I streamed with the dev present, so here are my notes for the record:

• +Cute concept, nothing too complex but engaging.
• +The writing worked well for me and had fun moments.
• +The presentation is okay, nothing great or bad, but that in itself is praise considering the graphics are a bit of a mishmash of sources and styles.
• +The combat system was a bit on the unfair side (especially with hitboxes) but it was a refreshing change from the usual. I did enjoy guessing what attitude the enemy was having, tho a few I had to kind of guess at random.
• +The windowskin being script paper was a very cute touch.
• +The music was cool!
• -Some moves are clearly wacked out, to mind come the lady's attacks being a bit too harsh for being the first encounter, especially the cigarettes'. The second fight had two, the "pines" attack's hitboxes were a mess, and the consecutive blue and orange lines attack was UNREASONABLY quick and I barely had time to process what was happening. 
• -The ending was fairly abrupt, but nothing I can really complain about considering this was a 1 week quick development.
• -The lack of any saving system really screwed me over when I accidentally quit the game via misclick :T

For what it was announced to me as (a silly little thing with low effort in a week) was a lot more enjoyable than I expected! I could see this being longer with more polish no problem if that's ever the direction you want to go in.

Somniloquy is a jazzy repartee-based battle system game where you do Undertale dodging, and combine it with some conversational persuasion systems. Depending on whether you succeed or fail these encounters, you get different endings! It's a great concept...

...and it's backed up by effervescent, crispy writing that just dances on the page. It's clear that HuntingSwan knows exactly how to play those notes, just dance on those story-beat keys, for me, will you? Will you really, now - will you, darling?

The hilarious caricatured battlers shoot out pine trees and pickles at your "heart-like object" (we're thinking Undertale here again), as HuntingSwan utilises a SumRandomDude plugin to great aplomb! These plugins are there to be used, and it still takes some great talent to integrate it with a project that has weight.

One of the reasons why I feel Somniloquy has weight, is that it's also rooted in the serious - notions of the inequality of balance in Hollywood, the necessity of being assertive, aggressive, passive and passive-aggressive in turn to tip the scale of power your way, and the bleak reality that women were trampled all over in this industry, and didn't seem to get their fair recompense.

I didn't manage to get a "good" ending, so I suppose my experience curved towards the "pessimistic" in this case. However, being the type to play a game once and embrace its ending, I enjoyed it as a cautionary tale. I can imagine that if you get the "good ending" it might be a little different? Only Heaven knows!

All in all, this is a fun, comedic romp of tête-à-tête tit-for-tatting, petty persuasion, and the struggle for power in a game where everything's fake, even the points. If this is any indication of other HuntingSwan games, then I must have more!

(Here's a video of me playing on stream:)

I was very intrigued by this entry because it used the theme in a very original way. The battle system is based on the one used in undertale and I think it was a really good choice as it gave more characterization to the cast. The fact that these battles occur during sleep also makes us understand how the protagonist is tormented by his past. Maybe I would have reduced the HP of the enemies a little and I would have added a quick tutorial on how to understand which is the most appropriate attack to do (in a nutshell use interact before acting)!

I read that in your idea there was going to be another boss fight and in my opinion it would have been perfect to have it as a conclusion! I don't know if you intended to expand this game in future or if you wanted to create a stand-alone game for this jam, in any case you did a good job, keep it up!

I liked this game! It really shows how hard you worked on it, congratulations! The take of the theme is original, and this can be a genre in itself because it’s so weird and I like it.

The problems I have found is if I skip all the dialogue and I choose always the first option I can manage a good result, also if you lose in a combat you need to redo the game, I didn’t check if I can save on my house or in an another place. The combat is quite long even if fun and I see many times the same two or three skills for character, I would have preferred at least twice the skills. But for the rest, I really liked the game and how detailed it is , I think we hardly will see one game like this in the future, and that is a good thing because it means is really original.

So I got this for judging and am posting my thoughts here:

-Interesting idea for the game, play as someone trying to make a hit of an old show.

-Like the idea of trying to appease the diva and the execs and having to make the right choices.

-Not sure what the point of the battles were. I lost both and still got the ending where the show was a success. Do they factor into the ending at all? 

Suggestions for improvement:

Honestly I'd like to see more to this game. We only cover 2 days in game then get an ending. Maybe more events as the show is being rehearsed and such that you have to deal with? Also would like an option to save in game, just in case. Or if there is a save option I never found it, hitting the key for menu does nothing.