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The Awakened's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Implementation of Theme | #22 | 2.923 | 2.969 |
| Presentation | #26 | 2.954 | 3.000 |
| Creativity | #26 | 3.323 | 3.375 |
| Story | #34 | 2.554 | 2.594 |
Ranked from 32 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team Members
JMJerbear
Name of Wolf/Wolves
Amaruq, Radolf
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Comments
Unexpected mpreg! I have reread this VN and I do believe that this might be the weakest of the bunch you submitted. While I do enjoy all of the custom assets that were made for this VN, it feels like the writing took a toll so that the rest of the game can be developed quickly. It was a fun read though
Yes, this was my least favorite. I intentionally wrote something as far out of my comfort zone as possible, but unfortunately had to stop in the middle of the story to take care of some emergency home repairs and lost two weeks of potential time to work on the story, not to mention my train of thought.
I like to do all the writing at the same time to maintain cohesiveness, but writing in general is my weakest asset to begin with; I haven't written anything in a very long time prior to the game jam, and entered primarily so I could get feedback on what areas to work on. I more enjoy working on the art and music parts, and would like to work as part of a team next time. I wanted to get some basic programming experience and creating sprites and music tracks under my belt, and as a result, the story was less a priority than it should have been in all of my entries.
I went from planning three "chapters" down to two, and focused on trying to tie up all the loose ends from part one, hence the extra heavy exposition that I hated even as I wrote it. I tried to go for over the top and cringe, but due to my mediocre writing, it ended up falling flat by the end. I would have been better off leaving things unfinished and taking my time with this one.
I didn't really know what I wanted the story to be, and it shows.
Alright, the final one I read from the three entries. I'm gonna go with The Awakened first and conclude with a comparison of all three.
THE AWAKENED
You must be tired of hearing people commenting on the no narration part. But here's what I thought caused the issue: the conversations are a bit artificial. Telling the story fully in first person perspective can work (heck I did that too), but it's tricky because you leave the burden of world-building through the lens of the MC.
The problem here in The Awekened is... you try to tell a lot through the conversation. I'm not saying you cannot slip in real issues like the healthcare system into the story. It's just that the delivery of the conversation is not natural. Instead of going "damn, that sucks, poor folks", I felt like it's not "the characters" who speak, but it's the writer instead; sometimes to the point I felt the topic of convo was a lecture instead. Consequentially, there was not enough breathing room for the characters to truly embrace their emotions and let the readers soak them in, resulting in the pacing to suffer. We need time to build relationships with the characters, and when they act unnatural, it's a bit difficult to establish it. My suggestion is to imagine the scenes like they are for movies. If you're upset the characters in the movies not speaking humanely enough, then you know there are issues.
Another gripe I have is the choice of music. Sure the presence of audio can enhance the experience, but for me personally, the music used did not help to build up what was going on in the story.
OVERALL
Out of all 3 entries, I have to say the best one is Replay Video. It's a bit ironic since that's the last one that came into your mind and you had a couple of days to wrap it, but it's the best one. The reason is, the story is solid. You know exactly how the story starts, how it ends, and what you want to tell behind it. Perhaps it's somewhat affected by the fact that the concept of Replay Video was visualized in your dream. As a result, all of the presentations were purposeful. There were not many bloated or unnecessary lines, except for the scene with the dragon. I felt like you felt the pressure to explain everything through that scene to make things as logical as possible for the readers, going as far into the little details. Other than that scene, everything was good. The MC's inner dilemma is well delivered (albeit rushed at the end), and I could sympathize with him well. Some lines felt wooden but it's not that noticeable.
The second favorite is Worth More Than Words. Again, what makes it great is I can tell that you know well what story you want to tell. Most of the problems come from the execution but they are not that big of a deal. Lastly, The Awakened. I can't help but feel that the whole idea/concept of the story is a bit too big and you were too excited to produce the project, resulting in the issues I have mentioned earlier.
I have to say that you're doing a spectacular job in submitting three different entries all on your own! I hope this game jam can serve as a good experience, because I'm pretty sure the quality of your work improves as time goes by ^^
No problems with me on hearing the same issues; the criticism is entirely justified, and now that I realize what my main issues are, it can be rectified. I haven't written anything in a REALLY long time (+20 years), so I'm incredibly out of practice.
Out of the three, this was my least favorite too, and part of it was trying to write something so far out of my comfort zone. I tried writing completely different stories, and for this one, I wanted to be absurd and cringey, but I've concluded it's just not my style.
