I'm glad you liked it, and thanks for letting me know! I've updated the link to his website.

 Unfortunately, I didn't get permission to share the track publicly, but I'll try asking again!

Thank you for your interest!

Unfortunately, I doubt it. The escape rooms aren't optimized for small/touch screens, and it would probably take a lot of effort to make them work. I'd prefer to focus on finishing the game first.

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it! 

I think free will or fate* being "better" is a matter of preference. To some people, determinism being confirmed would cause severe distress, while to others it wouldn't matter at all. That value judgment is therefore purely subjective.

But I would still say there is a big general difference between the two. People who believe in true free will see themselves as having the power to genuinely change the world. That their decisions alter the course of history from what it otherwise would've been. Meanwhile, to determinists, there was never an "alternate history" to begin with. We never truly "change" anything; we're just following a path that was already set in stone from the beginning of the universe. I hope that helped you understand the question of determinism a little better!

*I'm using "fate" as a short-hand for "predetermined history of the universe due to laws of nature" or whatever other scientific explanation for determinism one wants to give. Determinists typically don't believe in "fate" in a religious or spiritual sense. Those who do are called fatalists. There is actually quite an interesting debate between determinists and fatalists as well, so I'd look that term up if you're interested!

Thank you so much for your high praise, I'm really honored to hear that this is your favorite from the jam so far!

Thank you for the incredibly high praise! This is the best kind of reaction I could've hoped for and I'm really glad the game resonated with you.

Thanks for letting me know! It’s safe to say that this is a false alarm, so simply add an exception for Locke(d) and it should work just fine.

I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the demo and that Diven is a reasonably accurate INFJ. It's always tricky to get types other than your own right, so that's reassuring lol. Thank you very much! 

Almost all the Ratings I receive on my games are phrased like public reviews, clearly meant to be seen by others. This is a shame, because most of these people probably wanted to be kind, and didn't realize that leaving a comment would be more helpful. Therefore, I suggest three different solutions:

1. Be more explicit in the review description and state that it will not be visible by anyone checking out the game's page, and that it is basically a private message. It currently only states "Reviews are shared with developers and your followers", which doesn't make this point clear enough. In my opinion, this option would be the easiest to implement, but probably also the least effective, since some people just won't read the small text to begin with.
2. Make all reviews public by default, giving them a separate section in addition to the comment section. (However, just like with comments, developers should be able to disable this if they want to.)
3. Publish chosen reviews as comments. If a developer specifically likes a review, he should be able to make it show up in the list of comments, just like it was probably supposed to.

In case of 2 and 3, if the reviewer's privacy is a concern, maybe developers have to await the reviewer's approval before it becomes public.

Would love to know what people think of this.

Sorry, I completely forgot to reply to this. 

Originally I thought the setting and general tone of the game would be enough of a warning, but a proper screen for it has since been added.

Thank you for letting me know, and I apologize for this bad experience.

Got it! I'll try to include a few more hints in a future update.

Hey, thank you so much for your feedback! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the game despite encountering a few issues. 

I'll definitely consider to add more hints. What exact puzzle(s) are you referring to? 

In that case you'll like the new demo coming soon! I made some changes to the cells which should make the puzzle both more fun and easier to understand. Please look forward to it!

Hello, I've emailed support about this before but they never got back to me.

I'm being told there are too many files in my HTML project, but I've already reduced the amount of files as much as I can. Would it be possible to increase my file limit?

If you mean the engine, it's called Ren'Py!

Thank you for your kind words! The bad ending is quite different, but I hope you will still enjoy it. I will definitely be checking out your game as well!

One of our writers suggested the name "Nano" based on "Nanotechnology" and only later realized it would fit "NaNoRenO" as well. So it was more of a coincidence haha

Good job getting all those endings already! 

You can get the fourth ending by picking only "bad" dialogue options during the interview with any of the characters. Let me know if you need further help!

In the bad path, they never got around to viewing Nano as a friend or family member, but merely as a tool to complete their assignment. 
This is why Lycoris uses Nano's dependency on him to boost his own ego, why Oleander didn't bother properly explaining to Nano how bodies work and made it figure things out on its own, and why Strelitzia didn't respect its boundaries or bodily autonomy. So yes, the irony was definitely intentional. :D

It makes me really happy that our game affected you enough to make you look into it that much!

To be completely honest, our main focus was on the flowers' colors, and that their names at least remotely sound like human names. The cool thing about flower meanings are is that they can be interpreted in multiple ways! So even if they weren't our main objective, we still made them work somehow:

Lycoris flowers are frequently used at funerals and are connected to various tragic legends. This is a nod at the fact that he was most affected by Lilium's death, and had the biggest inner turmoil when it came to figuring out how to help him.

(Yellow) Oleander's high toxicity represents his aggressive/proactive approach when it comes to helping Lilium, and the fact that he seems like the least friendly one out of the three. (It is, however, not meant to rate his approach as more or less valid. One of the main morals of the story is that there isn't "one right thing to do".)

Strelitzia is probably the prettiest and most extravagant out of the three, and so is the flower. Other than that we didn't think much deeper. :'D

Lilies are also frequently used at funerals and symbolically represent innocence. "Innocence" may be used in a more negative sense to signify "naivety" or "cowardice", which are probably Lilium's greatest flaws.

But of course all of this doesn't mean your interpretations were wrong! Technically, their meanings are whatever resonates with you most. 

