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Thank you so much for your comment and support; seeing things like this really make us feel proud of what we've done 🥲

Regarding your spoiler comment, it's expanded a little bit in our next game, Artificial Nexus 😉

Thanks so much for the kind words! To be honest, a large part of the purpose of the trypophobia bit is just to unsettle people, so it's good to hear that it served it's purpose!

This was so cool, I absolutely adored the vibe of it! It felt very pagan-y, very much like something out of folklore, and a large contributor to that was the fantastic art style! In particular I really liked the constant mentions of the three gods, as well as the mentions of the deer not having its organs all be in the right places; they made it feel quite eldritch.

If you team continues to update this, I hope that you add more settings to the game - being able to control the speed of the text would have been nice, as would be the ability to view a log of the last few lines we've read. I also ran into an issue where the sound wasn't playing, and I only realised that it even had sound when I refreshed the page after I beat it. (Sorry, I think that I left the tab while it was still loading and that affected it somehow!)

Giving us the option to only talk to three of them each day while offering four overall helped to make the choices feel more meaningful, and I really liked getting to know each of the people that I spoke to - I can see that a lot of thought was put into them and they all felt well fleshed-out. I had a very good time with this; great job making it!

Oh hey, another cult game! I really liked this - the pixel art and music set a really good tone for it, and the cinematography was really well done; the whole thing managed to sell its atmosphere spectacularly. I really liked the initial questioning and roleplay section - it felt like a lot of thought had been put into it, and one of the presented answers usually matched something that I would have answered in real life. The candle puzzle was also really fun, even if I started out trying to go tallest-to-shortest and felt like it couldn't be beaten for a bit (my bad!)

What I really like, however, was the... entity that was associated with the cult. I liked that we didn't really find out too much about it, and that it was possible to accept it; I'm glad that we were given that option. Overall, I had a really good time with this; great job!

And thank you for the kind words, of course!

Yep, that's correct! The idea is that she questions them enough that she won't blindly believe Ben's lies, but since that results in him lowering his guard and going, "Great, well the church kind of sucks and they do bad things!", that's too much for her - she won't believe anything that negative about the church.

This is so great to hear, thank you so much! I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed it so much, thank you for the kind words!

Thank you so much! With a bit more time I absolutely would have expanded on them, but there was only so much that could be done during the jam time!

This is all really appreciated; thanks for taking the time to play it!

Thank you so much! I'd be happy to do so for your entry in turn, but I'm not actually sure which game on your page that is - let me know and I'll take a look when I've got the time!

This is Ren'Py, yes? You should be able to play the voice line with

voice "path/to/voice/line.mp3"

in your code, so hopefully it's a quick thing to update it all through find-and-replace!

Really loved the opening to this and how we got to fill out the rumours that people have been saying about us, I hope that they come back and affect the full game! Even if not, it's an engaging way to get us interested in the protagonist and the truth behind them; this is good writing.

I did like the main premise of it, but I found that it was a bit difficult to tell what to do a lot of the time - there were often multiple doors shown but only one would let me go through it, and it took me a while to realise that I had to examine the couch to proceed. A bit more direction would have made this go a bit more smoothly (for me, at least).

I like that we have the option to kill our partners when we want, and setting up things with the clothes mechanics looks like a really cool way to influence whether or not we get caught. I hope that more interactivity with things like this are in the full game, but either way, good job!

This was really well-done; absolutely top-notch work! The art style is absolutely beautiful, and the GUI and soundtrack combined with it to make such a heartwarming story really effective. (Speaking of the soundtrack, it gave me big Zelda vibes - which is a good thing!)

I really liked that Sonya was able to admit that she was lying to herself about where she wanted to go in life, and that Julien was able to convince her not to give up. I think we all have thoughts like that at times... Anyway, great job! Thanks for making such a fantastic story!

This was really cute and despite being short, I had a lot of fun with it! I liked how low-stakes the whole thing was; it made it feel very cozy. In particular I liked that you could choose who to go into the tunnel of love with at pretty much any point and it was all basically down to you to choose who you wanted.

One thing that would have been nice would be if there was a little more to the ending beyond just going into the tunnel of love; if we also got even a brief conversation between Amara and her chosen partner either before, during, or after the tunnel. As it is it felt a little abrupt to simply choose someone and then have it end after seeing the CG.

