itch.io

This is the first time, I’m making a negative comment / review on somebody else’s project, but I feel like I have to say something after watching this shit show transpire over this past week.

Before I elaborate, a little disclaimer: This is solely against the team leader and creator of this project: Jenny Vi Pham and not directed at any of the team members. For what they were given, the artists and composer did a great job.

This is solely directed at Jenny and I hope she takes to heart what I’m saying, at least tries to reflect and show some form of compassion and understanding.

1) Suicide & character death as a form to emotionally manipulate the player.

I’m starting with my most important and the heaviest topic from the beginning, since - frankly speaking - as a writer myself and someone affected by suicide (personally and through the loss of people close to me) I am disgusted.

The execution of the murder & suicide scenes were absolutely out of place and insensitive, suicide especially is such a sensitive topic and with how the narrative portrayed it, there was no build up to it or the cat “being the main villain”.

But what was worse was: After I reached the (DDLC copycat of a) suicide ending, the cat ending played.

In this ending the cat (loosely introduced in the beginning) reveals themselves as some supernatural / spiritual being - telling the player that they are “powerless in this world” but not “powerless in that world (reality)” and that they can bring him back to life by leaving 5.000 rates on the itchio page.

This (to me and with the hanging ending I got right before this played ) suggests “Oh you can save him from killing himself by leaving 5.000 ratings on the itch page” - which is undisputedly DISGUSTING.

And since the  majority of the fans seem to be minors - proven by the people in the fanserver as well as the comments left on here - of course they would want him back!

2) No age restriction

Moving on right to the next topic: Minors - This (and I can’t believe I have to say this) IS NOT A GAME FOR MINORS. Despite this game being so graphic (especially visually, depicted by the hanging) there is NO age restriction either on this site, nor a disclaimer on the page or within the game. (At least when I played it.)

THIS IS NOT A GAME FOR MINORS.

This is actively going against itch’s terms of service.

3) Support and encouragement in the creation of alt accounts

Jenny has encouraged her fans multiple times over the course of the “full release” to make alt accounts and rating the game.

She has additionally been holding the death of Zilas over her fans’ heads, shown by clips from her VODs as well as the numerous tweets she made about it.

This just more and more feeds into the exploitation of her fans’ emotions and strong will to reach the good ending.

Some examples:

"[holding food into the camera] something Zilas will never ever be able to enjoy again unless it hits 5k"

"watch me make a video with me like 'How I killed my character and became popular out of it'

"If you guys actually make alt accounts, if you really love Zilas that much, I will give you Zilas"

"See, that's a possibility of him coming back to life; so, if you just work hard, you can bring him back to life"

She also tweeted a daily rate counter, showing how many “souls” have to be taken to revive Zilas.

4) Not the first time 

This is not the first time Jenny being criticised for her lack of care when it comes to the insensitive dealings with topics such as suicide.

Within her Otome Jam 2023 entry “Innerlog” she carelessly dealt with the topic of suicide and carelessly mocked it throughout the narrative.

People tried to comment on it, trying to voice their concerns but she blocked any form of criticism. 

5) No accountability 

It’s clearly visible that Jenny has not learned from criticism and has been actively deflecting from criticism she got for her coverage on Going Live.

I feel sorry for the team who has to deal with all this now and I pity all the fans being emotionally manipulated like this and actively feeding into this desire for attention and popularity this creator clearly does not deserve.

Actually she should be glad that with these many ToS violations that this project wasn’t taken off of itch yet - or her entire account at that.

Couldn't have worded it better tbh.

#Non-Spoiler Section

I just finished playing MindMindMind and maaan, Chatter, you are such an inspiration! All the hard work you put into this project is just astounding; the amazing and sheer amount of artwork, the writing, multiple endings, choices AND the GUI - mmmhh-hm!
Top-Notch, 10/10, legendary.

To get all of this done within the limited timeframe of a month?! In this quality?! It's no wonder why this project is getting its deserved attention and feedback!

I'm so proud of you! Thank you so much for delivering this masterpiece and making it for us! ♥️

#Spoiler Section

To get the most important question out of the way: I'm #TeamGeist ALL THE WAY. - I love my men toxic and unbearably insufferable (Teehee, yes I'm down bad.)

