Another Urban Fantasy entry! Hurray!

I was quickly immersed into the setting, and Nino is a cute little weirdo. Like many MayWolfs it ends too soon! The assets you used, such as the music and the other sprites, really amplified the tone of it. It made it feel gritter and more serious and I am impressed the way you leveraged so little to do some excellent worldbuilding.

A solid entry, but I can tell you were pressed for time (like everyone else!), but a great concept and a strong foundation that uses a little to say a lot.

Promising story and good visual effects! Too bad it ends a bit fast, hope you’ll work on it somedays, to answer all the remaining mysteries!

Spoilers down there be careful:
Very interesting, probably one of my favorite so far . It's too bad we stop before it really goes anywhere.

The theme implementation was either not there, or I didn't really catch it, maybe the wolf transformation and what it causes can be interpreted as the expand?

The presentation was really nice, It doesn't stay fixated too long, it has a lot of cg and transitions to vary what you have in front of you. I always appreciate more effort on the presentation side of things in VN's. Great use of the musics tracks too, it's well balanced overall.

Now the story, this is probably what I enjoyed the most, I really like the way it's written, nothing feels unnecessary, I like the overall tone and worldbuilding we have. It's too bad it cuts just when you feel the story finally starts. Sorry if I can't really tell more in detail why I like the writting, but it just feels nice to read, I can easily check out, especially during long internal monologue, but here I didn't and I was kept interested during the whole thing.

The creativity part ties back to the story for me. I'm a sucker for these kinds of universes, and I liked the way it was presented, with some snippet of info with get while still advancing through the story.

Anyway, good job on this entry! I hope you will continue it!

Spoilers:

Theme: Not quite present.

Story: I'm not sure how I feel. A lot feels very expository in this setup, amongst some punchy lines. I don't know how much I buy into the necessity of the pup play (even with the symbolic parallels in your using it as a foil for being a werewolf as a sort of presentation performativity/identification of the 'true self'). It feels more comical than anything else, which is a curious clash against the tone of the work for me. Like it feels meant to be commentary on how we are perceived/want to be perceived, but in the same breath Nino is barking out endless daddies and is driving the relationship (more like father son play than pup play, i guess? which is even funnier with the lampshaded age difference) and that makes it difficult for me to take him serious when he says anything at all (but in all fairness, others may not have the same issue).

We also end before we get anywhere, with just a lot of build-up, layers upon layers of worldbuilding and we come out with like 5 key items( and maybe a shared sub item):

1. Our protagonist hates being a werewolf.
1a/2a. He fears dying young due to being a werewolf, and not living a proper life due to being a werewolf.

2. Werewolves die young.

3. There's a secret supernatural world.

4. Our protag hates his brother and will do anything to get to him.

5. His brother's left a trail along the way, his past discarded in more ways than one.

I guess I'm unsure of whether our protagonist is even meaningfully upset his parents died? He seems more in awe at their untimely expiration and that their lives were so short, glossing over their deaths with the Kitsune (who was also a fae? that's a curious arrangement, not quite what traditional fae are like, especially when you were borrowing from other japanese folklore with the nezumi).  He didn't quite seem angry at them either for obscuring being mostly(?) natural-born werewolves, or at least, obscuring what was going on with the brother, or favoring the brother, but rather just being jealous of Ugo, which isn't an impossible metric, but it makes me wonder more who our protagonist is that he seems indifferent (or at least, ambivalent?) all the same in spite of his heated feelings for his brother.

Presentation: You've found some top notch assets and arranged (and edited) them masterfully. I know how hard it is to find assets, and you scouted furiously, it seems, to find items that really fit your mood, and it does pay off. Even the font is great, and that's ANOTHER thing that takes endless effort to find a suitable one.

Even the little bursts of  "CGs", the quick flashes of drawma, show great scripting.

Creativity: Urban fantasy + revenge. Time tested classics.

Overall thoughts: Given that this is so much of a build-up to a story rather than a story itself, I'm kinda left wanting. Your presentation is fantastic, but the narrative as it stands so far is a promise, and a promise alone requires a lot to really push ahead. 

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Siebar: The short story I think of off the top of my head as a comparison that functions as a sort of promise (that was built into a full novel) doesn't appear to have any online copy to point to lol. (For context, it's Ava Wrestles the Alligator, which then got built out into its own work as Swamplandia--god, I wish I spill stories like her.)

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Like what it stands for  shows promise, but as it currently is, it's an incomplete story, one that I have trouble staying within. I felt like I learned more about what the protagonist didn't know, then about the protagonist when we had so many things to react to. A sort of outline of what he wasn't, and while in a way that defines him, the image I got wasn't clear enough to fill in the space. Maybe even more  so bout the brother than himself, which is another curious way to define him.

It's very much a queer story (the incurable disease (reminiscent of the HIV crisis), the rejection of the self, the untimely demise, the literal kink community within) and yet we also have other supernatural beings that don't seem to have the same limitations, which kind of pulls it away from that othering (to me). They exist in the same space-- it's the supernatural community, not the werewolf community. Do they have their own health limitations? The rabbit seems to live freely, as does the kitsune and bartender.  The werewolves have an actual built in-limitation (of which the kitsune seems to suggest that trying to seal away things isn't the answer, and yet that feels like sort of the xmen third movie paradigm of "Woman with really awesome powers says there's nothing wrong with being a mutant" whereas "woman who can kill everyone she loves in a touch and never know their embrace wishes to be "normal", if that makes any sense.