Overall though this was really fun and cute, and I particularly liked that you took the time to add the minigames in! You did a great job with this; thanks for making such a fun game!

This was such a well-put together game! The art style is really stark and really sells the tone, and your team did a great job at making the characters look so distinct with the style chosen. The sound design is brilliant too - all of the voice acting sounds perfect, and the music and sound effects couldn't have fitted more. Absolutely top-notch all around.

The only complaint I had is that the first time I played the game, I was able to deduce who Death was successfully, which made it feel a bit anticlimactic, but it's worth it to have had all of the characters survive! Oh, also, the interface for saving and loading doesn't work super well with the rest of the UI; it blends in with the background a bit too much.

Fantastic work overall; thanks for making such a great game!

Wow, I absolutely loved this! I'm glad that it starts off with a tense scenario right off the bat, and you did a good job of showing that Gabriela was batshit crazy right from the start. I also really loved that you offered multiple choices whenever they were presented; it was hard to tell what each would lead to which works really well!

There were two errors I found, which I hope you don't mind me pointing out:

• It sounds like you've got the voice lines playing on the sound channel - the lines continue playing if I skip to the next line, which threw me off the first few times it happened. It also means that the voice slider in the preferences doesn't actually control the volume of the voice, the sound slider does.
• Nitpicky, I know, but in one ending the word imminent was misspelled as "immanent". I only point this out because the rest of the grammar and spelling didn't have any issues!

I think that this is one of my favourite games of the jam I've played so far - everything was a high quality and I really felt like it was worth diving back in and trying to get all of the endings. I'd also love to know more about where Gabriela came from; that's just too good a hook!

Thanks so much, I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it! I'll admit that Sebastian mostly exists to try and creep people out, so it's good to hear that his purpose is working!

I'm going to be honest, I'm not a massive fan of the 3D model look for VNs so I wasn't really sure whether this would be my thing, but it's got a really great start! The conflict between the two characters feels believable, and you did a great job at characterising Becky as the sort of person who would be willing to risk going to a supposedly-haunted house for the sake of research. I also really like that the town isn't all doom and gloom, and that it's mentioned that many of the incidents that occurred there are hyped up by the locals.

Unfortunately I couldn't get further than that, because the game crashed! I've attached the error below; if you end up having the time to fix it please let me know because I'd love to keep going!

Absolutely loved the concept for this one! Social deduction games are always really fun to play, and I took notes all throughout the game, trying to work out which lines were relevant and which weren't. I like that each creature had a few lines of lore about them, and that there were more creatures types than there were characters.

Unfortunately where I did feel things fell apart a bit was in the actual deductions - the clues for each character felt quite vague, and the one character whose species I was able to identify was mostly a guess based on some evidence found early on. It would have been nice if giving the "right" gift to a character gave you a much bigger clue as to who they were, or at least let you more definitively narrow it down to two or three choices.

The pixel art looked fantastic, and the implied backstories of all of the characters did a good job of hinting at interesting pasts. I'd definitely like to see this expanded more, and to have things fleshed out a bit. Good job!

Thanks so much, glad to hear that you enjoyed it! The idea for the two presentation styles came when a friend commented that they preferred my art style in black and white, so I figured I should indulge them :)

Thank you, I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it! In an ideal world I'd love to go into more detail on the religion but, alas, during jam time there's only so much that can be done!

I really liked the core concept here - making a mistake as a kid, having something bad happen as a result, and that mistake coming back to haunt you as an adult. I liked that other than dealing with the obvious threat, this was also about Brooklyn learning to forgive themselves and move on; I also liked that the ghost ending was portrayed as more bittersweet than bad.

It is a bit of a pity that there weren't any sound effects or music tracks, because they could have really enhanced the experience. I was also a bit disappointed that a lot of the choices didn't seem to make much difference to the story - one or two different lines, and then the story continued on. But I get that it's a jam game and you only have so much time to work on it.

I did have a good time with it overall though, and I really liked what you did with the visuals and how they were often more symbolic or metaphorical of what was happening! Thanks for working on this, and good luck with the jam overall!

Absolutely loved the art style of this; it really contributed to the surreal feeling of the story and the tone of the game. I wasn't expecting to see a noir-style story for the jam but it was a cool idea and should definitely stand out! The opening scene felt nice and mysterious, and the line revealing that it's your bed was a really nice twist to end it on.

