- We're ships at the sea, drifting in all directions.
Dawn Chorus is a Furry romance Visual Novel created using Ren'Py.
It has been two months since you, a Finnish tiger named Arvo with an interest in photography, have moved to Norway to attend university. Two months into your first semester, you attend a science camp set in a scenic guesthouse above the Arctic Circle accompanied by students and staff both new and familiar. As inclement weather around the house keeps the camp attendees mostly inside, it is Arvo's chance to make new relationships, explore old ones, and discover more about both himself and his companions.
The game is currently in-development, with builds for the game available to download for free on its itch.io page
. Updates for the game are released monthly, with Patreon supporters gaining the build a month early. The game does contain explicit NSFW scenes that can be toggled off in the options.
A series of short standalone visual novels that focus on specific characters are also being developed, unlike the main game being paid for. The first, Broken Harbours, focuses on Rune and Devon, while a second focusing on Lake is confirmed to be in the works.
Tropes featured in Dawn Chorus include:
- Adjustable Censorship: The game's NSFW content can be disabled in the Preferences menu.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: The end of Day 3 switches to the perspective of your chosen route partner.
- Carnivore Confusion: The cast's diet is mostly made up of plants and fish. Cheese and milk made with non-dairy ingredients is also frequently mentioned.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Mikko's route revolves around him and Arvo coming to terms with both their present relationship and their past as each other's First Love.
- Closed Circle: Strong weather around the guesthouse makes travelling outside of it difficult, leading to the cancellation of a trip into town on Day 2 of the science camp.
- Coming-Out Story: Arvo isn't out at the start of the story, and how he comes out is a minor part of his character arc. Lake's route also features them coming out as non-binary.
- Failed a Spot Check: The lost room key in Day 1 turns out to have just been hiding at the bottom of Arvo's bag. This is then Subverted when it turns out that Travis stole the key and returned it later.
- Food Porn: Dawn Chorus really likes describing the food various characters eat in loving detail.
- Foreshadowing: On Day 2, Rune can ask a seemingly random question related to his studies about whether you believe that hallucinogenic drugs could be useful for therapy. The significance of this only becomes obvious at the end of Day 3 of his own route, which reveals that he takes magic mushrooms to try and address anxiety. Responding positively to the original question is how you get the scene in which Arvo helps Rune through the bad trip.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Arvo can be renamed to your liking.
- Higher Understanding Through Drugs: The end of Day 3 in Rune's route sees him, after a cavalcade of setbacks to his many ambitions, take a stash of magic mushrooms to relax. This sends him on a bad trip, which through his own efforts and the help of Arvo helps him to understand the limits of his previous workaholism.
- Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Though the story branches, there are certain events and character motivations that only get fully elaborated on during certain routes, requiring multiple playthroughs to understand everything.
- Painting the Medium: Devon's name above his dialogue at the start of the story is "Coach Devon", but once he mentions that he is happy to not be called by his job title it changes to just "Devon".
- Psychosexual Horror: Torulf's route leans into this, being a very sensitive exploration of a relationship driven first and foremost by his sex drive, and the serious impacts it can have on Arvo's existing relationships and his own psyche.
- STD Immunity: Averted. In Torulf's route, Arvo experiences a Freak Out after having unprotected sex with Torulf out of a fear that it could lead to catching an STD, and only somewhat calms down when Torulf mentions that he uses PrEP .
- Story Branching: The character you wish to focus on is chosen at the end of Day 1, with their individual routes continuing from there.
- Translation Convention: Justified in some scenes, as the cast is a mix of Norwegians, Finns and an American, so using English as a common language amongst them makes sense in certain contexts. That said, there are still scenes where Arvo and another Finn are conversing in private but the text is in English for the audience's benefit.
- World of Mammals: The story's setting establishes that land mammals have evolved to have human proportions, opposing thumbs, and a common language. Fish and birds are still very much treated as animals; Mikko discusses as part of his studies as to whether they could acquire sentience in the future.
