Hey Rubescen,

I streamed my playthrough of your game (the video has chapters). Check it out:

You made being a bureaucrat engaging and interesting! The art style is on point and I enjoyed the dice roll mechanics. Finding and being rewarded with different loot was very exciting and their impact on gameplay felt meaningful. I wasn't able to have a full playthrough but I'm very intrigued by how the different choices would affect the story. Really well done and wish you all the best in the jam and with your future games!

I have created a Discord as a space for game devs to talk about their experiences and share their games. Would love to have you join!

https://discord.gg/TWHwqQuRrx

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:

I mean, what a banger. Banger, banger, banger, banger, banger.

I suppose it's unfair - this is exactly down my route and reasoning of enjoyment in games - I'm a sucker for Disco Elysium, monochromatic palettes, mature storytelling done right, and dice and randomness and themes of accepting change but also... maybe not accepting change? Maybe sometimes we accept too much from the bureaucrats who seek to steal our jobs and replace us with computers and don't really care for the bright and burgeoning greenery that is growing in the hallowed corners of our concrete jungles?

Yeah, this game really gets going. I don't know what to say without being overly praising about it, but pretty much every story beat I connected with on a deep level. I've already read Berry B's comment, and I know that it can be frustrating to rely on RNG for some things, but I do think that you said at the beginning of the game that this was a story about accepting consequences, and I even see how the rolling of the dice gives a nuanced view of how uncomfortable outcomes may rise from situations - whether beyond expectations, meeting expectations or even falling far short of them, and how some of it is within your influence (what you choose to wear for the day, how you choose to train yourself socially, and what decisions you make, and what routes you choose in life) but also how much of it is just not within your influence. And this might not seem "gamey" in every sense of the word, simply because not every eventuation is within your control. But of course Benny (me) likes that, and anyone who knows me knows that's my jam (a chatter in chat who I know quite well simply said "this is one of the most Benny games I've ever seen").

All in all, being as objective as I can about the process, I think it's a maturely told story featuring characters grappling with bureaucratic doom and trying to carve their own niche of joy within the arm's reach of the dreary corporate machine, being oftentimes victim to its doomful grasp. I think it's visually polished to a T, I think its gameplay mechanics are interesting, I think the dialogue and natural and feels "right", and explores conflicts through drama between characters to a believable yet high-reaching catharsis, and perhaps a low-feeling sense of dread that doesn't really agree with everyone's sense of what escapist fiction should be. I mean, there's my bias again - always wanting to confront reality with art, instead of purely about escaping it.

The choices matter structure is probably among the best I've seen in an RPG Maker game. There's very many endings, and even though I didn't get to them all, it's clear that it depends on choices that are well-thought-out and structured in a clear and concise way so that the player knows exactly why they got the ending they did - which I know, from experience, is really hard. It was a mature story told with nuance that gave you choices that reflect your personal bias, or not - depending on if you want to roleplay as someone else. Which is the core soul of games with choices that claim to matter.

So yeah, it's clear that I like this game, and maybe a bit more. Maybe a lot more.

The way it tackled the theme, though, is undeniably central to the game's design. It's clear that the game was designed around the theme, and it couldn't have been designed for another game jam and just submitted here as an afterthought. As such, I have no doubt in saying that is one of my favourite games submitted to the jam so far, and I wish you all the best, and I've followed you on itch so I can see what else you've made.

In short, simply peak. I can't say much else. Keep making games. You're awesome.

Edit: Oh yeah! And I forgot how gorgeous the game looks. I don't know whether you pixelled all those tiles and art within the jam itself, or modified existing tiles, but either way, it fits together all so well and feels polished as anything. Super fantastic.

Ok. So I tried this game out. The concept is interesting. You have to roll the dice and make sure it lands in specific circumstances in order to get better odds. You either exceeded expectations or achieved them depending on where the dice lands.

You can equip pens to influence the odds in your favor or lose them. Everything's up to a game of chance with this. And I suppose if that's the intent of the game, then that's all I can afford to say about it.

I got a bad route where I wasn't able to convince the people up top to not evict the place and got out of a job as a result. Honestly, you have to really navigate around a slew of political/technical corporate knowhow with this game. The subterfuge plans, the complexity of it all. Some of them are locked/changed dependent on the luck of the draw.

I'm not that keen in getting the other routes due to the RNG factor and the overall game being a bit of a "bureaucrat legal property planning" type of game. Though I'll admit its an interesting concept. I'm sure others may react more positively to this game. I can't be too sure how to feel about this as a whole.