ANYWAYS, back to the story; I really love and appreciate the writing and especially the topic: social anxiety and mental illnesses. The dealing of topics, personifying the negative thoughts that come with social anxiety and various mental illnesses; the personification in form of Geist, clinging to us like a desperate lover, stalking narcissist, who thinks he knows what's best for you, whispering your worst fears in your ears (teehee, stop Geist, that tickles uwu).

And then the introduction of Kalei, the soft sweetheart, who grounds you and helps you getting out of your shell, showing you a world beyond what Geist tries to picture for you.

I especially love the ending in Kalei's rout (he has two btw - didn't know that until Butter pointed that out to me; WHERE ARE GEIST'S TWO ENDINGS, HUH CHATTER?!?!? I WON'T STAND FOR THIS INJUSTICE!) because it isn't like "Oh Geist and with him all my negative thoughts disappeared; happily ever after." but a realistic portrayal that he still lingers around, still trying to seduce you with his fear inducing whispers, trying to drag you into your past patterns - that it just isn't as bad anymore. I really love this depiction of such a realistic character portrayal and development.

All in all, thank you so so much for bringing this amazing experience to us and especially thank you for bringing Geist to me. He is very delicious indeed.

Please don't hesitate to ask us any questions about this jam!

Okey! Gotcha! I will do that then! ♥️
(Making a new UI similar to the previous one.) 

Thank you so much for your quick answers!

Ah, I see. 

Well, that's troubling... Since this means I would have to make an entirely new UI. I really, really don't want to use some basic place holder just to update in the end and have people play with a low quality UI first. I would like to present a "finished produkt" at the end of the Jam after all... 

(More work for me.. yaaay. Crunch, here I come.)

Would it be alright if the UI is similar to the one I made for the Winter VN Jam entry, to at least have consistency within the UI as well as to have less more work?

Hello! 💛

I have a question regards of the usage of assets:

For NaNoRenO I’m planning on creating another side story of my passion project “Under The False Sky” - for that I would like to reuse the same UI throughout the entire series. (For consistency etc.)

The assets aren’t really “publicly available” to use, but  they weren't made specifically for the NaNoRenO entry either.’

Would I still be allowed to use them?

Here is the link to the mentioned side story, where the UI already appears in: 

https://elduator.itch.io/utfs-bloodcovered-snow

(If I were to make alterations of the UI or adjustments I would of course do it within the time frame of the jam.)

I hope I conveyed what I meant appropriately.

Best regards,

Ann

Thank you so much for your kind words, Jax!

And also thank you so much for being part of this project and helping me out with managing the team - as team management isn't my strongest skillset, you made the month of December worthwhile and an amazing dev experience!

I'm so glad that we managed to produce such a good product and the memories we've made during development!

Thank you so much, Dana! ♥️

Our voice director (Branden Loera) and audio engineer (Eric Sheffield) (as well as the voice actors and all other team members of course!) put so much effort into this project - so I'm glad to see that though the story genre might not be your cup of tea, it was still a great experience for you!

Thank you so much for enjoying UTFS | Blood:Covered Snow, ebi!

This was my first time completely coding / scripting a Visual Novel, so I'm glad to see I did the project and team justice! ♥️

Everyone has worked so hard on this which I why it makes me happy to see that their hard work seems to have paid off! ✨

It wasn't public yet due to issues with uploading the files! But it is up now, thank you so much for your patience! ♥️

You are such a mad lad. Istg.

I just finished playing this entry and - oh my god - where should I begin?

This was absolutely beautiful!

From the (hot) character art of Nico (he was blinking, that was so cool), to the wonderfully drawn background art (with the duck as easteregg, hahaha!).

The UI was ABSOLUTELY STUNNING - and such an inspiration! It was so well made & had me click around and on different stuff! I really loved the "now playing" in the title screen and the little profile pictures. This is such an attention to detail!! 

The writing and voice acting of Jax was so well done! It had me fooled a few times, thinking Nico was talking to me for real! Not going into the story too much but I don't trust the parents NOR Nico 😂 - though my (thirsty) heart might tell you otherwise!

