Let me say this, it was a good read.
Most of all, I liked the eeriness and creepiness of the game, which felt rushed towards the end.
The first sequence with finding out about Erin and being in the building with her was chilling. I expected something to happen and the simplicity of that conversation between the 2 was high note of the game. After that, I had to read the tale of the "witch" and that part dragged a bit. I loved visual novels and I do love reading on my own free time, yet, I think this would have used more interaction and less reading.
I do realize, this is a Jam project and you can improve upon it, that's why I am giving some constructive criticism for the future - First part was great and ending felt raw, flat and overwhelming. I did like the visuals, atmosphere, but I also expected more from the ending.
I do hope to see the continuation of this and maybe making it less linier would also improve the replay quality, as I noticed, playing second time, that the choices did not matter as they were not different enough.
Overall, fantastic, short, creepy story. Well-made.
All very fair comments.
This was basically just a bunch of ideas strung together by a fairly hastily constructed story. I wanted to try a flashlight effect, photographic based assets, object based storytelling and 'mouse position' events.
I was also experimenting with the idea of the main character's dialogue being all choice based, so they never said anything the player didn't pick. But this unfortunately probably gave the impression of there being many branching possibilities. So that may have been a mistake.
But, as you pointed out, it's just a game jam game at the end of the day and doesn't need to be more than it is.
Thanks for playing and sharing your thoughts, much appreciated!