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Thank you so much! (and for all your hard work in organizing this!)

Thank you so much! I'm so glad if it proves useful to you. 

You know, I have asigmatism, and I had no idea that's why I actually preferred the dark grey/light grey options. I literally sighed of relief when I opened the "lowcon" version of the guide because this combo is SO pleasing/restful to my eyes.

Thank you for your hard work! I will definitely refer to the guide in the future!

Thank you so much! I'm glad the work resonated for you. It IS very important for me to acknowledge both sides of that coin and so I'm very glad that I seem to have succeeded.

Oh thank you very much!

I am so sorry if "robe" isn't the correct word in English (which isn't my first language) and if I made it confusing. I will check it out and correct the zine, so thank you for pointing it out!

In this context, I meant "robe" as in "the colour of the liquid in the cup". So black tea has this rich, red-brown colour, while green tea might have a clearer, yellow-ish or green-ish colour. 

Yeah, and like... I care about you enough to want you to know what I think, even when it's less pleasant than usual!

Re: genuine and honest, I don't really see why you feel the need to be genuine and honest. Like, it's OK to change your mind on what's written in your work, you don't need to make sure everyone else who comes after the change is aware there was a change. It's not like if you had committed harm and that part of the repair work was to always tell people "I messed up in that way" or something. 

I assume you want to leave the jam version up, so... I think what I would do is add a note in the jam version, like "post-jam note: I realized later that I do not want to condone the use of genAI in my works, due to the environmental, ethical, and other concerns regarding its current state. I'm still leaving this bit here for archiving purposes, since this is the jam version, after all. In the current version of the game, this bit has been replaced with looking into Wikipedia instead." and then in the new version, you don't mention the previous genAI bit at all, and you just write your Wikipedia gameplay instead. 

Although I, personally, would probably archive the jam version and just put up the updated one instead, maybe with a name like "Inquiring Minds v1.1" so that people know it's not the jam version.

Thank you so much! I do strive for earnestness in everything I do/put up on itch, the silly and the vulnerable alike. I wish you many cups of tea!

Thank youuuu Beth for the long, long comment. Actually, I really enjoy your lot of text, your taking the time and energy to tell me about all this. It feels really good and rewarding as the author of the work, so please never worry about that, okay? Even if it was a critique, I trust you to not being mean. 

You've said so many kind things, thank you. I am so amused that I "got you" as you said, because I was really like "this is not a game, this isn't not game-y enough" the whole time to my partner. I clung to the format of d6-friendly roll tables for my life, even it was clearly holding me back... But I'm glad I did, because I feel like in the end the result looks cohesive and game-y enough, you can barely tell the places where I stopped and paced around the room while flailing wildly. 

And yeah, for me a lot of the work is based the idea that there's no "should". There's no "you should/should not feel this or that way" that can lead to lessening your suffering, because you need to be OK with where you are first, as in, you need to have that compassion and acceptance for yourself first. And that means being OK with "not being OK with not being OK" and such. So many layers of shame and self-judgement to gently peel and wash away. It's a lot of work. If my little piece can help anyone towards that, I would be very happy. 

It made me very happy to read that you planned on coming back to this when you were not feeling better yourself. I really hope it will help you then. Please do feel free to reach out to me directly as well.

I love that it inspired you to make your own spin on this! I highly encourage you to do so. Please show it to me when you're done, okay? I would be super excited to have a look at it. 

I love the idea of the worksheet too! It's what I meant to do with the Quick Fixes at the beginning, I wrote them almost last, like, "if someone is having A Really Acute Bad Time when they read this, they're not going to care about all my ramblings on safety, powerlessness, and why I hate CBT". And in the end they're not Quick at all, but hopefully they're Fixes anyway (not that I agree with the idea that anything needs "fixing" but sometimes you've been writing for three days and "quick fix" is the only phrase that comes to mind). So as I work on a fancy-formatted version that can even be printed into a zine (omg it's going to be so long as a zine, but I digress) I am definitely going to keep that in mind and try to create that alongside it. I will send it to you when I'm done! You can tell me what you think then, if you'd like.

It's true that our issues are very different, because I hate the idea that I owe anything to anyone, I find it more upsetting than anything else, and I struggle with being crushed under the expectations, like... even just thinking about "living ethically" or "in alignment with my values", what am I doing? I am not doing enough, I am not doing enough to help all those causes, the children starving as we speak, the burning forests, the oppressed people everywhere! So, as you can imagine, telling myself I am harming the world... will not help :p No, I have the opposite thing, where I find selfishness and possessiveness very empowering and self-affirming. This is my life, and I deserve to live it my way, that sort of things. The fact that my way implies "everyone's needs are being met" is sort of secondary :p

Thank you Avri for playing and commenting. I'm glad you saw truth and intentionaliy in it. And that it made you laugh! I told myself, "even if I can't help anyone with this, may it at least make them smile" as I was writing it.

You're welcome! I think you did great, it sounds like you were a bit pressed for time but this doesn't feel rushed at all. 

I do like the other layout but it feels more "historical" and less "cozy" (and everyone knows that memories aren't always true to life anyway...) so I'm glad you followed Beth's idea. 

Thank you so much for your comment <3 "If my childhood self ever saw this far into the future, she would have refused to grow up." Yeah. I think that for me, it's the opposite, but that's because my parents painted such an awful picture of what life could be that what we're having is much better, dumpster fire, climate change, genocide and all. Anyway. I was really moved by your comment, I really appreciate the time you took to share your feedback with me. It's so bittersweet how relatable this piece seems to be. It's what I was hoping for but it saddens me so much that we are all in so much pain.

You're welcome! I'm sorry that my comment ended up being mostly about that, it was just so jarring to me. Like, "no, don't use it, not even to mock it!". 

