Heavy topic game with really cool art style!

I was a bit overpowered with my cards, but you mentioned in your replies that you didn't have time to finish implementing the mechanics.

On my first run, I got a bad ending, but I replayed it to get all the endings! :-)

Love the art style. Its a very polished game, geven the time it took you thats a tremendous achievement. The theme is not incorperated in a too obvious way wich is great, but the storm part feels lacking, its more of an conclusion. Or perhaps I missed something? All in all this is very good work, and that comes from someone that is not usually into story driven games.

The american gothic nod was fine, but I don't really like the fact that the portraits are of the chad thing and hatsune miku or some anime girl. Like, the tone is obviously supposed to be serious, having it juxtaposed with these internet references is very immature.

Ok, but the game isn't that bad though. It's an interesting form of interactive storytelling, having the player pick one of four cards. Definitely gets points for innovation, but it's not perfect. The biggest problem is that it never really seemed like the responses really matched the cards. You'd think that responding with "emotion" would have George saying things with big exclamation marks, getting things off his chest, but instead he's always level headed. "Rational" seemed more like a giving up option. I think in the ideal version of this game, the card you choose really matters and the player constantly wants to pick a certain card but can't.

That balancing act is quite broken right now because there's no way for stats to go down, only up. So when all your stats are at around 10, you basically can choose any card you want. I think an interesting idea would be for different stats to go up or down based on what's happening to the character. Say, his parents are demeaning him. It makes sense for that to decrease his willpower.

And the ending and writing in general definitely need work. It's a ten minute jam game, so I know that's harsh to say. I guess ideally you'd be able to flesh out just one part of his life, instead of having a bunch of different characters. Say every scene is just George and his parents with like a month passing in between scenes. Something like that.

All that said, not many jam games warrant a comment this big, so I can at least commend you were really trying to do something different. Also, the art work (other than portraits) was really good, very stylish and fitting.

All the other kids,
with their pumped up decks,
took me into the city,
to see Balatro play.

There’s a veeeeery thin thread thread between abstraction and concreteness. One treads on the verge of being misunderstood, the other in being blatant. Dancing between these is like flipping a coin and land it on its side.

I have a huuuuuge soft spot for anything that show opposites being contrasted, side by side, at whatever level of abstraction or concreteness it’s on. I didn’t know what I was doing with the cards until I burned through my stack, stuck between an irate dad and annoying Chad.

Probably not a spoiler, but that end slipped me through the tragedy of stormy upbringings. I hope that chamber was dry empty, because beneath that facade of sweet, sweet artwork; you know stuff was going on.

You played me like a fiddle. Nice artwork. Confusing, yet interesting artwork intertwined with a story that treads very closely between edgy and introspective. Audio that was well mixed and balanced. You all walked the fine thread and down came something outta left field. This is the stuff I like.

You guys really have a great art style in that game!
Sadly the card mechanics didn't really work out for me... I guess? At least it was hard to understand and if I got it not really my cup of tea. Talking about tea! The story and topic was also not my cup of tea, a very complicated topic which will certainly evoke mixed feelings in many of your players.

I have very mixed feelings about this game. Phenomenal artwork by the artist, who seemingly ran out of talent while writing.

Well that was dark! xD I don't know if there's a good ending, but my ending got the song back in my head... "All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, outrun my gun" The visual style is really cool. The story is interesting if depressing. I liked how the game mechanics tied into the story, and the music was fitting.

The art is really good. I'm looking forward to the publishing

Such amazing art style! Awesome!

Hee-ho. Cool game. Interesting gameplay

A very beautiful game with an interesting idea, although I didn’t quite understand the mechanics of the cards (but if it’s improved it will be absolutely great)

Cool concept, love the visual style. Shame the card mechanic wasn't implemented fully would have been interesting to see it's impact on the story.

Damn, that was some intense dialogue. I thought it was excellently written. And the art direction was great, too.

The gameplay felt unimportant or rather just like extra clicks while getting through the story.  

Art is fantastic. Music is great. The twist in the story was shocking as well. Everything except the actual gameplay was really good. The gameplay however, especially the card system was just straight broken. A really nice visual novel though! I can't believe you guys made something that looks this good in such a short amount of time.

Art for the game is great, not sure I wholly get the 'game' part of this game, because it seems you can just endlessly play cards?

Unfortunately I can't play, the browser version has some weird scaling issues and I can't see anything. I'm on firefox with a 3440x1440 display.

What a game, incredible art with a super dramatic endings.
I really liked the concept of a character struggling with their inner demons and their situation, I half wonder if there's a meaning to using all of your cards in the same turn or saving them for a different turn

Very interesting interpretation of the theme too!! Great work.