Well written, patiently paced, elegantly constructed. The main characters are suitably archetypical – you get what their deal is pretty fast, but the game's gratifying dramatic arc explores their relationship with a sharp eye for interesting details and conflicts. In the end, it felt like a complete, satisfying story. And while there's not a lot of visual flair to the VN, its few tricks it has are used well; the transition to the embedded narrative near the end was pure cinema.
I'm in awe. While the story is hard to judge in this state, TATWIOYBOTAG sold its central concept perfectly – it is examined from many directions in a pretty small amount of words, and there are already plenty of fun worldbuilding tidbits, such as a pronoun system that would make Jordan Peterson cry.
Visually, it's kind of an attack on your eyes sometimes (what on earth is going on with those speaker labels?), but in a way that feels consistent with using recolored sprites to represent people splitting in twain in its playfulness. I cannot wait to see more, and as a game jam entry, it's safe to say that it represents an interesting, original take on the MY WOLF subject matter.
Very nice. The polish and the amount of effort put into every facet of the game is seriously impressive, especially for a game jam project. Given that staring at those same three sprites for like 20 games in a row gets inevitably kind of monotonous, I appreciate the choice to forego the game jam sprites in favor of original character designs, especially in how it allows the project to fully pursue its own visual style.
Narratively, the story is not necessarily the most original or subtle take on the concept, even if it is very delightful as an interpretation of the basic MY WOLF premise. But the prose is good and the dialogue is good (apart from the shouting section that leans too far towards melodrama, being so long and in ALL CAPS, and feels kind of unearned to me as a result), and the visuals and the music add a lot to the atmosphere. It's a satisfying read all around; my thanks to everyone involved for their hard work.
Instantly absorbing between its slick presentation and wonderful atmosphere. The cute sprite art and especially the detailed animations are a joy to look at, and I like how the photo backgrounds are curated and edited to ensure the game has a coherent visual style. The narrative, even if probably something you've probably seen before, has a lot of funny and emotional moments. There are a lot of bugs, but I'm impressed by the effort put into this and how well the final result comes together.
This one was a lot of fun! I'm not convinced it needed to be as long as it was (in particular, the characters who ended up just being anime references felt somewhat superfluous), but the snappy pacing made the game a pleasure to read through regardless. While the slow unraveling of all the magical bullshit was definitely one of the highlights, I do like that the story also discussed some fairly grounded ideas about sports and competition. In the end, I think it struck a nice balance between these two extremes. Apart from all that, I liked how the romance felt like a fairly essential part of the plot without dominating it entirely, and appreciated the effort put into making all the sprites. A very solid entry overall.
Like its central subject, the lasagna, A Cheesy Romance has layers to it. It is true that the game's trek through the thematic intersection of sex and food doesn't necessarily break new ground, making familiar observations about how desire manifests and develops. However, the simple premise is elevated by the work's precise, nearly documentaristic gaze. In A Cheesy Romance, sex can be titillating and it can be funny, but it is also always something more – an account of the inherent absurdity of being an intelligent pile of meat and organs wired to feel strange urges.
The game's most potent thesis statement can be found in its split ending, where rejecting the transgressive direction the story takes leads to a facsimile of a heteronormative endgame. This choice is a testament to the visual novel's willingness to be in conversation with its reader: what are you here really for? What did you expect, and what do you desire? also they fuck the lasagna
Not bad. Short and sweet; really doesn't overstay its welcome, and there is some pretty effective character work done via small details. The non-linear structure elevates the story, which is pretty standard stuff otherwise – there is a nice sense of tension and momentum to how the plot develops. The presentation felt a little lacking, however, and it's not the most creative interpretation of the provided assets, either.
A pretty fascinating entry. It doesn't necessarily feel like there's a lot to it beyond the initial shock, but the prose is good enough to make it an engaging read, and I like how the concept is in conversation with the MY WOLF trope without feeling purely like a meta joke. While visually unpolished, the game has some good ideas there and there, and a nice atmosphere overall.
A competently made package. While the tone occasionally dips into "well that happened" territory, it just underlines the social awkwardness of the present situation instead of acting as a distraction from the character drama. Every scene feels essential and the pacing is solid; the only kind of unsatisfying thing about it that the beach/swimming motif is abandoned after the opening. There could have been something – a frame story, a metaphor the story returns to – to tie it all together.
Not badly written, just feels like a pretty thin wrapper for a bunch of sex scenes. There are some decently funny (I love how the names Dom and Seb also serve a bluntly utilitarian function of making sure the reader knows what they're getting) and insightful (the discussion of cathexis) bits, but not a sense of there being something more under the surface. With the presentation also being fairly plain and a lack of CGs feeling kind of unfortunate, I guess it's the kind of game you like mainly if you're into it.
The premise is creative and the plot is competently laid out, but both the investigation and the romance feel streamlined in a way that robs them much of their tension, despite the gritty premise. I do appreciate the well-utilized formal gimmick, however; it felt like a nice change of pace, since many of the games submitted for the jam don't really do anything with player choice. Visually, it's not the most polished entry – the sprites feel weirdly positioned, and the fact that all speaker names are in blue makes scenes with lots of characters kind of annoying to read.
What is there is pretty compelling and promising. There is a good amount of polish, and the original character design looks nice. I can't help but feel like it's all setup and payoff, though; the opening of the story did not make it seem like this would be its entire extent. Maybe the climax could have felt more conclusive with stronger framing and a tighter focus.
I will admit that the presentation feels pretty fresh. But while the character portraits achieve a nice sense of specificity, the thematically inessential high concept premise and the backstory of the setting feel inconsequential to the mundane romantic drama, reducing their impact to a few amusing gags. I find myself wishing the game had either developed them further or excised them entirely; in this state, the whole is hard to appreciate.
A solid execution of its pretty basic premise, with enough nice details and bits of the character work to make the setting feel lived in. But I feel like this really could have used some more time in the editing oven – the constant capitalization and punctuation errors and the frequent stray spaces, for instance, are actively distracting. There is also kind of nothing in terms of presentation.
The choice of platform certainly earns the game some uniqueness points, and the limited visuals give it a very distinctive look. The engine feels kind of ungraceful, though, with the text box being so small that a lot of lines are awkwardly forced to span over multiple screens and with the sprites being so large that you can only see the faces (well, lucky that the assets were familiar).
On the writing side, my main impressions were "fast" and "utilitarian" – a lot of happens and a lot of locations are visited, but nothing really leaves much of an impression, and even the central relationship feels mostly like a hint of things to come in a theoretical continuation. I think the fact that the titular noodles don't really factor into the story epitomizes the problem pretty well. Some kind of hook or high concept premise missing, something to make the game stand out.
