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:

But I must say that I overall did enjoy the concept of this game. The vibes are pretty immaculate, and I felt pretty early on that I was excited to get into it. I do like the overarching structures of an open world and a time system - reminds me of the Elder Scrolls games, actually - but I also think that maybe for this particular game it can get a little... confusing, sometimes? At least to me, it did. And within the hour that I had available to play this game, I was able to explore some parts but not really gain too much traction on progressing to a point where I felt comfortable to defeat the boss at the end.

Now, let me first gush on one of the positive points. The tilesets used are very cute and lovely and very evocative. I love the idea of going around and doing jobs and getting rewards for them in a very open way. Oftentimes when exploring this vast world I did feel very filled with wonder at some of the environments.

However, I did also feel a sense of aimlessness. I wasn't sure where to go and when, and sometimes with some activities, I wasn't sure beforehand whether they were useful to do or not. There are plenty of things you can do in this game, like doing jobs and getting into the right situation at the right time... but I feel sometimes that benefits a longer game where it slowly eases you into the way that all these mechanics interact. And in this game, it oftentimes led me to be more confused about its complexity than to be in awe of it.

I'm pretty sure that within my hour of play, I made all the wrong decisions, didn't even get very strong to fight the final battle but decided to anyway because my hour was almost up, and then fell flat on the boss towards the end. I think that maybe if the overall world was a bit "tighter", then the progression might be better "felt", if that makes sense?

Either way, I think I'm more in love with the *ideas* present here than the actual implementation, although I did see moments of brilliance among the confusion I experienced. Things like having custom names for days often confused me (not because I don't like different names for days, but because it was central to understanding the progression of the gameplay), and then just figuring out what would be the best route within the hour given.

Nevertheless, I think you should be proud of what you've created. It might have not given me the best experience I wanted out of it, but I think with a bit of work and polishing, there is an awesome game to be had here.

Keep making awesome games. Every game is a gift, including this one, and I'm glad you gave this one to the world. Cheers.

This game is really impressive, in its own way. I'm surprised by the amount of options the game has for some parts. I like the core idea behind it, that the player has to prepare in time before the final test.

Though I think it's pretty unlikely to finish it in the first playthrough since you need to know some tricks, timings and all the stuff. Which can be fine: could be an incentive to play again. If that's the reason though, the length of everything might be a little too much - having to replay all the first 5 days just to be more prepared  can be a little tiresome, considering that - even if you can learn more tricks - the game never changes, it's not a roguelike.
Also the Black Mountain section was way too long this. If it was any other game the dungeon length would be perfect, but here it's a "preparation test", a way to check if the player built the team correctly. And having to struggle trough the first parts of the dungeon only to find a wall right after, it's a little demotivating.

The start of the game was very confusing to me, since there were too many options and there was little to no guidance. And it didn't help that this game has a lot of custom names that often were unnecessary, like giving a name to the days of the week - that was just extra confusing and I didn't really see any need for it.
Though I appreciated how you inserted new races instead of relying on the classical tropes of dwarves, orcs, ecc...

I never expected this kind of game from the jam. It's very unique, but with its flaws. I liked it a lot, so much that I tried a second playthrough on my own after the stream. But despite being very engaging, I can't bring myself in trying again, since at the end it feels like every day I'm doing so much for too little, and it's the same steps all over again, with some of the content hidden maybe too much (I never recruited Selaine even if I tried hard).
I don't think I can give the right suggestions for this game, since the concept is pretty uncommon - but the idea is very cool. I just hope you can understand what you want to be improved and what works. If that helps, here's the VOD from my stream: 

Note: I tried to inform you of the stream via mail, I'm sorry you couldn't be there in time.

This game was painful to play in the sense that it felt like a wasted potential. The individual parts are good: custom art, cool world building, neat concept of deadline and activities: but putting them together with the rest doesn't make it shine as it should.

• My biggest problem with presentation was the mapping: art was pretty and custom, same with facesets, but the maps using he materials were slipshod and barebones. In general it would have helped to make maps smaller and size up tiles to x2 or x3 the size. Small, nice maps would have been much preferable to large, messy ones with tiny graphics. The mapping wasn't very good either, too much empty space that made it look unfinished.
• It feels like there's not much to do at all, and everything you can find costs too much time and money. Obviously I only played through once and the game wants you to repeat the cycle, but if the first go didn't hook me I don't have much reason to.
• Balance felt off: the mine job was purely positive, giving money and stat, but the job at the waterways gives money an takes away a whole whopping 50 MAX Hp, not even current HP. That feels like a very large penalty for an activity that doesn't have that big of an upside. 
• I could only find one follower: the jellyfish girl. I saw a couple other portraits which I assume mean they were playable but one disappeared (the jellyfish dude in your hometown) and the other didn't give me a quest (the demon girl in your hometown gate). The other one in the game page (big person) i never even saw. 
• The bandit running around your home town is bugged: you automatically win.
• The demon lady in the bar (i think) of the demon town doesn't talk.
• It feels like the game tires to cram a bit TOO much world building in, especially terminology. Some looser, simpler terms would have been welcome.
• With nothing else to do and NOT at all prepared I went to the dungeon to see what it was like, and got my ass rocked, of course. 
• Again, the custom graphics were very pretty (faces and tiles) but the tiles are wasted being so tiny and used in barebones maps. 

Balance feels iffy, but I'm not sure how to address it. Some suggestions off the top of my head:

• Improve the mapping and double up tile size.
• Make time NOT advance from walking around in maps,activities already take up a lot of time.
• Have more activities to do, even for smaller rewards/times. 
• More hints as to activities would be nice, especially related to party members. 

I might be wrong but this feels unfinished, and that's a pity. It could have been a very neat game.