itch.io

My goal for SuNoFes 2024 was to get the next big update for my in-dev visual novel finished and published by the end of July.  I accomplished my goal!  I got the (first version; it still needs revisions, which I'll take care of with the NEXT big update) of Chapter 5 finished and did some bug fixes and revisions on the rest of the VN.  And I released it on my birthday.  :-)

Biggest hurdle to my SuNoFes dev cycle was Hurricane Beryl sweeping through, killing my electricity and my pecan trees, and just ruining my summer.  But I'm alive and so is the project.

Hehehe the tone I was going for worked!  >:-)  Thanks for the review, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks!  I really liked writing this one.

I should've replied earlier but it has been a weird week.  Thank you so much for the kind review, I definitely loved playing around with new formats and I'm glad the word choice is hitting juuuuust right.  :-)

Thanks, and enjoy!

I don't think I've ever played a "memory maze" style game before.  I also like what you were able to do with RPG Maker!

The visuals are amazing!  With some further fine-tuning, this could be a great indie adventure game.

There's a lot packed into this game, especially considering it was a five-day project.  Very impressive!

Love the sprites!  The game itself was fun with a melancholy tint to it.

That was a nice adventure!  Loved the plot twist at the end.  :-)

Very lovely idle clicker.  Love watching the fish swim  around, they are very nicely animated!

Nice exploration atmosphere and axolotl physics.  Its a very lovely little experience.

I love to see more drink-serving games in the vein of of VAL-HAL-A  and Coffee Talk.  Definitely a cute style, and the fact that it was made on a phone is really neat to me.  Nicely done, I hope to see this game grow after the jam!

Missed opportunity to go full QWOP.  xD  I like the animation on the lil fish dude, and as far as "frustrating silliness" games go it is pretty well put together.

Fun little Temple Run style game.  The shark's up-and-down felt a little slow to respond, but other than that it was very nicely put together.

Thanks so much!  Originally I was going to have a reload counter too, but then I remembered I have only like an hour each day to do devwork.  xD

Thanks for the review!  Glad to hear you liked the poem parts, I've gotten into verse poems recently and love playing around with the format.

Whoa, you unlocked a core memory with that one.  xD  Thanks for the review!

That's funny you mention that, because I thought I'd snuck in a lot of options for the amount of dev time I was able to put into the project.  i was wrong.   xD  Thanks for the review, I'll try to get even more branches in with whatever I make in Inky next!

Thanks!  I usually leave out images and sounds from my Inky project as a stylistic choice* but I do agree it probably would have helped sell the mood better.

*aka, it never works right for me and most of my dev time would have been putting out digital fires lol

Thanks!  Glad you liked the writing!

I was not expecting the alien to be that big.  O_O  Very nice visuals on this one, the actual fruit collecting could be a little faster paced but then again it works for the overall "harvesting" theme.

Great to see another interactive fiction piece!  Nice job with the writing and the visuals, they both balance and enhance each other very well.

Wonderful escape the room game, even if that lil jerk ended it too short for me.  xD  Great puzzles that feel fair albiet tough, and nice visuals too.

I don't think I was done though, I was clicking to make the crop circle but nothing was happening after the first couple of stomps.  Ah well, I'll go back and try again when I have time.  ^^

Neat little roguelike (and I don't usually like roguelikes, so great job there).  Love the style and presentation, as well as the use of procedural generation.  My only complaint is that the bat never worked for me.  Traps did, but not the bat.  Still, love me some cryptids.  :-)

Love the idea of making crop circles (might be biased though, as one of my bucket list items is to actually go out and make a big ol crop circle for artistic expression and lulz), but I just couldn't get the game to work right.  I made, like, a line of flattened flowers and then I coudn't do anything else.  Not sure if it wsa a bug or if it was just me being silly.  Still, again, love the concept and I hope to see this game grow!

Love the concept of Stardew Valley but a parody and a VN and with aliens, but its too buggy for me to really recommend or keep playing in its current state.  Still, I hope you keep working on it because it could really grow into something unique!  

Thanks for setting off my heart arrhythmia.  xD  Okay but seriously, love the visual style and how the horror creeps up all subtle as you go about your work.  Definitely a nice little game, grade-A job!

ok look, i can't get very far on this because something about the sit n spin style of FNAF mechanics in general scares me on a primordial level sorry about that :-(

BUT...love the weird late 90s/early 2000s vibes and the fact that you're playing a game within a game is so unique and clever.  Plus, if you've got me this scared to continue then that means you met the goal of the horror game jam.  :-)

Its very Stanley Parable esque; the narration works well in its favor, hiding and foreshadowing the plot twist at the end (I could even see an expanded version that leans more into that style, where Jimmy ignores the narration and that leads to other routes or something).  I ran into some of the same bugs mentioned on the game's main page (no input after meeting the green dude and Jimmy walking really slowly, I think due to uncapped framerates) but y'all are already on top of that and the aforementioned narrative style more than made up for it so its all good.  :-)

Love the stylized graphics!  Flashlight is a little wonky and it might need some more in-game notes (because I completely forgot I could scroll the mousewheel to switch tools until I double-checked the page), but for the very beginning of a first game from a new studio, it is a solid start!

Thank you.  Your advice is aligning with what most people have been saying to me (minus the aforementioned minority, and even then one of them backtracked today and basically said what you said), and since everyone's heads are clearer than mine right now I am grateful for the wisdom.  :-)

Would visual novels count as games?  If so, I would like to nominate Clash: Robot Detective - Complete Edition as an entry: https://drone-garden-studios.itch.io/clash-robot-detective

It is a sci-fi/mystery VN that has been well-received by those who have played it.  It tells the story of a robot detective trying to solve a mystery on a high-tech cruise ship.  The player takes on the role of the human assistant he hires to help him out.  The player can control the flow of the story through their decisions, which can affect who the culprit is and how aggressive Clash's tactics are.  It utilizes a visual style inspired by collages and comic books, which helps it stand out visually from many other VNs.  There is a bonus story that takes place after the main game involving robot murder, some behind-the-scenes trivia wherein Clash breaks the fourth wall, and multiple achievements to unlock.

Thank you for giving everyone (including me) the opportunity to join this bundle.  Have a great day!

No, there's only two paths and they both end similarly.  I was going through a rough time when I wrote it.  Also I ran out of jam time.

Fair enough.  And that's why I didn't delete them outright, I didn't want them to be permanently gone.  They could possibly come back one day.  I don't know what the future holds.

Its really for the best, in the long run.  A lot of those games weren't very good anyway.  xD