I can see the literary take on the spin theme, its definitely quite a read, and it does certainly make you go on a loop around the ideas conveyed in the game. I do think the black and white and textures while I loved the art and style of it can make it a bit too intense to be reading at the same time. So I got a bit of eye fatigue, but its definitely one of the most creative takes on this jam. I think you used RPG maker right? I think this is the type of game that could benefit from like the pc-98 and pc-88 era of anime text novel games. With your art and style, you could set like a border cabinet and have the gameplay inside it. Maybe using Godot might be good, this way you could have a bit more control over things, for example in the spinning a tale concept you could definitely create road maps of how this or a users iteration of the story is spinning into its end.
Sorta making it a bit more neater as a visual novel/game. Though I understand it can be a bit of an overtaking, I do think with your writing and art its something worth looking into as it lends itself well for this type of style. And I will try to keep a watch on what you make since I find this take to be so original and out of the norm. I am a sucker for stories.
Viewing post in The Driller That Will Unravel The World jam comments
I for a while considered using a different engine (Godot, in fact, so we indeed are aligned in mind), but the time I'd waste having to learn how to do it and coding a more programming-heavy engine would take me too much time, so I went with RPG Maker that, while simple in presentation, could let me focus on the content I wanted to deliver. For better or for worse, I'm more interested in having people seeing the contents of what I'm creating, than the wrapping (though I do admit that looking pretty can be a hook to get them to open the box to begin with, so it's a compromise I'm making rather than a statement of my philosophies.)
This is my second game which was published first due to the jam starting before I finished my first first game, but that first game is full on VN, and my goal is being more a writer than anything else. If this is a half VN half RPG, and my other game is a full VN, the next one I'm thinking of is probably a CRPG VN. I was thinking of being fully VN dev, but this game opened my eyes on how to make a story more interactive and engaging in some ways, so the path of my future projects probably have been altered by it.
For the library sequences I wasn't sure if I should make a full black BG or put the dithered one I used, since I don't know how easy it'd be on the eyes for everyone, so I'm glad you mentioned it did still cause fatigue, as that was a concern. I'll think and study further ways to make it easier on the eyes, as there is a lot of text to go through.
And if you don't mind me asking, was there a particular story in the library or character that you liked? Personally, while the library was a quest to complete in time, what I ended up enjoying writing the most were the Candy conversations, silly as they were (which is why I put one in the screenshots, because to me Edrillmond is too sweet).