A message can be true, but the preponderance of evidence suggests the full moon, eg. a full embrace, would lead to a lack of sanity, and that it's right to not try and embrace the othering state. And then I'm back to kinda of wondering where this extended metaphor stands, and what the incompleteness obscures that perhaps the full narrative would be able to capture.

And while what may come would likely be enjoyable if crafted with the same care, what's currently present isn't the same as what it promises to become.

Even if you can smell the looming submission deadline (there's a noticeable amount of typos and text blocks in need of line editing), Ugolino in the Tower has some of the sharpest writing in the competition. It's no-nonsense pacing never slows down after the great opening line; the atmosphere is all in the action, and bits of worldbuilding are incorporated with a careful eye for both the clarity and the stakes of the story and the flow of the narration on the whole. More than just making the work pleasant to read, every quiet moment feeling pointed and weighty does a lot to sell the urgency of the situation.

The imagery is sharp, with the game's particular focus on the physicality of lycanthropy conveying the social situation of the protagonist so well that laying it out explicitly feels almost extraneous. Equally stylish and meticulous is the presentation; a scene of two characters enjoying a conversation provides some of the most striking imagery in the VN. Heavy use of negative space and silhouettes also just matches the mood the narration establishes perfectly! Not a single visual element feels out of place, although some of the assets themselves could use a little polish – unaltered photographs feel slightly out of place with the game's striking aesthetic, and zoom-ins on the sprites' eyes are distractingly low-quality.

When it comes to what could easily have been the most disappointing aspect: the game convinced me of its episodic release model better than any other unfinished work in the jam with its insanely good final stinger. Honestly, I'm pretty content lingering in the excitement of the next part for now, like how good TV used to work before bingeing came along.

Excellent as a jam entry (the weak link probably being the implementation of the theme) and a thrilling start for a VN in general. We'd be looking at a breakout hit if the plain Itch page and the sort of messy, muted thumbnail didn't undersell the game's strong visual sensibilities.

Very atmospheric and immersive. The general mood and vibe reflect the sad reality the wolves were forced into. Art and music are also on point. The story has me really intrigued and I just can't wait to see the rest of it!

After reading the previous comments, it bears repeating: gorgeous presentation. Very cohesive and atmospheric. While short, we got enough information about the setting, lore, and characters to get a clear idea of where the story might be going in the future. My only nitpick would be that the cover image and the screenshots give more of a horror vibe, while what we got (so far) is more so of a not-so-dark urban fantasy.

Looking forward to seeing more Nino (otherwise, changing my comment and rating).

I think my favorite moment was the mc refusing the request to be followed around with the immediate transition to being together in the apartment, ready to head out.  

I did seem to have a random bug when first being introduced to the archivist where two music tracks were playing simultaneously, though I've not been able to replicate it.  I think it was likely just a random Ren'Py error.

I really wish we could have seen just a bit more of the story, but I'm looking forward to future releases regardless!

Well slap me on the arse and toss me in the Tiber, that was excellent!

I gotta be honest, I wasn't sure about this at first. It felt like the narrative interjections were a bit too intrusive in the first couple scenes, and I just about rolled my eyes at the mention of werewolves.

But the atmosphere! The atmosphere! Fantastic. It won me over with the music and the CGs. Packaging is everything, and this was packaged beautifully. And I think that once the story got going, the writing smoothed out and flowed very well.

This was a great read, and I'm so glad you stayed up till 5am to submit it! Can't wait to see what becomes of this in the future!

This one was actually pretty good. Despite its current state, it does hit emotional beats pretty well, also planting those seeds of intrigue. Presentation and prose were just fine on their own, but working together they really make for an unique and fitting vibe.

So, for the story itself, I can't really judge it because it's an introduction that absolutely needs a follow-up to be complete. However, I liked the general gloomy ambiance you gave to your VN, and your use of a variety of visuals to help convey the elements of the story. It's also interesting to follow a character who may not be 100% good, or at least who is on a path of vengeance. The only cataclysmic decision was to make Anselmo drink directly from a bottle of cider. I consider that an offence and shall declare war on you. But yeah, for what you managed to write, I think it's a good start and I'll wait for the rest of it!

I have just finished reading this vn (which is the seventh I read from this jam btw). These are my thoughts.

To begin with, I was left intrigued by the end of the story. This vn turned from what I initially thought would be an epic fantasy vn set in nowadays Rome to a plot you'd swear would be fitting for an action movie (a furry action movie...but not in a Beastars way).

Regarding the visuals and audio choice, I concur with ErebusWulfe. With minimally modified pictures you managed to build a coherent atmosphere of mystery I believe is highly suitable for this VN.

Concerning theme implementation, I concur with ErebusWulfe again. I feel like the story struggled to convey its interpretation of expansion, yet to an extent it could be given a pass since the game is incomplete. 

That's what I think of this vn. Will the game be updated once the jam ends?