Pros:
- Mostly good humour
- Nice expressive drawings between the games which helps present an enjoyable narrative
- Decent variety in gameplay
Cons:
- Audio is very quiet except for the gunshot which is relatively very loud
- Some of the games are too basic
- Some jokes feel without merit
Here & There:
I played the fixed up version instead of the judge's build. The Veteran's Day game started off tame enough with a decent set-up and the disrespect the flag minigame but by the end it seemed pretty extreme. It's not that I think these are things that can't be joked about, it just felt that it was leaning more towards simple edginess rather than a set up and constructed joke. I think it may have been a better idea to have the Culture Festival just happen first because it's much less extreme in its humour. That way people would see more of the game and be perhaps eased into the Veteran's Day jokes which for some people are just not going to land. I found most of the game funny and enjoyable, but a couple minigames were too simple to be carried by the joke, like the concert part of the Culture Festival where it's just holding down one button with little else and two dissonant audio files playing together. The PUA conversation minigame was funny in the right way, being obviously stupid and making fun of it. The shooting game on the other hand doesn't really provide a punchline other than "you're shooting the troops" which is what I'm talking about in my earlier points. I really liked the drawings of the Grinch et al during the cutscenes as they were expressive and nicely stylized. It's always fun playing your games in these jams and I look forward to the next one.