itch.io

This has definitely got to be a first - not only is this game delivered in a cg-only style, but it's got animations! Actual proper animations that advance the story on their own, rather than just being there to supplement it! I can only imagine how much work it was to do it all given the jam's limitations, and given how intensive animation is as a medium (and the sheer amount of animations in here!)

And those animations are used to tell a really interesting story! I feel as though it's just the right level of abstract and 'weird' to really leave me thinking about the central supernatural mystery - the moment I finished it, I was instantly hit with the urge to replay it to try and wrap my head around it better than before - the initial read had me picking up on some stuff, but I can tell that future revisits will only help improve this story and flesh it out further.

 I do think there's some flaws keeping it from reaching greatness, though - the writing feels a bit too dry or 'flat' at times, and, most importantly (and as has been mentioned by others), the lack of audio really does this story a disservice. The repeating music and ambient noises make for a somewhat monotonous reading experience which clashes pretty heavily with the action-packed second half, in my eyes. Frequently, it meant that rather than being engrossed during the peak of the story, I was just left kind of confused by the dissonance between the visuals and the audio track - I think that sound effects timed to the animations and more background tracks could go a long way towards building on the ambience the story sets up.

Which isn't to say that this isn't worth reading, though - like I said, I'm already planning on revisiting this later to see if I can parse more from the plot, and I think that the way the story is delivered is unlike anything else - fantastic job!

This one's a great entry, albeit one that falters underneath its own ambition - I enjoyed the implementation of the gameplay here, and the UI is surprisingly slick and intuitive, but it does feel like the game's disparate elements never really 'clicked' together properly to me. The gameplay scenes felt somewhat arbitrary - the 'clues' and 'profiles' systems never really felt clear to me, and frequently the resulting conversations from them felt like they could have been part of a normal conversation tree rather than part of them - especially since the connection between the 'profile' or clue and the resulting conversations were never really all that clear to me. Notably, these also see far less use as the game goes on - so I imagine the jam's limitations and the looming deadlines might have been part of this. 

One time during the conversation with Abigail I also somehow softlocked the game, with all conversation options leading me back to the dialogue tree but none of them advancing it (this was specifically after managing to convince her to finally tell the truth). I had to restart the game and make liberal use of saves to somehow avoid the softlock, but I'm not entirely sure why it happened.

Storywise, I enjoyed it, but I also felt as though the tone was quite inconsistent - with Sofie and her missing sister being the main source of the oddities, in my eyes. It felt as though the characters frequently just forgot about the very real missing persons cases and Sofie's potentially dead sister (who we never follow up on), in favor of seemingly lighthearted exploration sequences and sex scenes. There's the sense that the characters never really properly acknowledge the danger inherent to the jersey devil, in spite of there being a lot of evidence to the contrary (and them mentioning said evidence, but never really taking away any lessons from it) - it comes off feeling as the story making them momentarily forget about the stakes for the sake of more slice of life scenes. There's also the odd matter of Terry's broken leg, which sounds like it should be far more severe than what the story treats it as (until chekhov's gun goes off and it becomes a problem near the ending).

That said, I don't want it to come off as just complaints - I think that the game is astoundingly polished for something made within a game jam's timeframe, especially given the complex coding that was presumably required to set up the investigation sequences. The characters, odd as they act sometimes, are incredibly charming, and the usage of photos for backgrounds works very well. The art in general is really good - the characters are very expressive, and, as I'm sure everyone has picked up on, Terry is absurdly hot. In general, this is an incredibly well put together visual novel, and you should be proud of yourself for managing to put something like this together!

Yeah this one's easily the funniest of the May Wolves this go around - I broke out laughing multiple times. While really funny, the lingo could easily come off as odd or slightly irritating, but I think that what elevates this above just a simple joke story is the level of care and effort put in elsewhere - the sprites are well drawn and expressive, the story of a group of idiots making a book/film/visual novel under time constraints is creative (and said book/film/visual novel is also, somehow, coherent - in spite of our scattered view of it), and the various in-game effects that compliment said book/film/visual novel (like the interruption / beep effects, or the ending sequence) showcase quite a lot of genuine effort and elevate the experience. 

I also really appreciate the choice of Egyptian mythology and the decision to make a POC-centered story - there's an implied whiteness in a lot of furry work given that they don't immediately read as any specific race and as such borrow from the cultural "default" of their world (which is usually some flavor of american / european), and I love the effort put into both the aesthetics of the work, and the folklore the story borrows from in order to change that. 

I think that, were the story longer, it might have wound up getting a bit old due to the meta stuff being slightly hard to follow at times and the comedic writing style perhaps getting a bit old - but as is, at its current runtime, it honestly feels kind of perfect.

Pretty much everyone before me has said that this one is really cute, but... it really is. There's an earnestness to the story here that is very charming, and which keeps it enjoyable all throughout even as the writing occasionally stumbles.

Speaking of, I think my main critique here would be the matter of specificity - there's quite a few scenes where I feel like the details that the story hangs on don't really help build the world any further, but rather bog it down somewhat. The cafe scene's already been mentioned in this regard, so I'll point to the scene of the customers in the bookstore as an example - we hang on Tyler fulfilling six different customers' requests for books, but due to how the story is written, it winds up feeling somewhat flat - while the portrayal of the job can serve to make the world and the bookstore feel more lived in, it feels like we're being told a checklist of events in a dry manner, rather than experiencing the world through Tyler's eyes. It feels like many of the details here could have been smoothed over to make way for the emotional core of the scene - it doesn't really matter what the customers are ordering, as much as it matters that a sudden influx of customers has arrived after a dry spell. 

