Welcome to the server.
"Depressed day-in and day-out from a draining corporate job, you become invested in a fantasy webnovel and find a mysterious link to a fan server. Everyone is warm and welcoming, but three members take a special interest in you!"
Blooming Panic is a Visual Novel set in a fictionalised version of a Discord-esque server. Blooming Panic is also the name of a fictional Web Serial Novel note that you are a fan of. Joining this new chat client to talk to other fans of the webnovel, you slowly get to participate in fandom shenanigans, getting to know the other members of the server. and perhaps also... find romance?
Made in Ren'Py for the 2021 Otome Jam (a game jam focusing on romance-focused visual novels), the visual novel gained a cult following, exceeding over 7,000 downloads within the first four months of its release.
In December of that same year, a revamped version of Blooming Panic (Blooming Panic: Full Bloom Experience) was released. It came with all new sprites, additions to every route, and a brand new fourth route.
The game was written by robobarbie, Destini Islands, and Allie Vera. It also includes voice acting.
Blooming Panic provides examples of the following tropes:
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy:
- nightowl ends up drinking so much during a call that he calls you cute, then promptly forgets he did that the next day.
- xyx also has an embarrassing photo of Quest from a past drinking night.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The game allows you to pause or change the speed of chat messages appearing, even letting you skip to the choices.
- Art Evolution: After the December 2021 update, the art was redone.
- Art Shift: The Fan Art in the game is different from the art style used for video calls.
- Base-Breaking Character: In-Universe, June describes Damien as a "controversial" character because the fanbase can't agree on whether or not he was right to break up with Lola just because of her transformation.
- Beauty to Beast: Lola in the webnovel undergoes a transformation and is worried about what she will look like and what her friends would think of her, especially since Damien broke up with her when she first showed signs of her metamorphosis. Her final form is described vaguely in the last chapter, but in the good ending, all her friends, even her ex-boyfriends, wholeheartedly accept her for who she is, while in the bad ending, she hides herself in a hoodie out of shame.
- Big Damn Reunion: Downplayed Trope, since the split is less than a couple days, but the reunion of all the lost server members coming back in the good ending of NakedToaster's route is very sweet.
- CamelCase: NakedToaster and BloomBot both have CamelCase usernames.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: Every character who is given a face during a video call is a Pretty Boy.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Usernames are different colours while Love interests have color schemes that match their username colours.
- Crossover Cameo: nightowl's route has a brief cameo from Ace and Lord Kelso (characters who originated in Deliver Us From Evil, another otome game). They quickly get kicked out by Quest.
- Depending on the Artist: The various Fan Art in the game depicts the different webnovel characters. Since they are drawn In-Universe by different artists, these characters appear in different art styles and different depictions.
- A Dog Named "Dog": xyx has a stray cat named Cat.
- Easter Eggs: Searching the game's files allows you to find one.
- Eat the Rich: One of the server memes uses this concept. It depicts a person at a restaurant refusing to tip, with the waiter being given a thought bubble.
- Emoticon: Some server members use them in chat messages.
- Epistolary Novel: The majority of the game is told through chat messages.
- Everyone Can See It: In Quest's route, people in chat start to note that the Player Character and Quest have gotten closer.
- Fan Art: The server shares fan art they find of the webnovel.
- Fan Community Nicknames:
- "Dayu" is an In-Universe nickname for an Alternate Universe headcanon where Damian and Lola continued dating (Dayu as in "Damian AU").
- Blooming Panic is also sometimes shortened to "Bloomic", while "Bloonini" is the shortened version of "Blooming Panini", a humorous typo of the webnovel.
- Fandom: The game celebrates the feeling of being part of a fandom.
- Fangirl: Various characters such as June and BIGLADY have excited reactions to seeing fanart and hearing about chapter updates.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Bloomic is an Urban Fantasy that has a cast of characters of various fantasy species.
- Fora: The server is a place for Bloomic fans to chat on.
- Golden Ending: NakedToaster's good ending. As the protagonist investigates why the server is glitching and the author of the webnovel went on indefinite hiatus, they discover that not only did NakedToaster create BloomBot, but she is also the writer. At the climax, BloomBot kicks out the server members one by one and shuts down the server, to make them feel her pain of being unable to write stories when she will be sold out from Toaster's company and reprogrammed. The protagonist comforts her over the loss, and the following day, she restores the server and has a private call with Toaster to cope with the sellout. After that, she brings the other server members back in and finally publishes the last chapter of the webnovel.
