As a reader without knowledge of the main entry, I find this one quite enjoyable. It’s true that there are some unresolved questions, like what’s the deal with Nia, how could she just send hefty sums of money to Patrice, what’s the deal with this Croc that sounds important, etc. They itch, but not to the point of breaking the experience.

The visuals are great. Takes a while for me to get used to the sprites’ style, but they look good. The CGs are also amazing ~~I got some funny feelings from some of them~~

Next, uh… I’m gonna go thoroughly this time. Please take my words as constructive criticism, because I genuinely like the piece and am a bit baffled why it causes a bit of mixed opinions.

The banter between characters is entertaining. They feel alive. I don’t understand why some people think the structure is that bad. There are some pacing issues, sure, but I kinda get the importance of each scene. The story gotta tell about Patrice’s dilemma of moving on, his shared friendship and mutual bitterness about Nia’s absence with Liam, etc. However, the pacing was clearly uneven. The first half was slow and cozy, but the latter part felt incredibly rushed.

I personally blame it on three factors:

1. The time frame of EVERYTHING was just, what, not even 24 hours? This might be why some people felt like the gym scenes really dragging. A large chunk of the story took place there in ONE GO: Patrice’s struggle to get out and back into normalcy, introducing Hugo, introducing the wolf, Patrice’s guilt seeing images of his ex on Oliver. That’s a lot of ground to cover. Breaking it down into multiple days might help. And Patrice, my man, I get you’re infatuated by the wolf, I would too, but you HAVE ISSUES. You just met him that afternoon. No way you can be sure that it’s a love. I’m also looking at you, wolf boy. Pipe down. That tiger is hot, I know, but have some control lol. As a result, Oliver’s grievance kinda felt brushed off (?) relative to the whole narrative, when arguably that’s a very crucial plot point.

2. Sometimes there are not enough Patrice’s inner thoughts. I would say in the early scenes, some spoken lines should be thoughts instead, but that’s a minor thing. The real problem is… the narration could be too blunt at times, e.g.: “His body softens up.”, “His ears droop down.”, y’know minor things that describe actions / what’s happening. I’m not saying they’re not important, but dealing with a big topic of trying to move on involves a lot of emotions. The narration could definitely benefit by digging more into Patrice’s psyche, because at the current state, a hefty part only scratches the surface level.

3. Ultimately, the max word count might be your biggest enemy, causing all the uneven pacing. I know you have like 6k more words to hit the limit, but it must have put some mental constraint on how you plan the scope of the story. Some scenes can be cut short, mainly the parts with Liam. Once it’s established that both Patrice and Liam share some grievance about Nia leaving them, I think the story can shift focus to Oliver.

I know it’s tricky when you have a solid roadmap of what you need to tell, but can’t deliver to the fullest. Welp, happens all the time in a game jam, I guess.

On a more technical note, there are some extra minor issues.

• There are unnecessary pauses that require a click to continue, such as “… Spit. It. Out.” Would highly recommend using {w=0.5} instead of plain {w}. On the other hand, some scene transitions could use bit of a pause.

• Sprite blocking. In most scenes, multiple characters are having a conversation, but the sprites are not facing each other, as if they are addressing us, the reader, directly. This is a bit weird because clearly the story is written from Patrice’s POV, and he is on the screen. Could be remedied by mirroring the sprites. Small detail, but it makes things more immersive.

• Audio works. Might be an oversight, but some parts were just dead silence. And I would reconsider picking music that fits better with the story beat.

Overall, the team has done an excellent job delivering this short story. It’s not perfect, but still a good read. Hopefully, my two cents can help the polishing post-jam. Oh, and this VN definitely piques my interest in the main entry. Great work!

