(Review originally written for MAY WOLF 2024)

Really good, though not without its question marks!

Imperfect Facets feels appropriately scoped and tightly paced, telling a complete, satisfying story that doesn't overstay its welcome despite being one of the longer entries in the jam. The worldbuilding is integrated smoothly into the narrative; even without many instances of what you could call direct exposition, the mechanics and the stakes of the whole thing are clear enough, and all the little tidbits only serve to make the setting feel more interesting.

There's a clarity to the structure, with emotional beats and setups and payoffs where you would expect to find them. Elegant POV switches help the game maintain its momentum, and I don't think the result feels too fragmentary for it. The only thing I'm feeling slightly iffy about is how straightforward everything feels after the crucial setup is done – the classic Hollywood second-act twist is missing, and you can kind of notice the story being moved more by inertia than exciting new developments in the back half. To surprise is no obligation, of course, and I get the impulse to not introduce new stuff as the game jam's word count limit draws closer and closer, but I wonder if the finale would have hit even harder with more complications to the plot.

The prose is perfectly pleasant to read; the descriptions of cosmic horrors do their job, and the dialogue flows nicely. In terms of character writing, I'm kind of unsure about everyone having such a short temper – it feels like people yell at each other so much it threatens to pull the tone closer towards farce than intended. The sense of escalation is hurt a little, too, with the visit starting off so horribly it's difficult for the drama to get a lot more intense.

Sound design: very good, but ultimately way too sparse. Everything you hear works, but having such long silences to sit through goes way past what would be appropriate as a means of emphasis (if that was the intent). There are plenty of dazzling magic-adjacent visuals, though, and the cohesive backgrounds successfully convey a mood. The initial car scene feels a little sloppy with how the sprite is placed, but besides that, the work feels very natural in its use of the medium.

Overall very good and largely devoid of the kind of jank and lack of polish you would expect from a game jam project. A solid package that tells its compelling story so well it's made to feel effortless.

(Review originally written for MAY WOLF 2024)

Clearly a blockbuster entry in terms of production values. Besides having a lot of nice art and a great central character design that communicates a lot visually, the dynamic animations of The Wayward Tower elevate its information-heavy opening in particular. The original music rules, and though stock photos are used extensively, they're picked with enough care to look cohesive together. The UI feels fully thought out, too – the skeuomorphic icons scream "fantasy", and the font suits the fairly grounded drama of the story while also recalling the journal central to the plot. The text box maybe feels slightly underdetailed in comparison, though.

Smaller nitpicks: some of the transitions feel PowerPoint-adjacent in a way that clashes with the mood a little, and the buttons in the title screen have some sort of weird border around them. These are non-issues in the big picture; it's a gorgeously made VN.

The writing is solid, carefully maintaining a good balance between otherworldliness and the relatable mundanity of the emotional conflict. If feeling harsh, you could accuse it of veering too far towards overexplaining at times ("Warren, this wise master of magic, can be as excitable as a puppy" – needless to state when already shown), but in general, the game doesn't get bogged down in lore, maintaining a mercifully tight focus on the character drama. Bits of backstory feel thoughtfully incorporated, too; there's a sense of the history between these two without the need for explicit flashbacks. Just a really smooth read, honestly.

While the jam theme does not feel like the most important piece of the puzzle (I maybe wish there had been more about the journals), I like the images and ideas the story plays with. Not to get too Literary Analysis 101, but the protagonist's cyclical life of being unable to settle down feels like a fitting representation of the self-sabotage inherent in his reluctance to confess his emotions, even if the magical mechanics of the back half muddle this interpretation a little. In any case, I think the climax works on an emotional level, being precisely open enough.

Just a very good entry all around; not necessarily groundbreaking or rapturous, but a pleasant reading experience that feels solid on a technical level.

(Review originally written for MAY WOLF 2024)

The writing does feel raw in many ways – punctuation, caps lock overuse, strange phrasings – and there are enough ESL-isms that it's gets distracting. A gentle but firm editorial touch to hone out the issues would help a lot; you can kind of tell that only the beginning was edited at all.