I do want to praise the art and music here, though - they're both quite varied, with there being many custom tracks and quite a few CGs, which help keep the reading experience fresh all throughout. The artstyle especially is quite charming, and really helps add to the atmosphere of the work.

All in all, an entertaining read, in spite of a few hiccups here and there with the writing.

Of the DND-based entries in the jam, this is definitely the one that captures the game best - both in the specifics of play, and in spirit. Everyone here has two facets to them - the player, and the character - and both affect each other equally. Disagreements arise between players, or between them and the DM, and gathering everyone for every session is impossible, but when I look at the DND sections in the story, I find myself convinced that these characters really are a party, and that they do enjoy this in some form.

Of course, it's a shame for them that the surroundings are... less than ideal (in a way that makes for a very entertaining read). You can practically feel the awkwardness in the setup itself - Tyler being the 'creator' of the campaign, but being within the position of a player - which, to me at least, reads as him being so caught up in his own depression that he unintentionally makes Greg "pick up the slack" an play the role of the DM in his place out of sheer inertia. It's something that the story does very well - it showcases both the severity of Tyler's own depression, and how that depression can legitimately hurt his friends in turn - which only serves to feed it further, in a warped way.

Which isn't to say that Tyler's at fault here - or that anyone is, really.  I think that the characters here are written very well - they're realistic in their behaviors, and even the more "antagonistic" ones still do so in a way that's ultimately believable for a friend group. At the end of the day, Tyler's perspective is a very limited one, due to his own tendency for metaphorical self-flagellation, and his firm belief that there's nothing that can be done about the poor circumstances of his life. After all, the butterfly has already flapped its wings - what more can he even do now?

With all that praise said, one thing that I do think is worth noting is that the story was slightly hard to follow - part of me thinks this might be intentional, given how depression can often make days meld together in a dream-like way, but with the bulk of the story being in the sessions, and with us not being able to really tell what occurs in between them, I'd frequently get confused when characters would refer to things that happened off-screen and I'd have to pick up the pieces myself. It might be intentional, but given that Tyler is presumably well-aware of these things himself, it felt like it made the reading experience a bit harder than it should have been. 

As for the presentation... there really is so much good here - Sikyu's backgrounds are absolutely incredible and capture the fantasy world with a sense of vividness that really helps pull you into the DND, and the custom sprites are also really charming. What's most impressive to me, though, is how well everything is combined - custom sprites, premade sprites, photo backgrounds, painted backgrounds - all of these disparate parts are brought together in a way that feels like it fits really well, in spite of the conflicting art styles. I'd say Maybe Josh's sprite felt a bit out of place given the thick lineart, but that's just how the premade sprites go, and I think you did a fantastic job with putting it all together regardless.

If I hadn't made it clear, I think this was a really great entry to the jam, and I'd wholeheartedly recommend checking it out.

To be honest, my intention here was never for Mitch to be seen as a self insert, nor for werewolves to be an allegory for homosexuality - they're a nebulous 'other' in society, maybe, but the goal here isn't to say that werewolves can never be dangerous, nor that they weren't the source of the veterans' lasting trauma (or rather, part of it). It's to explore why it is that marginalized people can find themselves drawn to figures that are considered villainized 'others' by society - whether they be werewolves, witches, or anything else (though the former two are what the story explores with Mitch and Birdie respectively). Werewolves are just another one of these 'others' in the eyes of the village - but they're not inherently good and not inherently bad - just something that exists and which the characters of the story don't really understand.

With regards to the folklore thing, the story of Damartos was both meant as a nod to the original story of the greek Damarchus which much of the in-universe folklore surrounding werewolves was based on, and to show what the in-universe understanding of werewolves is - and how it varies between people with there being no one 'true' version (with Mitch, Leda, and Abel all bringing up different splinters of this same story). At the end of the day, it's just another one of the stories Mitch's father told him in an attempt to pass down a moral of some kind. 

Now, ultimately all of this is a matter of my intention - how well these things came across in the story is up to the reader, and I'm well aware of some of the ways in which these could have been improved (the specific callout of Thalis saying werewolves are 'unnatural' is something I didn't intend to be a metaphor for homosexuality, but I certainly can understand how one could get that impression given its similarity to real homophobic remarks). I suppose this is an inherent part of working under jam constraints, and of writing stories in general.

Regardless, I'm glad you enjoyed the story in spite of these issues, and I'm always glad to receive feedback! Honestly, stuff like the lack of sprite poses, the anachronisms and the lackluster "no transformation ending" (which is moreso a matter of me just forgetting to explicitly signpost it as the "no sex" option) is something I'm already interested in changing when the jam rating period ends.

This one was fun! I came into it knowing nothing, so part of me was always on edge expecting for it to somehow turn into a horror story - which made even the more casual scenes feel somewhat anxiety-inducing. In a way, though, this worked well - Fede's uncertainty about coming out to Anna mirroring the reader's uncertainty of waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak.

