'Death and the Thief of Stars' is a furry visual novel retelling of a Filipino myth of the source of the stars in the night sky. Always fun when these folklore entries bring me to do outside research about validity of myths vs cultural impact vs purpose of myths, none of which are suited to be discussed here. Instead, this is a story about the role of fate and design, how Gods are often portrayed with surprisingly mortal vices, and the value of balancing the desires of the individual over the desires of the masses.
This is a story about Gods, the god of the moon Libulan, who steals away the stars (that are only visible during the day) from his brother Liadlao, god of the sun, and hides out on the mountain belonging to the god of death, Sidapa. Sidapa starts by speaking on behalf of Libulan to Liadlao, as he is a neutral party who does not care whether stars are in the day sky or night sky. Liadlao reasons that the stars were not Libulan's to take and that by taking them from the day sky would throw the heaven's out of balance for mortals use the stars to divine the future and their locations on the surface of the Earth. Libulan retorts that they are lonely in the night sky and requires the stars so that they can feel beautiful and be seen at night. Sidapa ultimately agrees with Liadlao (in this build) because Libulan is in the wrong no matter how justified their motivations may appear, both in that the stars are not theirs to take and it would cause terrible consequences. As a result, Libulan's wolf form becomes a pig and they fall into a depression and fade while Sidapa gets to be all flirty with Liadlao painting stars in the day sky. We are told this is the bad-wrong ending as another god comes along to tell us that we made the wrong choices, and that they will send us back in time to make the right choices. The good-right route does not exist at this present time.
The presentation is fantastic, with really appealing art sprites of the characters, excellent audio direction and even fully voice acted dialog! There is a lot of effort that had been put into the visual and audio experience, that it feels like watching an independent short film. The visual novel medium is used to a great extent to show all the [exploration] options for more info, or just [response] options to move the story along. I will criticize how it's frustrating re-reading through the story expecting to be able to obtain the good-right ending, that was greyed out, only to find that the option isn't available yet (perhaps not show the option exists?). The writing is quite well done, and reads like a reading an ancient folklore myth, and each of the characters really stand out in their own ways. I will say that I felt the voice acting was a bit too slow for my liking, and about halfway I ended up muting it so I could read through the mundane parts a bit faster. It was interesting that the splash screen warned against this being a dating sim, which feels a bit confusing towards thinking there was no romantic elements in the story, when it also feels like romance does play a heavy role in motivation for the characters, so being a bit more specific in saying there aren't any explicit scene would better convey the nature of the story.
The folklore aspect is front and center, being a re-interpretation of this myth with anthropomorphic furry species. That being said, I'm left wondering how effective it was even as a way to convey why Sidapa would willingly let Libulan steal away the stars for the night. Maybe it's because the current story route does too good a job in portraying Libulan as a spoiled twink with self-esteem issues, and makes Sidapa and Liadlao as the reasonable level-headed guys. Especially with the epilogue straight up telling the reader that "this is not how the story should go, go back and redo it". I take it that this would be better fleshed out in future updates, but for the current build, I think I'm supposed to feel sympathy towards Libulan that doesn't just come across as trying to be manipulative. As if, the only reason I'm supposed to side with Libulan, is because I know that stars show up in the night sky. Granted, that just might also be the original myth. Anyway, I thought this entry was really creative with it's presentation and the way it handled dialog choices.
It's kinda crazy just how good this game is put together for what looks like a first time writer/manager, especially with the help of so many contributors. What looks like several character and background artists, coders, voice actors, editors, and musician. Time management and team management are both hard learned skills, so being able to collaborate with so many is impressive. Scope seems to have outgrown the confines of the jam, so it's a bit unfortunate that we only get what is written to judge the game off of. It's hard to say if there's any critique towards the re-interpretation of the myth story itself, since you have to adhere to the general pre-established narrative, but maybe this visual novel is limited by the source material. Stray too and doing your own thing loses the connection to the myth, staying too close means it's hard to see what spin or new input is given to the story. Funny enough, if you had just left the visual novel as is, where the stars don't get put into the night sky, then it might even be considered a subversion of the expected myth. Perhaps a re-interpretation of what the dark night sky meant, less as a "I'm stealing the stars so I can be beautiful" and more of "I'm embracing my existing beauty, which lifts the dark veil of my jealousy and that reveals the stars," or something with a modern emotionally healthy twist to the myth. Still, great job, and gratz to a strong first showing.