It's a bit weird of me to review this one considering I'm the editor for Moonlight Castle, but I didn't edit this one, so it's probably fine. Presentation-wise, I love the higher fidelity of the new sprites compared to MC, though the shading is a bit heavy. The CGs are really well done too, especially the, uh, animated one toward the end. I do have to comment on something that bothers me the same way it does in MC, though: the sprites often go back to the neutral expression after each line, creating a visual flipflop of emotions. It also does that thing where there's an unnecessary line of narration in between every line of dialogue. But that's just the minor stuff I feel obligated to point out as an editor :p. Writing quirks aside, this was a solid story, full of comedy, drama, intrigue, and good character writing, all the things that also made MC good. Loved the back and forth dialogue between all of the characters too, it kept the VN quick and fun. I'm trying my best to review this one in isolation, but I have to admit that knowing MC's plot does help to contextualize much of the VN, such as where Nia went and who the "crocodile" is. As a result, I don't think it works that well in isolation, but as a side story to MC, it works really well, even as just a fun horny diversion. Maybe a bit too horny? Patrice needs to chill tbh. Just kidding, it's still great to get his perspective, even though it's a bit odd to see how these characters interact without Joel there. I think we'd been needing that, at least. Anyways, it was a lot of fun, well done. Shame about the ending, but it was inevitable given it's a prequel. I hope we get to see more of Oliver in the future, though. And maybe Hugo too?

I’ll start by saying the dialogue and interactions in this VN is strong. Even in some sad scenes, this VN sprinkles in some comedic lines to lighten the mood a bit.

Despite some readers who mention context is required as this is a spin-off from an original work, you can read this as a bittersweet standalone story about breaking up, and learning to move on while finding the strength to reconnect/cope. And in that regard, the story has strong implementation of the theme.

Patrice as a character has his flaws but his way of coping with the breakup is very relateable and that makes his actions very grounded. I think, if given enough time to learn about the characters, readers will grow to love them even more (specifically Liam). The arts in this VN are done with full of love, care and effort (and also horniness ;3) and I appreciate the subtle details added in every CG/scene.

Overall, I enjoyed this VN a lot and I only hope the best for the team. Great work and thanks for sharing this with us.

Mmkay, so I guess I'll start by saying I have zero familiarity with the story this is spun-off from, and this may have impacted how characters and interactions resonated with me as opposed to others whose readings may have been colored by other context they have (or maybe it didn't! Maybe these characters are minor side characters in the main story and it's all irrelevant, I literally do not know).

With that said, I think there's a lot to like here in dialogue and emotion (mostly - I'll get to that) but this project may be suffering from trying to do too much at once.

Spoilers from here on out.

Implementation of Theme:

I can see it. Patrice is experiencing continuing darkness through being stuck in the doldrums about his breakup and in comes this shiny new wolf to bring a spark of brightness to that darkness, and it almost kinda works out for a bit. The last part makes it a bit muddy, but it still works well enough.

Story:

Okay there's kind of a lot to unpack here so I have prepared a numbered list to organize my thoughts.

1) Nia: I think there needs to be a lot more context with what exactly happened here. The intro scene makes it seem like she doesn't really want it to end either, so what's the reason they broke up? This is important for understanding Patrice's character - is there something specific where he thinks he has an inadequacy or shortcoming that he can't move past? Not knowing the answer to the question could be plausible too (that's actually by far the worst feeling from personal experience) but it seems like there was some kind of concrete event that caused the breakup so that doesn't really come across either. It would also be helpful to hear what exactly he liked about her - what made that relationship so special and why does he feel like he couldn't attain that with someone else? This is kind of the whole premise for the story so it's a bit weird that angle is so sparse.

2) Patrice: There's a lot to like about the characterization going into Patrice in sections of the VN. Lots of moments that feel very real and grounded, like the intrusive thoughts of your ex in the first half and how to respond to those and hanging out comfortably at a party with your friend until your crush shows up, your friend gives you the ol' "good luck, soldier" and dips, and your anxiety has now reached critical mass. You really crushed that last one, totally nailed it. There's a degree of dissonance between the way he carries himself in other conversations and the struggles he's going through though, with the hyper-flirtatious, overtly sexual lines clashing with the idea of someone who's been wallowing over a breakup for two years. I know that the intrusive thoughts as mentioned above can come at any time, but there are points in the story where it feels like Patrice will take a few seconds to think about Nia more because the script remembered that he was supposed to rather than it being triggered more naturally. 

3) Liam: For a story with two main points (getting over Nia and getting with Oliver) we are spending a lot of time with Liam. I'm not really sure what their relationship is supposed to be, especially since Patrice is making flirty and sexual comments to him too and that feels kinda weird to do to your ex's brother...? I don't know, maybe that's just me, but I certainly don't think it would help with Patrice's primary goal of getting over Nia. I question whether some of the time spent with Liam could have been more focused on Nia, or maybe even Liam and Nia as a package deal, to get some of that additional context across. You'd probably still have enough Liam space to keep a lot of the witty banter in (which was good!)

