Play game
Replay Video's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Story | #19 | 3.294 | 3.294 |
| Creativity | #21 | 3.676 | 3.676 |
| Presentation | #27 | 2.941 | 2.941 |
| Implementation of Theme | #27 | 2.471 | 2.471 |
Ranked from 34 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
Al, Omri, Beto
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
28thvn I read and rate from May Wolf 2024 FVN JAM. Cute and original.
28th vn I read and rate from May Wolf 2024 FVN JAM. Cute and original.
I love the idea of the afterlife being a sort of purgatory of a person's life changing moment, which in this case was a video store. I could sort of see where the story would go after I realized that the wolf was having his life literally flash before his eyes. Still! I didn't really feel sold on the "giving up memories" portion because there wasn't any discernable downsides to such a choice. Still a very nice read and I do feel like if this one had a tiny bit more time I would enjoy it more cuz I can see the vision. It just didn't cook long enough.
I absolutely agree. This was quite literally a two day project, and I plan to go back and expand on the story as soon as we are allowed to following the game jam.
That scene in particular was a last minute addition to the story, and was not implemented well. I literally wrote the story, start to finish, in about 8 hours, coding it as I went.
The entire time dragon aspect wasn't even thought of until I got to the MC's death scene; I had already written him into the story as the doctor, so it was a quick edit, and not well thought out.
Got to be honest, this one is my favorite of the dev's three May Wolf entries, by a long shot!
SPOILERS to follow
While it shares some weaknesses with the other two entries (such as the lack of narration), I think this limitation works far better here, in this setting, than in the other two stories. At certain points the protagonist acts for all intents and purposes as the narrator, which feels appropriate in this particular story (which is all about this character's self-exploration), and the cassettes provide a nice excuse to be jumping around in the timeline. The premise of the story is also something I very much enjoy.
The one weakness of the story is that I don't really buy its main conflict: the story is trying to sell what the protagonist does as a "sacrifice" (give up his memories). But we don't get to see any happy memory after the love interest dies, so the sacrifice feels hollow at beast. Not to mention, it's a second chance at life when the protagonist already died. I think this plot point, which ends up taking a lot of space, doesn't feel very satisfactory. Everything else I enjoyed a lot though!
Absolutely fair! This was my favorite concept, but I didn't flesh it out as well as I wanted.
To give you an idea of how vague the idea was, magic time dragon wasn't even an thought until I wrote up to the part of MC dying and was thinking how to give him the ability to turn back time.
I already had the dragon as the doctor, I already had the standard "I'll give up anything" line. I just went back and added the doctor's musings so the other part would make sense later.
I'm not proud of it, it's just the way my mind works (or doesn't, as the case may be). ; )
You are right about no other happy memories as well; the tapes representing the end of his life all had the same shade of purple to show he wasn't devastated, but he was never really happy, either. He just kind of... existed.
I have more I'd like to go back and add once this is all over. Thanks again for taking part in the event stream.
Okie dokes. That's the third one down. Another interesting idea that doesn't quite hit the mark execution wise. Still, I think this was good for experience. And, as for a story that you worked through in 2 days, this is not bad at all.
Hope to see more of you in the future!
The surreal premise compels me in a strange way, and the dreamlike visuals feel like they communicate the essence of the story. As for the writing, I have largely the same feedback as for your other entries: with no narration, it feels less like a story is happening and more like the characters are explaining a story at you. Characterization in particular takes a big hit here, with so many scenes where characters state their personalities and traits to each other rather than it all being conveyed through a narrative.
Thanks for the feedback! This is precisely why I took part in the game jam. I wanted to know which things I need to work on most. I can do better, and I wanted to get advice before I go any further with my main project. Based on what I've learned, all three projects will have significant changes made following the game jam. I've also acquired materials to assist me in learning how to write better.
I'm still very new to all the aspects of making a visual novel. I haven't written anything since English class in high school over 20 years ago, so I'm woefully out of practice. I only started drawing again at the beginning of the year (again, since high school), and before now, I had never done so digitally. I have no coding experience and had never touched Ren'Py before the tenth of last month. But I'm not using any of this as an excuse. I'm here to be judged critically because it's the best way to improve. I'm open to constructive criticism, and I promise I will improve!
you're welcome for the feedback; hope the jam has felt like a good learning experience & good luck on your future projects! submitting three whole entries is an impressive feat, you'll achieve a lot if you keep putting in that amount of work
Theme: Expansion of memory? Awareness? time?
