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A jam submission

My MunicipalityView game page

What if love was stronger than the Municipal Regions Act?
Submitted by purkka (@purkkafi) — 12 hours, 17 minutes before the deadline
Rated by 36 people so far
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Team Members
just me (purkka)

Name of Wolf/Wolves
non-protagonist wolf: Sipoo, protagonist wolf: Östersundom (nameable)

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Let's start with the bright side. The presentation is really slick and anyone can tell there is a lot of research dedicated to this project. The whole idea is probably the most unique among the jam entries. While the concept is intriguing, sadly it's not my cup of tea. I can't understand all those... words... and the history/political side is just not something I can get through. I'm just too puppy-brained >.<

I think Hetalia works because we are a bit familiar with the stereotypes of world countries, but here, I feel like a complete stranger. And My Municipality tries to thread the lines between something entertaining and serious, while the other is mostly outrageously hilarious.

That being said, the "story" did leave some emotional sadness, anger, and disappointment (?) at the conclusion of the story. A relationship broken over... nothing. Ooofff.

Overall it sure is an interesting read. Not my cup of tea, but it could be yours!

Submitted (4 edits) (+1)

Holy shit. I still have a half dozen entries to go, but this may just have taken my favorite spot. 

It's slick. It's sexy. And hell, the man created the engine so of course it fits his aesthetic. The writing is phenomenal. Especially the dialogue. Also I love me some fiction embedded in people's cultures and this scratched that itch real good. 

And the Nokia! The callout for me being lazy and not naming the protagonist!

And then the ending. Christ. The ending.

That was so strangely... real? As someone who has recently tried reconnecting with old friends from my teen years, it can be heartbreakingly painful. Hearing how they've moved on. How you've moved on. How quickly relationships can die. How quickly things are forgotten.

God, that line about Dom starting to like those horrible movies and not watching Salkkarit anymore fucking broke me. It triggered something, and I nearly fucking cried. FUCK!

"Was nice meeting you."

UGH! PURKKA, WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY SADISTIC HEART!!!

Okay. I know it sounds stupid, but I don't think an FVN has made me feel emotions like these since I first got into FVNs and read Echo. 

I only have two small quibbles. First was the twist halfway with the secret meetings. That felt like it could have been foreshadowed by the characters more and brought up later. That thread just kinda died. In a somewhat similar vein the open relationship chat made me tilt my head as to how that connected after having so many things linked to real events. 

Still, what a fantastic read! Loved it. Loved it. Loved it. And hated it. Take your 5 stars and leave me to angst in peace.

EDIT: Also you restrained yourself from using up my yearly umlaut-reading-quota. I appreciate that.

Submitted(+1)

The moment I lost it. : )  Sorry I couldn't crop the entire circle for full effect.

This is a unique example of "edutainment" to be sure.  The visuals were incredibly well done.

Submitted(+1)

My Municipality is definitely incredibly well done, from the presentation to the research, you can tell a lot of care and effort went into making this project. However, on a completely personal level, I can't say I really enjoyed it. I'm not one for non-fiction history and personifying places as people, and it kind of felt like one big social studies lesson disguised as a furry visual novel. 

But again, this isn't to say it's bad by any means; quite the opposite, I think it's great for what it aims to do (telling a history lesson through a personified lens). Unfortunately, it's just not my cup of tea, but I'm probably not the target audience for stories like this. Regardless, great job, and congratulations on a very well made VN.

Submitted(+1)

My Municipality : 

Ok so, I'll have to admit that I was a bit lost with the story at first, obscure Finnish political situations aren't exactly my field of expertise, but it was expertly written and the humor helped a ton to capture my attention! Also, at the moment I'm writing this, My Municipality is my favourite VN when it comes to the implementation of theme, both through a very literal interpretation of the word "expansion" but presented in a creative way.

I appreciate the summary of what actually happened near the end of the VN, it was a nice anchor to reality to show the consequences of this whole story. 

When it comes to the more technical aspects, I must say you have a very nice UI, and I believe you made a good use of Godot for the different special effects in the VN. I think it's rarely mentioned, but you also made a great use of sound effects. 

All in all, I enjoyed My Municipality a lot more than I thought I would, given the subject matter, because you made it both informative and entertaining!