Thank you so much for making this game and for everybody's hard work on it! You work is so greatly appreciated and I really wish for it to have a continuation! :( 💛

Ahhh! Thank you so so much for your nice words, ebi! They are very appreciated by everyone in the team! 💛

Yes, we put a lot of thought into YnK's UI and how to design it. I'm really glad you liked it! 🥀

Everybody in the team worked hard to get this demo out in time and everybody should be really proud of the work they've done (especially with that truly tight schedule in mind)! I couldn't be prouder as a creative lead! ☺️

I'm also relieved to hear that the MC and our little H.S.-boys (Haru Sano, Hiro Sasaki haha) caught your attention! We deliberately made the MC more vulgar and sassy to stray away from the "innocent Otome heroine" stereotype. - And in regards to how Hiro develops in his route... you'll just have to wait and find out when the full game is released! ; )

I just finished playing Cage Heart and OH MAN - this demo left me feeling things! A lot of things!

(Most of the time I was giggling and rolling around in my bed .)

First of all: The story and the writing style is so intriguing! The way every love interest was introduced and the mystery which follows the heroine, the town and every love interest piqued my interest and I really want to find more out - not gonna lie, Clark's kinda sus.

The character and CG art is amazing! I really like the art style. But the thing that really captivated me the most in regards to art direction is the UI - cause man this is some sick and sleek UI design! (As a fellow UI artist, this really really inspires me!) I really loved interacting with the menu and the different buttons, seeing the different animations.

Now to the voice acting - maaaan - this is some dedication. The quality of the voice acting was extremely good and authentic! (Even the moaning, like geez! I had to cover my mouth from all the giggling.) The choice for VAs was extremely well done! They fit so well to the characters!

In regards to love interests, I like all the characters extremely (which rarely is the case for me)! But I must say, Dane has a special place in my heart - I don't know but submissive men do something deep inside of me. Haha!

All in all this was an extremely good VN and definitely one of my highlights from this Otome Jam! I can't wait for the full release to play each route and get to know of each Love Interest's little secret!

Man, Olivia. How dare you make such a good demo and end it just like this? 😭
The writing was so well done! So smooth, easy to read and yet descriptive and immersive! I appreciated the teasing and sarcastic dynamic of the MC and Alvarez and how he slowly "opened up" to her a little more!

The way you incorporated the soundtracks and the character sprite direction was also amazingly executed! It made everything come to life and made you feel like you were directly involved!

And the voice acting... omg. Especially at the last scenes, I couldn't contain myself. I was giggling like a teenager, rolling around and hiding my face. 👉🏻👈🏻 He is such a good fit for Alvarez!

About the story itself: So many questions were thrown in the room, what's the organisation, why are they looking for her and what's Alvarez' role in all of it? I can't wait to get to know all of it!

You left me craving more for this story and for Alvarez! I can't wait for the full visual novel! 🥹🫶🏻

Hahaha, thank you for playing the demo and liking the premise and characters! - I can't wait to show more stuff of the project in the future! 💛

And yes, Jiyuu is such a loveable and totally normal cat!

Thank you so much for checking Yominokuni's demo out, Flori! 💛

I'm really happy you enjoyed playing through the game and liked the setting and the glossary!! 

And yes, Rei is a ray (haha) of sunshine! Always there to keep the team together and making sure everyone feels happy and comfortable. - Such a sweetheart!

I can't wait to show updates of the project in the future!

I'm glad to hear you've liked the game so far - and I apologize you weren't able to delve into any of the routes. Since they are still in production, we decided to only show the Prologue and Chapter 0 to introduce the player to the world of Yominokuni. 💛

I hope you'll be looking forward to future updates of the game! 🥀

Ahhh! Thank you so so much for giving Yominokuni a chance and liking it ! 🥀

I'm relieved to hear you find interest in the world building and story of Yominokuni! 💛

Yes, we wanted to make the heroine a bit different from "classical" otome games, a bit more vulgar and straight to the point and wanted to give her a few flaws, which make her stand out more.
As for Haru... yes, he has a few secrets he wants to keep hidden - but will the heroine be able to reveal them?  👀

I hope you are looking forward to future updates and again thank you so much for playing Yominokuni's demo!

