itch.io

This was an intriguing one. The art is good, the medium is good, and the story was... jarring. It's just that players in general like control, agency, and all that. With this, I was just watching most of it happen, and what choices were there, were all dialogue-based and less consequential than you'd expect a choice in general to be within something of the visual novel kind. Otherwise it just seemed like you decided the narrative (okay) and found it acceptable to only allow variation up to a point that may not feel satisfying because there's little payoff (needs a bit more work). Maybe you could have tied more consequence to the existing dialogue choices, or! added action choices (deciding what Lila does instead of just what she says or thinks). Good try though!

HAY! I am so bad at platformer games and it showed here. Fun concept and okay execution even if I didn't make it to the end because of all the resets >:) Nice job!

A creative take on the card game, but applied to conversations. It struck me as something well-executed; sometimes, when you've gotten this intimate with someone, there's a pressure to remember everything right. Do right by the mark they left on you. That mark is a gift on its own. You're right; it really is the things we remember. Great job.

Another item picking game similar to our own, but one that admittedly does the whole bit more subtly. If you played ours, we made at least some wants clear with the letters and tags, but here you just.., kinda have to have context. Which I didn't LOL growing up on oreos and ricoa but I still managed to get a yay! screen. cute, short, sweet.

I can't. I can't with these games in particular. The fact that this one hit me like this means you've made it very well for something orbiting a very heavy topic. I hope you guys never have to go through what you put out. Or if you did, that it gets easier for you. And that you know, truly, that it wasn't your fault. Great job.

For its brevity, Something to Bring Home is punching above weight in its art direction. It's a short, cute, wholesome experience that turns the ordinary into the special. What particularly hooked me was the music and sound effects--- you guys genuinely cooked with this. Would you be willing to share what software you used to make them?

There's something about how this looks and feels and what it lets me do that I believe every last message speaks from the heart. More people need to hear them but unfortunately don't, and to frame your effort to do so selflessly and beautifully is genuinely inspiring. You're right. The best pasalubong is indeed shared.

Hey! You're the one who played every last game already, aren't you? I love the simplicity of your entry in particular; the different endings did not disappoint either. Only real critique is that during the night part, you do show Mingming and so that association is made; probably, you could just show the box being jolted around to keep up the suspense better. Otherwise, very funny and cute game! Enjoyed myself for real. Good job!

I hit a clip! Literally! Very funny subversion of theme and expectations. You should win Popular Choice. If not, I'll demand a recount.

Cozy little game! I like the innate randomness of who requests and what, definitely something people can use to scale things up. Keeps you coming back. While I understand that doing it only once is a mechanical and narrative feature by all means, at least some progression could have been used to tell a story. Mechanics-wise, solid, but an additional hook you could probably implement is mutators or challenge conditions. Maybe low starting money, or requests flooding in real-time, or high starter money for a low-cortisol break. If you could apply randomness to the requests, you could apply it to the other parts of the level generation. Nice job though!

ABSOLUTE CINEMA. this game was like a magician's hat of horseshit and I loved it so much. my favorite character gotta be the elf though. why did he only take the shit but not the cow? for infinite shit?

(minor spoilers ahead for people who haven't played yet)

Oh hey, a Twine game! Some of my favorites on itch are Twine games, shout out to House of Loki and Unbecoming.

Having said that, you'll forgive me comparing this to those. While I did get very similar vibes as them right from the off, the greatest parts of them and other text-based games you can perceive other than the text is the sound. The opening voice message is cool, I love it--- but the fact that it was the only audial element of the game kind of took away from what immersion you wanted us to have. If text is the only mechanical thing present, then having a good soundscape for interacting with the game or to up the immersion almost stops being a feature and starts being a necessity. So some accompanying sounds would have been nice, or! Have the voice messages be a constant for the first time you look at each postcard every playthrough. I acknowledge that this may muddy the line between left voice messages and postcards, which I think ties into the implications of Boni being able to (or wanting to) remember Maya's voice anyway, but other than that, it's good! All else taken into account, it's a game that turns out wonderfully personal depending on which words you click. Good job team!

FUCK. that was some of the best storytelling i've seen from a piece about time travel. the way you could interact with objects one way, foreshadowing that you couldn't the other way around... chills. really great job guys