Spirits of Combination Village

by Michelle Rakar

Hey there Michelle, thanks for submitting a project to the 2022 IGMC. I was asked to judge your game in round three of the IGMC 2022 game jam. Here's some feedback about your project.

Nice cartoony art and chill track on the title screen. I like the font used too.

I really like how you color coded the show text for each character. It helps in tandem with the character name plate to keep straight whose talking.

Sometimes the music skips when selecting a location to go to.

I like your menu layouts. They look customized and very slick.

It's cool that you have a relationship meter in the menu to let you know where you stand with everyone. It would be cool if we had this in real life wouldn't it?

Some of the backgrounds are so filtered and blurry that I can't even tell what I'm looking at. For example the burger joint is just a mess of scribbles.

Where do I even begin... Some of these choices are really none-choices when you think about it. Do I let my 6 year old cousin play in the forest all by herself so I can hang out at the mall with my friends? Obviously you have to pick Pamchan and get her home safely everyday.

Some of the choices that you're given are really strange and their outcomes even more strange. Like I visit a candy shop and then boom! I'm dead! Now I'm a spirit entering the minds of my loved ones to guide them through puzzles? Telling Pamchan that you're a spirit entering her mind and that you're watching her is supposed to set her at ease? No no no, this would be traumatic and she would therapy.

The dialog was well written up until the point of death then it just went downhill and made no sense. I understand that this is a video game and I'm willing to suspend my disbelief, but I feel like it's a bit too farfetched and that you could have done a better job by reeling it in a little bit.

I realize that because of the nature of this game there are several endings and entire routes of dialog that I'll probably never read. You should keep in mind that the amount of work that it takes to successfully have multiple endings in a game is something that is often underestimated.

While I do understand that you were on a deadline to finish this project I have to say that it does really show in the writing towards the end. It feels very rushed and scattered.

I do think that you have something interesting and I hope that you don't take this as a negative review. I think that this game starts off very strong and if you were given enough time you could really bring it together and polish some of the problem areas like the writing and mechanics. (For example the 'point and click' mechanics felt very clunky. )

Keep up the good work and congratulations on making it to round three of the IGMC 2022. I look forward to seeing what you work on next.

-Drifty

It's not my type of game, but it indeed manages to bring up my attention! And I choose to be with Pamcham every time I could! haha! Really interesting story!

That Dream thing with pamcham kinda reminded me of a lot of things in my past. It was really nice to play!

That type of art also drew a lot of my attention. It's nice to see something different from Anime style! Good luck to you!

Very well designed visuals. Love the original character art and the filter on the backgrounds was creative.

The HUDS for character relationships and location choice were all so clean and smooth. It's all presented impeccably.

What I struggled with was the visual novel genre, it just isn't my thing. I also felt like the text didn't really make much of an impact on me. It seemed like a lot of small talk and the characters felt a bit lacking in personality. Also some choices lead to very short and uneventful single text boxes.

Personally I would have liked to have seen a more targeted focus on the really cool lore concept of combining with the person you're closest with in the afterlife. It took a while to pop up and then faded away again (I wasn't able to finish the game due to a large backlog of games to get through).

However, it's an impressive entry in many ways. Well done!

Absolutely beautiful art to go with an incredibly well-written and powerful story.  Amazing work and good luck with IGMC!

It was not at all okay to make me cry like that! Really good game, important message and well written characters.

Loved this game. Great characters, dialogue, and choices. Highly recommend!

Great narrative adventure game with great dialogue and art! 

I cannot launch the game on MacOS

I'm in love with the artwork forever, and I can't remember one of the creators work that wasn't worth playing. Lot of thoughtful dialogues and a good humor.

I was very lucky to be a Beta Tester on this project. The amount of effort and heart that Michelle put into this story blew me away by the time I reached the ending scenes. Great work!!