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armoredopossum31 days ago(+1)

So, like your submission for May Wolf, first I want to acknowledge that it's admirable that you keep trying to go above and beyond normal visual novel mechanics and add actual gameplay to these jam submissions, especially considering the short timeframe that entails. I think you went even further here by making your own assets this time (and there are a lot of them!) instead of using the stock sprites, and I think they look pretty good. The sprites for our two leads are solid, the not-Game Boy display is cute, and the motorbike CG (and its alt) is charming and atmospheric. 

With all that said, and as you indicate yourself in game, the gameplay is... janky. I actually ran into some trouble way before even getting to the JoyPort with the radio minigame. The frequency and volume lines didn't actually line up with the blue lines correctly and I was only able to advance basically through trial and error. Getting to the JoyPort section, even with the tutorial it took me a while to figure out what exactly I was supposed to do. Some things I actually still don't understand having finished the game. Like what does "press to resonate" mean? I got through the whole section without ever using Dierre's ability so I'm not sure if it actually does anything at all?

Control-wise, I know you specifically state how to do it, but like ->, N, ->, E, N, N, E is a long sequence of button presses for just, like, "hit that thing in front of you", and I honestly don't think I'd have ever figured it out had you not explicitly spelled it out. I also think the JoyPort segment dragged out a bit too long. Like, I really don't think we needed to run the basic "move right with Lufo, hit the enemy, then move right again" level 10 times to get to the ending. I see what you were going for with struggling over and over again before reaching catharsis, but I don't think you needed to actually have the player go through all that repetition to get there.

Spoilers from here on out.

With all that said, the whole JoyPort sequence kind of felt thematically and narratively unnecessary to me? Like generally when you have a story where two characters are thrust into a situation where they have to work through challenges as a metaphor for real life struggles, there's a lot of tension in the scenario. They're put into that challenge, in this case the game, because that's the only way they'll be able to resolve their issues. An example of this is It Takes Two, where the two leads are a couple getting divorced that are accordingly quite bitter with each other and have to overcome those emotions. In this though, there's like, no tension at all. Both Dierre and Lufo are happy to see each other, both are amicable and open to getting to know each other again. On top of that, what Lufo is actually self-conscious about kinda feels... not that big of a deal? Like, he was kinda jealous of Dierre's popularity, and that's really it (he also says after they're out of the game that he confessed his feelings in there, but I actually didn't see anything like that). 

With the way the actual conflict is presented, these two really don't need to go through the game since this could all be very easily resolved in like five minutes. "Why are you sorry?" "Because... because I used to be so jealous of you and pushed you away!" "Oh, that's fine. I literally didn't even remember that and it's not that big of a deal." "Okay, but I also had a crush on you because I've been gay the whole time!" "I am also okay with this. Wanna make out?" Problem solved, no Game Boy isekai required. 

There are a few other issues here and there like some of the dialogue feeling a little stilted (and Lufo calling into the station would have probably been way more awkward for anyone else listening than the game makes it out to be) but you're definitely trending in the right direction with your composition since Afterparty. Glad to see you're sticking with it!

Final score of 7 late night smooth jazz LPs out of 10 bootleg Pokemon Yellow cartridges. 

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Kemonito Kusuri31 days ago(+1)

Thank you for trying out my VN!

The jank in gameplay is due to how little time I had until the deadline, so I did the opposite of my May Wolf where instead of the gameplay having more work, I focused on trying to make the narrative part look and feel ok since the novelty would wear off when the narrative isn't at least written well enough. And yes Diere's ability doesn't work, I should have clarified that too, I still need to do better, I had a whole tutorial design idea so that the player was able to understand the mechanics on their own without the whole "Do this so you can do this!" even at least minimally, but again time constraints. And I sadly did fumble in the end (reading this it pains me at how rushed that ending feels actually and I didn't notice), the story on the gameplay part I had a struggle to write on what reason makes sense for that to have happened, I think Diere even mentioned how not great Lufo's reason was... Also the confession was something right at the later levels where Lufo wanted to confess to Diere by leaving him a note, but something else happened.

For the radio part I was thinking that maybe if I set a range of values that the answer could have been valid maybe the reader would have gotten it right somewhat, as I also didn't want to have it be annoying... But it was annoying anyway. Initially it was going to be a slider of sorts and maybe the wave on the side was going to change shape but constant data shifting might have been too jank and trying to transform an image needed a lot of adjusting to happen which was hard to make it right so I took the easier route instead. Also yeah Lufo's ability should have been a simple button press, but no, the jankiness keeps striking.

In short, great idea, execution fumbled, but I'm glad that it seems I'm getting better at least. And still continue on improving writing skills and such.

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armoredopossum31 days ago(+1)

For what it's worth, I think your takeaways are spot-on - I forget if it was in the comments for your May Wolf game or if it was the maze and sliding block puzzle one, but I made a similar comment about making sure the gameplay and narrative are working together so you get a satisfying payoff from moving through each section, and I agree that this was a really fun idea that could've been executed better. But yeah, jams are hard, especially when you're trying to do so much as an army of one, and I totally understand how a lot of what you envisioned couldn't make it to the final product. 

Regarding the conflict between Dierre and Lufo, to make the Game Boy premise work, I think the inciting incident is less important than their current attitudes to each other. Like you can still have the conflict start with something mundane, but if they're pissed and bitter towards each other at the start of present events, the arc of the Game Boy section can be them growing to realize that their resentment to each other was dumb and they both need to get over it. Or you could go in a completely different direction, just throwing another idea out there for additional perspective. 

Ultimately I think it'd be cool to see you stretch some of your ideas out into projects that aren't limited by jam timelines so the narrative and gameplay both have enough time in the oven, but yeah definitely keep it up, you're only going to get better and better from here. 

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