Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags
A jam submission

Jolly RogerView game page

A short BL Visual Novel about romance and pirates. Spanish and English available.
Submitted by Ertal Games (@ertal77) — 2 days, 1 hour before the deadline
Add to collection

Play game

Jolly Roger's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
El mejor arte#14.7504.750
La mejor música y/o efectos sonoros#14.1674.167
Piña de Oro al mejor juego de la jam#24.0004.000
El mejor diseño de interfaz de usuario#33.7503.750
El mejor guión#33.9173.917
El más divertido#52.7502.750

Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Comments

(+1)

¡Voy a explicar en castellano el porqué de mis ratings!

Piña de Oro al mejor juego de la jam:

Lo dejaré en 3 estrellas porque todavía no probé los demás. Editaré el comentario más adelante... ;w;

El mejor arte: 

En mi opinión- aparte de ser una fanática del estilo animesco(?- los diseños de ambos personajes me parecen muy originales y la facilidad que tiene Ertal de plasmar sus personalidades los hacen todavía mejores. ¡Un 5 estrellas por ello de mi parte!

El mejor guión:  

El guion esta bien, pero al ser un juego de jam se quedó corto y se nota que te apuraste con el final. Podría haberse adaptado mejor para que no quedara de esa forma, aunque quitando ese detalle, has hecho -como siempre a mi parecer- una historia prometedora y de buena calidad narrativa. 4/5 

El mejor diseño de interfaz de usuario: 

Aquí voy a ser sincera; he visto mejores trabajos hechos por ti. Es novedoso el uso de imagebuttons para la interfaz, pero tiene errores al pasar el cursor y se hace molesto para el jugador. Lo que más me gustó fue la caja de texto, como si fuera un mapa del tesoro, ¡es un buen detalle para una historia de piratas! 3/5

La mejor música y/o efectos sonoros: 

No tengo muchos conocimientos acerca de música ni composición, pero a pesar de ser música de uso libre están muy bien escogidas y se adaptan perfectamente al juego. 4/5

El más divertido:

Al igual que en el de la piña de oro, editare el comentario más adelante, de 3 estrellas no bajará. La verdad es que me gustó muchísimo todo de ello ;_;

(+1)

Peculiar. Al inicio me dio un error de idioma había seleccionado español, entro con normalidad ,pero cuando me fui a opciones para bajar un poco el sonido, el idioma se me cambio a ingles quise corregir eso pero tenia que salir del juego para hacerlo, seria bueno integrar lo del idioma en el menú de inicio del juego.

 La historia es buena y los gráficos también, lo que mas me gusto de este juego es su música, mas cuando perdía(final malo) y aparecían los créditos, muy agradable.

(1 edit) (+1)

I'll explain all my ratings starting from the second category to last, then to first.

2. El mejor arte/Best art: Five stars simply because art is just that: art. It is there, it serves its purpose, and is pretty as hell haha. Art is too subjective to give a rating other than if it looks appealing/works for the story it's telling as a visual novel, and if there is clear effort put into it, which there obviously seeing as new sprites and such were made just for this.

3. El mejor guión/Best script: ONLY THE ENGLISH BTW!!

(Spelling and some grammatical/sentence structure errors aside) The script is nuanced for it's very short length. Yes, cliches are there, and yes, the protag is self aware of finding romance amidst death and calling it poetic. I blame that more on the length, in which the protag, Ian, had to be more explicit in his intentions by telling more than showing to shorten the script for this. However, even with that, his self-awareness is in character and also makes sense seeing as the game is in his POV. SPOILERS - As well, I enjoyed the fact that Ian himself needed real confirmation to know if he truly had feelings or if it was all a bunch of mumbo jumbo - END SPOILERS.

The 'antag', to put it in simple terms, has a slightly more implicit storyline which made the bad end all the more delightful to see. SPOILERS - I found it really in character, with his intelligence, to connect the dots so quickly (that part was kind of explicit as well). It's his reaction that I found more nuanced. Knowing what happens in the good end about his relationship with his brother and his impression of Ian, it made a lot of sense to his silent and quick approach at getting rid of Ian. Indeed, freedom never felt so bitter - END SPOILERS.

4. El mejor diseño de interfaz de usuario/The best user interface design: I'm not entirely sure, but I'm assuming that it's the GUI? Definitely the default Ren'Py options menu (given the small project), but for the unique ones, such as the pirate-themed buttons and font (including the quick time event screens), I was more than enough immersed and forgot about the default interface immediately.

5. La mejor música y/o efectos sonoros/The best music and/or sound effects: I only gave it a four because of it not being a unique soundtrack. Again, given the short project and all, it's personally no biggie for me. But when having to rate it, I took it into consideration. Otherwise, the music and ambient sounds that accompanied some of the music was very well placed, transitioned well (such as from credits to the choose your language screen), and really helped with immersion. As well, it felt refreshing seeing as it wasn't all stereotypical swash-buckling pirate theme park music, and instead, a real adventure on sea. Sound effects were nice.

6. El más divertido/The funniest: Four stars only because I didn't laugh out loud I guess? This one is hard to judge given that it's more subjective. I do like the humour that was there. Was very amusing especially with it being the era-oriented with the game.

1. Piña de Oro al mejor juego de la jam/Golden Pineapple for the best game of the jam: This one is purely personal. I love love love pirates, yaoi is fun to me when done well. The music helped with immersion and wasn't jarring.

I am the most critical with the writing, but even with that said, I didn't need, want, or expected to have a ground-breaking pirate romance. Just as long as I can see the nuance being executed well, I am more than content, especially with a small scale game like this one.

My verdict is: On a critical level, I'd give it a 4/5 or 4.5/5. I believe that even with the small scale, and the explanation that the protag tells more explicitly than implicitly (especially with it being his POV), that the execution could still be better at showing than telling. I won't get into an analysis essay-level of details, but I believe that there could've been a fine line between Ian's very tell-y character, and a more show-y expression of how he feels about certain situations other than confusion (does he feel happy confused or sad confused? I want to see that difference). Another completely insignificant complaint I have is that we don't get to see Ian's full sprite in the game even though it wouldn't make much sense otherwise haha!

But because I'm a sucker for a pirate yaoi games with a well-rounded game on all fronts (again, given the small amount of time and scope), I give it the five stars I believe it deserves :)))