Visually, this is possibly the most striking FVN I have read, ever. Thanks to both your visual assets and programming skills. There are a bunch FVNs these days that exploit what Ren’py has to offer beyond the basic features, and while I appreciate them, the presentation of such tricks often has a touch of goofiness to it. Not here though: everything here looks so polished and professional. I think I saw the dev say this was inspired by Backbone and the final menu screen/credits immediately made me think of that. They look amazing.
Programming-wise, I have only one big complaint: this was possibly the most frustrating FVN I’ve ever played in terms of me having to constantly open the “History” tab to read some text I missed. This is both because of the abundant use of {nw}, but also because the text will sometimes be revealed with pauses and I ended up constantly clicking to forward thinking I have read everything, realizing just a moment too late new text was showing up (apparently, I’m a fast reader).
SPOILERS to follow
For all its advanced tricks, two of the most affecting scenes in the FVN for me were accomplished with very basic visual language. One was the scene when the Mikkel receives his rejection e-mail: even before the narration said anything, just seeing the preview of the message on the screen gave me PTSD. The other was the scene where Mikkel makes his "attempt". Again, I love how the narration didn’t have to say anything, the camera starting to move up was enough to tell me exactly what was happening. A masterful use of the visual language.
As for the story itself, I must admit I found it a bit uneven, although it is difficult to judge in the current state since it looks like a prelude to a much larger narrative. While I generally enjoyed Mycroft’s perspective more than Mikkel’s, so I’m not sad the story went in that direction, the shift of perspective did not feel particularly graceful? I think this might be because this happens together with a complete shift in genre, not to mention in tempo (Mikkel’s very slow introspective narrative vs Mycroft’s action-packed fast-paced story). Even though the plots are connected, it felt like basically reading two separate stories. I'm not sure what the fix would be, but I think maybe we could have used some “mix” of the two styles much earlier in the story, or at least some hints.
I must admit that I really became invested in the story starting from the aforementioned scenes in Mikkel’s bedroom. The beginning scenes did not grip me as much. I see what the scene at the lake(?) was going for, but it felt a bit impersonal to me? You don’t really get what the “real” conversation happening beneath the space talk is because it happens too early into the story, and the fact that there is basically no narration, no physicality in the scene, just dialogue, made it feel emotionally distant. And the flashback of the “accident” is perhaps told a bit too analytically: some vague flashbacks focusing on what Mikkel remembers, filtered through his own lenses, rather than just retelling what happened as if through an external observer, would have been much more effective IMHO.
(Btw, I’m being this nitpicky because I saw the author say he wants walls of text as feedback! Don’t let this fool you, this was one of my favorite entries so far!)
Finally, I have to mention that I loved the art for the characters: I love how most of them are clearly based on the sprites provided for the jam, but redrawn in an artstyle that makes them so reminiscent of the wolf from Moonlit Field.