Developer(+1)

thanks a lot! glad you enjoyed the sound design in particular; the final sequence was all audio i recorded while on a trip to take the pictures, and it was my first experiment with doing something like that

Submitted(+1)

Spoilers etc:

Theme: I'm conflicted, in that while this is about literal expansion of the regions, it's also more-so a "humanized" tale refactoring expansion as a relationship tale, but then the relationship is able to be legally impacted, but then we do see the parts about the aftermath. It's a tale about expansion, but expansion is only present as a conceit in an extended metaphor that I thin would have carried over better if the boundaries between the characters as characters and the characters as regions was more firmly defined.

Story: There's a sort of inability to commit to the premise of the work, which is rough when dealing with a work about an extended metaphor. I felt like this conceit was present in many ways throughout the work, which had me not as connected as I could have been, because I kept seeing what were moments of self-indulgence (and while I think it'd be hard to find a conceit that isn't self indulgent when telling a story, that doesn't mean  it's helping make the conceit consistent).

In the initial propaganda advert, Helsinki  provides some characterization to the exposition, albeit in the way that a politician speaking to their constituents does (artificial, not in a way people speak to people), but then the second instance of the map screen is primarily just pure exposition, Helsinki not functioning as a character in that scene. Sipoo isn't even really emotionally present, just regurgitating facts when the second map screen arises. In that function, Sipoo just becomes like a teleprompter, and we're trying to put some emotionality to the elements at hand.

The characterization of Helsinki falls flat for me. She's never able to be fully a character nor fully a region. She says things that are inconsistent with her character (someone posh saying balancussy?). If the house is a means to recognize the affluence of a region (and yet, the characters also travel through said regions to distinct locations within, so then what does the house become then? An abandoned metaphor?), why don't we get invited over to Helsinki's house instead of those dates? She's very Cruella DeVille and other similar disney villains, but without their extensive flair, existing more of a caricature.

The dates themselves aren't quite fully implemented. The voice of the work paints Helsinki as a flat character, a one dimensional villain and sure, those exist, but politicians try to pretend otherwise in their pleas ( at least, they're supposed to not have the mask off). The economy scene was just an extended Lucille Bluth.Arrested Development sort of moment, the movie theatre scene felt more like you advertising your taste in media, the non-sequitur joke date screen undercut the mood of the piece-- for something fought in law and for a relationship, it made light of the situation. I love jokes, but they should work to the tone of the piece, not pull the tone away to rubberband back. The third date didn't even have an outcome, but had Dom propose Sipoo's plan on behalf of Sipoo? I suppose the conceit was that this was already determined as part of the private talks, but then that doesn't really carry over to what happens when people go through these things.

We have commentary on voting, in that a "region" didn't vote for the prime minister-- what does that entail, in this narrative? Is it like the State's electoral votes? Did none of the constituents within vote for that person? The throw-away joke at the "expense" of the prime minister is too close to the material of the work, exploring political events where the political is perhaps the most personal it can get (... the Hetalia mode, of which I don't think really tends to go to actual locations, but exists in more of a metaspace? At least, Denmark Vs the World does which functions in a similar conceit). In a similar vein, what does it mean for a region to have children? Splitting themselves into more sub-regions? I feel like in most political spaces, stuff tends to get absorbed by others, not splinter off if they want to endure.

At times, the prose felt utilitarian to explain the mundanity, but that mundanity was introduced for elements that didn't quite always follow through.

I wonder if some of the characterization could have been restored if the exposition for the map scenes weren't done from Helsinki's primary PoV (like some sort of political advert), but in the guise of Finland, talking about her children (because that's how Finland is broken up, no?) It would have allowed for that judgment of Helsinki, as opposed to Helsinki coming off as explicitly disingenuous. 

---

Story asides: There's a lot of local references that I naturally didn't catch, and that makes sense. I'm not local. The only part where that didn't work with me were as noted before, in that it couldn't decide to be in a more metaphoric space or a more physical space.

Is the Vanta panda joke a commentary on the region? We barely interact with Vanta throughout the work. What it is trying to say with that absurdist joke?

---

Presentation: I think you really stood out here, with your pictures of actual places that were affected by this development. I liked your gag for the nicknaming, but when given a world of open input, I hoped for like a profanity check (albeit that may be hard across multiple languages), given I named Dom Dickhead after playing around with it given the "bullying" re: using the default nickname.

