protoViolence - Definitive Edition

Played this game after hearing about it from @fbfishslap on X and was fascinated to give it a shot. Absolutely loved it, really good story and well told. Did a full playthrough on my channel if interested. Keep up the good work!

After being told this game would be up my alley I decided to check it out first thing and wow, this game delivers! It combines some of my favorite aspects I've seen across VNs into one lovely package. I love the type of fragmented storytelling where you can choose what to look into first and it does a great job of dividing the game's content.

The multimedia aspect is great, and everything inside the game is so vivid, in no small part due to that. I am a massive fan of science fiction and this story weaves the futuristic elements of it in with a painfully human story.

The art is FANTASTIC and hits all the beats it needs to-- and the animations give it that extra oomph. And while small, I do love how the desk space changes as the days go on. Really makes the space feel tangible and lived-in.

The voice acting comes in at all the right moments and the performances are stellar. Every emotional beat they hit feels perfect to the scene.

And I can't think of a single line here that doesn't contribute something to the story, characters, setting and/or atmosphere-- the writing is superb.

Music here hits all the right notes and while I'm not a music guy I can definitely appreciate it! They work great establishing the mood of the scene.

Thank you Mado for the recommendation, and thank you to everyone on the team for this game! You all did fantastic. I will definitely have to check out malViolence in the future :)

I had saved this jam game for later because I figured it would blow my socks clean off, and I was right! Man. Where do I even start?

The writing hooked me from the get-go and did a good job at introducing me to this world and to the role STOP plays in it (I certainly want to check out malViolence now that I played this one!). And the way it escalated!! Starting out so smoothly with only its faint hints that something is off, and then never stopping to ramp up the intensity until its cathartic climax. I couldn't stop thinking that Dr. Deidre and Pavel's story would make my mom bawl her eyes out, it has such a poignant core about how children deserve care and dignity and the freedom to make their own choices - To not have their personality and desires stripped from them. I couldn't help but wonder if Deidre intuitively chose Pavel as a case study subject because his creative and headstrong tendencies reminded her of herself when she was a child.

Everything from the art to the sound design assisted the story's impact, making it a truly cohesive experience. Which is really hard to achieve when working as a team, so huge props for that!! <3
My personal favourites were the animations when Deidre first sees Pavel after his more intense processing, and he reaches out to her, and then the heartwrenching voice performance when Pavel has his emotional break. So cinematic.

10/10, my favourite jam game out of the dozen or so I've played so far. Bravo!!

Well, this was one hell of a way to get me interested in MalViolence! The core story is so interesting, and the different ways it was conveyed helped keep me engaged the whole time; switching from research log, to journal, text message and video interview was a really good idea to keep things fresh. It also made it hard to put down! Even when I needed to do something else, I kept thinking, "I'll just see this next one!" ...and before I knew it, I just played through the whole thing! Dr. Deirdre was such a great protagonist, and it was great seeing her grow from someone more or less complacent, believing it was possible to reform STOP from within, to someone willing to take actual action against them. The climax of the story was so tense! Presentation wise, this is top notch stuff! The production values feel so high, I'm amazed that you were all able to complete this in a month! Fantastic UI as well. Great work to the whole team, and I'm looking forward to trying out MalViolence next!

The story brings up some really good morality conversations. Super well made! Loved the different forms of media that feeds us information and gives us pieces of the story. Definitely interested in going through malViolence after October!

Beautiful--fantastic writing and presentation.  Amazing characters.  This gut wrenching story of a researcher  and their struggle to stand up to the forces that have commandeered her research even as she sees the stakes rising like a tide hits SO HARD.  I was deeply moved am not ashamed to admit that cried more than once as I played.  I was especially impressed at the way Pavil, who seems to be coded as neurodivergent,  communicates his feelings, and how we (our individual as well as our collective selves) respond to him really rounds out the themes of the story. I loved how pace starts slow and thoughtful, and by the end it's a dead sprint.  Very well done!

The juxtaposition of the cold, clinical environment and the warm personality of Pavel was done soooooooooo sooooo well! Your team did so well with what to include and what to leave out, telling a story in fragments of video interviews, case study entries, personal notes, and private messages.

The CGs, music, UI, camera work, character designs, all worked together so well. Even the attention to detail to little things like the computer powering up. I’m amazed and in wonder at what a solid, finished piece this is!

Inspiring to say the least!

Cool overall presentation, really liked the dynamics between classic dialogue box and the one with the text globes. Real fan of how the game achieves this "Something is out of place" feeling through the dialogue, minimalistic places, character interactions, among other, good job on that >:3 !

CRIED LIKE A BABY! Fantastic pacing and the art is solid. The backgrounds have that sterile laboratory feel, without just being generic walls and corridors. The character sprites are expressive which makes it easy to get invested.

It's made very easy to adjust to the perspective of the protagonist, who has specialized knowledge that the reader won't have but follows a very clear thought process. Pavel is a very likable kid, relatable to anyone who's struggled with school. It only makes you want things to work out for him so badly....