Speaking of which, I think the writing of the characters' and their dialogue is fantastic here - there's a lot of layers to their various interactions, each of them arriving to the villa with a different wish in mind - and though the story doesn't spell it out explicitly, I felt as though I could still put together a solid picture of everyone's motivations and differing perspectives. The one point of contention for me was is the coming out scene - where the transition from a somewhat calm chat to a full-on argument felt a bit too sudden, in my eyes. 

I think this might be a side effect of the characters' expressions and feelings being somewhat hard to track - the narration doesn't call it out, and while Sikyu's sprites are gorgeous (and Raimondo's especially are very expressive), Anna doesn't have a lot of variety in her expressions. Both of these can very well be intentional artistic choices, but it feels as though it somewhat diminishes the effect of the scene - Fede is obviously terrified of doing this, but we don't really feel this in the pacing, or even in the specifics of the dialogue - it didn't feel all that different from any other conversation in the story to me, in spite of its importance to the character.

Presentation-wise, I think the VN was somewhat lacking in sound effects and music - the vast majority of the story takes place in absolute silence, and while that can be a good way to get across the setting or to make specific moments stand out more, it comes off more as the project being unfinished here. That said, something which worked really well in terms of presentation was the positioning of the sprites - it's something that's rare to see in VNs, but when it's done well (and here it's done very well), it really elevates the experience - the sprites really do feel as though they're positioned in a physical space, rather than just being overlays on top of a background image. 

At the end of the day though, the sticking points I raised don't do much to diminish this otherwise very solid story - and that's without getting into Sikyu's incredible art and CGs, which are the cherry on top of it all. Fantastic job! 

This was a fun and thought-provoking time! As opposed to Wonder's experience, which was decidedly... mixed. In a funny way, I do appreciate just how short and "unfulfilling" this entry is - it manages to accurately portray a very real type of unglamorous "queer experience" - sometimes you go out of your comfort zone, try something new that you've heard should be good, but you're not really sure of, and it just kinda... sucks.

It's not Wonder's fault, it's not Mirth's fault, and though the Tanuki's an asshole I don't think that Wonder would have enjoyed his experience more had he not intervened - sometimes, the idea of finding one's local queer community is presented as a sort of 'panacea' for all of one's ails. It's a form of modern day folklore, really - the closeted queer person who finds solace in community by finally visiting a gay bar, and who then suddenly transforms into some sort of idealized, "normal" gay who flourishes in that environment - and just like any form of folklore, it's... not particularly real.

It works for some people, it doesn't for others, and though Wonder could have probably approached it better in many ways, it's hard to not be sympathetic to that experience. For how short this story is, it certainly got me thinking quite a bit!

I think there's a very solid emotional throughline in this story, and the parallels between Iseldur and The Fox were definitely fun to pick up on and analyze, but the way it's put together lets the potential of the story down somewhat. The writing feels a bit too expository at times - in a way that comes off as somewhat dry whenever the story shifts into flashback mode, or the mythology of the world is discussed. It's well fleshed out, but there's times where it feels like the story is focusing more on giving us lore for a broader world than on telling us more about the two central characters (an example would be the comments regarding how mages typically function in the world compared to the fox spirit). 

In general, it came off as somewhat odd for the fox to know so much about his own creation, the broader world, and the folklore surrounding him - it felt like it was there more for the sake of advancing the folklore theme, but I think it's a case where leaving in some ambiguity would help preserve the mystique and folkloric feel of the story, while making it a cleaner read.

Something that I'd have liked to see is more focus on the conversation between Iseldur and The Fox - I think it's a fantastic storytelling opportunity for both delivering more exposition in a natural way, and for fleshing out both characters a bit further - but as is, it felt a bit too short to be the climactic scene of the story.

Still, I think the story manages to get across some very interesting ideas in quite the short runtime - and I'm looking forward to seeing how the creator's future works!

What an incredible implementation of the theme! The gameplay elements I've come to expect from FdRstar are here in full force, with a really creative gimmick of rebuilding folklore from scraps - which isn't to say that it's just a gimmick, of course - the gameplay melds in well with the story's themes about how folklore changes over time, and how it can frequently be "sterilized" by ruling powers in order to enforce societal norms and rules (such as changing a homosexual lover into a woman).

The gameplay was a bit hard to wrap my head around at first, but once it clicked it felt quite intuitive - albeit with some trial and error to figure out where exactly to place my refutations. 

My only complaint here is that I would have liked to see more of an overarching narrative surrounding this - I really enjoyed seeing the recurring characters between the two stories you rebuild over the course of the game, and I would have liked to maybe get a bit more context for them. That said, I can imagine that it was quite hard to implement the mechanics during the jam period, so I understand why it feels a bit short in this regard.

Still, this was a great experience, and just like in last May Wolf, I think this was a fantastic example of how to implement gameplay into a VN! 

I think the setup here is quite strong and intriguing, but I feel as though the way it was presented was somewhat lacking - I feel as though the story reaches the "to be continued" screen before it can properly sell us on the concept - the readers are left with the vague threat of death and magic, but don't see much to actually prove its existence beyond a teleporting cat (who the characters have no real reason to actually trust). I would have liked to get to see the witch a bit more in the little we did get of the story, in order to get a better grasp of the threat it represents to our characters.

