Thanks for hosting the jam and for taking the time to play and review Mesa Verde Suites. I really appreciate the detailed feedback.
The points about the menu behavior, loading times, player guidance, interaction clarity, and the spelling and UX rough edges are all fair. A lot of those are things I was aware of while developing the game and they're areas I'd like to improve moving forward. One thing I've learned is that I need better reusable solutions for those kinds of problems instead of trying to fix them one-by-one every project.
The loading time feedback was especially interesting to me. One thing I've been trying to figure out is where the line is between my own project setup and the underlying behavior of RPG Developer Bakin. My previous published project had significantly longer load times, and a large part of this jam was applying lessons learned from that experience while experimenting with larger "meta map" layouts and dynamic room setups. Bakin isn't a particularly popular engine, so a lot of that ends up being trial, error, and benchmarking.
I'm glad Artemis stood out, even if he was confusing. He was actually a very late addition to the project, and the fact that he was memorable enough to mention tells me there is probably something worth exploring there if I revisit the game.
The marriage dialogue is another area where your feedback was useful. The intention was for Jefferson's home life to gradually bleed into his work conversations and influence how he interprets the people around him, and I can definitely see how those connections could be made clearer. Honestly, during my final playtest before submission I was getting confused myself and eventually hit the point of, "Screw it, ship it. Submit Friday, otherwise you'll miss the deadline Monday."
Most importantly, thank you for giving the game a shot. One of the reasons I entered the jam was simply to get people playing my work and to put another RPG Developer Bakin project out into the world. It's a fairly obscure engine, and it was fun getting to show what it can do outside of a traditional RPG.
Thanks again for hosting the jam and for the thoughtful review. It was genuinely helpful.