'The Tale of Drac da Na Coca' is a fantasy adventure story, told through the lens of a DnD campaign and the flavor of Spanish folklore. I think what really appeals to me about this entry is the abundance of the Spanish culture imbued in the visual novel. From the little touches of Spanish traditions, the terms of endearment used, and the aesthetic flair, it does a great job of putting it's viewpoint front and center, and showing of all the small moments that this adventuring party has.
The story is fairly straight-forward DnD fair, an evil dragon is planning to brainwash the city and a group of adventurers bands up to go stop the ritual. You have the party members, the warlock, who is compelled to go on his patron's orders. The paladin who goes as a warrior of good and light, wanting to stop the evil dragon on principal. The bard and the rogue, who each have their own code of honor to put their lives on the line for the defeat of the dragon. There's the march up the mountain, the camp, the ambush, the calm before the storm, the infiltration, and the final battle. It follows the logical progression, even taking the time to flash back to how the group all met in the first place, as well as pair up in their romantic ships. The visual novel actually has choices, where you can get bad, neutral and technically good ends! Sure, they're based on whether or not you follow the script of the hero or turn tail and run like cowards, but the fact that the bad ends actually exist and really take the time to hammer in how badly you fucked up, by making your potential new life a hollow one, and still getting controlled by the dragon in the end is so good in leaning into the bad end. The good end, while technically a good end, is more of a tragic heroism, as while you're able to prevent the major catastrophe, you end up sacrificing your lives in order to do it. At least you got to have one final romp in the tent and the city puts up a mural and statue in the town to remember you by, and the tales of your heroism inspire others to do the same. Nothing too cheesy and sweet, which some folks like the bittersweet endings or the ones where not everything works out in the end. Mature. That said, I did feel like there wasn't a lot of plot momentum, and it tended to meander a bit. The walk up the mountain was slow, we get two separate flashbacks, a scene to set up camp, a scene to fight a guy, a sex scene, a slice-of-life scene with breakfast, the final action sequence scene, and then a scene with two townsfolk that we suddenly focus on in the epilogue. Remember that each scene should set up the next scene, and try to focus on the details that are either going to give more context or are answering a question that the plot has presented. Like, for the flashback scenes, we already know that the characters are all friends and companions, so needing to see how they met is a little redundant, however entertaining they are. Consider trying to utilize those flashbacks as ways to also support the main plot, like, more information about the dragon instead of having the players talk about it for the reader's sake.
The presentation is really fun. I dig the character designs for the sprites of the heroes, very good at conveying what classes they were. The way the text was manipulated for emphasis in certain ways, the way the screen would darken when the warlock patron would talk was always fun, and even all the little animations that the sprites did helped to immerse the reader more. There was even the inclusion of the axolotl knight from the pre-rendered sprites, but you re-drew it in your style for consistency, very fun. Plus the backgrounds being mainly self-taken I assume, as you were hiking is such a fun personal touch, that while at first it took a while to get used to it, actually gave it a distinct sense of area and mood. The writing did start to feel a little bit mechanical as it was going through the motions of describing the action scenes and how everything is filtered through Robert's (the main guy warlock) perspective. The dialog and banter was top notch through, as each character had their own personality, and there were some funny lines in there to liven up what was otherwise a pretty tragic story. There were a few technical issues, stuff like names not fitting in the name box, some of the darker green text being tough to read, and the two bad endings having some error in their code that doesn't hit the epilogue or something. Did I mention the great audio and music direction? It also really gave a great Spanish flair to it.
As for folklore, it's always fun to learn about interesting myths and legends, and then adapting that to a DnD campaign feels like the prescribed route to take for this kind of game jam. I won't fault it for doing so, since the jam invites it, so I'll say that it does the genre right by leaning into portraying it as the story, rather than as everyone playing the game which is the story (it was the angle I took in my entry last year). I enjoyed the Spanish flavor to a DnD campaign, so I'd say that that part is pretty creative.
I want to say that the overall theme trying to be expressed in this story is the sort of classic "face your fears, because if you don't you'll regret it more if you ran away." Part of me wonders if having the bad endings be the routes where you survive with your wolf would feel worse if you ended up with survivor's guilt, as not only did Robert have to mind control his wolf, but the city still fell to corruption, and he would have to live with that hollow victory. That being said, I thought the team that put this together did a great job for a first time entry. Lots of character moments, some real stakes, and while I don't think any of them had a particular character arc, it's still good to read about heroes doing heroic things. For a first time go at a visual novel, this is really good stuff especially with the time constraints. I'm sure in the next one, you'll start seeing all the little things you can do to up the polish.