The beginning of the story gripped me pretty solidly! I like the writing and I like how story managed to avoid overwhelming exposition by starting the story medias res and filling in the details as you go. I feel the beginning and the protagonist's first dive into the Lovecraftian horror stand out as the most effective bits of the whole VN.

I do have to say though that the rest of the VN, while good, was not as strong as it could have been. I feel like, while the initial set up is great, the story struggles to justify its large wordcount in the later parts. In particolar, the characters feel a bit repetitive and flat after a while: I feel like the story is very effective at establishing their personality, conflicts, and so on, from the very first scenes, but then the story keeps repeating those same interactions and traits throughout without really bringing any kind of novelty about them?

I feel like this is very clear in particular in the two scene where the POV switches. I feel like despite being in these characters' heads, we don't really learn anything new? It kind of makes it feel like the two characters entire personality revolves around the protagonist and the protagonist's reading of them is so accurate there is nothing to add.

In terms of presentation, again the Lovecraftian nightmarish scene stands out as especially well executed, and the music/sound design (when it's present) it's pretty on point. However, there are plenty of points where the presentation is a bit plain: aside from the obvious points (sprite positioning and lack of music), I must say that I really felt that the atmosphere was a bit lacking in the scenes taking place on Earth after the horrors have been unleashed (this is not helped by all the jokes and casual banter the characters continue to exchange, it was really hard for me to tell sometimes if I was supposed to feel like the characters were in danger or not).

Overall, a pretty solid entry and first attempt at a VN, I'm definitely looking forward to reading more.

OH MY GOD!? This story is perfectly up my alley and I just love it! The characters are well-defined with strong personalities and their banters are good. SFXs are used really well to sell the tension. The Lovecraftian tidbits here are very intriguing. It would absolutely be an amazing VN if things were more refined.

That being said, I do have some gripes. While I really think that the SFXs dramatically improved the scenes, the absence of audio became more apparent and deducted the overall experience. More ambiance sounds would be nice. I'm also not a fan of floating sprites. You've done a great job at emoting and manipulating the sprites, but for me personally, seeing them just float on the screen just felt off. I think some earlier scenes would even work better without Roan's sprite on screen. Lastly, I felt sometimes the lovey-dovey moments were not... appropriately placed? They lessen the built-up tension of some of the serious scenes, and honestly, those unsettling tensions are the best part of the story.

A very entertaining story, especially if you love the genre. The ending line gave me freaking chills. I can't wait for more!

A solid debut entry.

There's nothing crazy here, but what has been done is pretty good. Despite the longer length, it feels relatively tight. The characters have a distinct voice and the world is interesting. The story is paced well.

I didn't quite get invested emotionally though.

Something about the flow feel off to me. Maybe its the way that so much character growth is done through internal monologue. This is especially apparent for the Uncle and Roan. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but, to me at least, it adds a layer of filtering that made it difficult for me to connect to. Also there is a fair amount of exposition front-loading, which becomes very noticeable with the lack of ambiance or music.

In conclusion, this was a good entry. There are few hiccups that hold it back, but there is a great foundation here to build upon. I really hope you continue within the fvn community, and I will always cheer for a fellow Willy Hope Hodgson and Robert Chambers fan.

This one was real good. Some of the best in presentation and story, delivering a good balance of action and drama that is sure to impress. I’m not big on some of its topics, but I think the “wizards in modern day” trope is handled well here. One of the best in the jam for sure.

Solid writing ! I love how you mixed what's realistic and lovecrafty, it gives some grounding to your characters.

 The only nitpick I would have is about characterization : even if it's good I'm sure you could have done it even better. Roan could have used more depth so we fall in love with him like Will did. 

But anyway, loved it. The story is flowing nicely. Well done.

Congratulations! You got a new reader!

21th VN I will read and rate from this jam, here we go!

Edit 1: I have just finished this. Things really picked up, huh? Later on I might come with a review comment, but not now as I am in a hurry to read and rate all the entries (at least the non late-qualified ones) before May Wolf ends.

I had a lot of fun reading this

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.

