Happy Halloween! (I wrote most of this feedback last night.)

I couldn’t get the Linux build working. I did try right-clicking some files and marking them as executable. I suspect they might have lost the executable flag when you added the baking recipe into the zip file (or extracted them from the zip file and put them into a new zip file). After I attempted to fix that, I got a black window with a menu bar that had a single option, in Japanese, which closes the program. Running it from a terminal showed the following output:

{
  name: 'tyranogame',
  version: '1.0.0',
  description: 'TyranoScript｜ティラノスクリプト　Ver5（C）ShikemokuMK http://tyrano.jp',
  main: 'main.js',
  dependencies: { 'fs-extra': '^8.1.0', 'adm-zip': '^0.4.13' },
  devDependencies: {},
  scripts: { test: 'echo "Error: no test specified" && exit 1' },
  window: {
    title: 'ティラノスタジオ',
    width: '1280',
    height: '720',
    min_width: 100,
    min_height: 100,
    resize: true,
    devtools: false
  },
  keywords: [],
  author: '',
  license: 'ISC'
}
{
  title: 'ティラノスタジオ',
  width: '1280',
  height: '720',
  min_width: 100,
  min_height: 100,
  resize: true,
  devtools: false
}
(electron) 'getUserAgent function' is deprecated and will be removed. Please use 'userAgent property' instead.
(electron) 'setUserAgent function' is deprecated and will be removed. Please use 'userAgent property' instead.
[14557:1101/011757.553899:ERROR:buffer_manager.cc(488)] [.DisplayCompositor]GL ERROR :GL_INVALID_OPERATION : glBufferData: <- error from previous GL command
[14557:1101/011831.671345:ERROR:buffer_manager.cc(488)] [.DisplayCompositor]GL ERROR :GL_INVALID_OPERATION : glBufferData: <- error from previous GL command

So in the end I used a tool called Wine to run the Windows build on Linux. That seemed to work, but I can’t rule out that some things could have worked differently than they would on Windows.

Writing: A cute and fun story. And it was fun to try different choices. I didn’t figure out what the different types of candy were for until I looked in the guide though… and even then I kept getting either Marta or Woodwose.

And not only do I like the story, I also like the writing. I thought I’d mention that. And English might be my third language but I didn’t have any trouble reading this one.

Theme: It is about ghosts. And it takes place during Halloween. There’s even trick-or-treating. So I’d say this entry is pretty halloweeny. (And I have seen the jam results, it did pretty well in the candy category. Probably because it’s a sweet VN that involves sweets.)

Audio: I like the music, it fits both the mood of the story and the fact that the MC plays a guitar. And some of it feels spooky and cozy at the same time, which also fits the story. And also it’s simple in a way that feels homemade, which fits the idea of the character playing some of it. And while there is different music in different parts of the story, they go well together too.

And I also that we get to hear the guitar as he practises and gets better, and a ghost sound in the end.

Art: I think the art fits well with the story and the audio. It has some homemadeness to it too, and the sprites and backgrounds fit together even though they do look like they were maybe made with different tools (but the sprites have smaller details whereas the backgrounds have broader strokes for the most part, as if the characters are in focus and the backgrounds get a bit of, well, not really bokeh, but the use of broader strokes seems intentional.

The little bits of animation (main menu, match) are nice too.

And the sprites with poses are nice. I’ve seen plenty of sprites that change facial expressions in this jam, but seeing them also move their arms and heads is a nice change.

The UI looks sorta generic even though I don’t know what that the engine uses by default, but it does feel like it puts more emphasis on keeping text readable than stylizing it and its background. I would say I tend to prefer that over stylising things to the point where they make text hard to read.

And speaking of UI, I like that I can advance the text with the spacebar, enter key or left mouse button like I’m used to (not sure if the engine does that by default, but the engine that most people seemed to use at this jam does work like that by default, and I like when I see entries stick to that convention despite using other engines). I would have liked to be able to re-read text after advancing, either through a back button (typically associated with page up or mousewheel scroll up) or a history button (usually accessed through a button or a menu option, although I think there might be some keyboard shortcut I just don’t remember). And when playing a VN over and over to try different choices I would appreciate if I could skip lines I’ve already seen and it could automatically stop skipping after choices (I usually hold the control button when I want to skip stuff I’ve already seen. And usually the VNs keep track of what I’ve seen in previous playthroughs so that they can stop me from accidentally skipping something I haven’t seen before). And I like being able to highlight buttons with the arrow keys and then “click” them with the enter key. But using a mouse wasn’t too bothersome. If I mention all this stuff it’s just because I’m kinda used to using keyboard shortcuts.

And yeah, I guess this too is UI-art-related: The achievements screen has a back icon in the top right corner, but it’s sorta dark for the black background. I think making the icon lighter would make it easier to see. Another thing you could do here would be to make it possible to go back from the achievements screen by pressing the escape key on the keyboard.

Fun: I found this one pretty fun, although there were some endings I wasn’t getting. Maybe this could have to do with Wine? Or it could also be me misunderstanding the guide.

One time, adding salt and then going to the shop to get some strings got me stuck watching the truck, only one button on screen and even that one doesn’t work, and I think I waited at least half a minute before I ended up closing the window. This problem only happened once, and it could be related to Wine.

I do think I had fun, even though I didn’t get more than two endings. And I chose to play this today and write feedback tonight… maybe I should wait until tomorrow before sending the feedback though.

And you did writing, art, music and programming as a soloist developer, and I think you did well at everything… And yeah, I know it’s called a solo developer. A soloist is someone who plays a musical instrument alone or as a lead, and I guess you did that with the guitar. Sorry, I thought maybe I should use some pun here.

What I liked most: The sweet story and music.

What I’d suggest changing: Perhaps make it possible to select choices with the keyboard instead of having to select them with a mouse.

The art direction of this one is top notch--the palette is gorgeous and the art is so intriguingly presented, like that opening shot of the match striking over the burner. It has a homey yet wistful atmosphere that reminds me of Kentucky Route Zero. I'm doubly impressed that you did it all as a solo dev. Beautiful work.

Ah, man, this gave me some really warm fuzzies :3 Just the whole atmosphere with the art style and the music felt very nostalgic. Kinda reminded me of back in the day when my family used to gather for late-night BBQs and my uncle would play his guitar.

I really enjoyed the changing backgrounds for the sun going down, and I thought it looked beautiful once I actually made it to the clearing. On my first playthrough, I got the Woodwose's ending, which I thought was really sweet :3 I'm gonna follow the guide you've got up on your page tomorrow though so I can see the other endings! For now though, off to bed while I still have those fuzzies, haha. It was such a good one to end the night on cos I'm all happy and relaxed now ^-^

Oh, and I downloaded the recipe too. It sounds so goooood x3 I really wanna try and make it, but I don't know if I'd be able to afford the ingredients, and I'm not a particularly competent baker >.< We shall see though! It's such a cool thing to include :3