Thank YOU for your kind words, and I look forward to hearing what you think of Artificial Selection once you complete the demo!

Wow, I feel incredibly honored that you took the time to write such a heartfelt review! 

It was very important to us to handle these topics with respect while not shying away from showing some of the more ugly parts, and it's a relief to hear we succeeded.

I'm glad our story resonated with you in such a way and made you rethink certain things. Responses like yours truly make our hard work worth it!

Thank you for your kind words! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed yourself and that the escape room wasn't too hard. 

And hehe... I hope it made you look forward to the full game! B)

Thank you! 
Yes, I'll definitely continue working on it. The biggest next step will be implementing a battle system!

I'm really happy to hear you liked the bad route, since this was my first attempt at writing horror! Hopefully I'll get another chance to write darker stuff in the future. Thank you very much! 

Thank you for your kind words! I'm glad we managed to get you invested in the "family" and that you enjoyed our game! It's also interesting to hear how the order of the routes influences the experience... B)

I'm sorry for the inconvenience, the bug should be fixed now. Thank you for letting me know!

It's really hard to get the balance right in these kinds of games, but you did an excellent job. The puzzles were challenging, but not impossible. (Though I unfortunately had to give up at Level 17.)

I had a lot of fun and truly think you have a gift for making puzzle games! Can't wait to see more!

IT'S DONE!

This has been a truly exciting and educational experience for me, and I can't wait to participate in another jam again soon.

I hope you'll enjoy the game and let me know what you think!

Day 10 & 11:

Fortunately there's not much to say anymore. I drew a little ending card for each love interest, and will be done with the writing soon.

So after some testing, I should be able to release the game tomorrow! 

Day 9:

Today will be another short update, but I finally managed to crawl out of my writer's block! I figured out a nice way to tie all introductory quests together, which then leads to further branching paths. My goal is to hopefully give each character a little ending scene, and the 30 minutes being reached through multiple playthroughs.

After some deliberation I also think I will most likely scrap the "phone feature" i was so proud of at the beginning. It kind of hurts, but it doesn't really add fun OR difficulty, so I don't see why I should keep it. Maybe I'll find some use for it in a different project, though!

Day 8:

It's very late so I'll keep this short and sweet.

I finished all of the remaining graphics, came up with a name (finally!) and polished everything I had so far.

...We now have a stunning 10 full minutes of gameplay.

But considering that I only have to focus on writing now, that number will hopefully increase a little. (My goal was 30 minutes so wish me luck I'll get there!)

That sounds like huge progress to me! The money moving from the table into the GUI is a nice touch. 

As for food that could work in this resolution... Maybe cake, pizza or something with fish?

I'm definitely interested in this game and I'd love to play the final product! Keep it up!

Day 7:

When I don't feel like writing, I draw. And when I don't feel like drawing, I make pixel art. But the problem is, I always feel like doing pixel art, so this process can turn out to be a dead end.

But I overcame that today! I wrote a new quest, moved on to draw the last two face graphics, added facial expressions to the vaquita and sea bunny slug AND added a credits page. I'm glad I got this done today, because I would hate to accidentally forget crediting someone just because I have to put something together last-minute.

Now only 2 more characters need facial expressions. The rest of the time I can spend on writing as much of the story as I can!

That musical sheet looks incredible! I can imagine it must've been hard to draw a treble clef with such little space, but it turned out really well.

Looking forward to the next update!

Day 6:

So, concerning my goal of "making just as much progress tomorrow"... Unfortunately procrastination has gotten the better of me.

The day started off strong by completing the fifth character, the sea bunny slug. And making his "ears" twitch. 

Other than that, I've been working on setting up my Itch profile, and finally posted my first project!

I've been wanting to get that out of the way for a while now, so I guess this is still progress, even if I didn't add much to the game today.

Day 5:

I feel like today was a big turning point because my game went from "some maps you can walk around in" to an actual game! We now have our first "quest" the player has to complete! Though don't worry, there's gonna be more to it than just a string of quests. I want the game to be as non-linear as possible, leaving it up to the player what they want to do first. This makes programming a little trickier, but I'm here to learn new things!

The hammerhead shark now got her introduction and it was a lot of fun (but also scary) how her personality was pretty much shaped by itself. I also gave the sea dragon's personality a fun twist - gap moe, if you will.

Other than that, we now have... Facial expressions! The default faces didn't really fit with some of the dialogue, so I figured something had to be done. 
Here's a preview:

I'm hoping I can make just as much progress tomorrow!

What a cute concept! If you need help with RPG Maker, I (and probably many others) can help you out in the jam's Discord chat!

Day 4:

Today will look like a short update, but I got a lot of stuff done behind the scenes.

I finished 2 big maps, figured out how to make bridges work and wrote an introductory scene for the weedy seadragon!

And everyone now has a profile page. For now it simply offers "fun facts" on the species, but I might think of other things to write.

Also, we are now dealing with these guys:  I figured I'd make the world more lively by adding some npc fish.

Tomorrow I aim to make 2 more maps and write another character introduction.

Day 3:

Had to do some IRL stuff, so i couldn't get as much work done as I wanted to.

Still, I managed to piece together a title screen:

I also made some starfish tiles and designed the first male love interest, everyone's favorite nearly-extinct porpoise: the vaquita! He's secretly goth but he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt to fit in.