Writing-wise, I think it's slightly lacking - the repeated spelling errors (alongside the odd font choice) make it hard to follow the story, and the characters have a tendency to be a bit too literal (the dialogue during Marcus' backstory felt a bit too stiff... though it did result in a fantastic gag about the potential umbrellas have as weapons). Speaking of the umbrella gag, I do think the story's sense of humor is one of its strong points - there's some very solid gags here, though it does make me wonder if the story will keep them up when things get more serious, or if it'll fade away as the characters realize the severity of the situation at hand.

Regardless, I'm looking forwards to seeing what the story will look like when more of it is out - but as for now, I'm left wanting more from what we got.

Oh my god Bonet is so adorable.

This one was a fun time! As someone who enjoys baking quite a bit, I really like the importance placed on it within the plot, and the incorporation of recipes into it - the process of making breads and pastries really does feel just as magical as the literal magic within the work. It goes without saying, but the art here is absolutely fantastic - and both the incredibly emotive and cute sprites and the adorable CGs really help make the story's charming personality come forth.

I do think the writing of the story is a little off - the various spelling mistakes dotted across the story (lack of punctuation at the end of sentences, improper capitalization, and words which lack their final few letters for some reason) wound up taking me out of it quite a bit whenever I stumbled across them. 

I do think the story also has a slight tendency to spell out the characters' more complex emotions without properly setting them up earlier on - the moment that particularly stands out to me is the matter of the old letters and recipes that formed Bonet. Rosso seems to be entirely fine with tossing them away during the beginning portions of the story, until he suddenly isn't when it's time for the climax of the story to occur. I think a few more hints towards his conflicted stance on the matter could have gone a long way towards making that conflict feel less sudden - because while Rosso has been somewhat rude to Bonet before that in the story, it feels as though his outburst goes a step above just that.

That said, I do understand that reading the story in English is not the ideal way to experience it / just a translation - I imagine both of these issues might be less prevalent when reading it in its original form - and, regardless of them, I'd say this visual novel is certainly worth experiencing in spite of these issues due to just how charming and entertaining it is. 

A quick and simple My Wolf story with a very good grasp on VN presentation - I especially enjoyed the little sounds the characters made as they spoke and the speaking / blinking animations they had. I don't have too much to say about the plot other than that it knows what it wants, and it executes it well - the little bit of the worldbuilding that we do get seems quite interesting, and barring a few spelling and formatting mistakes here and there, the writing is very solid.

I do think that the story dumps a bit too much exposition on the reader at times - it especially stands out in the beginning, where the MC's backstory is exposited to us in NVL format rather than letting us stew in the uncertainty and discover it as the story goes on (which feels somewhat odd given that the MC does wind up explaining it to Lucius later down the line - which winds up feeling like a repeat of what we already know, rather than being a compelling scene in which we discover the MC's backstory alongside Lucius).

In general, I think the story could have benefited slightly from an increased length for the sake of letting the characters breathe for a bit before the smut arrived in full force - so that we could know them better and feel more connected to them before the MC makes his decision to go live on the moon - but I think it still makes for a very enjoyable read thanks to the fun worldbuilding, the beautiful art, and the VN's great presentation.

Giving this one a 5/5 creativity rating on account of the sword cock.

This one was just a fun, kinky time - it knows what it is, and it certainly doesn't take itself very seriously. I'd say it's definitely worth reading to anyone who enjoys these kinks (or who wants to see what I mean by 'the sword cock'), but doesn't have too much outside of it - which I think is a totally fine thing for it to be. 

I also wanted to shout out the way the creative sprite manipulations used to represent the transformation scenes - it was a neat little detail that made great use of the medium to convey the transformations, in my opinion.

In this house, we support dadfucking. 

The Games We play is a lighthearted romp following a jilted man on a mission - to fuck his ex's dad. It's a worthwhile mission, albeit not a particularly noble one, on account of said dad being absurdly hot.  

I think the story is at its best when it focuses on the comedy inherent to this concept - from Harvey's seemingly oblivious nature as he makes advances on Ezra, to Ezra's musings about totally not being gay or anything like that, the plot is thoroughly enjoyable when it focuses on the central relationship. I do think that the surroundings characters, however, are somewhat weaker - they feel distinct from each other, but they ultimately weren't all that compelling to me on account of not really feeling like proper friends of the MC. 

For all the screentime they had within the DND and LARP sections, they felt more like plot devices meant to advance the story rather than a group of actual friends. I think this is in part because of how these sections are presented - the characters mostly banter and make snide jabs at each other, and they don't even seem to particularly enjoy each other's company - so it felt hard for me to grasp why it is that these characters even play TTRPGs together and what it is that they enjoy in it.

Of course, it's not uncommon for these types of friendships to be hard to grasp, or to seem "adversarial" to outsiders - especially within the context of TTRPG groups that have existed for a long time, with their own rules and inside jokes and whatnot - but at the end of the day I feel as though the story could have done a better job of getting the nuances of these relationships across.

Despite that, like I said - when this game focuses on the central relationship, it's a damn good game about dadfucking. I think the more serious plot surrounding the relationship and the motivations behind it winds up getting bogged down a bit by the presence of the friend group, but I do like what's presented here - and by the time I reached the ending scenes, I was practically hooting and hollering when the pair finally got together. RysaEa deserves all the praise he's gotten for the final CG, and the writing of the accompanying sex scene was fantastic as well - it's all top tier stuff.

