"As natural as tying your shoes or cooking your favourite meal." You clearly have never witnessed my attempts at cooking. I hit my XP cap at PB&J.
Anyway, this one's kinda the epitome of short and sweet - it's not doing very much wildly outside the box, but what's there, for its limited runtime, is clearly heartfelt with deliberate effort put into every aspect of the experience. Did it change my life? No. Did I have a pretty good time with it anyway? Sure. Breaking it down further:
Implementation of Theme:
Yeah, I mean, I think we've covered it well enough here. I've read other entries so far that were much more creative with how they interpreted "folklore," but I think a ghost story is close enough on its own to qualify. I could get really technical and argue that it's not really "folklore" since this particular story or setting isn't a cultural artifact passed down over time, but if I legitimately did that I'd feel like a pedantic asshole (like, more than usual), so I'm not taking off points for that.
Story:
Main takeaway is mostly what I said in the topline - there's not a whole lot here, but what's there is effective enough. "Acceptance" is the central theme here, and that's made pretty clear from the choice at the end of the VN, and while the idea of coming to terms with you being out of someone's life and moving on has been done before (both in a literal sense like this with a ghost and more figuratively with people that have just grown apart), the emotional catharsis Beckett experiences in the good ending felt genuine.
The other endings felt... less good, and yeah, I know that's the point, but I mean that besides just the moral conclusion. First, I totally understand the impetus to keep things simple - I literally just wrote a review a few hours ago that also advised that sometimes less is more. However, our intro and glimpse into Beckett's situation is so narrow in this case that I think it could've been helpful to have a bit more windup before we meet Hudson. As it stands, I don't really feel any of the emotional attachment that would make me want to pick "wrath" or "sorrow"; I don't really feel all that sad, and I definitely don't feel betrayed, so the only choice that feels natural is "acceptance."
I don't think you need to go too crazy to build up to that moment either. There are little steps you can take using assets you've primarily already made - show a kind of timelapse during the scenes over the course of a year. Maybe have one of Beckett "waking up" with Rhett in bed and how both of them react to the situation, making sure to point out that the picture of them together is still on the nightstand the whole time. You can have Rhett stare closely at it on the final day, which suggests to Beckett that he's still thinking about them together, but Rhett is actually accepting that it's okay for him to try to move on. Same kinda thing with the couch - you don't even have to cut away, just maybe switch between emotions on Rhett's sprite as you show different days with different expressions, the final one being happiness which Beckett can misinterpret as being content with living with Beckett's ghost but is actually excitement for the date. This kind of thing could help "trick" the reader into getting more into Beckett's mindset to further empathize with the character. Not something you have to do 1:1, but it's an idea.
Less importantly, the two "bad" endings also raise some logistical issues. First, I wasn't sure exactly how Beckett was stopping the water in the sink? Like, did he jam something in there, or can he just stop fluids...? Not important at all, just took me out of the scene a bit. As for wrath, the ending of that scene really made me question how exactly ghosts are created in this universe. Like... are Rhett and Hudson going to be ghosts now? I just had this image in my head during the CG with Beckett standing outside the ruined house where Rhett and Hudson phase in next to him going, "...the fuck, man." And that really let the air out of that scene for me.
Last point here, and I don't think it really applies to "story" per se, but I don't know where else to put it. Not sure if "I Will Haunt You" is the best title for this piece? Like, that does apply to 2 out of the 3 endings, but I feel like it doesn't really capture what this game actually is. It gives more of an impression of a horror story rather than a slice of drama. Personal taste on that one, maybe.
Writing:
Very solid! Clear, understandable, not overly verbose, mechanically perfect (i.e., no glaring proofreading errors). Like the rest of the project, I don't know if you're attempting anything that's going to set the world on fire, but I don't really have any complaints about what's there. This was well-composed, good work.
Presentation:
For the scope of this project, this was excellent as well. The custom art all looked very nice (with perhaps the minor exception of Hudson's proportions looking... condensed? in the CG where he's hugging Rhett compared to his sprites) and there was some good kinetic blocking with the sprites too. Music all seemed to tonally match the scenes, and there wasn't too much repetition or any awkward silent stretches.
As stated above, the project was also well-proofread and I think the menu design was a nice touch as well. There was clearly a lot of effort put into realizing these characters in the limited timeframe of the jam, and that effort is appreciated.
Creativity:
Like I mentioned earlier, the notion of someone, ghost or otherwise, accepting that it's time to move on isn't exactly new or groundbreaking, and while this VN doesn't necessarily push that concept in a particularly unique direction, it still executes that concept well. The bits of visual flair we get in the VN give it a boost that elevates it above its core narrative.
Good job on this one, especially for someone that doesn't appear to have submitted a VN before(?)
12 jars of spaghetti sauce out of 3 suspiciously malfunctioning garbage disposals from me.