Besides surface-level polish issues, I'm kind of bothered by the game constantly explaining things. Emotions are sometimes needlessly stated (the "in my angry temper" feels extraneous when she has shown to be angry quite clearly), the flashback does a lot of slightly awkward backstory filling via characters mentioning facts about their daily lives, and the most interesting and evocative moment in the back half is told in monologue without any kind of visual representation of the events. It might be that there's just too much explained in general; the story being this short, the central conflict really needs to be in the spotlight for its emotional stakes to work. There's a decent amount of information conveyed, and you do get a sense of who these characters are (especially the protagonist, who has some good comedic bits), but their interactions in the main plot feel hard to engage with because it's all so hurried and abstract.

The premise is admittedly a creative one, especially in how it uses the game jam's theme. (A fungal network expanding wasn't my first thought when it was announced!) And while the central character design is not bad or anything, I really like the original mushroom dragon lady in your devlog – curse you, MAY WOLF's stringent rules.

Am ambitious work with a very stylized approach.

The narrative itself gets a bit murky if approached with extra scrutiny, but I think it does speak to a sort of qualia that's true for any reader, that carries a verisimilitude other political pieces often lack. Too many are at a higher level, but this is a reflection of the choices above trickling down onto those who can do nothing else but go along with the mandates of the law.

I liked your framing in the poetry for the sections, but felt the inconsistency in the style used (one felt like a form poem, others felt more like free-verse) didn't help bridge the sections well enough, whereas consistent usage of form poems could have represented the cultural differences further (especially given form poems are often from certain regions of the world). I think we could have also had some more modifications for the backgrounds to represent the passage of time, and removed the music during the poetry to let the works carry their weight alone.

I think you did well in representing real conflicts without poorly translating them inconsistently--even if the reactions felt a bit out of place, that's real of people, where the truth is stranger than fiction. In that you perhaps flew too close to the sun, but I think the cumulative whole is a curious experience with a lot of thought put into it.

I love the animated menu and I respect the choice to go for simple drawings as backgrounds, although I have to admit the presentation does not really work for me: the highly detailed sprites and the simplistic backgrounds do not jive together at all. I'd rather the game used either simplistic sprites as well or pictures as backgrounds.

While the premise is interesting, there isn't much story yet. Even what is there, the first date with one of the contestants, flies by too quickly and doesn't let much of an impression (although who knows, maybe it does make sense because the real focus of the story is elsewhere, too early to tell). I love *love* the way the game pokes fun at the phoniness of the whole show though.

Having said all that, this game has lived rent free in my mind ever since I first played it. I can't wait for it to continue and prove me it can live up to its promises!

(Review originally written for MAY WOLF 2024)

Easily a standout entry; utterly charming and competently written, with a steadily executed aesthetic that gives the game a unique visual identity before you even download it. The character designs are all brilliant and don't feel even slightly burdened by the lack of colors, and the illustrations play with the visual language of comics in what feels like a fitting nod towards the obvious influences. Full points for style.

The interpretation of the game jam's theme is fine; I get it, even if the slightly weird repetition of the word "expanding" feels like the most explicit sign of that being what prompted the story. It could have felt weightier in some other way, I suppose. At first, I honestly thought it was going to be one of those "expand your horizons" cases since that feels more fundamental to the story on an emotional level and the "expand your time with him" angle mostly just sets off the plot.

The first couple of scenes are fantastic – there's a fun satiric touch to how the game uses its archetypical characters to examine a setting where queerness is unremarkable, with the high school bad boy using his frankly bizarre grip on the entire institution to stage an elaborate confession of gay love. As the story goes on, however, the sense of escalation to the drama and the absurdity of it all feels pretty muted, and the conclusion comes off as a little jarring in how sudden it is. I like the full-color illustration, though – it's visually punchy, one of those things that remains an enduring classic because it works.

But if the original ending is sort of weak, the very last part (which I'm understanding is some kind of bonus thing added after the initial release) feels even less appropriate as a stopping point. The scene itself is cute and fun like the rest of it, but it's more in the business of filling the gaps than revealing anything genuinely new about the dynamic of these characters, presenting a final turning point, or summarizing the journey so far. I wish there had been a stronger, more conclusive note to really cap off the narrative gracefully.

Let's not be hyperbolic and say the ending ruins the entire game or anything, but I'm Now the School Delinquent's Lover, but I Want Out!! does feel a little underwhelming on the whole, a great setup in need of a conclusion to match its highs. Still, very enjoyable, can't imagine anyone having a bad time playing it.