Rain98 Guides

Rain98 currently has two Steam identities that answer different player questions. AppID 3498720 is the unreleased base game, still listed for 2026 without an exact day. AppID 3738760 is the free public Demo released on October 16, 2026. If you want to play now, install the Demo; if you are planning for the full story, wishlist the base game and treat Demo behavior as a preview rather than a launch guarantee.

The public Demo combines visual-novel scenes with apartment interactions, short piecework activities, and trips through a rain-soaked version of 1998 Shibuya. Its official boundary runs from the beginning of the story to the first half of Chapter 2. The developer describes more than three hours of play and plans to extend the Demo to the rest of Chapter 2, but that extension is a future plan until it appears in the downloadable build.

Begin with the official Demo

Open the Rain98 Demo store page and use Steam’s Install Demo action. The title in your library should read “Rain98 Demo.” That name and AppID are the simplest way to avoid confusing the playable test with the separate Coming Soon base-game listing.

Before the opening scene, choose a comfortable text speed, volume balance, display mode, and input device. Rain98 depends heavily on dialogue, environmental sound, rain ambience, and small interaction cues. Headphones are useful if they are comfortable for you, but readable subtitles and a clear effects balance matter more than a specific audio device.

The story includes depictions of self-harm, suicide, drug use, religious ritual, psychological and physical violence, alcohol and tobacco, and indirect sexual content. Steam carries the developer’s complete mature-content statement. Read it before starting if any of those subjects affect whether, when, or with whom you want to play.

Understand the play loop

Rain98 moves between two broad forms. Novel segments deliver dialogue, choices, and character scenes. Adventure segments let you inspect the apartment, interact with Reina, travel into Shibuya, and complete small hands-on activities. Slow down when the presentation switches: the relevant objects, prompts, and goals can be different from the previous scene.

Money and the Angel Passport connect many of these moments. The official Demo description says piecework at home pays for living expenses and can open more ways to spend time with Reina. Special experiences earn stickers for the Angel Passport, advancing the pair’s strange world-ending ritual. A sticker is therefore a record of an experience, not a random level-up token or a currency to spend.

Use the Systems hub when you want to understand that progression without flattening it into a checklist. Use Activities when a particular piecework or minigame is the obstacle. The two sections stay separate because earning money and earning memories serve different purposes even when one scene touches both.

Choose a route by what you need

Protect story pacing without missing interaction

The most reliable habit is to finish reading the scene objective, then scan the active view for interaction markers before advancing. Apartment scenes can use the room itself as a menu. Shibuya exploration can shift the camera and navigation style again. If a prompt does not respond, return to the immediately stated objective rather than clicking every object or restarting the chapter.

Keep one ordinary save or Steam Cloud sync point before a long activity when the interface permits it, then exit through the game’s menu so Steam has time to synchronize. Steam lists Cloud support for the Demo, but Cloud support does not establish a documented local file path, manual-save system, or retail carry-over. The developer only states that a future Demo expansion will let players continue from the point reached before that update.

Avoid using a pre-release walkthrough as a script for every choice. Earlier show-floor versions began in different places and exposed different slices of the story. They remain useful for recognizing a mechanic, not for proving the exact order or consequence in the October 16 public Demo.

Make money and memories deliberately

When the story offers piecework, read the activity’s on-screen goal before chasing speed. Completing one clean cycle teaches more than several rushed failures. Notice which actions move an object, which action commits it, where a finished object belongs, and what the result screen actually credits. This approach carries into the capsule job and other short tasks without pretending they all use identical rules.

Spend with a purpose tied to the current scene. The official description connects earnings to living expenses and additional time with Reina; independent hands-on reports also describe purchases and activities as part of the daily loop. Exact prices and best-profit claims are too dependent on the Demo build to serve as permanent rules. A small reserve gives you more freedom than spending immediately because an item looks collectible.

Treat Angel Passport progress as narrative progress. The developer describes stickers as rewards for doing something special for Reina and creating shared memories. That framing makes conversations, errands, gifts, and ordinary time together potentially meaningful. It does not prove that every interactable grants a sticker, that a fixed daily route is optimal, or that the public Demo contains all one hundred.

Know what the Demo does and does not establish

Finish a session cleanly

End after a natural scene break rather than during an input-heavy activity. Note the chapter, immediate objective, available money, recent Passport event, and any unfinished interaction. That short record is enough to resume without turning a character-driven story into administrative work.

If Steam Cloud shows a sync warning, let the client resolve it before launching on another machine. Do not overwrite a newer cloud copy simply because its timestamp looks unfamiliar. Capture both timestamps and preserve the newer local data while you determine which session each file represents.

For the next session, choose one goal: continue the story, earn enough for a specific purchase, revisit a missed apartment interaction, or work through an activity. A single goal keeps the atmosphere intact and makes failures easier to diagnose.

Primary sources

• Rain98 base game on Steam
• Rain98 Demo on Steam
• Official Demo launch announcement