A Werewolf in Charleston feels... dense. It's about many things at once - self actualization, religious zealotry, gay love, the inefficacy of peaceful protests in the face of authoritarian rule, and the fact that it would probably be really fucked up if you had a wolf inside your body which desperately wanted out.

Unfortunately, I'd say it does too much at once - and certainly far too much to fit within the jam's 25k word count. The topics covered here are incredibly sensitive, and by the story's own admission, it's not subtle at all about depicting them - by the point you've finished the story, you've seen werewolves undergo a downright staggering amount of hate crimes, with very little breathing room in-between. At best, it manages to portray just how awful these things are, but at worst, it feels like it's using them for shock value more so than to make an actual point. It serves as a constant reminder of just how grim things are for the werewolves - but with every additional dead background character that is glossed over for the sake of moving on to the next shocking scene, every werewolf added to the pile of dead bodies, it feels as though the story cares less and less about just how horrifying it all is, and more about moving on to the next action scene. 

It's not as though the story doesn't address this at all - but what matters is the scale of it all. A scene or two of Oliver grieving the dead and regretting the mistakes that led them there simply does not feel like enough when the scale of these deaths is so large - over the course of the story, Oliver witnesses dozens of werewolves dying in tragedies that are meant to reflect very real events that occurred in America - from both far in the past, and in very recent times, with direct allusions to events such as the Pulse shooting - and when dealing with topics such as this, it is imperative to treat them with the respect they deserve rather than as just minor setpieces in a story. Ironically enough, this winds up making the characters feel downright inhuman - those who survive come off as incredibly callous to what they've seen over the course of the story, and those who die wind up being nothing more than a statistic - just more anonymous werewolves murdered in cold blood by the bigots of the city, rather than people with rich inner lives that deserve to be mourned. 

With all that said, however, I do think that there's a ton to like in this visual novel - the presentation is downright incredible, with the various sound cues and animated visuals that are presented elevating many of the more dramatic scenes by a ton - it's something that's incredibly rare to see in the medium, and which I'll dearly miss when moving on to other works, because it really does make for some incredible scenes.

On the story level, I also think there's a lot of good stuff. Where the story is at its strongest is when it covers the body horror inherent to being a werewolf - the initial scenes of the MC trying to hide his condition under wrap come to mind, with the direction of the visuals and audio coming together to make for something that is truly horrifying - but incredibly engrossing to watch as they unfold (not going to mention the specifics, because I do think it's worth reading the story just to experience these scenes). Growth and change, while positive, are not always clean or pretty - and this story makes it very clear. Lycanthropy is portrayed as a fundamental part of one's being - and one that, if mishandled and not properly accepted, will fester until it explodes into displays of gratuitous violence and body horror, brought forth by one's own inner demons breaking free. It's a metaphor that works very well to display the dangers of bottling up parts of yourself and hiding your true self from the real world, and I also really liked the repeating metaphor of the "mercy-killing" throughout the work and what that eventually culminated in.

Ultimately, I think the problem here is mostly one of scope relative to the jam's constraints - there's the bones for a bunch of very intriguing and compelling stories here, but combining them all into such a short runtime means that the breakneck pacing of it all and the sheer amount of dramatic scenes winds up negatively affecting the writing and storytelling in ways which I don't assume were intentional. Regardless, I do think that there's a lot to enjoy here, and it still manages to be quite the entertaining read all throughout.

This is an incredibly promising game, that falters somewhat under the weight of its own ambition - from the voice acting to the choice structure, I can definitely see where inspiration was taken from Slay The Princess, but it does leave me wondering if such a project was fit for a game jam like May Wolf - because of the time limits imposed by the jam, we only really have one route out of seemingly many, with some variation near the end - and quite a few dead ends to tease us. 

These dead ends are the main problem I have with the story - while the sheer variety of choices in Slay The Princess helped make the game feel vast and unending, the amount of dead ends here makes the game feel quite constricting - to the point where I wonder if we needed to be told just how much we were "missing", because as is it feels as though it casts a shadow over what we do already have for this story (especially when the only route we currently have feels like the "bad" route in so many ways).

And, in spite of what I said, what we have is fantastic! The characters are well-defined and interesting, the writing is gripping, and the voice actors elevate the script even further! Libulan especially stands out as a character, with his beautiful sprites, his actor's fantastic performances, and just by being really interesting to follow in general - just like how the princess is the centerpiece of STP, he makes for a fantastic centerpiece to this work - and one which leaves me incredibly curious as to what the rest of the routes will look like. 

There's some small issues with the presentation, such as the voices not all being at the same volume (with the MC's voice especially being quite a bit more quiet than that of the rest of the cast) and it feeling as though there aren't enough backgrounds for me to really properly grasp the world here (I especially would have liked for there to be a background of the MC's house, but I understand that it would be really hard to get it right given the usage of stock photos), but at the end of the day this preview left me thoroughly impressed, and I'll certainly follow to see what comes next - whether it's in visual novel form, or as any other form of interactive fiction.

I think this VN does a near-perfect job - the story is tight and perfectly conveys the MC's declining mental state, the horror and anxiety of being lost at sea while slowly losing yourself is incredibly gripping, and the CG-only style is kept fresh by the large variety of them and the charming line boil effect. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time while reading this, and would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for something spooky to read! 