Story: I surmised it was some sort of purgatory at the start, although I didn't expect it to be a second-chance sort of deal, which was a nice twist.
The story kind of barrels ahead at full force the whole time, without much time to breathe (albeit that's not terrible for a shorter work, but I think the subject of this story merited some more time in the gaps).
That opening monologue to himself was a bit much, and could have been done with a little more subtlety/integration rather than openly lampshading that it was to explain to the audience.
Presentation: I liked your custom backgrounds and setups, and how the future tapes disappeared when recording was done. You made pretty good use of a limited palette in the afterworld too, although I don't know if I loved the magic dragon's "void". But still a pretty nice stuff for a two day excursion.
Creativity: While this is the sort of narrative that's highly identifiable with clues, it still stands out from a lot of the May Wolf 2024 noise, which is nice.
Overall thoughts; Nice brief attempt, you went ham to pen like 7k words in two days, but in a way that shows. Urgency carried your production speed, but that left it a bit rough around the edges. Well done nonetheless!
And that ends my time in your May Wolf comments :p
Thank you for all of your reviews! They have all been very thoughtful and informative.
I agree, this is absolutely rough around the edges. Of the ones I made, this is the one I most want to go back to and develop further. I plan to go back and let the story breathe more and add some narration and more backgrounds, and add in some of the concepts originally abandoned for the sake of time. I also want to more fully develop the relationship, as it suffered most.
For the dragon scene, I do have some ideas for a background; I wanted to draw some sort of stars and planets concept with the gigantic 'sunflower' the dragon saw growing, being the center of the 'universe' but ran out of time. I have a nice concept on how I want to animate it, but I'll have to see if I can pull it off.
The yellow / sunflower obviously represented the love interest, but I ran out of time to implement the purple / crocus for the mc, which represents a phoenix and rebirth. (The other reason I chose those colors was because the local video rental store when I was in high-school was purple and yellow).
I desperately need to work on subtext. I tend to be very perceptive in some areas, and incredibly dense in others, which makes me always want to overcorrect in making things obvious for the reader. I can get a lot of work done very quickly, but have never been very good at polishing up and adding final touches.
If there is a next time, I'd maybe like to work on a team with someone so I can focus on just one or two aspects, and let someone else handle the story.
Real, working with someone else on a team is indeed a pleasure haha. Even one more lifts a burden.
The concept of this story is phenomenal for a short, quick VN. I find it kind of funny that it came to you in a dream, sometimes eureka moments come to you in the strangest places!
However, as for execution, my biggest gripe with this story is a total lack of narration. There's not a single line where someone isn't talking, and I think this hurts the story as it tries to go for the more emotional beats. A moment to just simmer down and bask in the tragedy of a situation, or really analyze what's going on in this video store, could've seriously helped elevate the tone and mood of the writing. A lot of moments where it's just exposition feels rather awkward, since it's just our MC going on a long winded rant out loud, and I think it could have benefitted from these moments being thought rather than spoken.
It's a very cute story despite this flaw, and I'm again impressed you could do it in such a short amount of time. Congrats! ♡
I agree, the biggest takeaway I have about my writing is the lack of using narration. It made it extremely difficult for me to portray the story. I was told by a teacher back in high school that I relied on narration too much in my creative writing, and that I needed to stop. I took that critique way too literally, and it hurt all of my stories in the jam as a result. This is exactly why I wanted to take part, so I can know my biggest pitfalls before I go any further with my other project.
That, plus not doing any creative writing for over twenty years is not a good combination 😕 When the jam is over, I plan to temporarily disable my stories so I can go back and rehash them a bit. I may delete the second one entirely, as, while it is a fun premise, I executed it so poorly that I would probably be better off doing it from scratch.
I'm the kind of person who hesitates and never gets anything done, or I jump in with both feet to get baptized by fire, there's no in between!
Hey there! First off, thanks for you comment on Blazing Passion (and we are still working very hard on NeveN, especially on Maelbjorn's route right now, so I think it'll make you happy haha)!
So, after playing Replay Video, here is my impression. I liked your writing, I know you said you wanted to work a bit more on your foreshadowing at the end of the VN but I think you already do a good job at it. You introduce the concept bit by bit and it's easy to understand thanks to the in-between scenes between each tape.
Omri and Alex are touching, and the story plays well around their relationship, first making us feel sorry for them before giving way to hope.
