So I've never been to a con before, but I understand the feeling of the general premise. I joke with my friends that are "in the know" that Halloween is my favorite holiday because it's the one day per year where it's socially acceptable to be a furry in public, and it's the same kind of idea here - a brief period to express yourself in a way that's usually confined to the internet.
Regardless of experience with cons themselves, I think there's a lot to like here. The dialogue is snappy and really well written (most of the time - we'll get there) and despite being longer than the other entries I've read for this jam so far, this was a breeze to get through. There's also so much effort that clearly went into designing all the expressive, detailed sprites and the UI, and the music was all very fitting as well, including going above and beyond to include a break beat for (I think?) just the brief dance competition scene. Also, the default volume setting is 30%. Y'all are real ones for that.
While the writing style was great and engaging (had a few laugh out loud moments like "Rave me -> Unrave me" and "I'm hole!"), some of the directions the various plot threads took either fell flat for me, or in some cases, rubbed me the wrong way.
Spoilers herein.
I think the easiest way for me to break down the issues I had with this one is to go day by day, but as an overarching theme to the criticism, while I don't have a problem with Swift not getting laid during the con (thematically, this seems to work into the idea that things rarely go as expected. I feel like everyone's had this sort of thing happen, if not at a con, then just at a party or something) and I don't think the VN needed porn for porn's sake, I did feel like I didn't quite buy the circumstances leading to each of Swift's blueballings.
Day 1:
- Like I said, I've never been to a con, so if this was inspired by a real experience, fair play I guess, but I find it very hard to believe that even the most delusional of individuals would show up to a furry convention with confederate flag gear. Like even if you're oblivious to the irony, you at least have to be aware that it would drastically lower your odds of picking up someone there, which is clearly Diesel's goal. I think it would have felt a bit more natural and less jarring for Swift to just get weird vibes from him and back out. He's never had sex before, at least not with a guy (?), so it wouldn't be like outlandish that he'd be cautious about his first partner, and the termination of the encounter wouldn't seem so trite.
- Didn't really like Blake's comment the following morning of "what are you doing rolling the dice on rednecks in the South? You gotta be safer than that." and that it wasn't contested by the other characters or the game itself. Like just because someone looks or sounds "Southern" doesn't automatically make them a confederate flag flying bigot. Considering how much emphasis this game puts on the acceptance of diversity throughout the furry community, it didn't sit right with me to perpetuate harmful stereotypes about people just based on their appearance, accent, or state of residence.
Day 2:
- While the broader reason for the encounter with Hammer falling through felt more believable than the others (i.e., married), I think the actual sequence leading up to that reveal was a little... convenient. I feel like it went that way more to tease the player than to actually be a plausible scenario. It could've been more natural for Swift to zone out when Hammer told him he was married, then go up to his room to find Sprocket already there and react accordingly.
- Going to echo Caellam's criticisms of the Hammer bus dialogue. I know what the Pulse shooting was, I know how fucked up it was to paint over the crosswalk, and I know that 2025 has generally been a shitty year for being less than heteronormative in the US. You don't need to have a Wikipedia summary of the Pulse shooting or comments from Florida politicians to get that across. I am acutely aware. I know it likely came from a good place, but it came off really condescending.
Day 3:
- Osgood's turn from "shy and awkward but trying to have fun in his own way" to "actual terrible person" came way out of left field. Like, aside from how exaggerated that whole exchange was in general, I just do not buy that the guy who's been listening to Blake yap about wanting to get a train run on them by 10 guys for the past two days is slut-shaming Swift for... not hooking up with people. It just felt like drama for the sake of drama whereas the two of them trying but failing to have sex because both of them realizing they're just not into each other that way would have still fit the "nothing works out" theme while feeling more organic and not like actively annihilating their friendship.
Other stuff:
- Caellam kinda mentioned this too, but it's a bit odd that this was submitted for Novembuck when the buck is in like... 15% of the VN and has absolutely no impact on any of the plots, other than bringing Swift to the rave and promptly disappearing. I know the requirement is basically just "there's a deer somewhere" so it still qualifies, but it was weird that the deer was barely even a side character.
- Fossa. I don't know what's going on with Fossa. I thought he'd come up at least some point in the story, but he really doesn't. They meet on the plane and then he completely disappears until the last like five lines of the VN. Why not keep talking to him on the way to the venue, or try to hang out at the con when the others were busy? Like, I get that the real reason was probably just to focus on the three main encounters, but the MFF invitation also feels out of nowhere because these two shared like, one conversation.
- I also don't know what the takeaway is really supposed to be from that ending? Like, I'd think it's supposed to be another chance to try a con and have it go better, but things went so miserable at this one that I'm genuinely not sure if Swift is going to have another bad time and not be friends with Fossa by the end of that one too.
- To end on a positive note, I think the stylistic decision to have a furry VN in the actual real world by having the protagonist intentionally OddTaxi the people around him was really clever.
I know there were quite a few criticisms above, but as stated earlier, I still thought this was a fun, entertaining, and certainly well produced read.
I'll give this 17 fursuits out of 3 Amicus dildos.