Thank you so much for playing this game and for being part of the dev-journey! 💛

Thanks to you and the amazing ideas you've brought into the project, it truly became what it's supposed to be! - As well as your writing! (You know it already, but I'm really in love with your writing.) The scenes you've wrote for the demo were phenomenal! 

I'm so happy you liked the investigation sequence and bad end! As well as the whole playing experience! I'm really excited for the future of this project!🥀

Thank you so much! Ahh! I'm really glad you like the demo! 😭💛

I have so many things to say and I have so many feelings after finishing the demo! I don't know where to begin.

First of all: I knew your writing is absolutely amazing, but you really outdid yourself with this demo! The writing is superb and you are able to feel the emotions from the very beginning! 💛

The character sprites with their various emotions, the soundtracks, effects and different BGs is making the demo even better and are implemented really really well to strengthen the emotions conveyed through the writing!  

It's also amazing you created all of this with the limited time and by yourself / as a solo dev while still working as a writer on another game jam entry!

(Spoilers)
As for the story itself: This was a great prelude to the full story, we got a great introduction to Danielle and her struggles and trauma from losing her parents without being able to reconcile and how her "normal" life suddenly flips upside down - everything she might have known was actually shrouded in mystery! 

I really like the distinctive character designs and how each character is different / recognisable from one another; through their appearance and personality!
I think Antonio, Renzo and Angelo are my favourite! (in that order) I just really love Antonio's maturity and seemingly cold-hearted matter-of-factness, Renzo being the polar opposite, being humorous and caring (by giving her the present to cheer her up) while Angelo is much more of a brute trying to prove himself different from his family and to restore his honor!

Angelo's and Ren's "fighting" scene was hilarious! 😭

I think their routes might be really really interesting with the story beats you've set up in the demo!

(You can guess who I chose at the end 😌)

(I can understand why everyone likes Luca tho - his nice and caring attitude towards Danielle is really intriguing, though I can't trust it just yet!)

Thank you so much for creating DOAS and showing this to us! I can't wait to see future updates of the project and play the full game one day! 

What else can I say than this was such a beautiful read!

First: I absolutely love the "I got isekaied into the last novel or manwha I've read" trope. I eat that shit up and will never ever get tired of it!

Everything from the various artwork, to the writing and music blended in so well together!

The voice acting really fits well for the major characters! - I also enjoyed how the partial voice acting has been implemented! It's not too sudden or unexpected but really soft and balanced!

Especially the character designs from the writing and the sprite art itself are phenomenal!
Cenric is such a cutie and I will defend him until I die! What I would give to taste one of his meals! - But tbh. I don't know who I like more: Cenric or Lewis! I have a thing for golden retriever boys and for cold, reserved men ahhhh.

Thank you so much for this demo and I look forward to future updates on this project and the full result! (And I'm really looking forward to that engagement party!)

P.S.

I wanted to die by a truck.

This line had me weak!

Thank you so much for playing Yominokuni's demo and enjoying it! 🥀
I am glad, we were able to uphold the feeling you've had about this project and its story when proofreading!🙏🏻

Again! Thank you so much for taking your time proofreading the script and having you on the team! It really means a lot and is deeply appreciated! 💛

Every team member worked so hard on it and I couldn't have done it without them! To ever see this story and its world, I've started to work on last year in August, come to life  feels so surreal and I am looking forward to the future of this project!

And especially thank you for checking out the glossary! (I really put a lot of work - especially caffeine - into it, haha!)

P.S. Of course I had to feature your Otome Jam entry! 🫶🏻

Thank you so much!! 💛 I will take your advises to good use 💛💛

Hiya! Thank you so much for taking your time playing "Fated Night", enjoying it and leaving a review! It really means a lot! 💛

About the story.. the word-count restriction really.. restricted me, haha. I wanted to go into way more detail and wanted to add a game play mechanic to it, but in the end it would have overshot the scope of the jam. ;;

But maybe in the near future, there will be more of Noah and [Ashe] and maybe your questions might get answers! ☺️ (And maybe Matt will have is debut :D)

Maybe Norah really is Ashe from the future, who knows! (Very unlikely but I don't want to destroy your head canon - for now xD)

I‘m sorry to hear that my entry might not have been your cup of tea.