Solid entry! A few typos here and there but the writing was strong and the use of sound and music quite effective. The story has just enough humour to make its use of cosmic horror tropes and Lovecraft references fun without feeling too derivative. The characters feel distinct and have their own distinct voices. Will seemed a bit bland compared to his more colourful fiance and uncle, but that kind of works since navigating between their personalities is part of the conflict in the story.

Okay so this one is gonna be a bit mean from my side, but really I am commenting here more for the future.

Spoilers ahead:

The plot is a cheesy warlock love story about learning to grow past normal first thoughts. (Expansion of growth could be seen a bit, but the theme is so flimsy.).You use already set tropes, but hey sometimes you need set tropes to floorish!

I really liked the small animation bits or sfx.

I am just a real sucker for cheesy romance that has enjoyable dialogue and comedy.

But now here is a list on presentation feedback:

- (This one is my personal problem.) Too many sentences could have been multiple sentences. Don‘t be afraid to set a period at the end and just start a new one :,D Of course, you can have long sentences. Just don‘t go overboard with them and make them a bit reasonable to have them as that.

- There were some minor uppercase error and misspellings. Didn‘t really ruin it for me.

- The plot may have been fluffed a little bit on some cases, but it’s honestly only noticeable if you are impatient >.> (Me).

- Backgrounds at the start had too much blur! Use it a bit more less. Your backgrounds got better, when reading more.

- Music was missing at some places. But in your case you did better at it as you read more of your visual novel.

- I felt a bit too much exposition at the beginning, but again it completely dissappeared reading more.

- This is a problem for anyone reading at 100% textspeed. Some sentences were immeadiatly gone. You overused a bit, but also used it correctly on some parts. Explore this more!

- Black background in renpy has already a default variable as like „scene black“. There was a tiny white pixel to be spotted.

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And just some small nitpick on theme‘s metaphors.

„I‘m perfect“ -> A cool thing to use, but you implemented it a bit too much on the nose. It didn‘t felt subtle. 

Overall: I like the vn. It’s good food and I enjoyed it a lot. It has a lot of passion and I wanna see more of you in the future.

I was quite impressed with your writing style.  Never in a million years would I have imagined mashing those concepts together for the uncle and making them work so well!  Looking forward to seeing what you come up with in the future.

Spoilers ahead! Reader beware.

Theme: Lovecraftian brain bigger + emotional growth. I see it.

Story: I appreciate seeing a work from someone who spends hours writing. You've retreading common beats of these romantic works that I imagine are on Ao3, and in that, I'm not upset, because romance is formulaic because it works.

It's a sign of a good work when you go in disliking a character and then come out liking them more (Roan), or going in saying "You're not all wrong but you're half wrong" (Godfather) and then he comes out going "Okay, i'm not all right". Chef kiss. Love to see it. You did the trope of "shared love person has something bad/goes missing and it brings the other two together" and you know what? Always a good one.

I guess my only real criticism is that Will felt a bit male-wifey beyond the narrative's commentary? The commentary felt more as though it was about a woman first (with like the parental figure being like "I instilled that you don't have to be this sort of person" and then it translated over to a man, but feminism, misogyny, misandry and other gendered items are inextricably linked so that's just par for the course, really.

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Story aside: I don't know about the explicit validation of Lovecraft even if the work does call him out as a racist. I'm not sure how to feel about that and how that speaks towards his collections of works canonically within your universe.

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Presentation: I like a lot of your visuals and period sfx. Wasn't quite a fan of Roan floating on the road-- would have maybe preferred a side sprite +  a car for those bits.

I think we needed some measure of music-- the medium expects it, and it was infrequently there.

Good pulls/backgrounds for the cosmic horror bits.

Creativity: Fun stuff to have cthulu framing for the romance. I don't know how much of a monster fucker you are, but this is like the Sucker for Love Series so ya know... :p https://www.goodreads.com/series/298243-sucker-for-love-mysteries

Overall thoughts: Love to see a polished writer at play, although I think we saw more of a fanfic with some visuals than a work making full use of the medium. Breezed through it though. Love to see well practiced prose and dialogue (don't worry, I don't bully too much over occasional grammar errors lol).