This was an interesting read. I liked the idea of the whole community in the forest and the forest being alive, but the forest didn't really seem alive in the story. The only time we got a sense of it was at the end, everything else was written like it was done by the dead soldiers using the forest.

The characters were interesting, but I felt they all had a certain monotony with some topics. Such as, May glossing over what trauma she went through that caused her to hate the movement/outsiders, even though she was an outsider herself. And then the flashback was only to show that she was part of the movement and them Grams gave her a chance to desert the movement. All we know from what we got was that the movement started a war with the forest. Which I am extremely confused about, because what would cause a group of people to go, "You know what? Fuck them forest dwellers and their forest!"

There were also some grammar and spelling errors through the story, but those can be fixed, so it's not much of an issue. Either way, good job!

I like the premise of the VN, though having a more interesting hook would definitely grab my attention more throughout the read. I like how this story delves into generational trauma and how Min’s parents’ past affects their perception towards the MC. I can see you got a strong theme to progress the story with. Given more time, I’m sure this VN can be greatly improved and polished. Congrats on the release.

A chill vn, I like the atmosphere, the community living close together in the forest. The end seems a bit rushed, but for the few time given, I completely understand. Good job!

'In the Earth Under the Forest' is a day-in-the-life, fantasy-adjacent, vignette that exemplifies values such as emotional awareness, conflict resolutions, and communications. It makes great use of all the various community sprites, and all of their unique quirkiness to weave a story with just as many unique and fantastical details of this 'fae-like' forest setting. This story really does act as one half 'dealing with relationship conflicts' and one half 'nature documentary'. The romance is sweet and simple, and is surprisingly not the focus of this story.

This story is very character-driven, with each of the characters showing off their personality though dialog with each other, though some I felt were more successfully communicated than others. The one through line that I noticed is that everyone was overbearingly socially polite. I don't think that's particularly a bad thing to showcase social politeness like asking pronouns, permission to hug someone, or using almost clinical level of mental check ins, but scenes do seem to be artificially inflated each time that the inner monologue brought attention to these social graces. With all the characters being different hybrids of species, I don't think I ever got a clear visual on what the main character was or looked like, only gleaming that they were a cat of some kind by context clues later in the story.

My biggest issue that I can find in this story, is that the characters don't seem to have any flaws, or the flaws they have are so minor and easily resolved that there's not much of a big payoff at the end. Throughout the story, the only conflicts are 'you can't move to the forest because reasons' and 'something is wrong with the forest because reasons', so it doesn't feel like any of the characters have an arc, grow, or learn something once the reason is uncovered. Some examples I could think of would be making the mother be actively showing her disdain against outsiders, have the friend have a visible jealousy streak of you, giving the wolf partner an anger issue and inability to vocalize his feelings, etc. Giving characters flaws is what allows them to have a starting point to grow from.

The overarching theme of this story seems to be about listening and communicating effectively, which is why I think it makes sense the final solution to the story is 'listening to the spirits under the forest', but the story needed to build up to it better. Something that we discover can only be done by a 'special person chosen by the forest', which is a concept introduced much later and bestowed upon the main character 'chosen-one-style', also kind of undermines the idea that everyone should be able to listen. One consideration is to up the amount of family disputes earlier on in the story, to parallel the idea that conflict is what happens when people talk past each other, and resolving it is to get over yourself and start listening.

As far as 'light in the dark' themes, I think it's the glowing mushrooms in the earth that is supposed to be the light in the dark? Figuratively, it'd be a stretch to say that the emotional or metaphorical representation is the main character being a 'light' to contrast with the 'dark' of... the forest injuring it's inhabitants, so I feel this story didn't quite hit the brief. The romance aspect of this story is very light and sweet, surprisingly easy that this couple turned into a throuple in three days. Overall, it's a very creative setting and the use of the sprites, and the story is a pleasant read, if a bit one-note. I commend you on the word count, however, shows that you're capable of doing the writing, just need to hone in on refining it.

Really interesting VN, almost dream-like even. Though it's a bit of a meandering one, to be honest. Scenes aren't really given enough time to linger, nor is there much of a transition between them. As a result, it's a bit difficult to follow the plot. Still loved all the creativity that went into the setting, though. Tons of interesting side characters, too. I appreciate that this VN used a lot of the overlooked default sprites, since some of those don't get enough love. There's a bit of a "modern" feel to the dialogue despite it apparently taking place in an ancient civilization, but I suppose that's just another of the many quirks of the setting. I did enjoy the climax of the story too, so I suppose I liked this VN despite the lack of cohesion across scenes. There's just enough whimsy for me.

Oh wow, this one was long. I didn’t notice until I read it lol. The build was fairly minimal, with nothing beyond sprites and text, but the music really elevated the experience. I’m a huge fan of ambience in general.

There were a lot of grammar issues. Lack of punctuation, spelling, and a few cases of tense mismatch made some sentences sound a bit awkward. It was fine and inconspicuous at first, but as this was a longer entry, it grew more noticeable the further I read. Of course, this should be the least of your concerns and can be fixed later.

The story itself was decent, though both plot points of the story could use a little more meat to them; they began and had their resolution well enough.

