Went in blind and was surprised by the very unwell looking Ned! The prose flowed well and I liked the ambient world building. Rather short and sweet despite the contents of the story.

That was a good read, the shifting between reality and fiction with the subtle vibe shifts was also neat with the underlying reality that yep, everything is gone haha :'DD, the writing was done well but some parts of me say that maybe it wanted more like a little expansion on the MC's radiology knowledge or like what happened before, and how they also found Ned, but I do find the ending quite nice, but if I have to dislike something it would be the dialouge box is does not work well at all
And to add also, the thumbnail intruiged me actually because I did not realize that the thumbnail can be done like that and I got curious what the story might entail. Overall, a good short story with visuals that are done good to accompany it

I really like the central idea of the main character trying to go on with life, having become so desperate for contact that it's affecting some of his senses to such a degree - while others are not affected, primarily smell. There's a particular moment in the start where the smell of rot breaks through the fantasy which was very effective at showing that something was wrong. I think it could have been utilized for longer though; cute date interspersed with moments of such hints to wear down the MC's fantasy. But the way the story is presented as is, in quite a short runtime, isn't wrong either.

My favourite part of the presentation is how Ned's sprite during the imaginary parts is constantly changing between expressions, moving around, and such. Making him look alive to the player through being so active creates a stark contrast to when he's just... well, not. The use of music is simple but also does its job (even though the one for the imaginary parts sounds like it's from an airplane commercial). The main thing that would improve the presentation is to use two audio channels for the music, and just switch the volumes between them when changing reality. With the frequent cuts, the songs play for like 15 seconds each time, so we pretty much just get the intro of which the airplane commercial song's will loop in my brain for a week.

All around though, I liked it!

I feel like I'm the only one who didn't get into this VN. Don't get me wrong, I think the transitions between delusions and reality were well done, it does depict the mental state of someone denying reality competently, the prose and dialogue are natural, and the ending was nice, but I just found myself not caring about the protagonist. I find that I like protagonists the most when I get to see their chemistry with other characters, but all the interactions he has with the wolf are made up, so it ends up just being about a guy talking to himself. Because of that, the scenes where he's pretending that the wolf is alive don't make me care much about the characters that much, and the story ends up being repetitive until the end. This is a "it's not me, it's you" case. The writing and presentation are good, but it's just not to my taste, I suppose.

Theme is clearly addressed. 
Deals seriously with serious issues.
Usually nice/suitable BG music, although at the end I think there could be something more fitting.
Dialogue felt generally believable if a little too horny/flirty, even if some of that can be forgiven in the setting/circumstance.

Sorry I couldn't catch the stream live, I've been trying to attend all the ones I possibly can, and I always love seeing what you come up with, Gatr.  

I like how you show the delusion and the actual scenes, and I see various hints to the colloquial 5 stages of grief, with denial being quite present throughout.  It's not a one-step/one-cycle process either, especially when accompanied by what would have been such a traumatic situation for the main character to face.  

I feel the pacing and scope was quite appropriate for the length of the game jam, and liked how you handled what would typically be quite a difficult story to tell with a single lone survivor with no one to interact with in a format that is generally dialogue-heavy.

Solid effort, but maybe missing a little extra spice and seasoning to really pull me in. 

Probably easier to just move right into the breakdown, so spoilers from this point forward.

Implementation of Theme:

It's definitely there, and very explicitly so in the ending. MC is in some very deep darkness from being the sole survivor of the event (whatever that was) and finally being able to move on from his deceased lover is the light that begins to give him a new perspective, even if he's not really moving out of the darkness per se since his situation is still pretty dire. I think there were other takes on the theme that were a little more creative or innovative, and there is still that matter of the MC's situation still being really dark, but the theme was successfully conveyed. 

Story:

Don't get me wrong from the top line, the premise is totally serviceable - "character tries to continue as normal while hallucinating their deceased loved one" is a fun idea. Changes to pacing and structure could've helped this one tremendously though. Right now, it kind of just feels like we're aimlessly moving from scene to scene until the end, and I get that that's kind of the point - MC is lost and has no idea what to do anymore. The issue is that this unintentionally kind of makes it feel like the narrative has no idea what to do either. I feel like this may have been stronger if the whole plot was centered around bringing Ned to his final resting place and drip-feeding information to the reader along the way. 

