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Man I wish I'd had exactly ten more minutes to finish putting in all the music tracks we'd planned and to fix the bug with the preferences menu

Ten days felt like both too long and not long enough. I think we overshot on scope considering this jam seemed so much longer than Velox Turbo and Formido (we did actually create something for Velox Formido, but couldn't finish by the deadline so we didn't submit - instead, we took a week to polish it off and post it outside of the jam). I probably shouldn't have tried to modify something as complicated as the chatsim framework during a short-term jam: that's all on me. But in spite of everything, I think I learned a lot more about how Ren'py works, which is useful. And I'm glad we put out something, even if it's in kind of rough shape. And I will say I had a lot of fun designing the GUI and I wish I could have gone further with it but - so much to do, so little time.

For this jam, we worked with an additional writer and artist, so managing the new team flow and learning to work together was also an interesting and new experience.

Love the visuals in this - it feels very "warped fairy tale" in the best way, and the sprite animations were an excellent touch. I nearly jumped every time the mother leapt close to the screen - startling and off-putting, just like her character. Great music choice as well. Excellent work!

Wow. Definitely not where I thought things were going, but fantastic nonetheless. Loved being submerged (ha) in this metaphorical world - it made a huge impression!

I really loved this. A nice compact experience, really tightly executed. Great atmosphere. Wonderful work!

Sorry for my own super late reply! Been swamped with both work on games and outside stuff.

I hope you're feeling better!! And that you were able to rest up and recuperate peacefully. Did you manage to get out into the garden, or were those plans thwarted, too?

It's totally cool that you had to pass on the project. Time got the best of us so we wound up only getting one track into the game anyway, since I was coding right up until the deadline, haha. We're thinking of doing a version 2.0 of the game after the voting period ends (and well we'd like to do version 2.0s of all the games we've done - there's always room for expansion and improvement) and audio is one of our top priorities for that so we'll see how that goes!

If the adding on Discord option is still open, my username there is curricle as well ^_^

Sorry for structuring this reply in bullet form, my brain is just struggling a bit to be coherent today, but!
- The Spotify release has been sounding good to me so far! And an extended version sounds like a great idea ^^
- I also wish I could participate in a bunch more jams. So much to do, so little time.
- It's totally okay!! We'd be honored to have you in whatever capacity you can manage. We have a dev discord where we're discussing ideas; if you'd like I could send you an invite? Whatever way you prefer to communicate would be fine though!
- I feel you on the crazy backlog. Feel free to peruse whenever! No pressure at all.
- Honestly time away in nature is so good, I hope you enjoy it!
- Aw, thanks for the nice words about my OST Jam submission! I'm glad the final fantasy vibes came through since I was looking there for influence. And honestly when I saw how many submissions there were I got super overwhelmed so I didn't get to rate as many as I would have liked myself.
I hope you have a wonderful week as well!!!

YAY -- well not yay for your computer being bricked, that's super unfortunate and I hope is resolved as soon as it can be. It's always frustrating when your tools give out and you just wanna work on stuff! And as I've said before, I'm looking forward to more Lovestarved! But I've also been eagerly anticipating the release of the OST, so I'm stoked that it's up now. ^_^

It's not Spooktober, but some friends and I are teaming up to participate in a ten day VN jam next week, ish -- Velox Fabula. We would be thrilled if you'd be down to join our team for that. And based on the tone of your games I feel like content-wise we could be a good fit. No worries if not, though! And if you want to check out the stuff we've done in the past before deciding, we have a couple on itch here.

Congrats on the album release!!

Thank you! I was definitely looking to Final Fantasy for inspiration, so I'm glad that came through :)

Haha, thank you! I would also have liked more layers but sadly I was running up against the deadline and didn't really have time to refine things. I definitely would like to keep working on them though to try to get them up to their potential. 

Funnily enough, my primary inspiration was Final Fantasy, rather than Zelda. But since others have remarked on the Zelda similarities as well, I suppose there must be something there!

Thank you!! I've actually never played Wind Waker, so that's super interesting to hear :)

My usual process is pretty much just "think of a concept" and then "figure it out," but I wanted to push myself for this one. After brainstorming a general idea and direction, I spent most of the jam period - after I found out it existed, that is - learning how to compose. Just crammed as much practical music theory as I could reasonably understand, with, additionally, some looks into how other game composers structure their works. For one of my tracks, I started with a melody directly in my DAW but for the other, I started with MuseScore and developed my melody and harmonization via notation, which is not something I've ever done before. The actual production process was less than a day, which did not really leave enough time to layer and master the way I would have liked (not that I really feel like I know what I'm doing regarding mastering, either), but I took this jam as an opportunity to force myself to do two things: 1. learn more about the building blocks of music and how to put them together in a way that makes sense, is replicable, and isn't just "do something aimlessly until it sounds good," and 2. actually put out work, rather than leaving unfinished tracks on my hard drive. Still got a lot to learn and a long way to go, but I'm glad I found this jam to kickstart that journey!

really enjoyed this!! the atmosphere is great, the framing is super interesting, and the world is intriguing. the ost is also FIRE 🔥🔥🔥 is there anyway to stream/download/purchase it outside of the game?

definitely invested and looking forward to updates!

heya! first of all thank you for the wonderful comment! as for the photo sources, most of them came from unsplash and are free to use. the lakeside picture came from envato, which is licensed for a fee. and finally, some textures were acquired for free from textures.com. definitely planning on putting together a more comprehensive list of credits (including specifying the musical tracks used) in the v2 release after jam voting ends!