The one "complaint" I do have is a very subjective one, and also one that is more related to the context of the jam than to the VN itself - while I understand that the characters are in the Bermuda Triangle, I still think the folklore theming is quite weak here. At the end of the day, I don't think the story (and the supernatural shenanigans within it) would lose anything from being set elsewhere - at which point it just starts to feel more like set dressing. 

For a story that has so many layers and deep meanings to things, it feels like we're left with somewhat of a surface level interpretation of the folklore theme - and I think it's a shame, because I do think there's stuff to focus on here - Colin's condition of having no reflection is rife for creative interpretations of existing folklore (and in fact, we do see a bit of that, as far as the "vampire" comparisons go), and I think honing in a bit more on those elements, making them clearer to readers, and connecting them more to the central themes of the work could have done it some good in this regard. 

Despite me saying all that - the jam theme is basically optional, and I think the VN does an absolutely fantastic job as far as everything else goes - so my recommendation for others to play it stands!

This is a perfect example of what an FVN can look like when everyone involved is at the top of their game - from the fantastic story, to the beautifully painterly sprites and CGs, the incredibly unique and polished ui, and even just how animated it all is (both in the backgrounds literally being animated and in the various ways the sprites are manipulated and moved about in order to make them pop), in spite of the relative (yet very understandable) lack of sprite variety - I think this is a fantastic example of just how far these individual elements of visual novel creation can be pushed, and how they can all combine together to make for a great experience.

Thank you for the wonderful review!

I definitely agree with the critique here - this was my most ambitious jam project (in spite of the small scale, the amount of characters / cgs / backgrounds is far beyond what I've done before, and the watercolor style was also quite tricky to work with) so it definitely suffered slightly in terms of sprite variety as a result, and your points about the writing feeling flat at times / things being a bit unclear in the beginning are definitely something I need to work on.

Regardless, I'm very glad you enjoyed the story! This was (among other things) me trying to break down and further explore the idea of transformation / the appeal it has to me, and I'm glad those aspects were interesting to others as well (even if they are presumably more normal about the subject matter than I am).

This was a great entry! I adored the creativity of the story and of the various locales displayed within it, and the sheer variety of the sprites and backgrounds that came as a result of it. Some of the initial conversations were a tad slow in my eyes, but once the story got going, I was at the edge of my seat until the very end. 

Also, El is adorable and is the best boy.

This was an incredible experience - it felt as though I was reading a macabre fairytale come to life, with so many little idiosyncrasies and unique, lively characters that pulled me incredibly deeply into the world. Though I'm not familiar with much of the folklore that this story was based upon, this is, in my eyes, undoubtedly one of the best implementations of the theme I've seen. 

The art is beautiful, the characters are compelling, and the mystery and dread that comes as a result of the everpresent sun makes the world of this story incredibly fascinating, left me constantly curious about what the next setpiece I'd see was while I was reading it.

Fantastic job all around!

An incredibly unique and compelling read that's absolutely worth checking out, even if just for its presentation style alone - with (to the best of my knowledge) nothing else in the FVN space really feeling like it. Which isn't to say that the story is bad - Tula is a compelling main character, with a vibrant inner world only matched by their dry and antisocial behavior - it's the kind of story where you slowly watch as someone makes all the wrong choices over and over again, and you don't really agree with any of it - but you certainly understand where they're coming from, given their life leading up to here.

I do think it's worth pointing out the odd anti-romani sentiment within the story, both in the usage of slurs to refer to a certain character and in some of what occurs in the finale. I certainly don't think the story encourages it or treats it as good in any way (like I said, Tula did not feel particularly likeable to me), but it's an odd detail that remains mostly unaddressed, effectively turning said character into nothing but a tropey plot device. 

That said, I do hope that this could potentially be altered or fleshed out further once the jam rating period ends, because I think it's an unfortunate blemish on an otherwise really good story.

This was a fun ride! The art here is incredibly expressive and fun- with me actively looking forwards to seeing the new sprites and CGs as they came along! They feel so animated and expressive in a way that very few jam games manage to do.  For the story, the growing relationship between the two leads feels compelling to follow, with Lilah's internal monologue making for some very relatable angst.

If I were to lodge one small complaint is that it did feel a tad short - specifically, the characters could benefit from being fleshed out a bit more, mostly with regards to their (slowly crumbling) friendship - it feels as though we have to take Lilah's words for granted that they were friends before it all started, rather than being able to see it ourselves through the characters' actions during the moments where they aren't recording for the channel. 

This one was one hell of an experience. I hesitate to say much more than that, because I think it's best to go in blindly, but it managed to both keep me incredibly invested and intrigued throughout the runtime, and to thoroughly surprise me with its twists and turns. A fantastic job, and a great example of a really compelling short story!

I've just finished the visual novel, and wow - what a ride! 

The story was really intriguing, and the unique presentation style and beautiful traditional art made for a very compelling read, but something that struck me as odd was the treatment of the Fortune Teller character within the story - with the closest thing to a name that she has being an anti-romani slur. Furthermore, past the symbolic meaning, the climax of the story effectively amounts to our main character burning down her (thankfully) empty caravan in what is effectively a hate crime - and one that echoes very real hate crimes committed against the Romani people all across Europe, even within recent times.

