Cruisin' for Love... and murder – it's a lot of fun! Its satire of reality TV is delightful, and its tasteful use of NVL mode keeps the game feeling dynamic to read while also smoothing over the timeskips. Although the art is very "game jam" in its level of polish & detail, things like the animated title screen and the use of music to indicate when the characters are on camera are very much appreciated, as are the accessibility options. In general, the work feels like a VN very in touch with its medium.
It won't probably surprise you to hear that being unfinished hurts the overall product a lot. I have to admit: not even having the titular murder in the story yet felt blue-balling to the degree that I started second-guessing whether I had imagined the second part of the title all along. The plot elements Cruisin' is playing with – murder mystery, a competition with a clearly defined endpoint – just have a very hard time shining without a climax in sight. I think leaning further into the reality TV inspiration and structuring the VN like an episode of one of those could have salvaged the concept, but this stretch is just too brief to really have an internal structure or a clear arc with a satisfying payoff.
I'd love, love to see more of this, but the currently released portion just reads badly as a standalone package and is hard to rate favorably as an entry in the game jam. (Also, as a sidenote, I'm having a hard time figuring out the connection to the theme?)