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:
Apartment 808 was, to me, an interesting study in exploring the twists and turns of the relationship depicted in the story (and by relationship, I don't assume that it was romantic, it could have been platonic and/or otherwise), through a series of loops. I skimmed through some other comments here just before writing this (and not after judging - I've already given scores before I began trying to express my thoughts here), and the game PT was mentioned, which makes sense here. Exploring a looping apartment, where the environmental changes tell a story about what happened previously.I can say that I was very engaged by the story in this, always trying to find answers about what happened, what the nature of this person's relationship was to the person who had moved out recently, and trying to follow the events that occurred. Whether it was due to my lack of media literacy or ADHD wanderings (I apologise where and if I misinterpret events in the VOD above), I didn't always fully grasp all the plot points that were occurring, but I did get a general gist of the mood of what was happening. The remembering, the surreal events, and the slow unraveling of the protagonist to reveal layers of doubt and what I believe were self-hatred (or at least self-doubt) lying underneath. To me, it painted a very relatable portrait of a person doubting themselves for the things they have done.
Even by the end of the game, I was left with questions that I still wanted answers to, and they were sticking with me in a good way. Because the answers that I got while playing the game were satisfying indeed.
The atmosphere of the game was very well-drawn - I felt genuinely unnerved by most of the twists that occurred. The surreal events that were happening sometimes surprised me in very interesting ways. There was indeed a fakeout where I, along with the main character, came across a plot point that they thought was "final", and had wrapped everything up, only to learn that there was actually more to explore that still felt necessary.
Suffice to say, presentationally, it is very well polished. Tasteful usage of the same map but changing it up in interesting ways. In retrospect, it's funny that I don't really notice too much intense events happening, but that the story was conveyed in all the small details and changes. So I thought that it was a very interesting experiment in subtle storytelling through the looping mechanism - which satisfied my idea of what the "Beyond Expectations" theme represented.
Sometimes I got lost about whether there was a third person they were referring to that used to share a bed with the roommate, and whether there was jealousy, or whether that was us? (I apologise if that should have been clear. Sometimes I misinterpret story beats. Lol.)
I also very much liked the continued symbolic thread of "dirtiness" becoming more and more apparent with each loop. I assume that represented some form of guilt. Asking the question of what could wash the dirtiness off, when looking at things like the bath and sink. The climbing into the "mirror world" and the representation of possibilities of what could have been? (Again, I might be misreading this, lol)
Suffice to say that the storytelling was on point with this one. This type of storytelling I see in the best of stories I see in games. I think that the writing in particular was super strong, keeping dialogue minimal and allowing you to read between the lines and detecting what was between the lines.
Anyway, that's my general impressions of this game. I liked it quite a bit, and it was definitely one of the standouts I saw in this game jam. Every game's a gift, and I appreciate what you've made. Keep making games!