everything about this is suuuuuuper slick. love the art direction, the music, The Price Of Fame(tm) and the whole build your own lyrics deal? extremely cool. excellent work!

lovely game!! the polish on this is super nice. definitely choked up a bit at certain parts. also thank you for including a hint / answer button for the riddles haha i definitely needed to use that a few times (though i didn't realize it was there during my first run through OOPS). great work!!!

ohhhhhh my god i loved this SO much. i think my favorite visual detail is how every sprite has a different paper background. and, of course, the character voices are Great. loved the way the bad end loops into pulling you back in for another go. AND THEN THE TRUE END... WUFF!!!!! really fantastic work!!!

ohhhhhh my god i loved this SO much. i think my favorite visual detail is how every sprite has a different paper background. and, of course, the character voices are Great. loved the way the bad end loops into pulling you back in for another go. AND THEN THE TRUE END... WUFF!!!!! really fantastic work!!!

thank you so much!!

i have not touched ren'py in Years so this felt a little like a homecoming... and a nice way to ease back into coding and game dev! really appreciate the opportunity in general, and also for the fact that i got to collab with a friend seriously for the first time in a while :) with a deadline that forced us to finish and publish lmao. really been enjoying going thru the entries and seeing what everyone's done with the theme! great job to everyone who participated!!!

wow!!! INCREDIBLY impressed with how packed with content this is, and how clean it looks too. very fun characters, and i may or may not have choked up just a lil when the scene with larry ended. fantastic job!!!

truly THE definitive experience 👌

https://curricle.itch.io/in-pitch

I'm so glad you had a fulfilling experience with it!! And I'm super honored you took the time out to make an account to comment, thank you so much! I hope you can have future playthroughs that hit the mark again, too. :)

Oh, this looks like SO much fun. Victorian writing is right up my alley and I immediately called to mind exactly which friend to play with. I'll report back on how it goes. Great concept!

You have no idea how delighted this comment made and continues to me haha I'm so glad y'all had a good time!!! Thank you so much! I definitely would like to continue making them!

No worries! Hope you liked it. :)

Thank you! I did have some ideas for additions to it, but forced myself to keep things simple to fit within the one page restriction :)

Very fun concept! Great job. I wish there were more levels :)

Hello!!! It's JC the football and envelope guy haha. I've finally got around to playing the game and it was an absolute delight from start to finish, I had SUCH a good time. Seriously can't stop smiling. Everyone is super cute, the writing is fun, and the voice acting is really great! What a wonderful little game. I also really appreciated the sort of mission statement in the info, about how even if you feel like a side character, your choices matter. Really nice!

Fantastic job!!!

Hey! I expanded the tileset a bit and we used it in our game jam game :)

https://bbb0x.itch.io/chill-out

Thanks so much for the resource!

A neat game! I didn't realize putting up a bunch of weapons drained my power during the actual enemy wave so that wound up biting me in the butt when I played haha. I think it would have been cool to be able to put towers on top of the shelter too. Things started to get a little crowded out front, and since you do have the ability to jump, jumping on top of something would have been fun. Overall, nice job! ^_^

The game itself is pretty decent. The controls for the plane feel good. The objective is simple enough to understand and execute, though to get all the civilians in normal mode is pretty tough. The audio is good, too.

I have a few quibbles with the art direction, and a suggestion for game mechanics. First, the art: there's nothing wrong with it inherently, but I did notice that all the civilians were different instances of the same white guy, while there were two enemy types with darker skin. I doubt this is something you consciously did, but it is something to consider -- and this could be fixed fairly easily if you just made a few civilians with darker skin to even the playing field, so to speak. And while changing the colors of the outfits on the civilians was a good step to differentiating them, even if you did keep them all the same model, varying up the hair colors would make a big impact, too.

Mechanics-wise, it would have been a nice addition to have the bombs you drop affect the civilians, as well. That would add another layer of planning and strategy, since you don't want to kill the civilians you're trying to save. Right now there seems to be no consequences to just razing the field, which makes the gameplay a bit simplistic.

This definitely has potential, though! Overall, nice job.

Visually, this looks really good! But for some reason it's super laggy in-browser. Would it be possible to make this downloadable so I could check it out properly?

[Edit] I actually went and downloaded an entirely different browser just to play this, and -- wow!! Really a visual and auditory treat. The player felt really good to control, too, and I love that there were multiple areas to explore! Really cool, great job!!! You really nailed what you set out to do. And as for the theme, I think it's appropriate -- you've got the idea of hearth and home, fire and light being safety and shelter, especially when contrasted with the darker, more dangerous environment.

Very nice! I really like the minimal aesthetic, and the audio was nice and crisp. Aside from the things you mentioned, I was only able to get a fuller story in exploration mode -- was that intentional? 

I think a stronger indication that your time is drawing to a close would be beneficial; I felt like both the lose and win screens came up rather abruptly. I heard a growl at one point in the beginning -- the sand beast? Perhaps having more of those with greater frequency as time counts down would help. 

Additionally, perhaps a slightly more forgiving hit box/collider/what have you for larger stones that only just poke out of the ground. My progress was impeded by what seemed to be inconsequential changes in height (for example, the stones that lead the path out to victory -- if you could walk over them rather than having to walk around them, I feel that would improve the experience).

Overall, though, great job!