A few of the lines here and there did have a missing word or two (e.g. "you were close to deceased, correct?"), and it would have been nice to have an indicator that the current line is finished - a few times it took me a few moments to realise that it was done. Checking the history (or the displayed dialogue) also didn't show what we'd said when we asked questions, so when I wanted to double-check something it meant that I couldn't see what a character was responding to.

Overall though, this was a cool game, and I had a good time with it! In particular, I really liked the way that everybody referred to the victim by a different name; while an explanation was given in-story, I think that I almost would have preferred it if we didn't have that explanation - it would have added to the surreal feeling and also made it feel as though the characters didn't know her as well as they thought they did. The way that their responses flow into one another during the interrogation(s) was really well done, too. Thanks for making this!

Man, you really knocked this out of the park! The main menu did a great job of setting the tone for the story before I even started playing it, and opening it up with the choice for whether or not to do such simple tasks felt very ominous. I loved the overall art style - how exactly did you create the sort of...I don't know how to describe it, the crinkly effect (?) with the colours?

I really liked that this didn't just stay a story about emotional neglect - that towards the end the eyeball, and especially the mirror-shard-monster, made it feel more eldritch and scary (banger designs on them, too). I'm looking forwards to seeing where it goes - whether the girl is okay with whatever happens next, or whether her limits will be met. Also, am I right in guessing that the girl's hair is so long because her mother never takes her to get it cut?

The only real complaint that I have is that some of the GUI and UI elements don't blend well with the rest of the art style, but when you're jamming, you just don't always have time to do everything that you want. 

Great story overall, and I'm really glad to have played it. Fantastic job; best of luck with it all!

Thank you so much, I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it! 

I really liked the premise of this, and I'm glad that right from the start, it explicitly described Death dying as being a bad thing. There's something nice and ironic about people not being able to die, but society dying a result of this. The tone was nice and melancholic, and the Bartender's story explored this new world in an enticing way that still left a lot to the imagination, and ripe for further exploration. 

Of the two stories, I definitely preferred the Bartender's. The ending which I got had him no longer being alone, and I love the way that it reflected the text used for the previous time skips. It did feel as though the idea of him feeling alone sort of came out of nowhere towards the end, but in retrospect I can see how it fits his characterisation. His story was enjoyable nevertheless (and I'd love to know whether the soldier gets better or not).

The Marauder I was a bit less keen on - there's a lot of mystery around who he is and what he wants, and I didn't feel like I really empathised with him as much as I did the Bartender. Thinking about it, I guess that it's his quest is less relatable - the Bartender's just getting by and doing what he can, whereas the Marauder wanting to kill Life isn't really something attainable in real life.  That being said, I feel like he was a bit more engaging in the Bartender's story, for what it's worth.

Overall though, I still felt like you did a good job of committing to the concept, and of exploring both the ramifications of Death dying and of the mindset of the characters that would inhabit such a world, without making things too depressing or dark. Great job!

Thanks for taking the time to play the game! Glad to hear that the UI and text feels polished because a lot of the time I'm just working off vibes and I can never tell whether what works for me will work for other people.

I do agree with you that the different locations are a bit repetitive; the intention was to do a bit of worldbuilding and expanding on how things in The Church work, so I can see that if you're not that interested in that side of things it can drag a bit. I do feel like each of them has its purpose, but I'd definitely make each location a bit more punchy if I wasn't restricted by the time limit of the jam.

Regarding the CGs,we might be using different terminology here because there are three of them - one when you're in the hospital, and then one for each ending. They're viewable in a gallery from the main menu after you've unlocked at least one of them. Minus some feedback from friends and some tips from a friend regarding the GUI, this is entirely a solo project, so doing a different style for the CGs wouldn't have been super easy for my drawing skills, haha.

I'll happily take a look at your game once I've got the time, no prob!

Thank you for taking the time to play the game! The church punishing you and gaslighting you into genuinely believing that you were a problem was a large part of the genesis for the concept, so I'm glad to hear that it worked for you!

This had a nice, melancholy tone, and I quite liked that it was a story about healing and moving on from pain (at least, the ending that I got was - I have a feeling that there are some endings where you just die!) The illustrations were also very good, and I loved the poem that Safire wrote.

