| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #6 | 3.400 | 3.400 |
| Polish | #8 | 3.300 | 3.300 |
| Originality/Creativity | #8 | 3.400 | 3.400 |
| Magical Girl Concept | #10 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Theme Interpretation | #11 | 3.400 | 3.400 |
| Overall | #12 | 3.257 | 3.257 |
| Aesthetics | #17 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Engagement/Fun | #18 | 2.800 | 2.800 |
Ranked from 10 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the Magical Girl Genre?
There are few girls that can transform into a magical form in which they can blast monsters with lightning and other magic
Which theme(s) do you pick?
Surprise
How does your game fit those theme(s)?
The protagonist is completely surprised by both the existence of monsters and magical girls, and also something about themselves that they had never realized before.
Were the assets for your game made during the jam? Elaborate as you see fit.
All (or at least nearly all) art is original and newly made for this game.
Sound effects and music are free assets from various sources, including OpenGameArt and Freesound.
Very nice.
I liked this a lot. Your Universe really works in VN form and in my opinion even better than as an FPS.
Now I do miss most of the usual creature comforts you get from using dedicated VN engines like Ren'Py for example going backwards or skipping through already read screens.
Your selection of audio is fantastic and I'm impressed by the animated portions.
Great job overall.
Thanks for playing!
I have a lot more stories in mind for this universe, and I've started to branch out from the original formula and try various mediums and genres. I think this one in particular was the right fit for a visual novel. Maybe some of the other stories, too. We'll see.
Quality of life is definitely worse than something like Ren'Py, agreed. I wanted to keep things simple this time, but I am planning to add some of those features in later iterations of the VN system. I don't think rewinding will ever happen, because dialogue can arbitrarily modify game state in ways that aren't predictable or reversible. There's some wiring for dialogue history, though, just nothing to actually turn that into a viewable log yet. Being able to save and load at arbitrary points is possible, but would require some work.
Who knows if I'll ever get to any of that, though.
I'm happy the audio has been well received, but I'm kind of surprised by that given that it was super rushed this time around.
Ditto, to an extent, with the animations, although those were a lot more time consuming they're also pretty janky. That being said, looking back I think they did add more to the game than I'd initially thought.
Thanks for playing!
You're right, it's essentially a single linear path. Generally I like player choice, but decided on that early on to keep things simple to limit scope and preserve my own sanity. It is more of an illusion of choice- kinda a Fallout 4 ish "yes, yes, sarcastic yes, no but actually yes" dialogue tree. I put a few of those choices in to give the game a bit of interactivity, and it does sometimes affect the next line/response.
The music selection was done in a hurry this time. I think it generally turned out pretty well, though there are a few parts I'm not totally happy with.
More of a visual novel which really isn't my thing, but interesting nevertheless. Art feels a bit too serious for a magical girl game but at least it's consistent and there's quite a variety of poses and clothing (lol at beer shirt) and it's all custom made to boot. Theme of surprise is followed correctly following the classic "oh no strange monsters, oh wait I'm a magical girl now!" then expanding a bit. IMHO magical girl genre has always been about growing up and understanding your (new) self better and also understanding others, and this game follows that quite well just from a slightly different angle. I don't even mind that the monsters and magic origin aren't really explained (and lol at the characters themselves just shrugging it off and going "just go along it") since it's clearly not meant to be the central point.
Great work on having full credits plus motivational message at the end!
Thanks for playing!
Art is not my strength, but I'm not sure what you mean by too serious. I'm trying to improve my poses, so I'm glad that's come through a bit, and yes, the beer shirt is one of my favourite subtle jokes.
It's interesting that I've managed to hit so many traditional magical girl story beats given that I have very limited exposure to the genre. I literally didn't know it was a specific genre when I made Shattered, though I've educated myself a little bit since then.
There is some lore around the magic and monsters in my head, but you're right in that it wasn't the point of this game and was deliberately glossed over and lampshaded. I've kind of danced around it in every entry in the series so far, in fact, but I'm going to start going into the lore soon, maybe in the next game or maybe in some kind of side content.
For better or for worse, the credits sequence often ends up my favourite part of the game. I always try to include credits and a post-credits scene unless I'm super tight on time. I kept the scope under control pretty well, so that wasn't an issue this time around.
I've been looking forward to trying this one, and wasn't disappointed! The overall quality of this visual novel is really high... I appreciate the details, down to the hand-drawn menus and buttons. You often put your art down, and while I won't pretend there isn't room for improvement, I think this may be some of your best work yet. The overall aesthetic works great... it has a coherence and style that really works in this format. It's been fine in 3D, but as a fully 2D work with drawn backgrounds it clicks. The posing and action is dynamic, which helps sell some of the bigger moments. Also, the animations are cool and add a lot.