I did like the presentation of the map screens, and the use of transitions, although the font you used made Sipoo look liked SIP(two number zeros). Skinny O's become 0's.

The legalese text was too large, imo. One's eyes naturally slip off that, which means that you have to travel too far to go back to the words that your brain resists (or maybe it's just cuz I'm too close to legalese in my day job that it pains me to see more off work hours).

I don't like that I can't click to advance the text, even if the default text speed is pretty fast.

I thought it was funny you had US calendar dating format.

The first two 

Creativity: Doing a Hetalia-esque rendition of one's local politics is bold, and there were some good uses of animation in your engine to reflect the mood.

I enjoyed your "where are they now" documentary sequence.

Overall thoughts: The idea is fun and interesting, but I think the execution was too muddied for me to be in love. It had too many elements, many conflicting, and a lot of nods to what felt like filmography moments without them necessarily translating into the same contexts.

I wanted to care more for the characters, but they felt flat, because half the time they were explicitly the regions as mouthpieces for politicians, as opposed to characters with agendas, and even then some of the motivation (even if true to real life) was so passive. Metaphor can translate real events into something more, like seeing a flashback to a clandestine meeting between Helsinki and Sipoo instead of just getting another history lesson dump.

By being both a documentary and a sorta rom-com, it wasn't quite perfectly either in ways that pulled against both genres.

I still appreciate the novel attempt, and the curious lesson on Finland politics. An interesting gaze into Purkka's creative PoV.

Developer (1 edit)

thanks for your extensive comment! respectfully: i feel like you're overthinking a lot of things.

this kind of text just works such that there is no coherent fictional reality to it, no consistent logic behind how its various layers correspond to each other or what functions the characters serve in any given scene. starting with a clearly "non-narrative" bit to frame the rest was a very deliberate choice; that's the primary lens you're supposed to be reading the game through.

despite it being subordinate the essay-esque framing, there is a story somewhere in there, true. if i had to explain it myself, i'd say it's about two guys getting whisked away from their seemingly mundane lives into a postmodern hellscape where their fates are suddenly controlled by an incomprehensible, shifting metaphor, Helsinki's sudden real-life legal intrusion manifesting as a narrative one in the fiction. this is the basis for the drama, but also for the comedy, and particularly how they intersect: many of the jokes serve to undercut the coherency of the storyworld to cruelly underline the absurd horrors the characters are now facing.

whether this works or is fun to read is up to every reader to decide, of course. i guess it's an easy text to read "wrong" in the sense that there's a very specific way it demands you engage with it. i'm honestly somewhat surprised that so much of the reader response so far feels like people get my literary intentions!

anyway, as a result, i don't really have much to say to most of your comments. as for some specific ones i can try to elaborate on:

> She says things that are inconsistent with her character (someone posh saying balancussy?).

the word choice is an attempt to translate the specific pun from the original script, which i felt was important enough to not change into some other kind of joke. i honestly dislike the final result more for being anachronistic to 2006, and would gladly change it if anything better occurred to me.

in general, though, i think it's not too far from the character's voice, since Helsinki's whole point is the ambiguity of how much her "sophisticated city folk" thing is a role she plays and how much it's just what she's like (and what the difference would even be).

> the movie theatre scene felt more like you advertising your taste in media

well, i'd say the major references are pretty purposeful in their intertextual meanings. the whole scene being a homage to Kaurismäki's FALLEN LEAVES is a deliberate move to put the game in conversation with his filmography, particularly his brand of comedy, and it's worth noting that this is a reference the average Finnish reader is expected to probably get. as for SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY, the film the characters watch, the countryside/city dualism in that one is relevant in a fairly obvious way.

(even in more general terms, the soap opera the guys watch vs. Helsinki's preferred arthouse cinema is pretty central to how the text constructs the positions the characters represent and returns in a very big way later on. honestly, i worried the first date was too load-bearing since it had so much important material compared to the other two.)