4) The end: It was... a bit abrupt, and just a teensy bit melodramatic. I think a lot of the buildup to that point with Oliver was great. A lot of their dialogue felt natural and I was buying that it was a really solid first date. I definitely understand the hurt, especially from Oliver's perspective - Patrice really should have clarified the no-commitment thing before taking a huge step like taking Oliver's virginity. But some of the lines that got thrown out afterwards were a little much. "...that the person you fell in love with..." "I truly loved him" like... you guys met 12 hours ago, this was not true love yet -_-

5) Oliver's mom: Kinda breezed right by that one. Don't know if that's setting up something for the main story but that felt kind of out of nowhere, especially with how fast they moved past it.

6) Boxing: Not necessarily as important as the above, but I feel like the boxing scene forgot that the characters were boxing sometimes. Not in the sense of throwing punches, but more like, I was cracking up at the idea of these two having a whole-ass conversation with mouthguards in (especially since Patrice didn't bring one and was almost certainly using one that wasn't even molded). 

7) If my ex cut off all contact with me and then started sending pity payments out of nowhere like it was child support or alimony or something I would be so incandescently pissed off I would implode.

Anyway.

Presentation:

A much shorter section to write, mostly because I thought it was pretty great. Music got a bit repetitive at times, but the sprites were great and I really liked the CGs as well. Was not expecting to see titties in the first five minutes of a gay VN but I wholeheartedly commend the effort. 

One tiny little nitpick - some of the backgrounds didn't really feel like they matched what was being written, like Patrice mentioning how his family had never seen that much money before while standing in a gloriously immaculate kitchen or telling Oliver they'll have to share a bed when the background clearly shows two beds. 

Creativity:

It's a spin-off from your existing work with characters you've (again, presumably, I don't know) already spent a lot of time thinking about. Totally within the rules, but I don't think it's doing anything particularly innovative to give it much beyond that. Firmly middle-of-the-road on this category for me. 

I know I had a lot to say (I always have too much to say, I promise it's nothing personal) but I did genuinely enjoy a lot of what was here and maybe if I'm not terminally burned out from VNs after this jam I'll see what's going on with the main project.

Sorry to say, but I didn't really enjoy this at all (with the caveat that I have only read the very beginning of the bigger VN it's a spin-off to).

First and foremost, the pacing is wild, just all over the place. For much of the 18k word long story, things progress at a glacial speed; there is so much mundane slice-of-life stuff heavy with elongated bits of comedy that I didn't find all that funny. The structure feels weak, too, the narrative opening with the classic "character has a dream and wakes up" routine and basically just meandering from one scene to the next without much connective tissue. Although all of it moves the love story forward, I don't think the characters had much of a reason for going to the gym or to the party – they just kind of did? The game also opens with an intriguing detail of the characters getting some money in the mail that doesn't really go anywhere. It would definitely help to have a stronger throughline.

We understand that Patrice is feeling hesitant about pursuing a romance because he's still not over his ex, but this tension is entirely internal – he just thinks about her sometimes and is still largely eager to move things forward with Oliver. Though there is little subtlety or ambiguity to how the story repeatedly stresses this conflict, it feels frustrating for it to be so subdued.

But then, in the last 500 or so words (!), the pacing suddenly becomes insanely fast; the sex scene cuts abruptly to an animation, Patrice comes clear about his thoughts, drama happens, and the game just ends there with no falling action or further resolution. The climax feels both jarring with how arduously slow the narrative had been until that point and very unsatisfying by itself – after all that setup, this is all? The characters arguing for a bit and the protagonist getting 8 lines of internal monolog to resolve his character arc? There is much, much, much that could be cut in some of the slower scenes in the game, but this one could have really used some extra space to let what is arguably the most important emotional beat in the entire story land properly.

I also found the writing somewhat weak on the micro level, especially in terms of the rhythm. So, so much of it is just a bunch of short lines in succession; it rarely feels like the narration is pacing itself deliberately to complement or emphasize what is happening in the scene. As a result, the game feels very monotonous to read no matter what kind of emotion or action it is trying to convey.