It did feel like the start was a little bumpy - I felt a bit cheated by the opening turning out to be a dream, and throwing in a truck-kun joke gave me a bit of tonal whiplash in contrast with the otherwise gloomy mood of the opening. I might be missing something  that was set up here, but I wonder how the game might have flowed if it had opened with the protagonist arriving at the manor, and the details were filled in later? I was also taken a bit by surprise when they casually revealed that they knew that Safire was a vampire, as well as the later references to monsters being known by the general public.

All that being said though, I'm glad that I played the entirety of this and felt that there was some really personal writing going on in it. I'd happily play a longer game set in the same universe, or even a longer version of this game, going into more details on the characters' backstories and personalities. I was also genuinely taken by surprise when Safire got together with the protagonist, only to leave the next day - it felt very bittersweet, and it was execute well. Thanks for making the game!

Hi! If you're still interested in looking for games to stream, I'd appreciate it if you checked out my game, Creating Paradise. If not, then no problem!

https://itch.io/jam/spooktober-2025/rate/3893113

Thank you so much for the positive feedback! I wasn't 100% certain that all of the information wheedled out by Ben would flow well or be interesting, but I'm glad to hear that it wasn't the case!

Thanks for letting me know about the third ending - I gave it a shot and it was a nice...not exactly middle ground, but difference to the other endings. I particularly liked that a few different lines changed, like mentioning that Sarah was reluctantly following us around the mansion.

Good luck with  your next project(s), and once again congratulations on what you've made here - it's great work and definitely something to be proud of!

Having gone into this fairly blind, I was pleasantly surprised by this one! By the time Sarah and Vanessa were leaving the school I was pretty invested in their relationship, and I think that you did a good job at giving them distinct personalities that weren't too exaggerated or over-the-top. I was also pretty keen to test out what would happen if the relationship reached either the highest or lowest points, and I liked that it was fairly obvious which choice would lead to which change in the relationship.

Unfortunately, this means that I was a little disappointed when I did my second playthrough and realised that it was only the final choice that affected the ending, although I understand that this is probably due to not wanting to introduce scope creep during the span of the jam. The art assets also clashed a bit with the style of the sprites - that being said, they contributed wonderfully to creating the atmosphere of a spooky, gloomy mansion.

Otherwise, it was a great read! I was also really pleased when I got my first ending and the duo were able to make it out without issue, and the explanation of what happened to them afterwards was very heartwarming. You've done a good job with this; great work!

I really liked this! The art and music were both really cool, and I liked how retro it made the game feel! Both had a high level of quality. I also really liked the codex entries, and it was cool to learn about some traditions and concepts that I was only vaguely aware of!

I did notice a few errors which I'm guessing probably weren't caught before the deadline. If you want to fix them up, they are:

• I'm unsure whether it was a debugging thing or whether it was part of some mechanic that I didn't pick up on, but the hotpot ingredients all had numbers (or "N/A") over them after I put them into the hotpot
• The line "(Honestly the cutlery and stuff here is all pretty mismatched for restaurant standards.)" shows Yuan Le with a normal sprite (i.e. not as a jiangshi)
• Questioning Hei Ze in the kitchen had no exit option from what I could tell; I had to load an earlier save and not talk to her
• The line "I guess it's still March, 10pm - Yeah! Hotpot Kitchen" has Yuan Le's side portrait covering the text

The ending of the story also felt a little rushed, which I'm guessing was also due to getting everything done before the deadline.

Overall though, I did enjoy the game, and it was a great experience! Jiangshi are something that I only know a little bit of information about, and the idea of them being imprisoned in a restaurant is a great concept that absolutely feels like it would happen if they were real. Thanks for making this, it was well worth playing!

You know, I've never actually considered your idea of keeping choices up after selecting them to emphasise them, but now that you mention it...yeah, that's actually a really good idea. (Though I'll definitely be going with option #1 of the suggestions you've made - the others sound a bit intimidating for me!)

Thanks for the kind words - I've passed them on to him!

Thank you, it's really appreciated!

That was a really good message, and using stream messages was a really clever presentation of the story. I really liked this!

Forcing us to eat w*ffles for the good ending is cruelty to cereal enthusiasts! I demand a refund!