> The third date didn't even have an outcome, but had Dom propose Sipoo's plan on behalf of Sipoo?

yeah. just pointing out that this is one of those places where you really don't want to over/underthink things – the rift arising between Dom and Sipoo in the story dramatizes the internal tensions in Sipoo's local politics resulting from how those two guys mishandled the private negotiations with Helsinki

> Is the Vanta panda joke a commentary on the region? We barely interact with Vanta throughout the work. What it is trying to say with that absurdist joke?

it's a specific reference i won't bother going into here, but more importantly, Vantaa is kind of just a guy who shows up, gladly hands Helsinki the key to her scheme (the Wedge of Vesterkulla) with no clear motive of his own, and refuses to elaborate. this is more or less how it went down in real life, too.

> I did like the presentation of the map screens, and the use of transitions, although the font you used made Sipoo look liked SIP(two number zeros). Skinny O's become 0's.

true, though you'll have to send this feedback to whoever designed the road signs in Finland! (what i'm using is someone's CC0-licensed reconstruction of the font, but it's very close to the real thing.) i guess there is no risk of confusion in practice, since place names don't tend to have numbers in them.

Submitted(+1)

This one is real good. It nails nearly everything with special attention to presentation. Going in, I was expecting the struggle of the story to be wholly presented “in character,” but quickly it became clear that would not be feasible. It surprisingly delivers on emotional impact, given you know how this story ends from the offset.

Also the best implementation of the Jam’s theme by a lot.

Submitted(+1)

Ok I have just finished reading this visual novel. Here are my thoughts.

First of all, this is one of the most creative applications of the theme, which doesn't mean it's difficult to get at all. In fact, the game makes itself very clear about what they were doing with the expansion topic. 

I can't deny how this feels like a countryhumans story, but turned into a furry visual novel. Each character represent a city and the relationship between municipalities is depicted in the relationships of the municipality-person characters. This makes an otherwise perhaps hard topic to understand into very learner-friendly content, a truly educational furry visual novel (one of the only ones I have read, if not the only one).

About presentation, I must admit that everything fits well with the story. The frutiger aero aesthetics make a lot of sense considering the fact the events of the vn happened in 2006. Music harmonizes well with the visuals, creating a Wii start screen-like atmosphere.

All in all, I'd say this is one of the highest quality entries this jam has to offer.

Submitted

Ok I have just finished reading this visual novel. Here are my thoughts.

First of all, this is one of the most creative applications of the theme, which doesn't mean it's difficult to get at all. In fact, the game makes itself very clear about what they were doing with the expansion topic. 

I can't deny how this feels like a countryhumans story, but turned into a furry visual novel. Each character represent a city and the relationship between municipalities is depicted in the relationships of the municipality-person characters. This makes an otherwise perhaps hard topic to understand into very learner-friendly content, a truly educational furry visual novel (one of the only ones I have read, if not the only one).

About presentation, I must admit that everything fits well with the story. The frutiger aero aesthetics make a lot of sense considering the fact the events of the vn happened in 2006. Music harmonizes well with the visuals, creating a Wii start screen-like atmosphere.

All in all, I'd say this is one of the highest quality entries this jam has to offer.

Submitted(+1)

By far the most unique take on the theme, and you have some hilarious dialogue in here. I came out of this knowing so much more about Finnish Municipalities than I would have ever thought, and I learned it from an FVN no less!

Your passion and care for the project comes through in so many little details, this is so far the most polished entry I've read (of the ten or so). Incredibly impressive effort from a solo dev, it looks amazing and your hard work is clear for everyone to see.

The literal expansion of Helsinki into other parts is a good use of theme.

I do agree with Loudo's critique, I was bombarded with Finnish words and names and it made things difficult to digest at times, I would often have to pause or reread sections to understand who or what was being discussed. This is, of course, an issue of not speaking the language or not being from the region and while it slowed me down it didn't diminish my enjoyment of the story at all.

That said, you presented what would otherwise not be (for me) an exciting topic in a way that was ceaselessly engaging, and in spite of a couple slowdowns and hiccups I tore through the whole thing with a smile on my face!

Excellent work!

Submitted(+1)

I loved it! While the subject matter is definitely not for everyone (I read this both on my own and with a some people who found it extremely boring), as someone who studied law, works in public administration, and loves political geography, I was personally ready and primed to like this game.

The implementation of the theme, the journalistic quality of the work, the way it tries to teach real life lore to horny furries via gay wolf shenanigans, were all just a joy. And everything in the presentation looks crisp and purposeful.

