As far as I'm aware Yakusoku no Akai Origami is the very first game by Hitotokinoyume, a team of 3 guys. They also released this mostly same game for mobile with room escape elements. I played the PC, VN version. I'm very impressed with their first attempt. Everything is solid and the story is pretty good. There are also some player friendly choices with the design I would love to see in all VNs, like highlighting the routes I already took so I don't have to reload when making a mistake, and showing me the paths I didn't take to reach a particular ending. Not many free stuff out there that will take the trouble to implement those things, it helps a lot. Everything else other than the plot is average though. Average art, average music. The characters do look a little bit uninspired but the backgrounds held my interest as they look like from an old point and click game but in a Japanese setting, it was interesting.
The plot is the main reason why you would play this. Religion plays a major part in the story. It's interesting to see a more 'religious-centric' view on Japanese spirituality. Usually in games and anime you have a very fantastic, mythological approach where you actually see the Gods and all the mythological creatures roaming around and interacting with humans. In such cases, there's no room for an exploration of religious behavior or religious belief, because there's no room for skepticism or thinking critically about religion. The Gods are right there! The Kappas roam the mountains. If a miku is doing something wrong, she just needs to ask the God she's serving and he or she is right there to respond, problem solved. When Mythology is a given like this, it's almost not a religion as a belief system, it's right in front of you. There are no doubts about it. Here though we have a more realistic view. Lots of conflict about belief and rituals and whatnot. It would be interesting to see more games taking this approach, I think it's a fairly unexplored territory, especially if you compare it with the more fantasy-based approach to Shinto and Japanese mythology that is absolutely everywhere in JP media.
I want to say this takes place at the beginning of the Meiji era based on some objects you can see around, but it might be a little later than that since the entire thing happens in a very tiny, isolated village. You have a very influential family, the Utsumi, having to deal with the task of giving thanks to the God protector of the place. Right away there's all sorts of weird things happening. You follow a girl called Tada, as she's trying to figure out all the weird things that start to happen to her on her 16th birthday. Voices whispering in the night, visions of a little girl inside the temple strangling an old man and little pieces of origami paper she keeps finding in the oddest places. As she goes back and forth asking people around about the past of the village and the upcoming festival, the plot unravels.
There's also point and click elements to find clues and objects that unlock more of the story. I'm not fond of that type of stuff in the middle of a VN but all those sections are simple enough and nicely spaced so it never gets annoying. It's a rather long one for a free title but it's worth a read.
https://novelgame.jp/games/show/6509
You can also watch it, some fairly talkative guy played it in 4 parts. Fair warning though, he's very enthusiastic about his own voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7mk813n2hg
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