Frankly, at this time the results on the 9th page might be more accurate than the ones on the 1st... we sure are living through interesting times!

Congrats on making your fun little game within the circumstances as I know they were Not Fun, and thank you for showing so much grace in front of my immediate, skin-deep reaction re: genAI! 

I'm glad it helped, even if just a little. It makes me so happy and yet so sad how relatable so many people find this piece.

You're so welcome. From a big-bodied trans to another, you've got this <3

You're welcome! Thank you for playing and sharing. I'm glad the pathstones and the pacing worked, it's something I worked hard on!

Thank you for playing it and commenting!

I only read through the game as I didn't have anyone to play with at the time of rating, and I feel like being able to test the game for real would have helped in properly understanding the instructions. I did like the idea of chaotic divinity and the suggested campaigns, which really helped me imagine how the game could be played out. The illustrations from the Met Museums were a good choice as well :)

I'm not familiar with Legacy of Kain but I thought there was a lot of atmosphere in the flavour text. I wish there might have been a bit more context and "plainer" instructions for those not familiar with the game is based on, but I did manage to play-test it a little. 

I read through the solo version. I really liked the layout and the idea of "going down through a rabbit hole, but stick to your headline".

I was really disappointed about the encouragement to use an AI chatbot. 

GenAI (such as the one used in those chatbots) is despicable in every single way. It's putting pressure on our finite natural resources and electricity grid. It's stealing the jobs of artists, writers, and real-life journalists everywhere. It's feeding its users falsehoods-- not "lies" because an AI doesn't and cannot think. It can only give you the likeliest answer to a given prompt, which it calculates from stolen data its makers never had the right to use. It makes its users stupider, it keeps them from thinking for themselves. And it creates nothing but slop.

AI is the polar opposite of journalism, of fact-checking, of having an inquiring mind.

A very, very sweet game which I really enjoyed play-testing. It brought back fond, fond memories of listening to my own elders, and I had fun matching the prompts I was getting with relevant anecdotes from my own family history. I also REALLY liked the layout!

xD Right? I had to stop play-testing it a little early because I felt so sad! Which I guess is a big compliment if that's what you were going for!

I like the mechanics, but I was a little disappointed about... something, but I'm not sure why. The game gives me very strong vibes of "it is futile to even try to escape the maze", which are not to my taste at all. I think I am simply Not the right player for this game, and that's fine! I do appreciate that you created this atmosphere of hopelessness and exhaustion and that it kept throughout.

This game really helped me when I started the jam myself. While eventually I did go with my own unhinged idea, it was really helpful to go through this experience of "building" a game like that. It felt like a really nice structure to build my ideas upon. Thank you!

I am very impressed with the layout and the wittiness of the writing. I don't think that I, personally, would ever want to play anything even close to retail at all, so forgive me for only reading through and rating based on that and not an actual play session, but I did enjoy reading through it very much. 

A very lovely and bittersweet character-centric journaling game. I liked the layout, too, very simple but elegant.

This one is interesting! I feel like it would have been better with more detailed/illustrated instructions, but I managed. I liked the "create your own adventure" aspect of it.

Such a happy game, I love the work you put in choosing the name of the boons.

I did struggle a little with the font used for the "flavour" text at the beginning and for the titles, so I would gently encourage you to switch it to another one that might be a bit easier to read. There's a few typographic typos (like extra spaces here and there), which makes sense for a jam game!

Anyway I think it's a really sweet and joyful take on the theme too. I had fun reading over the prompts and thinking about what I would do, I could see myself playing this game with friends or with Tootkin, as a fun creative practice. 

I love the layout, it looks very much like I would expect a TTRPG layout to look like. I also think the mechanics would be indeed very effecting at building tension and forcing the players to make stressful choices. There's something pleasing about having little accomplishing a lot, and leaving a lot of space for the GM to create the world they want to create too.

Fun little game with an idea that really fits the theme imo! I did not see it coming :O I like that you can make it into shorter or longer sessions depending on how much you want to play.

Thank you kindly! I appreciate that you rated in the jam, commented in the jam, AND commented here AND rated the game overall!

Thank you, that means a lot! I definitely wanted it to be humorous, and hopefully helpful as well. I'm glad you seem to think so.

Thank you so much! This is very kind of you to say.

Thank you so much, BittyBee! I'm glad to know you will be coming back to it again. It really warms my heart to think it can be useful to others, and not just to me. Let me know if I can make it even more helpful in the future!

Thank you kindly!

Thank you so much!

I actually did play around with having the characters on the promo images but it felt too "busy" with the photo I had chosen for that, and it was way too close to the deadline for any brainpower to remain :p I will definitely consider updating those promo images to include them.

I did consider post-processing for the background photos when I did my very first Narrat game (which is just as short and involves Hulda from this very game) and decided against it, actually! One, this is a whole skillset I simply do not have (and that I'm not super interested in learning either). Two, I like the mash-up. This is how I imagine my stories when I am daydreaming-- I can be taking a walk in my neighborhood and "see" in my mind's eyes the characters in 2D going about their lives. That's how I've always been, maybe because I watched a lot of anime as a kid? Anyway.

I'm glad you enjoyed it so much, thank you for all your kind words!

Thank you so much!

Thank you kindly! Feel free to check out the artist's works at https://tootkin.itch.io :D (I love ladybugs too! This little story was actually inspired by encouraging ladybugs to move into our carrot beds so that they would... Help(tm) with the same issue.)

Ohhhh gotcha! I got a little confused, because the loop did feel intentional, but also not, and... anyway, I will play more again. Thank you!

The descriptions were very good and it's nice to see some of Narrat's point and click features implemented like this :D

Ohhh I didn't expect the little scare! I really liked the art and use of sound.