Now, I certainly don't think that glorifying this was the intention of the authors - Tula is far from a good person, and I think I understand the symbolic meaning of burning the caravan down at the end (with the title's referral to it as Tula's 'Zozobra', presumably in reference to the effigy), but at the end of the day, we aren't granted any insight into who the Fortune Teller is, only to her effect on others within the story - which winds up coming off as an odd decision. 

The Fortune Teller remains a mysterious figure until the end - far more a 'concept' than an actual character, but that abstraction of her only serves to make the discriminatory way the story treats her worse - we aren't really given the chance to view her beyond said discrimination, only as a mysterious and magical being that exists within Tula's mind as some sort of nebulous "other" which people turn to - which also winds up echoing various other problematic tropes regarding the Romani.

Sorry for the ramble - at the end of the day, like I said, I really did enjoy reading the story, and I think you did a great job putting the visual novel together - I just wanted to ask about this detail to try and understand the intentions behind it better, since it did come off as an unfortunate way to treat this character archetype - whether intentional or not.

Holy shit there's a sword cock in this one

peak

Thank you for the review! And personally, I quite enjoy reading long reviews, so this was really nice to see, and there's some great points of feedback for me to keep in mind for future projects here! 

I think you hit the nail on some spots that I could have done better - at the end of the day, the development of the concept for the game was quite off the cuff, and started with the rewind mechanic before continuing from there, which I think contributed to how "contrived" the setup to the story can feel at times - I ended up deciding to leave it as something that players would have to sort of just accept as it is, but I definitely understand that can be a tough ask. 

Likewise, there was definitely more room to cover the "internet" side of things better - at the end of the day I didn't intend for Alan's online presence to actually be as bad as Saul paints it, just for him to be one person (with an admittedly larger following than most) participating in a broader online backlash - but with the limited time, I ended up not properly fleshing that out, and focusing more on Saul's inner conflict / fears than on making the reality of the situation clear to the reader.

I suppose that's how it is with Game Jams - this story was a particular challenge to write for due to the focus on gameplay and on providing the players with choices (which also shows in the Ludonarrative Dissonance you brought up), but I do feel satisfied with the story I wound up managing to write - though admittedly I might go back to polish it up a bit more after the submission period is over, because I definitely think there's room for improvement.

That aside, I'm glad you enjoyed the presentation! Honestly, my main goals for the jam were to make some sort of interesting gameplay mechanic, and to play with pixel art for the presentation somehow - so seeing it be received well is a great feeling! (also, on a slight note - while the beach scene does still have the pixel art, I actually made the conscious decision to have it be the only scene with a soundtrack that isn't chiptune, in order to represent a similar idea to what you mentioned of leaving behind Saul's perception of things as a 'game'.)

I'm glad you enjoyed it! About the length though, the game actually turned out far bigger (word count-wise) than I expected it to be - I suppose that's how it is with there being many branching paths, though...

Thank you! The artstyle and mechanics were one of my main focuses going into this jam, so I'm glad to hear that they stood out! 

I'm glad you enjoyed it! My reasoning behind the seemingly arbitrary point changes was that the score boiled down to Saul's own opinion of himself, rather than to any actual success with Alan (in fact, to pull the curtain back a little, whether Alan enjoys the date or not is actually an entirely different score value - the only thing Saul's perceived score affects is some small dialogue here and there, one split in the middle of the game, and whether the Game Over screen is triggered or not).

I definitely understand how it can be confusing, though - at the end of the day managing to convey all that via the game is quite tricky, and with the power of hindsight I can definitely see places where I could have made it clearer. I suppose that's how it is with game jams, though.

Thank you! I definitely had a lot of fun playing around with the rewind (and writing the drama) while making this one!

Well, you can always try again! Who knows, maybe this time it'll work out...

I'm glad you enjoyed it! My reasoning behind the seemingly arbitrary point changes was that the score boiled down to Saul's own opinion of himself, rather than to any actual success with Alan (in fact, to pull the curtain back a little, whether Alan enjoys the date or not is actually an entirely different score value - the only thing Saul's perceived score affects is some small dialogue here and there, one split in the middle of the game, and whether the Game Over screen is triggered or not). For the food choice, I'd even say that the one that lowers the score is (arguably) the better decision.

I definitely understand how it can be confusing, though - at the end of the day managing to convey all that via the game is quite tricky, and with the power of hindsight I can definitely see places where I could have made it clearer. I suppose that's how it is with game jams, though.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! 

The question of whether to make the date actually 'hard' or not was definitely something I grappled with at first, but I ultimately decided to keep it so that you could reasonably finish it first try - the intention was for the choices / score / rewind ability to represent Saul's own anxiety and constant second-guessing surrounding the date, rather than him actually struggling to get Alan to enjoy his company. 

After all - online drama aside, the two are were meant to be quite compatible.

I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed it! I also spent quite a bit trying to refine the pixel art / retro presentation of it all, so I'm especially glad it landed well!

This one's tricky to judge.

On one hand, I think the central idea is fantastic - it's creative, funny, and all-too-relatable for just about anyone - let alone the people who're most likely to be reading it. I think it's got immense amounts of potential, and the level of polish is unmatched - the art's fantastic, the music perfectly fits the scenes, and it's simply an entertaining story to read on a moment to moment basis, what with the slick UI, fun character interactions, and constant barrage of well-timed jokes (also I LOVE how the characters do a little bounce whenever they start speaking, it's absolutely adorable).