In regards to the options screen: I opted out to include in in the title because I thought this was going to be a short play-through and added it to the quick menu of the textbox. But I will keep this in mind for future projects!

Regardless, thank you so much for giving „Fated Night“ a chance and liking the artwork! 💛

I'm writing this review with burning eyes. I felt so much compassion and happiness while playing this cute little Visual Novel.

It evoke so many emotions in me: happiness, anger, sadness, relief and joy. From the immersive  writing style to the music which complemented the story so much!

Even with the limit of just one CG you were able to make so much of it through camera effects and usage of the different emotion variations.

I am not asexual myself but it really helped getting better perspective of the struggles and life an asexual person might have! It makes me angry to see that people struggle just because they might have less - no interest in (sexual) intimacy and that they get treated "something inhumane". But it also made me very happy to see that he found somebody that makes him happy and accepts him for who he is and how he feels!

Thank you so much of sharing this glimpse of the life of Seo-jun and Iris with us! 💜

(Also: I really appreciated the video game references at the end haha!)

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed this little Visual Novel! 💛

That's great to hear, that you were able to fix it! 💛

Thank you so much! I‘m really happy that you like Norah so much!! 💛

I’m already working on another project so I hope you’ll look forward to it in the future! 💛

Oh lord, carrot! 😭 This is such a sweet and detailed review!! Thank you so much for your nice words!! 

I’m so glad you like the artwork and Norah‘s little story! 💛 And yes the story was originally supposed to be bigger (cause I always think way too big but the limit kinda restricted me 😭) - so there probably will be a future VN with Norah in it again! 👀

And yes Onyx Volcan (Norah‘s voice actress) did such an amazing job voicing her! 💛

Ahh, ebi! Thank you so so much!! 💛 I‘m really happy you liked it! 💛

Ahhh thank you so much!! I’m really excited to see that you liked my O2A2 entry! 💛 Yes, it was a bit short and I usually write way longer stories (a big one is currently in the process).

And I hope you’ll like my future projects as well! 🥰

Hello! Thank you for your message! That’s strange, because the web version seems to be playable for me and a few other people.. Was there a title screen and text visible? Where you able to see the name selection screen and the centered message box with black background?  If you were, that’s the introduction and after that there should be visuals appearing. (The introduction is a bit longer.) If nothing is appearing at all / no title screen etc. it might have to do with your brpwser, maybe reload the page.

I just played it and it's an absolute masterpiece! 

The combination of the art, music and writing with this talented voice acting is just amazing! - I'm really in awe with the writing, how the "camera" was used and the play with layers and dimensions!
This was so clever put together!

Thank you so much for making this!

{This review contains SPOILERS}

Story:
I really like the dynamic between Noah and Mikage, seeing how they were in the past / as students and how their relationship had developed over the years. - Seeing how both struggle to understand what they feel for each other and how they overcome what's making them struggle to pursue those feelings.
For Noah it's his strange (I'd say abusive) relationship towards his father, trying to please him by going into a loveless marriage by sacrificing his own wishes.
And for Mikage wanting to see Noah happy with the decisions he makes himself.
I really appreciate how ebi conveys these feelings to the reader and how she shows the revelation these two characters have.

Art:
Saitoki's very cute art style really fits to the setting, the story and the characters; how each character sprite and CG is drawn really adds to the story told by ebi!

Programming:
Ebi did a beautiful job implementing the art assets, writing, music and effects into this Visual Novel - adding much more depth tho this kinetic vn!

Thank you for making this beautiful short Visual Novel and introducing Noah and Mikage and their story to us!

I just finished playing through the game and it was such an enjoyable experience!

The whole atmosphere you created through the visuals, the soundtrack and the writing is so immersing! I really, really love your writing style and the way you told this story in this VN in particular! 

Thank you so much, ebi!

{Spoiler-ish}

Especially the twist at the end of the game was out of this world! - I couldn't restrain myself from gasping and screaming at the monitor!