With each stop on their journey, we could learn a bit more about each of them, what their relationship was like (more than just he's hot and they're horny), what exactly the event was, how MC reacted when he saw it, why didn't anyone else that MC worked with make it, etc. As others have pointed out, I don't think the timing of the death reveal is the best decision here either - I think for this to be optimally effective, you have to commit to one side or the other. Either have the reveal happen at the end, making the reader initially think Ned also survived the event while dropping hints that not everything is correct, or go full horror and just have the MC talking to himself while carting around a decaying corpse. First option would probably be more appealing, but I'd low-key really admire the audacity of the latter. 

Some of the individual scenes we get here are really good, like MC wheeling Ned around the football field, but I guess my main takeaway is that I wish they were tied together in a neater package.

Presentation:

It's fine. No penalty for the stock main sprite obviously, and the dead sprite looked good, if a little cartoony (for some reason the blacked out eyes, slumped pose, and lack of real gore made the reveal a little more comical than horrific for me, but that's a personal issue). Very minimal typos and language errors which is great to see, though the music did get a bit repetitive at times. Middle-of-the-road on this category - it's all sufficient, but not much to elevate it beyond that.

Creativity:

So I'm through 40-something of these at this point, and I think legitimately 20% of them are post-apocalyptic in some way. You don't get any point deductions for this - you can't control what everyone else is submitting, and I think this is the only one where the love interest is already dead for the apocalypse (maybe, don't actually quote me on that). I think there's definitely a good amount of creativity here, it would just be even better if this world and these characters were a little more fleshed out.

Also, nobody else has mentioned this, but I love that the background for the football pitch was WOLFsburg. Others might not have picked up on that detail, but I noticed, GatrGroh. I noticed.

Therefore I rate this entry 36 Jettas out of 28 Passats. 

DEAD IS DEAD IS DEAD IS DEAD

Really interesting premise here! Going from the imaginary world to the real world and vice-versa was really well done: BGS, sprite and music working in concert. The characters are nice, the writing is pretty good. I felt the story was cut a bit short but at the same time, not sure what else to add. And while I get feeling a sense of closure and stuff at the end, seeing a brighter future still seems a bit incongruous in that situation… The presentation is neat. As I said, the transition between the two “worlds” works very well. The dead sprite edit looks good, but I don’t get why he’s missing part of his arm? Overall, I quite liked it, but it was missing a little je ne sais quoi.

A solid read all around; there are fun visual ideas and the use of the sprite is particularly good, even if the image editing is a bit messy, and the prose leans towards unaffected but does its job. The emotional climax works on a basic level and is wise to not focus too much on questions like how all this came to be and what happens next.

I think my biggest doubts have to do with the structure. Especially with the story being this short, I struggle to see a reason to give the game away so early in lieu of a more gradual buildup. The shifts between reality and fantasy start to feel a little repetitive after a point, and the ending is harmed, too; it's more difficult to buy the protagonist's arc about acceptance and moving on when the truth is relayed to the reader so bluntly and unambiguously. I think it could have been more fruitful to play up the denial just a bit more and linger in the uncertainty – the way the story works now, you're observing the character at a remove, but there is not necessarily enough psychological depth in him to make that super interesting.

A good short read.

I liked how it mixes the two jams themes with the nameless protagonist trying desperately to keep the light in the dark still lit, even if said light comes from a "match's already gone into overtime". I enjoyed how much the awareness of the two lovers shifts in trying to uphold the frail illusion.

The presentation is quite solid, music and assets get used competently and they do their job well... with two major problems in my opinion. I'm not going to hold the use of the provided jam sprite against the game, it would just be a dick move, but some of the other sprites could have used a bit more care,  the table hides most of its flaw under the UI (honestly good call) but there are visible extra white dots and border from where it got cutted from and similarly the undead sprite white outline gets a bit too noticeable against the darker background. Maybe this is a bit unfair but the main problem I had presentation wise, was on the page cover image spoiling the big twist flashing the two Ned sprites, making it almost impossible to avoid it if you reach the game from the submissions page from the jam. 

Again, maybe it's unfair, but I think getting in with the knowledge of the fate of wolf does make you prepared to the reveal, robbing it of some of its power, probably something allegorical like swapping from the first Ned sprite to a red rose wilting similar to the one in his pocket would have been a better call. I still think the story is solid and I would recommend a read to everyone.

