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:
So, in all honesty, I've kinda dreaded writing this review, because we know each other, and I've adored your previous work, and something tragic happened while I played this game :(
And I'll just put it simply - I softlocked several times when trying to play this game.
I even accidentally broke the game jam rules in trying to circumnavigate the softlock because I thought maybe I'd done something wrong and that somehow qualified me to try to keep this game going. But I found the softlock several times.
Let me iterate - I found it after the 10 minute mark, and thus, this is not a disqualified game.
But it just means that I didn't get past the initial house area. I got stuck folding washing.
It's a nice game up until that point! And maybe I have an inkling of what it would be like after that? But I'm just really sad that I kept getting stuck at that point.
But let me talk now about the game itself - it's got an immaculate atmosphere with fantastic mapping and a beautiful sound. I liked the slow-paced walking around and being in this general vicinity. I admire the structure of being able to do these menial tasks in any order the player chooses, and the flow of these tasks was calming and soothing. Picking all the vegetables from the garden was maybe a bit frustrating because I didn't know which plants were ready to be picked based on their small differences in graphics, but that might be on me. I also didn't immediately think of the pig being in the grain field, but I concluded it based on the idea that "the developer wouldn't have put that there for nothing, surely?" And then I just ended up going on every square of the map trying to interact with everything. Which isn't my favourite idea of gameplay. BUT I do like the *ideas* involved. I liked the concept a lot.
I was thoroughly engaged throughout. I think this is mostly because the concept is very fresh and interesting for an RPG Maker game, or just a game in general. I want to see more games with this type of vibe. So I admire when a game goes for conflicts that aren't immediately obvious. And this game balanced this quite nicely.
Graphically, the feeling of being in this environment was very soothing, and I think it did its job. Plus, the inclusion of the popup message boxes to indicate conversation were very immersive and worked here very well, I thought. Especially considering the short conversational fragments that were often used in quick succession between two of the characters. I think it worked really well. Just a good vibe all-round. Great music and sound effects too.
The softlock occurred after the 10min mark. My sprite went invisible and I was unable to exit an area unintentionally. There were also passability glitches and ordering glitches, like being able to walk up the house walls and such.
So I did like what I played, but I felt like I didn't really get to the meat of the game's story. I did the initial encounter, which feels like the intro to a greater conflict.
But yeah, that's the basic idea I have of this game. I don't feel as if I experienced enough of it to give an overall idea of the story as a whole, because I got softlocked so early. What is there is pretty nice, though?
Thanks for making this game. I appreciate you as a team, and I hope you are doing well. Cheers and cheers <3