A cute little game! I liked a lot the amount of personalization that you can give to your playtrough, it's really impressive seeing it work!
The main part of the game was the actual building of the story yourself, so even if the battles were kinda basic, I didn't see much problem in it.
I also liked how you managed to include a second narration inside this fantasy story of the kids.

I don't really have a lot of critiques, maybe just that the game mixes 2-3 different artstyles so it's not coherent, but the design of the dolls kinda makes up for it.
If you're interested, here's the VOD of the stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2459286983

Hi there!

I'm one of the 6 judges for this RPG Maker Game Jam 2025. I was one of the 2 judges assigned to your game, and we have been assigned to rate your games according to each metric highlighted on the game's main jam page, and submit these ratings to the organisers, who will then appropriate what happens with that. Please contact them in the Q&A if you have any further questions about the judging process. The judges will work on different time schedules, so even if I may have finished playing your game, the entire process might not be finished as of yet. Many of these reviews I am posting while still judging.

All that aside, I'd like to share my VOD of me playing your game, which contains up to an hour of gameplay, and some final thoughts at the end! Depending on whether I stopped the VOD early or not, it will also contain many of the thoughts that I say to you below, which may cause repetition. So just be aware of that.

I will also attach a review below this VOD. I will not disclose my ratings for each category as of yet, but those will be revealed in due time. Not all judges are required to post a review or VOD to each game, but many will do so even if it's optional, including myself.

Here's the VOD:

Wow, wow, wow. What a very important game, I'll say. There's very much topical about this, and as such, I have to give the preamble that any praise and/or criticism I may or may not have about this game is not necessarily a praise/criticism of the topics discussed. Suffice to say that message-wise, I believe this game is very potent and worthy of being seen.

The game seems to explore kids' perceptions of their dangerous environments through the usage of play and metaphor. Through the play, they discover each other's situations and feelings, because sometimes things are too hard to talk about plainly, or just the fact that we should let kids be kids. And yet, in the situation these kids find themselves in, sometimes they don't have the privilege.

But by depicting these kids in this scenario, we are allowed to see their humanity, their fun and their play while they just try to be kids. And then we as the audience get to see some of their inner lives being revealed through their storytelling mechanisms.

As a concept, it's rather brilliant. It's also very heartbreaking.

Now to get to the parts that I feel are the "storytelling things" that sometimes made me bounce off it a little - things like the structure and the pacing. I think that setting it largely in the field with most things being events that occur in heads, there was some level of engagement to be had but I feel after a while it was a little repetitive. The importance of what they were describing didn't immediately hit me and it's hard to judge on a contest games that could be important for relevant reasons, but I do feel the fact that it is all described with make believe dialogue on a single screen does make it sometimes more disengaging than it should be, but I do like the concept a lot.

The sketches and visuals are VERY cute and i liked the style a lot! :D The maps of the throne room etc could be a little more adorned.

There's dialogue on 1-3 maps and the sketches are quite cute and pleasant but there is just a lot of dialogue that reveals some of the understanding of the kids and how the tragedies are effecting these kids, but if I were to judge on a pure entertainment and game level (which oftentimes fails works of art with such import as this), it nevertheless lacked to me some attachments to some characters, even if the conflicts are hauntingly real in real life.

But it does feel like a complete thing in concept, and worthy of exploring. Thank you for making this game. Every game is a gift <3 Keep making awesome games.

Unique idea, very touching, very sad. Thank you for this.

Gameplay and navigation was a bit confusing at times, but no big deal.

Was a little confused at first but I got it to work. The game is both charming and dark in tone, both heart-warming and heart-wrenching at the same time. The parallel with the (countless) real world events was very well done, and the closing scene was touching. The choice of BGM, as well as the writing were spot on (bar a typo I noticed but hey, they're kids!). All in all a very pleasant experience. 

I did have a small bug that I feel should be reported:

Well, certainly a unique idea of kids playing and battling it out with dolls. The presentation is generally nice and the dolls look good and creepy. The dialogue could use editing to make it sound more natural and flow better. Also, I think the game would benefit from a longer story with some time to get to know the characters before they start playing. The battles/skills are also not balanced very well, but maybe that's kind of the theme of the game, like unfair and unbalanced battles.