On the other hand, I feel as though the story never really manages to tie everything together into a solid conclusion. As others have mentioned before, the VN just suddenly... ends, without leaving much room for the reader to mull over the experience or come to conclusions about the ideas explored throughout it. All the pieces for something incredible are here, but the story simply chooses to discard the pieces at the finish line. Now, this might very well be intentional - there's something to be said about the unsatisfying experience of the final day matching Swift's own unsatisfying con experience, but while I understand that, it doesn't change the experience - the negative consequences it has for the rest of the story, and for how it feels to read it, are there all the same.

Keep in mind, that I absolutely do not think Swift should have succeeded in his goal of getting laid - I think it's far more interesting for him to end the story "failing", and that it's much better for it. The story would be just as (and much more) unsatisfying if it ended with Swift getting what he wanted and nothing more. However, I do feel like the story has a lot of room to further explore the ideas behind what Swift is trying to do, which isn't properly utilized - at the end of the day, there's a lot to dig into with regards to why exactly Swift wants what he wants - both on a personal level, and on a broader societal level (which, to go on a slight tangent, ties back into his opening monologue with regards to the unspoken rules of being a man, given how much the desire to lose one's virginity / get laid ties into existing patterns of toxic masculinity). 

At the end of the story, In spite of reading through 16000 words of his perspective, I feel like I still don't *know* Swift. Which is odd, given how much he monologues throughout the story - but most of his internal dialogue feels as though he's lecturing the reader about his experiences, or cracking jokes for the audience's sake, rather than us getting to peek into his head and thoughts (the opening monologue stands out here, with it practically feeling like it was taken from a video essay). 

That said, this might be a skill issue on my part. I don't doubt that a lot of thought was put into how Swift is written, but I just personally feel like it's kind of hard to tell, as a reader. Likewise, I feel as though this same idea applies for the other themes of the story - instead of focusing squarely on Swift trying to get laid, or the experience of being at a furry convention, or on current day political issues, it bounces back and forth, while never really stopping to fully explore any given one of these ideas. The con isn't focused much on because Swift's search takes him outside of it, but the search is interrupted multiple times in order to start exploring current day politics - all three of these things are perfectly valid things to explore in the story, and even just existing as a queer person is political so it especially makes sense to explore the latter, but the way the story jumps between the three always feels somewhat jarring and disorienting to read through.

Day 2 stands out especially here, given the sheer whiplash of the story jumping from Swift looking to buy an Amicus dildo, to discussing the Pulse club shooting in less than 300 words. In general, the way the story discusses political topics feels somewhat one-note - Diesel is obviously a horrendous person, and Hammer is obviously a fantastic person, but they both feel like caricatures of political views rather than real people. This especially goes for Hammer, who the story tries to expand beyond this role, but who just ends up feeling like a dash of wish-fulfillment in an otherwise quite grounded story - the hot, nice, confident punk who singles you out from the group and is super into you. Obviously things don't work out between Swift and him, but it's for a "safe" reason - it's not due to a personal flaw of his, it's because of poor timing, and Swift's own hesitation (but not outright unwillingness) at being with someone who's in an open relationship.

While all of this is happening, there's the matter of Blake. And... I fucking love them, honestly - their scenes are hilarious, and I loved the gag of them commenting on Swift's 'escapades' and how they contrasted with their own - they're simultaneously a very charming and entertaining character, and a fantastic foil to Swift, someone who's having the con experience he's been dreaming of (mainly, sex). That said, they're quite underused in this role - they show up in a very limited amount of scenes, in spite of them being the 'novembuck' of the jam - and they're entirely absent from the climax of the story.

This is a massive shame, given just how much potential their character has - both in the sense that they will undoubtedly have a *ton* to say about what happened with Osgood (whether good or bad), and in the sense that I think that a frank conversation between them and Swift after it all ends could go a long way towards exploring the many ideas that the story touches on, but ultimately doesn't go far with. Their role in the story as the foil to Swift has so much potential, and the fact that the story doesn't properly make use of that potential is probably the biggest part of why I left it feeling so dissatisfied.

And, really, potential is the word I want to focus on here. I've been quite harsh at times, but it's ultimately because I feel as though this story has so much potential - it feels like many of its flaws are just the consequence of having been written on a time crunch for a game jam, while at the same time not having the proper scope for such a project. I feel like, if the story had shifted its focus mostly to just one of the three main 'ideas' I mentioned previously instead of bouncing between them seemingly at random, it could have been fantastic - but as it stands, it feels quite flawed and unsatisfying, in spite of still being a very entertaining experience. 

That said, I'm really looking forwards to seeing if there'll be post-jam updates to the story - I feel like, given more room to breathe, and some additional scenes here and there, all three of these ideas *can* be properly fleshed out and coexist with each other - while still not compromising on the game's vision, and on the desire for the story to still feel somewhat "unsatisfying" by the end.

I'm an absolute sucker for unique aesthetics in visual novels, and this certainly delivers! It's equal parts comedic and disturbing, which comes across in the story itself - the VN striking a great balance between both ends all throughout its runtime!

It's quite a rude thing to do, really.

Glad you enjoyed it!

As for the track, I'm not the one who made it - it's called Morning Coffee, by Lesiakower!