Minor Spoilers to follow

The story was fun but surprisingly engaging: the scene where the game shows you real life pictures of Östersundom today was a genuine gut punch that almost made me teary. My main gripe with the game is everything that follows that moment: the way the game goes straight into explaining what happened in Östersundom right after showing the pictures lessens the impact somewhat (don't explain to me what you've already shown, the pictures are worth more than a thousand words!).

And the final scene between Dom and Sipoo, while very nicely written, is part of something that left me a bit confused about the game. There are some hints here and there that Dom might not be completely happy with Sipoo and might have some doubts about their relationship after all, and this seems to be reinforced in the final scene when, given the opportunity to do otherwise, the two don't really reconnect and keep going their separate ways. However, this underlying thread doesn't really seem to be explored and I'm not sure what the story is doing with this, and how it relates to the overall metaphor.

Some minor nitpicks and assorted feedback:

  • The quotes at the beginning of the game disappear way to quickly for me to properly absorb them. Those were not easy sentences to read in what felt like under 5 seconds.
  • For something that is trying to report on a real life story, the dates were a bit confusing throughout. The first date appearing in the game contains no hint about whether it's supposed to be read in European or American format, and later on the format sometimes switches from one mode to the other.
  • I believe the skip function could use some improvement: while for a story this size it works well enough, I would need for it to be *way* faster for it to be really useful in any larger project. I also noticed it stopped skipping on its own when it came to the aforementioned pictures.
  • The game throws a lot of Finnish words at you and it is really difficult to keep track of who's who and what's what, although this problem was mostly gone by the second reading. Still I do think throwing some occasional reminder for reader's benefit, at least in English version, would go a long way. Small things like saying the occasional "Prime Minister Vanhanen" instead of just Vanhanen would help.
Developer(+1)

thanks for your very useful feedback & glad you had enjoyed the VN!

the ending is kind of in a weird state because a lot of the research i did was ultimately left out for pacing reasons, particularly about the (fascinatingly mixed) reactions by the residents of the area since 2009, so you're right that the explanations feel sort of extraneous. it's an awkward middle ground that it might be possible to adjust to either direction. (in my mind, the character drama relates some of the cut stuff, but i'm fine with the specific authorial being impenetrable in the final product. i wanted to leave it somewhat open to interpretation to respect the different thoughts & feelings people have about the real-life events and the current status quo.)

also, re: your writing nitpicks, i'm not sure how apparent it is, but the translation process was pretty hasty and i honestly just forgot to check that the date formats were consistent in my hurry to get everything done. i'll take care of that after the jam and look into the kinds of clarity adjustments you mentioned as well.

the skipping stuff happens because that portion is implemented as a "cutscene" internally, changing the behavior so that you click the button once to skip the whole thing. this pausing skipping is a half-intentional side effect that probably feels more confusing than useful on the whole; i'll look into changing it. a slider for skipping speed should be easy enough to add, just haven't done that yet.

Submitted(+1)

Certainly a unique take on the theme, but undeniably on point! 

Not being from anywhere within the vicinity of Finland I suspect there were plenty of references that were over my head, but the story of rural communities annexed into the tax base of urban centers, with zero benefits to show for it years later, transcends national boundaries (my childhood was spent in just such a community incorporated into a greater municipal area and the VNs closing images were chillingly relatable).

The prose is quick and effective, the characterization of the main characters/administrative divisions is well conveyed, and the mid 00s vibes are solid. An overall enjoyable and entertaining project, and it taught me a bit of Finnish urban history and municipal law trivia which I will definitely never need, but which is still nice to know!

(+1)

Brilliant and educative 

Submitted (1 edit)

Ok. This will be the sixth entry I will read. Yay!

The concept sounds appealing.

(+1)

I admit, I'm a sucker for a Hetalia-like. Oi Kuntani Mun is exactly the kind of metamodern fourth-wall-breaking pulp fiction I needed in my life. I know nothing about Finnish politics, but centrist parties are the same everywhere and the unbridled greed of urban centers for their left-for-dead semi-rural neighboring municipalities has universal appeal.

Shout out to the amazing paint-over of the Three Smiths and the hilarious "I woke up in a black void" lampshade.

And fuck Matti Vanhanen, all my friends hate that guy.