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A jam submission

Witch and RavenView game page

Entry for the Level Up Circle: Beginner Jam #1
Submitted by Studio Blue Kiss (@studiobluekiss) — 31 minutes, 15 seconds before the deadline
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Witch and Raven's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Community Spirit#34.2784.278
Overall#114.0834.083
Originality#154.2784.278
Fun#203.8893.889
Use Of Theme#373.8893.889

Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Team or Solo
Solo

Credit:
Font: https://welina.xyz/font/tegaki/
Music: https://maou.audio

Did you follow the theme?
Yes

Did you (you or your team) do the graphisms yourself?
I made all graphics by myself

Did you (you or your team) do the musics and sounds yourself?
No

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

very well done story for a week long jam. The art was really well made as well didn't notice any bugs or errors well playing so nothing to report on that front.  

Submitted(+1)

i really liked this game! the little raven was such a funny guy.. id love to see more from these two! i wonder what would be a nice ending for the witch. maybe the two of them could go around wreaking havoc against shitty customers, hehe.

Submitted(+1)

This game was outstanding XD, I love both the witch and raven as adorable characters.  The game hit me the most when you had to give up the witches' important items(I had to give up the crystals which made me heart broken). Although I finished playing the game, I truly missed all the characters already X]

Submitted(+1)

Really impressive job on the visual department of your game. Definitely makes it stand out from the rest. The story was good as well, with the two character dynamic and a nice message. Didn't get stuck anywhere, which is good, as it is always a risk with this type of game. If I had to suggest anything at all, it'd be feedback to the player. Could add a counter in a corner saying what temperature the current items sum to, or something. Overall, very nice effort!

Developer(+1)

Thanks, the feedback is appreciated and a counter will be added once my game gets unlocked after voting ends! Glad you liked it!

Submitted(+1)

Wow, you really didn't make it easy on yourself to put together a VN in 9 days! It's kinda refreshing to see one in there, as a VN fan. I wish to say the bad before the good: the font really didn't help me to have a good experience, there isn't a lot of text still as it's a short one, but the shadowy-outline thing put me off sometimes, I do have bad eyesight but I think the reading would have been easier.

The text boxes are really simple, nothing too crazy but they do their jobs. And finally, the idea of mixing ingredients to get to a certain temperature, as it is, doesn't strike as much fun as it could I think at least. Don't get me wrong, I love me some good math, it's just that with the interface as it is not marking which ingredients was taken or giving much info whatsoever, having to remember what you already put in the cauldron, and that at the end it's a simple doesn't strike fun.

Now the good. I really dig the design of the witch, not too simple yet not too much: it's really cute, the colors are really great, and the expression set is large enough to make the story lively. The crow too has its good set of expressions, at first I was afraid that seeing his simple design, he would be up there with some placeholder character, but with his 2-3 expressions and the writing of his character, they both make a good duo making that story enjoyable. The prerendered 3D backgrounds are in the theme, really cute with a great color palette, with enough objects to make it lively yet not overdoing it too much

It's a simple premice, but, in such a short amount of time, the execution really is really good! Great work!

Developer(+1)

Thanks a lot for the long feedback and for mentioning stuff that you liked and things you disliked about it!

I noticed rushing stuff for jams sucks the soul out of a lot of my ideas so what I can gather from your feedback as well as what some others have said is that I shall put quality over quantity, since a majority of the game were last minute decisions to somehow squeeze the game into the jam and really didn't contribute to a fun factor. 

I was worried about including the theme through math riddles and there seems to be a split opinions with some people liking it a lot and others really don't. I agree that maybe it lacks information on what has already been done and where the items are located. You mentioned that you had to remember what you had already used and that this really wasn't fun. I guess it would have been better if there had been an inventory for the ingredients instead of running back to the spots and picking them directly. So I might revisit the difficulty and visual clues if I update the game after the voting period to make it more interesting/challenging.

I'll also keep in mind to double-check with others if the font is okay for whatever I do next!

Thanks a lot for liking the design of the witch! I was worried that the character design was a bit too cliche but it seems to be general perceived well. I just love designing cute girls. The raven was one of my last-minute decisions, replacing an invisible player character for an actual character. So you are actually spot on with noticing that the design is a bit bland, I might want to revisit this as well if I ever update this since even if his character seems to be well-liked, I agree that I could have done better with the character design especially compared to the detailed witch design.

Thank you so much for the feedback and explaining why you found some things good, some things bad or anything inbetween. It's extremely helpful to get feedback like this even if you just mention things you liked. It helps me understand which elements were well received and which were not and work towards a better balance for any future VNs!

When I join the next short jam I'll probably aim for a prototype of my idea rather than trying to squeeze in a full game.

And yeah VNs kinda rare in non-story related jams! But as a VN fan myself I just gotta contribute to submitting one to these :D

Submitted(+1)

thought it was a really unique idea for the witches for this theme of game jam. right when i saw the witch i clicked on it due to the aesthetic and originality of the idea. I was really happy to see that the game had a whole dialogue which was very fun to see some character development.

