'Nat One' is contemporary drama that merges the fun and whimsy of a DnD group dynamic with a character's downward spiraling of self-hatred and depression. It captures the essence of a group DnD campaign with authentic accuracy, as well as feeling 'way to real' when it comes to the struggles of maintaining a friend group in your 20s (I assume). Does it lean a bit hard into the melodrama and some of the tropes of 'love and friendship will conquer all'? Yes, but that's also the point, and I appreciate it for leaning into it rather than trying to subvert it. Cause who doesn't want a story about the importance of leaning on others for support and trying to do everything on your own is sometimes too much a burden to bear?
The story is the story of Tyler, a dragon who just broke up with his boyfriend cause the boyfriend found a job out of state, and just lost his own job to AI, and now feels like the only thing keeping his life afloat is a DnD campaign which just ended early because of a bunch of bad dice rolls. There's this through line theme of the butterfly effect and how it centers around Tyler's mindset and world view, how end results are set into motion by actions taken a long time ago, and story likes to keep coming back to that imagery in order to really ground us in Tyler's perspective. It's such a depression-centered mindset because he's is both the cause for his own misery, but also denies himself the ability to control his outcomes and life trajectory. And then the narrative is just how life continues on and Tyler's framing of it, he contextualizes it within the DnD game (which is a campaign based on the King Arthur legend). His boyfriend leaving is contextualized as Lancelot betraying Arthur when they get the Holy Grail. When one of his friends can't make sessions because of a job or because they get pregnant, they're written out of the story Gandalf style or in a blaze of glory. When none of his friends can make the group, he does a solo DnD session where he wallows in his own despair. Of course, these are all just natural adult circumstances that come up or a string of bad luck, but to Tyler, it's a confirmation of his own inadequacies. Of course, in the end, it's when one of his friends reaches out and inserts himself into his life to show that he cares, is when Tyler gains the hope to keep trying and stop wallowing. It does help that said friend has been dropping hints that he's into him the whole time, so it doesn't come out of left field. Maybe it's cause I can relate to the story cause I recognize a lot of those emotions, but this definitely comes across as one of those wish-fulfillment stories and I just really like that kind of story. Who wouldn't want to be rescued from your despair and depression by a hot wolf in a pink hoodie? The final conversation with Tyler and Tristan does come off a little bit therapy-speak, but I don't mind that. I think I would just wish for Tyler to fight for himself a little bit more rather than it feel like Tristan is rescuing him. Like, yes, asking for help is moment of growth, but as Tristan puts it, he has to manipulate it out of him. Though, this is still a nit pick, and the ending as is, is already great.
For the presentation, it is spot on. It's a great mix of the pre-made sprite assets, custom sprite assets, custom background, photo backgrounds, the fun usage of a flapping butterfly, and all those bits where there's a focus on a particular detail, like the email (which is so well done in how much of a template it was that they didn't even put his name in there). The change from photo background to the hand drawn ones was really great, Sikyu did an amazing job with those, extra kudos to all the amazing painterly backgrounds that just immerse the reader even further. The music with the right emotional beats were great. All the little Ren'py tricks of sprites moving around for battle sequences, or the name plates for character voices are nice touches as well. The writing quality is also just top notch: the really realistic dialog, the way that inner monologue and dialog seem to intertwine, and even the memories, the thought processes, the reality and the game all seem to blur together and time passing in chunks as the situation goes from game session to game session. Each section doesn't seem to drag on, and the moments where a scene takes it's time is interspersed with comedy or drama to keep the reader engaged. I feel like there's a few repetitive parts, especially when depicting Tyler's deteriorating situation as he spirals, but I think that's just a creative choice to contrast the fun time with friends with the sad times alone.
Integrating the Arthurian myth as the folklore element was a clever way to tie together the folklore element with DnD themes the sprites had, along with the overarching themes of predestination or control over one's fate. Did I mention how well represented the DnD sessions were? The mix of banter of the players above the board along with the 'roleplaying' of the characters in the game was just fun to read. Plus, that's just a good representation as lots of table top roleplaying games are often remixes of existing myths and stories. The most creative aspect of this visual novel to me was the mixing of all the different levels of story. The internal story, the social story and the metaphorical story within the game itself. It really fleshes out Tyler as a character and you get a sense of not just his strengths but also his weaknesses and flaws. Each of the other characters also get a nice chunk to feel personalized, and it's only in comparison to Tyler that feel like Tyler could have spent more time conveying what he liked about his different friends. But once again, that's just nitpicking for the sake of it, I got the gist of what each one was about and their relation to Tyler.
I have to say, looking at the author's work, I am surprised that this is his first completed visual novel (I know that there's one in the oven cooking and looking good, but still not out quite yet). It's an extremely strong first impression, with a strong author voice in how they have characters ruminate and spiral. It did hit me when Tyler was doing his solo session and just beating himself up, so there must be something that he's doing right in his writing. If I were to give a bit more of an unwarranted feedback, I think the story could be stronger with a bit more highs to balance out all the lows that Tyler was facing. Maybe in a one step forward, two steps back kind of way, since every story beat seemed to just be a backwards step for Tyler. Maybe something like, doing something good and 'right' which makes him feel closer to his friends, only for real life to get in the way anyway, which would leave him feeling even more powerless in the face of his 'predestination'. But at that point, it's like, this already a really high quality story that I can foresee being one of my favorites this game jam, if not my favorite one. It gives me a lot of faith that the project you have cooking up is going to be just as banging.