THEME
(1.5/5) I'm genuinely trying to think of a reason how this could be folklore, even trying to contrive how the monster in the story was folklore to begin with. Ultimately however, I fail to be properly convinced how the monster relates to the May Wolf theme at all. If anything, it feels more symbolic than a literal monster in the woods. For me personally (emphasis on personally because I know there will be some people who think otherwise) , if a story is going to be considered folklore, the "folklore" in question has to have at least one thing going on for it: (1) the "folklore" in question is believed or discussed by a group of people prior to the story's encounter of it, (2) the story, (or the topic of the folklore) becomes the folklore itself after the events of the story, or (3) has at least something to do with the beliefs of a group of people. The story meets none of my personal criteria. For #1, there is a lack of proper set-up in regards to the story's folklore. Prior to Sam and Martin's disappearance, no one was talking about the sudden disappearances or how they believe that there's a monster out there. While there is a deer man harassing people in and out of the gas station and the gadget on Bird's ankle, those are not necessarily the set-up for folklore. For #2, the story ends too abruptly for me to get a clear sense if the monster or the event in question becomes folklore after the story. Harper and Bird together don't decompress or talk about what happened. Harper just asks Bird what he's thinking of and Bird just says that he wants to live. There is no talking about the monster or acknowledgment about the story's events. For all I know, the monster turned out to all be in Bird's head and it never existed to begin with.
In fairness, one can argue that the folklore is not the monster but the deer man---the homophobic dad cop---himself. That or Bird's cut off hand becomes the source of the folklore. People talk about what happened to Bird's hand or what happened to The Fucking Bastard, but as of right now, I'm not given much (if any) particularly strong evidence at all to prove that those are the story's folklore. I have to contrive hard to even consider those, and even then it's not convincing enough.
Presentation
(5/5) I mostly just heard the music of the bar or silence throughout the story. While it does get pretty repetitive after a while, it's pretty tolerable. At its worst, the music goes against the scene where it's supposed to be going along with it, but even then it's not that much of a big deal. At its best, the silence (or the lack of sound) goes along with what the scene is trying to establish. The story's biggest strength, however, goes to the art. I'm not an artist, so I can't go in depth, but I'm a big fan of the simplistic art style and the amount of animations, all these done in one month.
Story & Writing
(3/5) I think the story partially succeeds in establishing a kind of relationship with Harper that's "quiet", the kind of relationship that doesn't need emotionally strong scenes to establish a connection with the reader. However, the story could definitely use some more words. When I heard Harper's backstory about how they felt when Bird left, I could hardly feel anything. When Bird told Harper about if they'll leave one day, I didn't feel particularly attached to it either. Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking the story to have these scenes be emotionally strong (I don't think that's right for the story), more so that the story should further expand on these scenes so that the readers gets to know more and become attached to both Harper and Bird. Because the story lacks the expansion necessary to get the reader attached to the characters, I don't get a sense of urgency when I read about Sam or Martin disappearing. I don't feel like I care when I read that Bird's hand got bitten off by the monster. One of the more fatal flaws as well is that the story ends too fast. After Bird's hand gets bitten off, we're only told immediately after that Bird wants to live. There's no proper denouement or conclusion to the story. While the backstory was good in revealing the mystery, it suffered like all the others before it in establishing impact and connection.
However, I don't think it's particularly bad either. The VN isn't boring---far from it. I genuinely enjoyed Bird's internal conflict, the mystery set up with the gadget on his ankle, and what his problem could possibly be with The Fucking Bastard. I enjoyed the dialogue between all the characters and the "quiet" vibes of the visual novel. It is for this reason that I settled on 3/5, not bad, but not striking either.
Creativity
(4/5) Creativity is very difficult to judge because it's practically unactionable as a criteria. In spite of this, I decided to settle on 4/5. Using the counter was a genius idea in execution to use as a textbox without actually using a textbox. The animations were charming, and the ideas displayed here, of dealing with suicidal ideation, struggles with sexuality, etc, were ideas I found neat.