Developer

Thanks a lot! I am happy you liked the aesthetic and enjoyed it!

Submitted(+1)

This was a nice game. I especially liked how it ended, since it validated my concerns through most second round of finding things for the potion, when I ended up sacrificing things I really didn't want to sacrifice to try and get the temperature right. I also really liked the fact that you could consider choosing things that go over the target temperature, and then use cold items to bring it back down.

Developer

Thanks a bunch for your nice words and for liking the game!

Submitted(+1)

Fantastic art design, I'm not sure if you are a professional art designer but you should be, the illustrations are very good! There is a weird issue where when characters and scenes load they sometimes come in super pixelated, though that could just be my PC so dont sweat it too much. Nice calming music too and good job with the dialogue, the back and forth between the crow and witch was very good. If you were to expand this to a full game for a steam release or something, I'd recommend getting some voice actors in for the project. YOu can get a good pool of talent on castingcallclub

Developer (1 edit)

Wow! Thanks a lot for the praise. I'm by no means a professional, this is actually the second gamejam I have joined and the first time made character sprites. I am a hobby artist tho so maybe that's where my experience comes from. I would love to update this with voices once the voting period is over so I will check castingcallclub out! Thank you so much for the suggestion! I really have no idea where the pixelation comes from but a few people have mentioned it's the web plugin that can't handle too large files. So I'll also play around with images sizes once my game gets unlocked. Thank you so much for the feedback!

Jam HostSubmitted(+2)

Looks Beautiful! I liked the story and it feels like it would be unfortunately relevant for some people. I felt a little sad when the cheese died, but I avenged it!

Developer

I'm glad you liked it!

Submitted(+1)

Even though, i'm not a big fan of visual novels, i enjoyed overall "game feel" so much, i finished it. Well done!

Developer

Thanks a bunch!

Submitted(+2)

I really like the art, character design, and writing!

I want to beat this so bad but I think maybe I keep getting stuck in a weird logic branch or something. I added the magic spell (+60), the mouse (+200), the fairy (-100), and the crystal (+200). That should come out to 360, but it kept telling me it was 500 at the end for some reason. I think I did mess up before then so the value could be carrying over.

Developer(+2)

Thank you so much!! 

Ahh I don't want you to be stuck. There are several options and ingredient values are reset inbetween the scenes, so if there really is a problem in the code, I am sorry. 😭

Talk to the witch and she will mention she should have known that the cauldron is already heated up (+50) through the fire. That means you need to add 340+ to reach the 390°C goal.

Try the necklace (+40) instead of the (+60) item. It's in the drawer on the right side of the room. If you have used it up for the first round, try the plant (+40) next to the drawer instead. It should make you end up at 340°C with the crystal (+200), fairy(-100) and either mouse or gnome (either +200). 

Adding 50°C from the heated up cauldron it's exactly 390°C. 

If this is still not working then I'm so sorry 🙈 You might have to try to reset and if I made a mistake (either wrote 360°C somewhere or an item doesn't work) I need to fix this after the voting period. 

I am still thankful you enjoy the art and everything!

Submitted (2 edits)

AHHHHH I'm so glad I asked for help haha. I definitely wasn't expecting it to go in that direction but wow! What you were able to do within a week and with such a short story is pretty amazing. I found myself getting moved at the end, that crow is such a good friend. Can't wait to see what you do next! Also something I forgot to mention in my original comment was that it's really interesting to kind of have this mixed escape room and VN approach, it's something I've never really seen done before but I think it has a ton of potential.

P.S. I totally overlooked that necklace, which was what was holding me up, so thank you again for that. I do think there was still a little glitch where the cauldron's temperature would display 500 degrees when it should have been 360 given those ingredients, which threw me for a loop. On that note, it would be nice to have some kind of visual indicator of what the current temp is just for accessibility more than anything else, even if it does maybe make the challenge a little bit easier.

Submitted(+2)

My god did that hit me like a truck. Wow. Excellent story, incredible message, brilliant execution. May need to pick your brain about how you made premade sounds feel so adaptive. Bravo, that was awesome and I want to see more games from you! Going to send this to my teenage sister to play.

Developer(+2)

I'm so glad you enjoyed it and thank you for thinking it's good enough to recommend!! 

Submitted(+2)

The amount of dialogue — polished dialogue, mind you — is astonishing. It took me about 7-8 minutes to complete the game, but in this short time it felt like I became friends with these characters.

You really have a knack for storytelling. Congrats!

Developer

I am so happy! Thanks a lot!

Submitted(+1)

WOW.

I didn't expect a visual novel in this jam but this was great. I really like the character art and the interactable objects. this game has a unique charm and was really fun.

also RIP happy cheese guy, you will be missed

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much, this makes me really happy!!

Submitted(+1)

I think this has some replay value!  That's all I will say!  Also I had not heard of Ren'Py before, thank you for introducing me to it!

Developer(+1)

Thank you and no problem!