Bowser's Grade: A-
Spoiler's ahead!
My grade either means everything or nothing to Cetus. It depends on what kind of day he's having uwu.
For anyone else reading, just know I'm heavily biased since Cetus is a good friend, and I work with JimmytheFloof and Martini on my main project. That said, I'm trying my best to grade as fairly as I can.
I already talked with Cetus about most of my thoughts about his newest project, but I figure I'd outline them in writing for posterity.
The art style is gorgeous. Jasper's backgrounds are such a great compliment to Jim's sprites. Darlington is an eerie, but beautiful place. The art direction captures that perfectly.
Can't say I have very many notes on sound design. Martini does good work. What more can I say about a good boy who makes good music? 💖
The way the denizens were puppeted was fantastic. No notes for Wattson.
Moving on to why that "minus" isn't a "plus".
- I think the writing suffered from the onslaught of too many GRE words. Narratively, it makes sense. The main character is hyper-analytical, hyper-observant, and seeks to use elevated language when he can. That said, there is a balance that needs to be struck. There comes a point where it comes off as too grating and too exhausting for your average reader.
- I would have liked for the three denizens to have more intention. They each reveal aspects of the MC's personality and Darlington. However, I think if each of them served a grander, thematic purpose, it would have made each conversation more impactful.
- My guess is that the three missing people are manifested as the three denizens. That said, I don't see a very strong narrative thread tying them together. Maybe I missed it.
- As discussed, we can work on making the larger theming of loneliness = hunger more subtle.
- We could do with a ~5% word count cut. I think cutting out a lot of the elevated vocabulary would serve well to that end.
- I wasn't a fan of seeing the default DejaVu Sans font. The default black RenPy text box actually works quite well for this piece, but I think picking out a better font would have done so much work to elevate the presentation.
One thing I'm very proud of Cetus for is the improvement of his writing style going from Before You Depart to Nepenthes. A lot of the "amateur" writing pitfalls (overuse ellipses, distasteful use of all caps, overwriting, poor sentence structure, etc.) were virtually non-present in the final product. You've really come into your own style and it works very well. So proud of you 💖.
The last bit of praise I want to offer the story is this... I don't understand vore. I don't understand what makes it appealing to those who do enjoy it. I've had many people try to explain it to me, but it doesn't do much to help bridge the gap.
This story has done more to help me understand the appeal of vore more than any explanation ever could. It illustrates the power that storytelling has to help us understand each other, and I think that's an incredible thing. The fact that this piece has me contemplating the power of storytelling in general I think is a grand testament to how well crafted this story is.