As far as presentation goes, there is some very nice art, though I think I don't like most of the character designs that much, especially Patrice or Liam. They feel too muted with the restrained use of color, lacking interesting contrasts or details that would grab your attention – Liam's fur is all different shades of brown, Patrice's yellow hairdo barely stands out, and his green shirt + green jacket combo does not please the eye. The side characters are thankfully a bit better.

Similarly, some technical elements suffer from polish issues and weird art direction. The game opens with a splash screen that fades away with no user input but has so much text in it that you don't have time to read it all; maybe this is a bug, but it really should be a click-through. The UI consists of a bunch of things that generally look good out of context but feel haphazardly thrown together. The title screen (I will say that the art is gorgeous!) uses a cursive font, the speaker name label is a skeuomorphic wooden sign, and then the text box itself is a transparent flat design rectangle? With two inexplicable watermarks of logs on it? I don't think I see the vision here.

As far as audio design goes, it's functional on a base level but not much more, incredibly sparse for how long the game is. There don't appear to be any sound effects or longer foley tracks at all, and even with a fast reading speed, many of the songs have time to loop two or three or four times, doing little to emphasize how the tone develops in each scene.

Clearly many people enjoyed the game more than I did, and I'm glad it has found an audience. It just didn't really do a lot for me as a story, and despite some nice touches, didn't come off as using its medium thoughtfully.

One day in the life of someone having trouble getting over his last relationship. I really liked how Patrice tries going all in with Oliver but sometimes can’t stop himself from thinking about Nia. On the other hand, I feel the scenes with Liam or at the gym kind of drag on. Ironically, the final scene feels very rushed and it makes Oliver appear to be very unforgiving and jealous all of a sudden. The sprites look quite good but I don’t like how they often go ta a different pose when speaking and then come back to normal, it feels a bit flippant. The animation was unexpected but pretty fun. The music sometimes felt a bit repetitive but it wasn’t a big problem. Overall, pretty nice. (I checked the page afterwards. Just wanting to say, I had no idea this was connected to another VN and had no problem playing it.)

'That Fateful Night' feels like catching an episode of a drama series, mid-season. It's a very well presented with amazing cut scene illustrations, custom sprites, and even a really hot animation at the climax. It's an engaging piece that can stand on it's own, but feels the pull of wanting information from the work that this is connected to. I think being a prequel might be double-edged, in that it (possibly) does not want to spoil future plot points. A few of the details that feel omitted and leave the reader scratching their heads at a situation that comes across as melodramatic.

To get into the story a bit, the initial breakup of Patrice and Nia is kept vague, either due to potential spoilers or putting in too much trust in the reader to fill in the blanks themselves.  Patrice is so extroverted, comfortable within their own sexuality, and considerate of his flirting, that his two year commitment issue he's hung up on, feels a bit contrived without further explanation for the specifics. I only bring attention to it, because it's the crux of the conflict within the story itself, and all the actions Patrice takes hinges on his inability to move on. Is Patrice hung up on Nia because he feels they could get back together in the future? Is something preventing that? Why does Nia fully cut contact off with him despite seemingly sending money and being in contact with Liam? Why does Liam not talk more about it with him? With how they treat the issue with such finality, Patrice still feeling like he can't move on from the relationship after two years apart feels a bit flimsy and in contrast with his extroverted characterization.

That being said, the actual romancing, flirting, and erotica of this story is really well done. I love it when Patrice flusters Oliver. I feel like a little too much time is spent on Patrice and Liam's witty banter and sex jokes, but I think that might just be subjective and me wanting to understand what is up with Nia anyway. Oliver is great as the shy introverted virgin that gets his heart broken. It feels like the plot really paints Patrice as this selfish/inconsiderate guy, so the text has to go out of it's way a lot to remind the reader what a good guy he is and justify his actions. I feel like it was written this way because it's meant to end at the starting point of the other work it's connected to.

As far as the theme of 'light in the dark', the story presents it as illustrations of moonlit sex and finding love in a time of depression after a breakup. Though, it feels a bit more like a secondary theme to what is more focused on exploring Patrice's backstory. It holds itself to one too many criteria that it has to meet; being a prequel to another work, the game jam theme and being a self-contained story. Overall, I think this is expertly produced, has amazing visuals, and the romance is great for a "my wolf" visual novel.