I think your desire to implement the twist put the narrative focus in the wrong place.

The relationship isn't extensive enough for the self-immolation to have the same weight as whatever would theoretically have gone on before with Pierre and Luc. Instead of texting about some of these elements, they could have met in person to talk. Instead of the work friend being present to obstruct some of the convo, they could have had a one-on-one for more overt bonding. If they met directly at a BDSM club, at least the relationship would have felt sexually transactional, instead of like feeling insufficiently formed to reflect the mirror of the poor relationship with the first lover.

It also could have stood to examine the guilt more overtly, and the continued horniness over the fire IN SPITE of it taking out his lover's life, which we only briefly touch upon with his survival in the hospital at the end before the rushing closure of the game.

I appreciate the story that wanted to be told, but what's present is highlighting all the wrong moments, and makes the outcome strange and unbelievable--not in the choice to die, but in the belief that it could parallel to the backstory when the other similar elements weren't there.

It's difficult to catch that, because you were feeling the story as you meant it, instead of the story that you wrote.

I applaud the idea behind it, but the gap in where the story goes against the path to the intended outcome makes this severely suffer for me. It just wasn't working outside of the twist, and when the fridge logic hits, one can see the gaps all too clearly.

I must be completely frank, this was a hard story for me to get into.

The prose is very complex and abstract at places, sometimes requiring me to re-read the sentences to truly get what the author is saying (this might be me being an ESL speaker, but I suspect the prose would feel pretty opaque to the average English speaker too). This isn't necessarily a problem per se: some passages are genuinely beautiful, and the complexity seems appropriate for what the dev is going for.

The problem is that this complex verbosity is used for scenes where basically nothing happens: as a reader, all I'm getting for my effort is often very abstract philosophical reasonings and the protagonist visiting the same rooms over and over. To be honest, past a certain point, not only did I not bother to try and understand what I was reading when it wasn't apparent on first try, I basically started to click forward very quickly to get to the point.

I will clarify that I don't hate the story in concept: the protagonist's introspective journey through the looping sanctuary intrigues me. But the combination of flowery complex prose, abstractness, and very little actually happening turned me off for most of it. I will say I loved the flashback to the village: that was one of those rare instances where I was able to fully appreciate the dev's writing, because all the introspection was intermingled with a bit of specificity and concreteness. (Also, I love the surrealism of the whole setting.)

I will also say that I did not complete the game: considering other people in the comments said they had trouble solving the puzzle and knowing I hadn't paid attention to the story as much as they had, I didn't try too hard. I think I will wait for the director's commentary or the cheat codes. :-P POST-JAM EDIT: Now that the cheat codes have been published, I went back and finished the game and... the ending is really short and anticlimactic. I guess the story was about the journey.

One aspect I will give the game high praise for is the presentation. The atmosphere is impeccable, I love the backgrounds, I love the music, and the prose is appropriately evocative when it's not being too obtuse. The only part I'm not 100% sure about is the placement of the sprites on the screen: more often than not, they don't feel part of the world they are inhabiting (probably because they're shown in full and their movements are very linear).

I need to preface this by saying that I'm impressed at how, after discovering Kraaj for his Gothic horror story and generally gloomy stories, he still manages to write incredibily intertaining funny characters and skits. The comedy in A Rebound from MARS! is great and the MC's snarky personaly is a joy to behold. I think the one joke I'm not a fan of is the one where the MC acknowledges that nametags are a thing: while funny on its own, it didn't really mash with the rest of the humor of this particular story, which is meta but not fourth-wall breaking.

The presentation is top notch, even with the self-imposed visual limitations: the limited color palette gives the game its identity and the game uses silhouettes in interesting ways (OMG that scene with the paw massage, I love it! The length some people will go to get Grange brownie points!). The sound design is also great, not just the music but also the ambience.

If I have to offer some criticism is in the structure of the story. The story is a joy to read, however I do feel that one thing that was missing is focusing a bit earlier on the protagonist's motivation. I couldn't help but be reminded of E.T. and Wall-E while reading this story: the first preoccupation in both of those stories, before we get to the plot eventually leading to the climax, is establishing the seeds of a relationship between the protagonist and his alien friend. In Rebound, instead, the protagonist embarks on a journey right off the gate, and it's only towards the very last leg of said journey that we get to see the two mains establish a connection: everything at the beginning is mostly comedy, busywork, and establishing the characters' backstories (and powers).

SPOILERS to follow

For example, when we get to the bridge crossing, the whole time I couldn't help but think "Why are we risking our life again, instead of finding another way across? What is the urgency, what is the motivation from the MC's point of view?" I do get the answer to that question is probably just "The protagonist needs a project to distract himself from his failed relationship." I just think the story would have been stronger by moving some of the bonding scene from the end to the beginning, in order to make this journey really feel personal.