I thought of each project as an experiment, and tried to incorporate different things into each, but writing without narration made it nearly impossible to give fluid exposition, and I even realized as I was writing.
That was a handicap I shouldn't have even had in retrospect; I based using first person narritive on the time a teacher gave me a bad grade on a writing assignment. She said I relied too much on narration in my writing and that I should avoid it, which I took quite literally afterward. If I paid more attention while reading other vns it would be rather obvious it was okay, even expected to use.
To be honest, I was more concerned with I learning the mechanical aspect of making a vn and less on the story itself. All the stories I wrote were basically my first drafts, much to their detriment, and written with nothing more than a vague idea of what I was doing.
I had never used Ren'Py, or done any programming prior to the second week of May, so I focused most of my attention on learning how to do the basics, and learning how to draw layered sprites. I've learned a lot from the game jam, which was my primary reason for entering it anyway
Thanks again for the review!
The last one I read of your trilogy, I won't beat a dead horse with mentioning narration, but it was definitely... a wild ride! Very silly and strange, and I'm sorry if that's not what you were going for, but it was pretty funny (*=w=) The music was also very... club-like? And I had a little giggle with that too :3c
I was definitely going for the most outlandish, bad story I could think of:
- Waking up with amnesia as a furry, probably the single most overused trope for any furry vn.
-Alex Jones level conspiracies as fact.
-The most cringe sex scene imaginable, since people say they don't care about the story in porn.
-Changing genres in the middle of the story.
-Misleading cover art.
-Overused groan-inducing one liners.
-Sprite clipping
I wanted to make it as B- movie as I could, while still having a semblance of plot in there. To be honest, I wrote part one with no idea how to tackle the second half, and decided to treat part two as how to even begin to explain the crazy world I constructed.
I hoped to make it so bad it would almost be good, but I think it was a swing and a miss. I haven't really written anything since before the game jam in over 20 years other than the other vn I posted at the beginning of the month, and I wanted to go as far outside of my comfort zone as possible.
Don't worry, I've now got the message loud and clear about adding narration. I had received a bad grade on a writing assignment years ago because the teacher thought I used it too much, and it just always stuck with me.
I tend to take things a bit too seriously sometimes. I also miss things right in front of me at others. I can't tell you how many fvns I've read, and never really considered HOW they were written. I knew even at the time I was being too explanatory on the plot, but couldn't figure out how to handle it without a narrator, though in this story, I didn't care as much because being bad was the point.
This was the main reason I wanted to enter the game jam, to learn the basics, try new things, and find out where I need to improve. I literally never touched Ren'py until the second week, so I was just trying to learn as I went along. I didn't want to wait another year to get started, so I just jumped in to see what I could do. My focus was more on the technical aspects and less on the story part, to their detriment, but I feel much more prepared if there is a next time.
17th VN I will read and rate, here we go!
Edit 1:
Edit 2: Ok, I have just rated, but I am trying to cram up as much VN's as I can today, so your review will wait a little.
Believe it or not, that was quite unintentional; I drew the red wolf first, and then just used liquify and warping on his sprite and recolored it to make the gray wolf look a bit different. Given the naming thing I was going for, finding names that meant red wolf and gray wolf were fairly easy, which is why I chose those colors. I never even thought about it until I saw your post!
: D
I don't have anything more to talk about that I didn't already say in my Worth More Than Words comment.
Overall, still a shaky execution atop a solid foundation. I will say that I like the concept of this one a lot though. It would be interesting if you returned to this in the future once you have honed your writing abilities.
I was kind of impressed with how the VN managed to tell its story despite the self-imposed limitation of no narration, nothing but dialogue. It was an interesting exercise, but I wouldn't say it really worked. Unfortunately, because of this decision, the VN is forced to skip from scene to scene not based on what it would make most sense to show, but based on which scenes can actually be delivered through dialogue alone.
The story was mostly enjoyable, except for the ending. Not only by the end was I pretty fatigued, but the resolution to the climax is basically handed to the protagonists without them having to do anything for it. It's pretty unsatisfying.
I must confess, the parts that stuck out the most to me were the commentary on the American welfare state. In two situations the protagonist gets screwed over by the way the American welfare system works (private healthcare and no paid sick days), but both times he gets bailed out because of the generosity of the people he interacts with. I don't know if this is a political statement of sorts, but as an outsider looking in it was certainly interesting and memorable.
