itch.io

I understand. Wishing you the best going forward; both for this game and for your mental health.

I wonder, is there any particular reason why ratings are turned off for this game? I have a lot of thoughts, but I don't wish to leave a long comment with feedback if the creator is not looking for it.

Hope this isn't an invasive question.

I see. I was honestly under the impression there was no rollback, but that must've purely been a me issue since I play on a dying laptop with a wonky trackpad 😓 I apologize for including it as a negative in my review.

And I'm happy to hear those typos have been fixed for Knee Deep! I did notice text/visual inconsistencies in your first game as well (which I played right before this one), such as the young girl (Rin) being described as having silver hair despite her hair being brown. That is why I felt the need to mention it being a somewhat reoccurring thing in these games, and why I was happy to see that the character designs are consistent with in-game text here.
While this game didn't have any inconsistencies in the text and character sprites, the backgrounds were sometimes distracting. (Ex: Julian's shopping spree was said to be in the city, but the background was a park.)

There are other inconsistencies that I mentioned in my review, such as some choices having unclickable buttons restating the question, or transitions between scenes being different without much rhyme or reason behind it. (Some were instant, some where quick fades to black, some required the player to click for the dialogue to start...) These are little things, but I found them personally difficult to ignore. (But I could also just be nitpicky 😓) 

I do however completely understand that a lot of this game was volunteer work and you guys were on a time crunch due to it being for a game jam. I imagine game development and coordinating things with your team is far from easy. 
The fact that this was finished in not even two months is very impressive, and you guys should be proud of that!

Beautiful eye-catching visuals, clean UI, charming writing, and good length.  If you're looking for something cute and silly, this is a great way to spend a couple of hours. It's just a fun time meant to make you smile and perhaps yearn over a cute boy or two, and it does that very well!

I do have a question, however. Is there any particular reason why Ren'py's built in "history" screen is cut from the game? It's a huge quality of life feature, and the lack of it did sadly hinder my experience with the game.

Thanks so much to everyone who worked hard to make this project come to life. I wish you all luck on your future endeavors! 🎉

If my criticism was something petty or unreasonable, then I could see why there'd be an issue. It should be noted that I made this comment when the page was ONLY an image. There was no text outside the links to their socials. (Not even the credits were made with text - that and all those links were in image form, therefore unable to be clicked on.)

The original issue I had is that the accessibility was nonexistent. Because there was no alt text provided at the time, there was no way for people who require screen readers to learn about the game. 

Despite the name, visual novels, namely ones made in Ren'py, are incredibly accessible to the visually impaired due to the built-in self-voicing feature present by default in its games. (Not to mention the several add-ons to help aid the visually/auditorily impaired better enjoy the games created for free by the community.)

My point is the game page was initially inaccessible, especially toward the disabled. It's a very valid critique, and if the game developers are open to listening, I don't see the issue in pointing it out.

I appreciate the quick response and clarification. I was worried for a moment that the wording in my comment could've been misinterpreted (the actual design of the page, i.e. visuals, are perfectly fine in my opinion; it's just the inaccessibility that is a turn-off), so I'm relieved to see it wasn't taken the wrong way.

My only other critique is that the font used in the actual text part (links to socials) is a bit too low of contrast against the pastel BG, especially with most of it being empty space and the lines being very thin. (Whether you want to change that or not is entirely up to you, though. It's your game, so do what you want! A screen reader will still pick it up just fine.)
But the "placeholder" images for the rest of the page have great text/background contrast and would be very readable on paper. (And from what I can gather from the screenshots, the game itself looks wonderfully designed visually!)

I really do appreciate your willingness to listen. Like I said in my initial comment, I hold no ill will toward you or anyone involved in this game. I wish for your success and for more people to enjoy the hard work you've all poured into this! 

I have not played the game myself, so I cannot say anything regarding its contents, but I am BEGGING you to rethink how you've designed this game page.

By making everything an image with no alt text, you have made it completely inaccessible for people who require screen readers. And even without that, the screenshots and smaller images within are nearly impossible to read with the incredibly small text size. Plus, including links in the credits is pointless when they cannot be clicked on.

I understand wanting to stand out and have a cute page, but I don't think it's worth it when it sacrifices the ability to actually... read it. While I don't know the ins and outs of coding a page myself, I DO know that it is possible to make a page that stands out, as I've seen other games on this site with fancier-than-average pages without resorting to exclusively using images for formatting.

TL;DR:
Please reconsider how you have designed this page. It can really turn people away, as it makes your game inaccessible.

I wish you all the best.