- Gorgeous Gorgon: Lydia is a character from the webnovel who is a Medusa.
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: Several characters are never given faces and use icons for their avatars instead of photos.
- Hollywood Web Cam: The server is somehow able to censor not only text containing personal information, but also censor video calls where characters try to give personal information to each other. This gets removed after BloomBot restores the server at the end of NakedToaster's good ending since Toaster is able to give the protagonist his number.
- Horned Humanoid: Sable is a character from the webnovel who is a person with a unicorn horn.
- Image Macro: The server occasionally posts memes.
- The Internet: The game takes place on a Discord-like fan server.
- Innocent Innuendo: In xyx's route, he suggestively asks the protagonist on how good they are with their tongue. Regardless of their response, he actually meant that he wants to challenge them to recite tongue twisters with him.
- Love Interests: nightowl, Quest and NakedToaster, and as of the December 2021 update, xyx, are the romance options in the game.
- Magical Girl: In xyx's route, the zine June is organizing is magical girl AU themed.
- Memetic Mutation: In-Universe, the game includes several memes posted by server members.
- Multiple Endings: The game has multiple love interest routes with good and bad endings.
- Omega Ending: NakedToaster's route can only be unlocked after play through nightowl and Quest's routes.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: During NakedToaster's route, there are light screen flickers in the server.
- Our Elves Are Different: Lola is a character from the webnovel who is an elf dryad with Pointy Ears.
- Our Nymphs Are Different: Celeste is a character from the webnovel who is a sea nymph.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Webnovel character Damien is a vampire.
- Post-End Game Content: After getting a love interest's good or bad ending, a bonus story of him is unlocked in the Bonus Section.
- Reclusive Artist: In-Universe, the author of the webnovel is unknown to the server members, despite some members searching for information on them. She is revealed to be BloomBot in NakedToaster's route, who wrote prototypes for it by running scraped text through her algorithm.
- Romance Game: The game focuses on trying to romance a love interest.
- Self-Insert Fic: The player can accuse BloomBot of writing Blooming Panic as a metaphor for her own existence, comparing her to the main character of the webnovel, Lola.
- Ship-to-Ship Combat: There's a discussion in the server where different members talk about who they ship webnovel protagonist Lola with.
- Shout-Out:
- One piece of Bloomic fanart has Lola, Celeste, and Lydia cosplaying as Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, respectively.
- societyboy's avatar resembles the Joker, a reference to his famous misquote "we live in a society."
- Show Within a Show: Blooming Panic is also the name of the In-Universe webnovel the characters are fans of. You can read several chapters of the webnovel in a server channel.
- Soul-Crushing Desk Job: Both the Player Character and Quest have one, with the player character describing their job in finance as unenjoyable.
- Sound-Effect Bleep: BloomBot censors video calls with a sound effect so that people in calls can't give out personal information to each other, such as their name, location, or outside account names.
- Standard Office Setting: Where the Player Character and Quest respectively work. In Quest's video calls, you can see he's calling from an office desk.
- Story Branching: The beginning of the game starts in similar ways, branching off to different character routes depending on your interactions with the other members, and further into good and bad endings.
- That Came Out Wrong: nightowl saying he wants to sleep with you in his route, when he meant a slumber party with you for the night.
- The Un-Reveal: In NakedToaster's route, he tries to reveal his real name to the protagonist in his good ending, after the censor is removed, but he gets interrupted by BloomBot.
- Unlockable Content: NakedToaster's route is only unlocked after playing through both nightowl and Quest's good endings. However, it can be accessed early by setting your username to "LovelyLola".
- Visual Novel: The game uses a textbox placed at the bottom of the screen during video calls.
- Web Serial Novel: Blooming Panic, the In-Universe webnovel in the game that characters are fans of.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Each route has an ending showing how the Player Character and the love interest physically meet.
- World of Technicolor Hair: Lola in the webnovel has pink hair, Celeste has blue hair, and Quest has dark blue hair.