I especially loved the setting you made. A low fantasy surrounding a mysterious forest where strange things happen. You withheld the right amount of information to make me feel a simultaneous sense of curiosity and dread from the Forest. The worldbuilding felt reminiscent of children’s fairytales, like a fever dream that would have me waking up in a sweat. More nostalgic than in a bad way.

I also wish I knew a lot more about the Protagonist. At first, it seemed like they were meant to be ambiguous, what with me getting to choose their name and their lack of backstory. It soon turned into a huge gap in the plot, however, with their induction as “The Chosen One” and the specific line alluding to the Protagonist’s species and ancestors. Just what are they?

The theme became evident at the climax, though the line literally spelling out “the light in the dark” came across bluntly and lacked subtlety.

I also played this on the Mac build, and it worked well with no errors. Nice job on your submission 👍

On the whole, I think there's a fairly coherent & satisfying narrative in there, even if some aspects of the execution fail to do it justice.

The structure feels very uneven; the first half in particular is kind of episodic and meandering, missing a lot of scaffolding that would make it easier to grasp why scenes follow each other in the way they do. For instance, the character drama with the parents moves forward when Min just decides to talk with them about it, seemingly out of the blue. As another example, the stakes in the whole magic mystery thing only really emerge close to the end – before that, it's only spooky stuff happening without much of a throughline. There's a lot that could be improved in the basics: setup and payoff, justifying scene transitions, characters having clear goals, and so on.

Secondly, the writing is also a bit unpolished on the level of prose. The pacing can be bumpy; descriptions are often sparse and not timed to build atmosphere when a new scene starts. A good example is the opening, which goes by so, so fast despite the fact that we're seeing this setting for the first time. There's a lot of strange imagery ("a person: flesh controlled by bacon fat", "the skys water has mostly stopped") and issues in sentence structure. Typos and other mechanical errors are quite common, too, and the use of commas is especially disorganized, harming the flow of many lines. It's all comprehensible, but ironing out some of the problems would help a lot.

Finally, as far as presentation goes, the UI frankly just looks a bit messy. Enough of Ren'py's default stuff remains that all the changes look out of place, and what is there is not super pretty to look at or a good match for the tone and genre of the story. As a really annoying technical issue, the hitboxes of the buttons appear to encompass the pixels that make up the text only, so you have to move your mouse on top of the actual letters before the game registers you're hovering.

I will say that despite my criticisms, the story had plenty of charming moments and felt like it went somewhere worthwhile by the end. It's not the most muddled or the least compelling in the jam, but everything is rough around the edges in a way that was difficult to ignore while reading.

I enjoyed my journey with these charming characters. There’s a lot of great chemistry among them. As well, there’s a wonderfully crafted setting for them with intriguing lore woven into it. Definitely feels like there’s lots world-building spread throughout to be uncovered.

I found your approach to the theme very satisfying. I do wonder if there could be a stronger push on the leitmotif of ‘listening to tales of old to help guide you.’ Admittedly, that might be hard to do for a gamejam story. Structure-wise I believe you sort of have room for it, since each generation we encounter have their own stories.

The stage direction of the character sprites were outstanding. It really helped tie a lot of the scenes together. I think your choices of sprites fit your characters especially well.

Terrific world-building; a great cast; fantastic use of the medium; I enjoyed my time in your story!

It was a pleasure to stream your game!  There was a lot of work that went into this entry for the jam, and the length was quite ambitious.  There were a few minor grammatical issues that I would recommend revisit g at the end of the judging period, but nothing egregious; like my own games, it's just hard to notice them sometimes until you see them on stream.

I don't necessarily believe you don't have room for both the A and B plot lines in your story, but in this case it may be better to focus on one a bit more than the other. It may be a bit stronger narratively to focus more on the relationship with the mother or the voice of the forest, and use the other plotline more as a means of reinforcement for the main one.  I think it may just be that it's a bit further into the story before the voices become central to the plot.  That being said, all the pieces that are there are decent.  Some of it also comes down to the difference between writing a short story or a longer novel... in a short story, juggling multiple plot points can become difficult.

I personally don't mind the reluctant chosen hero trope, but I've learned it is usually best not to quite spell it out so literally.  Even so, many beloved series tend to do just that, so you're in good company at least.

Also, as one of the jam artists, thanks for using our sprites!  I love seeing all the creative characters everyone comes up with, but it's also nice to see our handiwork pop up from time to time. 

Good job, and I look forward to seeing more of your work in the future.  And congrats on making it through your first game stream!  It can be a bit intimidating (I know mine was during May Wolf last year), but just bear in mind that we're here to help each other grow and improve.

Aside from what I mentioned during the stream, I think the premise of the VN might not have appealed to me personally, which was kind of a killer combination with the lack of concision. What I didn't get to mention though, is that I liked the restrained use of sound. It sold the isolation of the Forest well even with the limited resources you had access to.

I really liked this game.  My favourite character is Connor <3  I enjoyed the relationship dynamics between the main character and also between min and his parents. 

This feels like a game I am going to be thinking about for a while and that's always a good thing .  I wish I could learn more about the forest and see Hutches book.