The SFX and music may be sourced, but all are used to great effect and really enhance the experience.
If I had to pick one thing I'd like to see improved, I guess it would be the story. Nothing in there is bad, it just feels really fast. Maybe a little more time to get to know the main character and get into their headspace. A little more build up and reaction from the characters around them. Again, I felt like everything that made it in was good, I'd just like to see a bit more of it.
It's a problem I've run into plenty of times with my jam games, so I know how that goes... and I know you were limited in your time for this one. So take this less as a major criticism, and more that I liked it and wanted more!
Also, darn it! I drew Sakura BEFORE playing this and now I like her new haircut. I'm going to have update that...
PS: Forgot to mention that I played the web build. Seemed fine as far as I could tell, no issues. When I clicked it and it popped up the webplayer, it did display the working title though. Not sure if that matters to you.
Thanks for playing!
Aesthetics aside, I think this is the most artistically consistent game I've made so far. I was able to greatly simplify the UI, which opened the door to making custom graphics and optimizing the layout instead of letting the theme engine throw a coat of paint over the same tired interface.
I've definitely been trying to improve my poses and scene composition, even if I am keeping more or less the same overall style, so I'm glad that worked out.
I agree that the story is pretty rushed. Nguyen and Tiff take things in stride because (minor spoilers) they already know, but I wish I'd had more time to spend on Mitch and his relationship with Steph. In retrospect, it might have been better to spend more time extending the story, possibly spacing it out a bit more, even if that meant cutting some of the animated sequences. But then I'd probably look back and say the opposite.
This is a story I've had in mind for a long time, and my mindset has kind of shifted from "I want to do this story perfectly or not at all" to "I want to tell this story, even if it's not perfect". I had to constantly remind myself it was a jam and I didn't have a lot of time, and not let perfection be the enemy of close enough.
The one thing I really wish I'd had time to do is animations in the visual novel sequences themselves. I made that a stretch goal early on to limit scope and never had time to come back to it. The animated sequences are technically separate, and the one character animation in a conversation is hacked in via scripting instead of implemented in sane way.
As an aside, it was pretty weird to do a linear visual novel with no significant branching and no alternate endings given that I usually emphasize player choice, but it was a breath of fresh air after the open world nightmare that was Shattered 2. I was expecting more complaints about this to be honest.
I'm glad that the web build is working (I did run through it a few times myself). I can't guarantee every game I make will make it to the browser, but I know it's a lot easier for people to deal with so it is something I'll try to make happen where practical. It does help that CommonCore actually supports Unity WebGL now (albeit still with a lot of caveats).
Finally, I wouldn't worry about Sakura's "new haircut" too much. It's not a deliberate design change, just the result of taking a shortcut and half-tracing hair from another character to save time.
That was pretty cool. Your graphics are not bad at all. You had a lot of cool poses during the battle scenes and a lot of nice details. The transformation was pretty cool too. Good Job.
Thanks for playing!
I have mixed feelings about the graphics overall (my own harshest critic, etc etc) but I do think the battle sequences turned out really well. I've been trying to improve my poses and composition even if I doggedly keep to more or less the same style. I've skipped the transformation sequence in some of my past games because I always saw it as a huge challenge that I couldn't pull off. This one still isn't the fancy spinny sparkly one I had in mind, but I'm getting closer.
This was an engaging visual novel. The story was quite compelling, and I think the animated scenes and the effectiveness of the sound effects added a lot to the experience. I think my main comment is pretty inconsequential, but I think the music was good, but felt a little out of place right after the fight. Since they just beat all the Shades, I thought that the music would be a bit more triumphant, and then once Stephanie realized she'd have to change back again, and in front of the other two magical girls, it was going to switch to the more somber soundtrack.
Also, the "Wynn?" to "Nguyen" was a good one. I was very confused when I first saw it, but once I connected the dots it gave me a good chuckle.
Thanks for playing!
I'm glad you enjoyed the story. That was the focus for me this time, but as I got closer to release I started to worry about whether it would work for the audience or if it would fall flat.
The music in this game was done in a hurry, with a lot of tracks borrowed from previous projects and generally sparse overall. It definitely might have been better to use one of the more upbeat pieces post-fight instead of reusing the more somber song.
The Wynn/Nguyen thing was basically a random idea I threw in halfway through making the game. I think Nguyen is mentioned in passing in one of the previous games.
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