Hi! I really liked your work! I agree with some comments below that it was kinda obvious where was it going (and I did not like the bad ending spoiling it), but I liked the twist at the end and the short story about her mother and origins.

I liked the game of guessing the name, it was easy for me because you gave the initial and because it's a famous witch's name, so there weren't many options. I only felt some hints could be introduced during the gameplay, or it would be nice to have choices to let the character explore the memories freely. I know, the time to work on it was short, but you may have it as an option for a second version of the game.

And, though English isn't my main language, I felt they were some grammar errors, especially in the first part of the story. Just a detail, that can be easily corrected.

Keep up the hard work!

Writing: I like the story and the characters. Kinda sad that some characters die, but I guess it’s not much worse than the real world. The real world is also full of people that harm others because of their appearance, be it because they think they’re ugly or the opposite of that… And also people like the witch, the familiar or Joan. (Don’t worry, I don’t think I am like the familiar. But I do find these characters relatable.)

And I think this place holds a special place in my hear. I read that, read the next sentence, then thought, wait, what did the previous sentence say again? And with the back button disabled I had to use the history button instead. There’s some other grammar issues, such as “an substitute” that also forced me to slow down reading. Luckily I liked the story enough that I continued reading anyway. (Maybe I should have listened to all the places where the music changed and saved the game in those places… that would have made it a bit easier to go over those again when writing the audio section of this comment.)

Oh, and I did figure out that you probably meant to write “heart” there. But I did first read it as “hear”, then wonder if you meant “ear”, maybe “head”, and then I figured out what it was meant to mean.

Theme: “This time of the year”, I wonder if that is… yep, the story does seem to take place in October, so it’s using the theme in that way. And there’s also a witch and a demon familiar. (Wait, would that mean “a familiar that is a demon” as I intended or would it mean “a demon’s familiar”? Oops, it would be able to mean both. But yeah, the meaning I intended was the familiar that is a demon.)

And about scariness, when it got a bit too scary I just took a short break from reading and then resumed.

Audio: The music is cute and some of it does sound like something people could have played in that village. But I don’t think playing the same sequence of eight notes over and over is something people in the village would be super likely to do (I’m referring to the sad piano music that plays when some people arrive at Joan’s doorstep). Then again, when Joan was trapped in an uncomfortable situation, maybe the music getting uncomfortably repetitive makes sense.

Sometimes I suggest people put the best music on the main menu where people can’t say it distracts from the text. This VN’s main menu music is… silence. Well, silence is another thing that could have fit in that place where I thought the music was a bit repetitive. Things are happening. You can’t do anything about them. And you can’t even ignore them and listen to the music because there is no music. Just like in real life there is no background music. That could have fit that part well, although I guess some people might disagree with me on that one.

No sound effects or voice acting. Maybe you could have removed the slider to adjust the volume of those channels then. I mean, you took the time to disable the back button, which is probably not easier than removing those sliders. But I get it. Maybe you intended to at least have sound effects and just didn’t have time to add them. Okay… let me load saves at various places throughout this VN and read the text in their History:

That day, the Village Chief and a group of villagers came to my doorstep.

How about adding a door-knocking sound on this line and a door opening sound on the next one?

I carefully walk around the forest to search for a place. The lack of lighting makes it difficult to see the path. Moreover, my outfit keeps getting stuck on something, making it even harder to proceed. I walk, walk, and walk.

Maybe add some sort of walking and plant rustling to the first of those lines.

I guess the place where she picks some fruits could be another good place to add a sound, or maybe have a sound when she eats them (or maybe both). And when she rubs her hands together is another place that could have a sound.

When I listen to my surroundings, there are only sounds of nature.

I hope you get the idea. Just read through the text and think of things that would make sounds, and perhaps put more sounds when the screen is black than when there’s an image on it.

And yeah, there’s no voice acting either, which I kinda expected because few entries from this jam have it and half of those that do have audio glitches related to it. (Lines playing at the wrong time, some characters speaking way louder than others…). It’s a fun thing to add, but it does take time, especially if you’re using something else than barks (sighs, hmmm, ohs… I guess hmmm would suit the familiar, it does sound a bit like a purr).

Art: I think you did a good job with those sprites. And the backgrounds are nice too, though their style seems a bit different and based on how few environments look different I’m guessing you didn’t have time to make as many as you’d hoped for. And I’m sorta guessing there’d also been more sprites if you’d had more time. But I think putting quality over quantity did work out.

And the black and white drawings were nice too. The cat might look a bit human, but that just makes it even cuter.

Fun: The name guessing game was fun, but also a bit hard. It’s not really a name you come across often outside English-speaking countries, and even in those I guess it’s not equally common in all of them.

Also, did I mention that clicking the “back” button actually goes forwards. If you don’t want the button to work, consider hiding it completely. (Also, once I’ve played through the whole thing I play through it again specifically to look at sprites, listen to the music, take notes about things to mention in the feedback, so it would have been nice if it only stays disabled until you’ve reached all the endings. (I think I’ve got three endings… but yeah, maybe there are more of them… okay, I just skimmed through the devlogs, and you mention that there are three endings.)

I did save in a couple of places, more often than I would have done if the back button wasn’t disabled. So I didn’t have to start over every time I wanted to type in a name. (Also, coming to think of it, I think Ren’Py probably auto-saves pretty often too, so I guess it wouldn’t have been too much of an issue if I hadn’t saved manually too.)

Anyway, I first tried three names before accepting the hints. None of the three names I’d chosen fit the last of the hints. Then I looked at the hints. And even then I ended up having too look up sea-related names. English is my third language, maybe that makes things harder. But yeah, once I did see a particular name on a list of sea-related names I kinda felt that was the one, and it was. I guess if I’d thought more about the second hint and typed a particular thing into Google that would have made me realize faster what the name was. And the name seems to fit that spell that makes something reappear.

A neat one for sure! The music and art choices tie it together well to create a neat storybook feel that works well with the plot, and guessing the witch's name was a fun challenge to incorporate. Well done!!

This was a trip!

Loved the character art and backgrounds.

I always enjoy stories about witches. There were some minor grammar issues but they didn't take away much from the story.

I managed to guess the name of the witch but used an alternative spelling so had to use the guide. I mistakenly assumed it would be a German word because she had called her familiar after a German word.  (Though I feel knowing German still kind off helped with guessing the name.)

I really liked the concept with having to guess her name and being in her memories!

Thank you for making this game!

The white-on-black artwork in the cutscenes works really well. I liked the cat demon character, especially his freaky long fingernails. And I thought the backgrounds were also quite nice. I didn't connect all that much with the story, though--I pretty much knew where it was going from the start, and the emotions were somewhat overwrought. Still, it was made with heart, and that goes a long way.

This was beautiful :3 I adore the character designs and all of the art! I especially love those black and white CGs <3 They're absolutely stunning! I have a thing for black and white, as you can probably tell from my avatar, haha. But they just go so well with those fragments of the story and make it all the more fairytale-like ^-^

I felt like such an idiot with guessing the name because I thought I had figured it out, but I got the bad end x3 So then I was really confused. I went to the game page, saw the guide you had put (thank you so much for making that, by the way) and I was like, wait... and I looked it up online to double check cos going by your hint, I thought I got it right the first time. Turns out I put the wrong spelling >.< haha. It was fine though cos I made a save right before typing it in :3