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Make Sparks Fly (Jam Version)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Music/Sound | #8 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
| Technical | #9 | 3.125 | 3.125 |
| Overall | #10 | 3.042 | 3.042 |
| X Factor | #11 | 2.750 | 2.750 |
| Fun/Design | #11 | 2.875 | 2.875 |
| Theme/Focus | #12 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
| Graphics/Animation | #12 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 8 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Did you credit all assets in-game (including your own) as required by the rules?
How did your team implement the focus, and optionally, the theme?
Our game is a visual novel. It tells the story of the main character, Aka.
In the theme "make it fly," we chose "it" to be sparks.
"Make sparks fly" is a phrase about creating love.
Many characters in our story are trying to create love.
Team Size
Will you continue work on the game after the jam?
Which parts of the game were NOT made by your team? (Including AI generated)
Background music was made by RetroIndieJosh, used through creative commons.
All background images generated with DeepAI, then blurred.
What tools did your team use to construct the game? (optional)
Godot, as the game engine.
Krita, as a visual art tool.
Paint3D, to resize/crop images.
Audacity, to record/edit sounds.
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Comments
I really enjoyed this! The concept is cute, and I think for a 10 day time limit you did a great job. The art is charming, and I love that everyone is colour-coded. The music choices were great and added a lot to the scenes. I also think you did an excellent job of giving each character their own distinct personality. There's a surprising amount of choices here, which I do like, but I think not having a save button made it very tedious to play. It also feels very difficult to get a good ending. I played about 6 times and got the same bad end for each: Midori confesses to Kiiro.
While I think it's good you gave the players an option to let Aka go a more dark path in her quest for romance, I think I'd enjoy it a little more if there was more opportunity for her to either:
A. Talk to Midori maturely about the matter, or...
B. Decide that seeing her friends be happy is more important.
I'm sure the opportunities are there, but I suppose my overall point is that it feels difficult to gauge what choices will lead her down those paths. Encouraging her to talk to Midori about her feelings did nothing to change the outcome. Being civil didn't either. So I'm at a loss for what I am supposed to do to get any good ending.
Please don't take my criticism to mean "I think this is badly written"-- FAR from it, I think you made an excellent story with very engaging characters! I just think as it stands now, Aka is leaning more towards "understandably upset" or "concerningly unhinged" with no (seemingly) plausible in-between.
I look forward to seeing what you do with this project all the same! I adore it, and I would like to see what else you write in the future.
Thank you for playing through so many times.
I'm glad the character personalities came through.
I do regret giving up on save functionality. I will (hopefully) figure out how to do that.
As for the story, the original idea was a lot darker. It is based on certain anime tropes. I did try to make it more grounded at the beginning.
There is a way to resolve things peacefully, but there isn't much in the game to direct players. I'm not surprised you ended up in the default ending multiple times.
I'm planning on adding some features to help the player understand the consequences of their choices and get more endings.
I really enjoyed this, I think the writing and characters are good. There's a lot of content for being made in such a short time. I think the art works well, and I really like that all the main characters are associated with different colors.
Thank you for playing. I'm glad you like the writing, it took a while, even with both of us.
It is unclear how to win but I think overall it is a well made interactive fiction. There is a lot a dialogue. Mqybe you could try to ad some graphics showing the emotions of the characters? Just reading tends to get a bit boring.
You are quite right, it is hard to "win." It's pretty clear with comments, that story progress is too obscure. I will try to add more obvious direction for the player.
I did create a way to make some motion, and we did plan on having the main characters show emotions. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and decided the story was more important.
Thank you playing. We will be working on improving the game in an update.
Noooooo I played six times and still got all the bad endings T^T You have seventeen endings!? That's very impressive!
I also made an interactive fiction for this game jam, but yours offers so much more meaningful (and interesting!) choices that allows the players to become who they want. I love that!
Personally, I really wish there was a save button so that I could go back to wherever I want to replay without having to restart.
Great work!
Thank you playing so many times!
Sorry about the difficulty, only six out of the seventeen ending are "good." With how unclear some of the effects of your choices are, and without knowing what the endings are, it can be hard to earn a "good" ending.
A save button is a very good idea. I decided against it in the face of the deadline. Thinking back, to have people play through multiple times, it would've been an encouraging addition. One I probably shouldn't have cut, and will probably add when updating.
Thanks for the feedback.
I really like the effort you put into making many different options with meaningful consequences. I felt like most of the options made me seem like a villain though, but when I stuck with only nice stuff I still god the bad ending. Either way, I enjoyed this story, good job!
Thank you for being so empathetic to the characters.
You are correct, most paths lead to the player's character being mean. However, being nice isn't always a bad ending.
We told a story of jealousy and obsession, both of which lead to people acting uncivil. While acting responsible is still a valid way to play, talking through those emotions can earn a happier ending.
I'm glad you enjoyed the story. And thank you for your comment.
Really enjoyed the setting and the vibe, though I don't know why the ending I got is considered to be the worst ending ;)
Truth be told, I understand the goal of the game is to get Kiiro, but I guess I'm too much of a nice person to do any of the unfavourable actions required to get those endings. Or maybe a coward. Anyways, very much enjoyed it!
Thanks for trying out our game.
If you want play again, there is a way to get a good ending without being unfavourable.
I loved the art style, and the sound design was good. I didn't really feel like my choices really mattered that much so I would just choose something randomly. I think that says more about me though. I might just not be the right audience for this kind of game.
We did try to make (almost) every choice matter.
But yeah, the feedback for how the choices affect the endings are not obvious.
When we get around to updating this, I'll bring that up.