(SPOILERS) I was really really scared that in the ending it would be revealed that the chip connected to his brain would also shut off or detonate somehow. Luckily you were kind and gave him a future :,)

super polished with a heartwrenching story! really great voice-acting and camera work, too! (and thank you for the content warnings-- super helpful)

This was incredible from start to finish and I won't lie, I was tearing up at the end. Suddenly lots of the features in MalViolence have even greater depth and I'm already itching to replay it with ProtoViolence in mind! I utterly loved this prequel. The art was also visually stunning and horrifying (in the best way) and I audibly gasped at certain parts. Thank you to the whole team for this incredible project! 

Oh my STARS this one hits all my soft spots: I adore stories that feature well-intentioned scientific geniuses who end up lost in the sauce, and later attempt to course-correct when their ideas escape their intended scope (gotta love the hot-house flowers that bloom, and then are horrified to find themselves an invasive species!); and as the parent of a child who best thrives when her unique needs are recognized and met, Pavel's storyline absolutely shattered me. The art is simple but stunning, and the cinematography hits the sweet spot for me in terms of adding to the story with life and motion, without subtracting by being unnecessarily distracting and moving for movement's sake alone: there is never any question whose viewpoint the camera represents, nor does it ever seem to shift unnecessarily or to the detriment of the story itself. An extraordinary achievement, particularly given the constraints of the jam--brilliant, brilliant work!

Really enjoyed pV!  Awesome job to you and the team, for the second time! 🎉

So different from mV in many ways, yet so much to love (and despise you for T_T) this time around~:

- Major kudos on the UI, the UI design, the various accessibility features (img descr, audio titles, self-voicing NOT buried in the Controls section, font size+color+line spacing <3), the pop-out quick menu, the CRT lines and screen curving effect, even the menu and initial splash screen login prompt all resembling a computer terminal — it presents brilliantly, while also tying in thematically to the game itself as a STOP employee, and with the computer being used to access the interviews, the most important (interactive) parts of the experience.

My only beef here, and it's quite minor: I wish there were a custom keybind for toggling Auto-Forward, considering RenPy doesn't provide one by default.  Leaving the QM open got in the way in certain scenes, so it was a bit annoying opening it to turn on Auto, only to turn it off to enjoy a CG or re-read some lines, then re-open the QM to enable Auto again, etc.

- Love the sprite work, and especially how expressive and emotive Pavel is (espec when you twist the knife later on away from happy expressions :') ).

- The cinematography, animation, use of the 3D camera are phenomenal and really made the experience feel immersive, especially combined with...

- The voice acting, which was really high-quality and well-balanced.  The "sound bites" were used tastefully, and with the most impactful lines being voiced, those scenes stood out even more (tugging further at my heartstrings </3).

- Ditto regarding the use and sound balancing of the SFX and music tracks, all of which had great ambience and atmosphere.  The music was almost too relaxed and easy-going (intentional choices, I assume >:3 ), which further added to my sense of dissonance and discomfort leading up to the story's climax (especially having played mV, so I knew more or less *what* was coming, just not *how*).

- The point n' click desk sections were a nice touch, along with the phone texting UI and SFX.  Great use of alternating between ADV and NVL modes.  Also, props on leveraging RenPy's speech bubbles system, considering that's a relatively new feature in 8.x IIRC.  

- Regarding the story, I really enjoyed (being hurt by) it! <3  I definitely felt the connection between Deidre and Pavel grow over time, their bond solidifying as she gained his trust, and he her devotion and conviction.  It was also excellently painful seeing Pavel, a square peg being jammed by YTDI into their round hole without any thought for flexibility or individuality, not fitting in by mere virtue of being himself — a scenario and challenge I can relate to — with Angie being the embodiment of this rigid adherence to rules and "results" above all else.  So those aspects resonated with me, especially seeing Pavel being processed (punished) despite not doing anything severe enough to merit it, and how the cruelty and inhumanity of this becomes the fuel which incites Deidre into action.  It logically flows and hits in the feels, which is great!

I do wish y'all had another maybe 2 weeks to spend on the project, because as much as I enjoyed the story, I would have wanted to see more "intermediate" visits with Deidre and Pavel between his first processing and his Nth, e.g. with just the prosthetic legs, then with the legs + brain chip, then those + the arm(s?) and eye, to further build that sense of horror, unease, and dread re: YTDI's lack of moral boundaries (rather than jumping from "Look ma, no legs!" straight to "All the cybernetics1!".

Similarly, I would have liked for Deidre and Angie's final confrontation to have been a bit more fleshed out, although I'm having a harder time pinpointing exactly how or in what way, or what feels lacking or rushed here IMO.

30 days is NOT a lot of time, so I completely understand and appreciate picking and choosing your battles on what to focus on wrt the writing.

The beginning, the climax, and the ending were fantastic, and absolutely delivered though!  "Blue..."  Who's chopping onions nearby?! T.T

Also, the little throwbacks to mV like the grape-scented stickers and the apartment photo... <3

Again, phenomenal job this time around!  (and on finding a much more accessible form of pain and suffering: emotional trauma, instead of puzzles lol)