Play Short Visual Novel
After Passion's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Presentation | #2 | 4.732 | 4.732 |
| Story | #4 | 4.390 | 4.390 |
| Creativity | #4 | 4.366 | 4.366 |
Ranked from 41 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team Members
Akiba, Lavan, Ryezun, JadenPup
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Comments
The presentation and coding is pretty fantastic, I'm impressed.
The story was fun and in some sense thought-provoking, even though in execution it did end up feeling too much like a Spanish soap opera for my personal tastes. But I did really enjoy the underlying message in this one, about not fighting other people's battles for them. Although I must say, the way the abusive boyfriend did a complete 180 as soon as the dragon stood his ground felt unrealistic: I see what you were going for and being all bark and no bite is not unrealistic per se, but the way the shift happened in the span of one line felt a bit too sudden.
While the high fantasy bits did feel a bit superfluous, I did not hate them. I do think they might be a tad confusing for the folks who aren't familiar with the whole "My Wolf" discourse.
Again, impressive work from the whole team!
Thanks for the feedback :3
Yeah, I rushed through it to be sure in regards to Zephyr. Definitely something I'm gonna adjust after the jam!
I laughed audibly at the 'Spanish soap opera' comparison though cause it's so true, and now I'm imagining Nate as the (gasps in Spanish) meme.
I AM RATING THESE ALL THESE JAM SUBMISSIONS RELATIVE TO ONE ANOTHER. THERE ARE HIGH HIGHS AND LOW LOWS BUT PLEASE DON’T TAKE THIS TOO PERSONALLY, AFTERALL, WE ALL ONLY HAD A MONTH.
Story (3):
My main reason for it not being higher is that it shakily walks a line between being a parody and something we’re supposed to take serious. (Which I know is ironic, coming from me, Unagi, creator of IBWHIP.)
Like I understand the whole concept but I think it would’ve been better to have all these important people, places and dates that are referenced by the characters be more vague so that the reader doesn’t lack onto them.
Presentation (5):
The presentation of this VN is a smooth and buttery as Voice actors’ voices.
As someone that just programmed their first Bubble Text section in Ren’Py, yeah, I understand how tricky it is to maintain.
The characters are nice and bouncy.
The CG that Jaden drew was hot.
Creativity (4):
I think that the idea of making an epilogue to something that never existed is a very unique concept.
I’m also glad that I wasn’t the only person that did a palette swap of the wolf.
Only Akiba, would think of making each voice it’s own slider.
Total (12):
I remember when Lavan sent me a voice clip of Nate and I thought that this was going to be high fantasy thing and instead of bamboozled into a Slice-of-Life VN.
Definitely deserving of all the praise it’s been getting and most likely the second place crown.
Who knows, maybe next year, instead of the epilogue, we’ll get the actual main story.
Thanks for the in-depth feedback, Unagi <3
Word vomit incoming!!
I'm hoping that, after the VN jam when we are able to update After Passion, I can make the story more well-rounded! I've gotten feedback on the 'past' aspect of the story to both ends (some people want it fleshed out, some want it to be more subdued).
Instead of making the details of the story that happened before this epilogue more vague, I'm going to make them more relevant by adding extra scenes, making better use of the history of the characters and adding another character who has only shown up in name so far!
I want to touch up the cold open with the isekai'd human as well, because I feel like I should have listened to Akiba when he suggested drawing it out more, and there's a bit of confusion caused by the perspective swap. It also sort of sets a precedent for the whole VN to be voiced as well so we'll probably have to adjust that.
Aside from the cold open and adjusting a couple of the current scenes, I have about three new scenes planned! These will hopefully help balance the story more toward meaningful scenes with a few moments of levity and references (as opposed to the confusing tonal jumble of what-is-this-supposed-to-be that I hastily and desperately threw together lmao).
The current final scene sort of leaves people who were wondering about the past events hanging, and my original planned ending definitely would have fit better. So, after the update, expect things to connect a bit more fluidly and, hopefully, a better story overall!
I'd be hard-pressed to think of another feature I love and hate as much at the same time as the ren'py bubbles. I like their look, and how they help keep the reader's gaze much closer to where the characters are, rather than trapped down in the text box. At the same time, the technical implementation of it in the ren'py core is just about the worst system anyone could have possible come up with, and breaks all… the… time.
The programming and presentation work here showed a movement and fluidity that many other VNs miss. The effort put into the interactions on the screen was visible. Really made me go "Well shit, that's a lot of fucking effort I don't have the bandwidth for.".
The interpersonal elements were sweet and well thought out. It honestly takes into consideration what are real concerns for longer term couples. Keeping the flame alive after the initial embers have passed away. You know you did well here. You don't need me to repeat it :).
The place where I think this dropped the ball was the lampshading of the "My Wolf" genre. It cast a strange worldbuilding onto it at odds with the worldbuilding required for the expression of the rest of the plot. An overthrown monarch replaced with a new monarch in a modern world with no real feeling as to what the monarchy represents? Is the implication this is supposed to be like literally Adastra world? The rebel leader/chosen one now just a flower salesman in a modern society that has room for a mafia? Given there seems to be elements of capitalism I would have expected like a book selling tour at some point-- the memoirs of being a chosen one, or whatever.
The main point of this spiel is that to be able to work off of the joke of the isekaing "my wolf" it feels like it's distracting from the other elements of the story and making parts that are meant to be serious jokes, while not meaningfully adding.
I think if they were done more subtlety-- little world building elements trickled in, instead of the false start, it could have come off more organically and let the reader fill in the narrative gaps, whereas you've filled in enough space that we start to have room to question how is this society structured. Breadcrumbs can do more work towards hinting at a structure than an incomplete loaf of bread that's structurally malformed.
I can tell this novel set out to do one thing and one thing only and it's presentation of that one thing was beautiful and fantastic. I really love the showcasing of what a healthy relationship looks like versus an unhealthy one and works as an example of how you should handle each. I really appreciate taking a critical look at the highs and lows of the archetypical wolf husband and especially with how specific the call out is in this instance.
What I really loved about this project is that it showcases so many of RenPy's simple features that often get overlooked by FVN developers. It's a fantastic proof-of-concept type project that I find really inspiring, tbh. Mad props to you all for developing outside the box! Especially Akiba :3. Well done!
Thank you for the kind words. I'm always happy to share any kind of code snippets or whatnot as well. Most things in ren'py don't require too much effort while adding a little bit of extra flair. I do have some more plans to add some final polish in a post-voting update, before turning towards the next projects, now that I've got a proper taste for it.
The Voice acting and story was cute, and it was funny to see the isekai plot happening in the background
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.
Thanks for the feedback!
I will admit I originally intended more for the story (was aiming for like 12-13k words), but I apparently picked the worst month to try to write a short story from scratch between a move and full time hours changing, so I had to cut back and essentially make this an epilogue to an adventure that hasn't been written >///<
It's been a fun experience overall though :3 If Akiba and the crew are up for it I'd definitely love to bump out more for this~
Gotta love this collab, the voice acting was awesome and the story was really well executed, love also the little details in the sprites, you made a great job
Unagi, give the crown to this one UWU.
Draxxe XD
UWU