Bowser's Grade: B
Spoilers ahead!
Just want to quickly state that my grades mean nothing and I just want to share my thoughts in the hopes it helps the creators grow.
Side note, I can't be unbiased since Brick is a friend and Martini and Jim have both helped me with Chord Progressions.
Let me start of by saying how thoroughly impressed I am that this piece has, not one, not two, but three custom songs that feature vocals. Getting all of that done within the span on a month must've been grueling work, but I'm thoroughly impressed with the results. As someone who spent several months writing, recording, and producing a custom song for his own VN, game recognizes game. Well done.
The presentation is fabulous in this piece as well. Custom UI, the title sequence, the various "leanback" sequences, and 100% illustrated backgrounds, *chefs kiss*. A lot of intention and effort went into the many aspects of the visual design and I'm here for it. Also quite enamoured with the CG's and sprite style. Roar and Jim did a wonderful job.
The visual designs for the characters are also through-the-roof. I love how each sprite has their own style, personality, and silhouette. I'm a big fan of their bold poses as well, not opting for the standard hand-on-hips and crossed arms variants. I think it paid off well.
I'm a big fan of the premise. As a rock and metal enjoyer myself, a period piece exploring the alternative music scene in Seattle during the 90's immediately got me really excited. I'm also glad to see that the subject matter of the story explored the good, bad, and ugly aspects of it. I especially think the ugly parts were handled well.
The sentence structure and word choice for the writing were a pleasure to read aloud. The character dialogue especially felt good to read. These characters each had their own unique voice that felt authentic to their personalities and backgrounds.
With the glazing out of the way, I want to review the bits I'm critical of:
- Presentation
- I really wish these sprites offered more than just one expression. It's cool how they changed outfits! However, I would have appreciated at least one or two emotional variants. Personally, I'd rather see emotional variation than clothing variety. I know it's a jam, and compromises have to be made, but I think with better planning this could have been achieved.
- I have a minor gripe with the particular font chosen. I think a handwritten font style presented on notebook paper is a solid choice! This particular font had some weird quirks that felt frustrating to read. In particular, I hated how lowercase "m" and a sentence-ending period would mesh. Minor gripe.
- Writing/Story
- As discussed, I had a great time reading the dialogue and the sentence structure (minus a few hiccups at the end) worked really well. Not going to give any notes there. My main issue lies with the story structure.
- Very rarely do I find myself criticizing a VN for having pacing that's too fast. But I think the rapid time skips did more of a disservice to the piece than helped it.
- My main issue with this rapid pacing structure is that it leaves little time for the reader to get attached to the characters. Months of relationship building, intimate conversations, and conflict are glossed over and only spoken about in retrospect. I think Pat is a stand-out example. We're told about her and Everett coming out to each other after the fact in narration. This leaves very little impact on me as a reader. That's the type of intimate moment I'd much rather be shown rather than told about. As a result, I didn't care much for Pat as a character. I felt like I didn't get to know her very well and that made her relapse much less impactful on me as a reader.
- The rapid pacing also does a disservice to the romantic tension that the reader should be feeling between Everett and Curtis. The tension starts when they first meet, but slowly fades as the story progresses. By the time we get to the end, that tension doesn't exist anymore and the impact of Curtis's death is dampened as a result.
- The ending.
- The way the story ended I think just simply didn't work. Looking back on it, there were the "breadcrumbs" that hinted at the experience being a simulation. The glitchy effects, the digital text style of the dates, and I guess the rapid pacing all work together to hint at it. However, this kind of ending just didn't have the payoff that I think was intended.
- Tonally, I find the simulation ending jarring. It's a story about the 90's Seattle rock scene... then we shift into a sci-fi-esque ending. It's a strange place to end considering where we started. It's not to say this could never work, but you'd have to be extremely clever with your writing to earn that kind of ending. I also think it'd take several thousand more words to make the setup and payoff more exciting.
- This ending doesn't provide any thematic insight into the story. The simulation itself doesn't offer any insight to the characters, the story, or the story's theme. A simple time skip to the future would have sufficed without the simulation.
- From what I can gather, one of the main things the ending wanted to touch on is how Everett is now dealing with his own addictions after being so critical of Curtis's. I think that's a fine path to go down! It allows the character to grow and reflect. However, if I may make a suggestion, I think a better route to go down would have Everett take on his own opiate addiction after taking painkillers during his recovery from the car-crash. I think that would have fit the story's themes while keeping the story grounded in reality.
There's other issues I had with the story structure, but I think I'll leave it there. Ultimately, I think this kind of story would have really benefited from the addition of several scenes and several thousand words if it weren't a game jam project. The more sensible solution would be better scope management and finding ways the make the story work better with fewer words. I think trying to cover several years worth of events in 12k words wasn't the best decision. I think if the narrative scope was homed in, the resulting piece would have been much better.
Despite my complaints, I enjoyed this entry! It was a pleasure to read and the folks who watched the stream agreed. I think you did a really good job, Brick. You worked really hard on this and that hard work shows. I'm looking forward to your future projects 💖