I must admit, whenever I see a half-completed VN show up for a game jam, I do feel kinda weird about it - especially when it’s very clearly the lead-in to a much bigger project, rather than something that just couldn’t come together in time due to time constraints. That said, in spite of my apprehensions, My Tainted Life made great use of the limited runtime, and certainly didn’t leave me feeling as though it was only half-complete. While being the opener to a longer story, it manages to tell a self-contained narrative that sells the reader on its merits, like all good ‘pilot episodes’ should.
The standout to me here is the art - to put it bluntly, it’s incredible - the sprites are great-looking, and the CGs capture the emotions of the scenes very well - but I think the backgrounds are the absolute highlight here. They’re at once vibrant and detailed, with a beautiful, slightly messy style that really brings the world to life. Each and every one of them would make for a fantastic wallpaper, and I really think they help elevate the story in a way that ought to be praised - they make this feel like a proper fantasy world.
With that said, I can’t help but feel as though the way it’s all put together in the VN itself is slightly lacking - the sprites are just a bit too static at times, and the CGs pass by without letting the reader properly soak them in. I think using transformations to move the sprites around a bit (especially in action scenes) could have helped the story quite a bit, and I also think it would have been fine for the CGs to linger a bit more, even if they don’t describe what the characters are doing 1:1 - I’d rather see that than have another action scene where the characters are standing frozen in place.
The music also felt slightly off to me. The tracks themselves are wonderfully made, but taking a look at the files, I can’t help but notice that they’re all 30 second tracks, made to loop (and the actual loops seem to be quite a bit shorter than those 30 seconds, even - with them repeating within those 30 seconds as well). I definitely understand how making all of these custom tracks in such a limited time is hard (and like I said, the tracks themselves are really well made), but, to be frank - I had to mute it after a certain point. As lush and detailed as they sound, even the calm tracks are loud and energetic enough that I became all-too-aware of the loops quite quickly. It especially stands out with the track that plays during fight scenes (Fighting.mp3), which was the one that made me have to mute the game due to how grating it got.
Again, I really appreciate the effort put into adding custom music to the game, and the music is technically really well made - I just think that loops that are so short are a poor fit for a visual novel where one is expected to listen to them for so long.
Story-wise, meanwhile, I enjoyed it quite a bit! The scene with Korpa at the start felt a bit unnecessary to me (presumably because it’s setting things up for later in the visual novel), but I actually really liked the dynamic between Frey and Chris - and I’m quite interested in seeing how it evolves over the course of the story. I also really enjoyed the fact that, even though this is only the first build of many, this does feel like a proper story - one with a beginning, middle, and end that leaves the readers satisfied. Quite a lot happens in this one, and it kept me entertained all throughout.
So, in summary… some presentation issues aside, this one’s great! I’d recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a proper fantasy VN, and due to how complete it feels, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it even if it is only the first build!