tested. You can play it on your phone too, actually, but you can't access the stats page that way currently and some GUI features are missing.

If you run into any issues, please report them here!

Credits:

Written, sprited, and programmed by AimVtuber at Bluesky and Carrd

Backgrounds by Melusinnie at DeviantArt , Twitch , and Itch.io

Text is The Fruit Star by Khurasan

license: Freeware

link: https://www.fontspace.com/the-fruit-star-font-f108819

Boxes / buttons by cvcielo at Itch.io

All emojis designed by OpenMoji – the open-source emoji and icon project. License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Maddy/Fancy voice acting by Quettatonia at Twitch

Big Al voice acting by Turgize at X.com and Carrd

Suzy Q voice by Frexel at Bluesky

All other sound effects by ZapSplat per Standard License https://www.zapsplat.com/

“The Astronomy Club Looping” (used as theme of Maddy)

“Chug Along Little Engine” (used as theme of Fancy)

“Bubble Gum Groovin” (used as theme of Al and Suzy)

"Happy Endings Looping" (used as ending theme)

by Eric Matyas

www.soundimage.org

Lip movement / mouth moving code by NotHack Europa at Itch.io

Playtested by HeatSonata