You're certainly correct, I was not particularly happy with how I ended this. I had originally planned for about an extra chapter's worth, but had to stop between part one and two for nearly two weeks for some emergency home repairs (leaking roof, replacing ceiling) and tried to resolve everything much too quickly to complete it in time.
That, plus poor planning on my end for part two in general, led to an unsatisfactory conclusion. The sad part is, the work I was supposed to have had done the last two days of the month fell through, and had I realized in advance, I could have spent a bit more time working on the story. At the point it fell through though, it would take me longer to rewrite and fix the botched ending than I probably had time for.
Also, in regard to the state of American healthcare, I can tell you this is very much a reality. When my mother was dying with terminal lung cancer a couple years ago, she got unceremoniously fired from her job, had her health insurance terminated, and had to apply for disability that never came through while she was still alive.
She then had to apply for COBRA insurance at $850 a month that never paid a single penny on her medical bills, and I and my sister had to fight tooth and nail for her supplemental insurance benefits that she had paid for, which didn't even come through until months after she died.
It wasn't very much, but it worried her so much that she had panic attacks several times a day because we were having to take care of her and pay her bills. (Both of my parents ended up moving in with me around a year before they died. She was 60 at the time.)
We never got reimbursed from her cancer policy, and because they fired her about a week before she died, they didn't pay her employee life insurance benefits, either.
The employees at her nursing home collected enough to make her insurance payment for her, while her job itself didn't even bother to send flowers for her funeral, even though she had been employed there for over 28 years.
Two weeks after she died, it was almost exactly the same thing with my father; he had terminal pancreatic cancer, and he too died less than two months later before we could get the first thing settled. He had worked for his job for 33 years before retiring just a year before. Again, no flowers or even a card from his employer, but his coworkers were there to help.
After all of that, I ended up with a lot of severe health issues that left me unable to work. Long story short, it took me over two and a half years to finally get disability, even with a clear cut case.
I'm not saying any of this looking for sympathy. All things considered, I'm doing ok, but yes, it is incredibly frustrating! It's also a lesson, never give your life to a company!
Sorry for the rant, but thank you for your response!
Very sorry about you and your family's troubles. Some things you have no control over, but you deserved better.
Damn. I am sorry.
First of all, it kind of bothers me that for what is a story with elements of action and intrigue, The Awakened makes telling and explaining its primary narrative mode. Character relationships are stated instead of shown, worldbuilding is mostly exposited, and there are tangents where societal issues of marginal relation to the story are discussed at length – the game simply feels undernarrativized. One aspect contributing to this is the lack of narration. It feels very surprising, considering the subject matter; the physicality, the sensations of transformation don't really come across.
Also, while I get the sense that the tonal whiplash is intentional, I'm not sure if the game leans quite hard enough into it to really sell the absurd vibes. It feels like the story is more so using its light mood as a means of sandpapering away aspects of the premise that would cause friction and conflict. This kind of approach can work if done well, but here I think it causes the game to lose a lot of its stakes.
Regarding the presentation: though there's a lot of art, I'm not really sure if the quality vs. quantity tradeoff is worth it here. You can see plenty of signs of game jam rush, like many of the sprites having parts of their ears cut off.
And, as for the jam's theme, the idea is obvious enough and even firmly grounded in what was established about the setting, but the (admittedly good) punchline nevertheless feels a little tacked on instead of being what the story is about.
Spoilers will follow: read first or continue at your own peril.
I'm back again because I'm doing this in submission order and you were powerful enough to be two of the first three submitters!
Theme: Aough! The little mpreg surprise at the end? And expansion of the sort of animal people through the loneliness howl of people touching out? You're wilding. You are wild for that. I do appreciate that
potent dad nutthough heehee.I am angry that Radolf wasn't also knocked up. Selfish lover didn't bottom ONCE in all that time? Rude. Have them both be pregnant. Make them expand further!!
Story: Girl. You went WILD here. The fucking alien tech breeding program? Excuse me? What was a werewolf into a horny into an x-files sort of story, you then kicked up to 100. Wild.
I was initially confused for a bit, in that I thought Radolf bit Amaruq in that attack, but that's because I didn't realize what conked him out was the howl. I thought it was like "My man was so horny he attacked his bestie to make him a wolf man". You did go over that further as it went, but I still wasn't getting that outright, and I wonder if that'll be true for others in their confusion or just me.