Good job Gatr!

Awww, I really enjoyed this. Poor Ned, poor main character. I always appreciate the idea of "what reason is there to survive in the apocalypse?" So seeing that explored was a nice angle that I think people often don't consider. i'm not sure how much the science necessarily holds up... but it doesn't really matter that much to me. I'm not a stickler for things like that lmao. It was a nice set up for the main meat of the game. I appreciate the incorporation of Ned's football career into his character. It's a little cheesy, but I think that actually lends itself well to the writing. It makes Ned seem more like a mix of "him" but also the main character's sort of idealized version of Ned that he remembers him by in is quickly deteriorating mental state. Short and sweet, you knew what message you wanted to deliver, and you got it in there. Good work gatr!

'Dead is Dead' is a really visceral piece of fiction that explores the effect death has on a person's psyche. What I find rather interesting is that while this story is presented as possibly a person enduring the effects of a psychosis though a traumatic event (an apocalyptic event that left him a sole survivor), but it also ends up following a plot line of going through the five stages of grief. I don't know if this was intentional, or if it subconsciously happened though the natural unfolding of the plot. Either way, I find it as a neat way of implementing the theme of 'light in the dark', with the grief being the 'dark' and reaching acceptance at the end of the five stages as the 'light' in that dark.

A lot of the practical details are left vague, such as what exactly happened that caused a mass death event with only the main character as a survivor. While the set dressing is well described and crafted, such as the remains of bodies everywhere and the eerie silence though it all, it does raise a few questions in which the time framing of the events take place. Stuff like, 'How long had it been since the initial death event?" and "What kind of event would cause such a sudden death that people would die in the middle of meal, but then also cause a pile up of bodies attempting to get into the morgue?" I understand that those details aren't as important to the actual narrative of the story, which is this internal struggle that the main character has, but I think it could help ground the setting, especially since the contrast of the illusion with reality is a big part of the story.

The presentation is really effective. The sudden shifts of tone with color and music, really sell this idea that the main character is struggling to maintain this illusion, showing that denial stage. The dreary grey color of reality showing the depression of the main character. Even when you have the main wolf sprite suddenly shift from bright eyed boyfriend to husk of a corpse, it really puts you in the head space of someone who's desperately trying to keep the memory alive while the reality of the world closes in. He even goes to try and preserve the corpse with formaldehyde, just to keep his body from decomposing any faster, an example of bargaining. So to complete the the whole 'five stages' emergent direction, would've been neat to include a scene that had the main character show anger, since all the other stages were well represented. Maybe angry at the universe for being this way, or angry at the wolf for leaving him alone. Another mental hurdle for him to overcome as he travels towards acceptance of the reality. I'm not sure if this would end up being a bit too cliche or not, but it could add an extra dimension to the dynamic between the main character and his wolf.

Creatively, this premise does feel directly inspired by the designs of the wolves being apocalyptic, but I won't hold it against the story itself, since it does take bold choices in having it be an internal struggle story and killing off the wolf before the story starts. A lot of the creativity comes from the clever use of assets and the visual novel medium to create a vibe. The writing is really well done, and I loved how realistic the dialog and internal monologues felt. The final resolution of the story isn't one of optimism and hope, but of preservation and not allowing the oneself to be stuck in the past. Overall, it's a very concise and well put together package that effectively tells the story, really good job!

Spoilers

I enjoyed the breaks in reality that this VN did. The usage of songs to denote the breaks and surface feelings of the differing realities is a nice touch, but with only two tracks got repetitive.  With doomed lovers I am starting to see a common theme this Jam. The game does what it wants to do, but I wish we got more excruciating failure from the MC trying to keep the illusion alive. More fumbles and more set-up for the MC breaking out of the despair.

Delusional? ofc he'll be delusional!!. whoops sorry hehe :p

the story is realy good, sad, and wholesome, and sad :') but I Love sad stories.

I love how bold it was to just kill off the MyWolf immediately lol. The sprite edit was also great and caught me completely off guard. MC losing it and switching back and forth between reality and delusions was also really great

I loved the premise. I needed a moment to chill today and reading this was a perfect pick me up.(despite being sad of course) Great job!