Also given, the nature of the story, my brain couldn't help but try to poke holes at it at times. The powers of the alien are left a bit mysterious in how they work: the alien will go in the span of the same scene from not knowing what farts or parents are to being able to recount the protagonist's entire life story with very appropriate Earthly terminology. But that's something I can look past!

My final nitpick is that the handling of the "bad guys" left me a bit confused. The reveal is well handled, but I can't help but think it clashes with previous information about the characters (almost like the dev decided half-way through these were going to be bad guys): the way the two bad guys are aware the two protagonists sneaked away during the night but don't seem to react to this information doesn't really seem consistent with the way they are protrayed the following morning. And during the resolution of the story, the protagonist is left in their company, without leaving any clue of what exactly is going to happen to him.

These are all nipicks though: like I said the story was very good!

So kawaii desu!  (I can't type Japanese in here!)

Overall, an amazing and gripping entry!

The characters are very well written, their personality coming through very clearly and their banter is very engaging to read… which isn’t easy to pull off, I often find these kinds of friendly banters and snarky remarks a bit weightless and tiring. Not here though!

The VN has a very clear art direction and vision, I like how the characters and backgrounds were edited to give the VN a unique identity. The opening CG is pretty amazing too, I couldn’t tell at first glance whether it was drawn by the same artist that drew Claire’s sprite or not (it wasn’t!). All custom art in the VN is amazing to look at, although I must mention that the custom sprites do look noticeably drawn in a different style compared to Sikyu’s. It doesn’t bother me and it doesn’t detract from the experience, but considering the dev proved to be able to replicate their style amazingly well, I thought I’d mention it. Also, without going into spoiler territory, there is CG where I thought who was being depicted was Airon instead of Dion (which probably detracted a bit from the impact that CG was meant to convey).

While the story was very well written, I must confess I found it a bit hard to follow upon first reading. The constant time jumping makes the narrative a bit challenging to follow, especially when coupled with some information being withheld from us and revealed at a later stage. The different color palettes help somewhat, but not completely. When reading the second time with complete information, though, I was able to fully appreciate the story.

One final nitpick I’ll mention is that, while I enjoyed the music a lot, the constant switching from one track to the other was a bit jarring. I think some carefully placed stretches of silence would help to make the whole auditory experience more enjoyable.

While I think I have a pretty good idea of where the story is going at this point, I can’t wait to see how we’ll get there. Count me excited for the rest!

The baseline weirdness at which Flowers operates is something to behold. What initially masquerades itself as a pretty normal slice-of-life affair is soon revealed to involve an absolutely deranged soap opera storyline, lore about the nondescript contemporary setting actually being an empire, and constant – and I do mean constant – references to the protagonist's gains, presumably in an attempt to incorporate the game jam's theme of "expanding".

Furthermore, it's hard to tell if all the strange touches in the writing are intentional or a byproduct of the language barrier. At one point, a description of the main character cooking is inexplicably written in the register of a recipe; to explain the concept of giving someone a glass of water to drink, a person interviewing him for a job remarks: "I have prepared a glass of water for you. Drink whenever you want." The task of running a coffee shop is described in equally grandiose and clunky terms – to quote Emmett: "To serve quality coffee to those who never give up on this journey called life, as a reminder that this respite is a part that should never be forgotten."

The juxtaposition of complete mundanity, high melodrama, and bizarre worldbuilding details admittedly forms an intriguing, unique literary effect. I was sort of reminded of the films of Aki Kaurismäki, with their combination of grounded stories featuring working-class characters and the sweeping romanticism of classic Hollywood. There's a particular similarity to his latest release Fallen Leaves, which gets a lot of incidental background humor from its surreal, anachronistic setting. All in all, I am completely on board with what's being done here on the level of concept – the game escapes precise comparison, but I do feel like it's working towards something worthwhile.

In a more negative sense, it's difficult to not feel like the bulk of the VN amounts to non-sequitur. The protagonist's job search has the majority of the wordcount dedicated to it and overshadows the intriguing but sparsely told mystery storyline, and the thematic connection between the two just never quite comes into focus. I like the gradual introduction of the main conceit in theory, with the eventual reveal feeling like a proper twist, but opportunities to indulge in characterization or imagery are not taken; the barista quest isn't the worst piece of slice-of-life in town, but it hardly feels meaningful to the whole.

Finally, the visuals and the sound design are just sort of affectless. None of the plain backgrounds do anything but deliver information mechanically, and Emmett's new place doesn't even really look like something a barista could afford to live in. Some of the jam sprites have been badly squished, which is all you can think of when looking at them. Having a portrait for the main character is a nice touch, though, and the design looks admirably cohesive with the stock assets.

Did I have a fun time with Flowers? Yeah! Can I get behind it as "good art"? Probably not! Could a person smarter than me provide a more compelling defense of its strange charms? Sure! But for the purposes of my review, I guess the girl reading this has to settle for an uncertain, shamefully half-hearted endorsement.