You still have that consistent voices for all your characters, like the rude nurse. Great! Amaruq would never say 'mo'fo' though, that felt wrong to me lol.
I felt it was a bit much that Amaruq was perfectly cool with Radolf following the issue. Even if Radolf only unintentionally put Amaruq into a two-week coma, his parents could have potentially had the plug pulled him on him. I guess the pheromones were overtaking good reason, but the plot goes at 100% the whole time for the most part, and maybe it could have stood to have a little more peaks and valleys to address that sort of feeling?
The part about the aliens was like... wild to me. If that was only done for the mpreg? Okay, I begrudgingly accept that, but still.... it didn't feel smoothly integrated to me. I was prepared for magic, not advanced alien tech (and yes, I know Clarke's third law).
The other bear couple was a curious hint-- I almost wondered if the other agent was the original one but mind-wiped, because that seemed possible now with alien tech. It did feel a bit deus ex machina to have him come in and just release them with new identities-- there's no paper trail at all in this mess? No investigation to confirm the dead bodies?
How are they even being detected if it's just by name? Just looking around for anyone named wolf or any other animal in any language and testing them? That's wild. That's cray. They should have some measure of testing given the alien tech, and if that was the case, have detected that agent and got him earlier? I don't know. I feel like this part got muddied to make it governmental oriented instead of like mystical.
Presentation: Yay sprites looking at each other in the car! Angry that they were facing the screen most of the time.
Boo for having the fucking being blocked with the body without having the body being transparent. While we do appreciate nice asses, that wasn't good blocking (in the other sense) of the scene.
It was funny how you re-used the flashback wolf as their child for your other game, leading me to joke that this was the prequel.
Your two virgins really did speak like virgins, which was both appropriate in context, and also oofie.
That cock was GIANT. a FUCKING CANTELOPE? EXCUSE ME? THE RED EYES IN THE SEX SCENE? You were cooking, and you may have burnt it a little with how much you were playing with fire.
Some of the expression I really enjoyed (the shook one), and I didn't love Radolf's cocky/smug ones. You knocked out Amaruq for two weeks (even it was partially due to falling onto concrete) because you were so damn horny. You shouldn't be smug, mister.
Also, this does merit saying, pop off for making more sprites again and more music (i think?), although that music was a bit too repetitive in the internal structure in tandem with it looping. I kept feeling like it was looping and no, that was just the song's internal repetition prior to the loop.
Creativity: Okay, you took a werewolf tale in an x-files place and then went to aliens. You were wilding here. The thought this could be a backstory for your other work, even though it wasn't likely? Even more wild. Pop off king. I also appreciate the mpreg.
Overall thoughts: Mpreg we stan, even with the selfish lover not also getting knocked up. Messed up, tbh. Rude of Radolf. Amaruq you could do better.
You're wild to do two, and I'm quite curious to see what happens at the end of the month. Keep up the hustle, my man!
Thanks for the thorough reviews! I tried to do different things with each, since I'm still learning, and trying to find what my style is.
Part two was totally rushed; I had to stop after releasing the first part for nearly two weeks before touching the second act, and by then I was afraid I may run out of time going with my original plan, which would have been around 22,000 words, and went into 'how can I tie this story up within a few days' mode.
Intimate scenes are not my strong suit, and in answer to your initial question, yes, in the original idea I had, red wolf was going to be knocked up, too. I had another scene planned for the end, but not enough time left to draw it out, so it was sadly scrapped.
On the sprite positioning, since I have no programming experience and literally never touched Ren'Py until after I released my first game (originally built in Tyranobuilder, then ported over so I could have Mac and Android versions), I hadn't yet learned how to alter the sprites' positions from the three defaults.
I had considered adding transparent space to the sides of the sprites to compensate on the positioning, but realized it would mess up other areas where I actually would want the sprites in certain places (like the car). Literally on the last day of the jam, I saw where someone posted the Ren'Py visual plug in to determine sprite positions in game and proceeded to slap myself in the forehead thinking if only I had this all along!
I may have made the wrong choice, but I felt making a few small projects would be more beneficial to me than one larger one so I could play around with different concepts, and in the end, I do feel I've learned more that way, with how my brain works (or doesn't)!
Thanks again for your feedback!
There is also benefit to trying out a lot of things, can't deny that. best of luck in your future endeavors!