As for the technical aspects, I appreciate the fact that you drew custom backgrounds, it gives your VN a unique touch.
I thought the music at the beginning was used for a bit too long before the first tape was played, but I suppose that's intended to serve the message about monotony.
On top of that, I encountered an unfortunate bug in the tape where Alex has his heart attack, when I tried to go back to a previous paragraph it totally broke the music for the scene.
But yeah, all in all a positive experience despite the few things I have to say about the technical aspects, so thank you for working on this VN! :)
Thank you very much! Most of the jam, I was confused about what things were expected, but finally started understanding more at the end once more projects started coming in. With only two days to go, I was extremely limited in what I could accomplish, but felt I could at least do something with the idea.
After the voting period ends, I plan to go back and add sound effects and cutscenes. A dropped plot element was Alexander would be represented by a purple crocus, representing rebirth or the phoenix. I simply ran out of time to draw in the references and develop the concept, hence all the purple and yellow throughout.
On the music bug, I have an idea what it could be from; I do have a couple music stops programmed in, and had some issues with fade working correctly. As they were the last bugs in the code before I wad able to run the game. I just went back and deleted them to get it to play, and may have accidentally left something unresolved.
Thanks for your comment about the backgrounds! I love drawing sprites, but loathe drawing backgrounds. I only had time to make one or the other this time around, and opted for backgrounds since they were fairly simple and few were needed. I have no issue with using photo backgrounds, but know some people dislike them.
Interesting premise and take for the concept of personal purgatory. I'm not gonna comment too much on the technical aspects because it's a two-days work so I can understand why some parts are a bit rough around the edges. But the fact that you use custom backgrounds, albeit simple, is already great. You have two more entries I have yet to read, which (I believe) are a better reflection of yours, I might go deeper into those.
My only grip, is that Al spoke too coherently for someone who was in an extreme emotional state (anger and sorrow). If you're distressed, you would most likely speak a bit incoherently/with a bit of stutter. That's it!
Replay Video is an impressive and enjoyable product of a project, especially considering everything was put together within only two days!
Thank you for your review! You're quite right about the speech aspect, and honestly it would have been easy for me to implement.
I have a lot of issues with panic attacks, and my main symptoms are tremors, stuttering and difficulty focusing enough to be able to speak. I actually have a character in another vn I'm working on that has that issue.
I'll be honest, I was more focused on learning HOW to make a vn during the jam, rather than the story itself, so they're all a bit rough. This one I think was my favorite concept, though, hence my desire to try and fit it in.
A creative little story. I don't feel like it really worked in the theme as much as it could have, but as a writer who's own writing process is glacial by comparison, I find it extremely impressive that you produced something that feels this complete in such a short time!
Thanks! I know it wasn't as fully developed as it should have been, and this one in particular I hope to flesh out more after the judging concludes. I know I don't get extra points for doing it fast. I need to slow down and get it right (though given the time remaining to deadline, it wasn't an option here)!
To be honest, my main focus this game jam was just to learn the fundamentals of making an fvn since I had no previous experience with coding, much less Ren'Py, prior to early May. I also have been trying to develop a basic workflow that works for me.
My primary goal the entire jam was focusing on the building blocks, like how to make sprites with multiple expressions, how to make music loops, how to do basic animations, and so on. Each time, my focus has been on something basic and technical. I didn't put my best foot forward in the writing department, and it greatly shows.
I haven't done any substantial writing since high school over 20 years ago, so I have a lot to brush up on, but have found some resources that I plan to read up on to help in that area. I hope by next year I can at least be a competent participant. It's been quite a lot of fun!
While not surprised that we both went the same route with naming (having the wolves have names starting with A, B, and O), would not have guessed that two of them would have the same names.
Really nice game for the time you spent working on it, and looking forward to reading the revised version.
Thanks! I was kicking myself for not thinking about doing the concept earlier, as I think it was my favorite idea of the ones I made, but not enough time to fully flesh it out. A lost plot point on the way was the concept of (Al)pha and (Bet)a brainwaves, but in the course of the story, I couldn't get it to integrate well without a stupid exposition dump, so I left it out, but kept the names, as I was so far into the story by that point.
On my rework, I want to spend more time on the relationship buildup and tone down the exposition dump at the end; I know it's better to see than say, but without time to draw proper cutscenes and additional backgrounds, it did kind of limit what I could make happen.