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This is what I mean, yes. The story must be the main element

Hi! As long as your game can still be classified as a visual novel, you're totally allowed to have RPG elements. If you're unsure, ask yourself if the game would still be fully playable if all the text was to be removed. If the answer is no, then you're most likely good to go.

Hi! So, the IMY stands for I Miss You. LYS actually comes from French "le lys" - lily - which in this particular case is a reference to a Lenormand card of the same name.

It's been a while but I only noticed this comment now and I really wanted to say that I'm glad you feel better now, or at least that you felt better a month ago when this comment was made. I hope you still feel better now

Hi! A majority of the game for the Dying Year jam has to be made after the jam begins, so, after October 1st. Spooktober ends on that day, therefore I'll assume you'd have your game completed at that point. This would go against "majority of the game is made during the jam" rule, so I'd say that it's not allowed. 

Well. Another Velox, another award for Theme Inclusion and Narrative. Thank you for reassuring me that my writing doesn't suck. I will be back for Turbo to see how long I can keep a quality streak like this lol

And to everyone who won, big congrats! Also big congrats to those who didn't quite make it, and especially big congrats to everyone who made their first steps into deving here. Hope to see you 'round, either on Turbo, Formido, or Fabula 3 <3

Oh I knew I'm in for an incredible ride when I started reading this and saw the cuckoo metaphor. Absolutely stunned by the way the theme unfolded in this one. I need some time now. Beautiful, no notes.

Oh, yeah, getting rated is one big thing about it. I only entered my first Velox because I completely forgot that it's a ranked jam because I absolutely dreaded the idea of being judged. But in the end, it's all between fellow devs who know exactly how the craft goes. I know that I took a lot from my Turbo and Formido scores - they reinforced what I already (more or less consciously) knew about myself and my games and allowed me to know what I do best, and what I still need to work on. Hope that this jam gives you the same opportunity to reflect once the scores come!

Rating things IS a strange thing. I try my best to not let my taste dictate my ratings too much, but I guess there'll still be something personal slipping through the cracks. It's normal that you're trying games you wouldn't normally try here - I'm the same. I guess we're all here to broaden our horizons a little? We're gathered here to work with a theme we've never heard before, after all, so, it's all about trying new things out.

When it comes to how I judged Theme Incorporation, I had a couple of different questions in mind. Who's "you" and where's "here"? Is it easily identifiable, or at least easy to infer from context? Why the "you" shouldn't be here? Additionally, and I think this is just my quirk, I kept thinking about a certain degree of "unnatural feel", "hostility" or "destructiveness" that comes with someone being where they're not meant to be. Does it really feel like someone's out of place, like they don't belong? Maybe they're here by unnatural means, maybe they've come uninvited, maybe the world around them wants them gone. I don't know. Either way, there was still a lot of criteria that I won't be mentioning because this isn't my essay. Also, I'm pretty much sure that I broke so, so many of my own standards... which pains me lol

There's clearly a whole wide story and background behind those characters and damn, I always love that. I need to say that visually it's pretty damn neat, especially the smoke took me out for a moment. I think I'll need to replay it in a bit just to make sure I got everything right and got every detail

I really regret that I don't know French well enough to be able to read it in its original version. Even in the English version, the characters are pretty strong, personality-wise, and I really wish that I could experience them to their fullest. Either way, good job, I liked the way things got slowly revealed one by one in flashback sequences, and the way in which you went around showing emotions of sprites was quite a clever solution. In the end, really nice! If I ever finally learn French, this will be one of the first things I'll come back to 

Oh, I really liked this one. The relationship, the reveals, the ambient sound, that shade of blue that'll probably haunt my dreams. Really solid work done there.

Honestly, I enjoy stories that feel like there's so much more hiding underneath what we're shown. There's some real nice worldbuilding work done here! Also I can't help but like Nox, I love that we get to choose which presentation we want for them. And there's a lot of detail here, a neat story, a bit of replayability... I can't believe you did this in 10 days lol

First of all, congrats on your first VN! I do think that there's a lot of potential in here. You cared enough to give so many various choices to a player, showcase a neat cast of characters and set up an interesting dynamic. I have to agree with everyone else, it's a shame that the ending is so abrupt. You could really explore a lot within this setup

The whole thing is quite intriguing and I can't deny that Dokuro's design is pretty damn cool. There's clearly a big world here that has a lot of potential, and for a game made in one night, it's pretty good!

However, I need to say that the warning for "suicide mentions" doesn't really feel enough for me, considering how big of a part it ultimately plays here. When a character is actively talking about how they don't want to go back to the world of living and the opening scene is, in a way, musings of a suicidal person, it does go a bit beyond that.

I was hoping that you won't end up having bad luck at this jam because I remembered your post from Formido... oh my gods, I hope the next jam goes smoothly for you. Happy that you submitted your game in the end! I assume that a lot of the cut content will end up in the post-jam edition?

I need to be that one guy who goes "Objection!" to the "I'm bad at naming games" point. The title here is actually brilliant, and while it took me a second to get why it's like that, I found it really clever

I'm not entirely sure if this is just me not really being used to it yet, but I do feel like I went a little too far with how long the sentences were in some places. My writing tends to be slightly more concise than that most of the time, so this might be just me adjusting to that new, "experimental" way of writing and feeling strange out of the usual "comfort zone"? From the story perspective itself, though, I think some "teases" were unnecessary and could safely be cut out. After rereading the script a couple of times, I feel like I tried to take too many topics at once, and I can't help but wonder if I didn't overload the potential reader with information in a relatively short time. I talked to some friends and I heard from one of them that they're not entirely sure that they'd understand the storyline if they didn't have context I gave them beforehand, so clearly I had to either overcomplicate, underexplain or both at the same time

Oh boy.

First of all: 10 days of Fabula feels like AN ETERNITY compared to Turbo and Formido's relatively short runs. I was waking up in cold sweat daily, thinking that I'm so, so behind, while in reality, the countdown barely went down. This was also my first Velox during which I didn't solo the entire thing, which massively contributed to me thinking that I'm doing nothing at all and I'm going to wake up too late to properly put everything together.

Big shoutout to my team, gods know I can't fucking do art. Visually, it's probably one of the best things I ever managed to release, and it's certainly the best looking thing I ever released for Velox. Everything that went wrong with this project went wrong because of me and me alone (did you know it was meant to have an original soundtrack? Well, the soundtrack got shelved last minute because it turned out to be barely audible and I did NOT have time to remake it at that point). I don't particularly feel like my writing is as strong as I'd like it to be in this one, and I feel like I actually overcomplicated many things while simultaneously not providing enough information, and in general, can you tell I'm in post-jam depression? I am in post-jam depression. Send help.

Either way. Finally, with Fabula on my account, I can proudly say I participated in all three versions of Velox. The theme's kinda broad in this one and it was quite interesting to try and figure out the extent to which it should go (literal? metaphorical? is "there" a place, a state of mind?). I can't wait to play everyone's games (I'm slooowly going through them all...) and see the approaches to it <3 Remember to stretch, drink some water, eat a fruit, maybe even touch grass. You Made A Thing and you should be proud of yourselves.

[Spoilers ahead] Oh wow, I do love myself a somewhat retelling of Little Mermaid with a good old punch of queerness. I don't have a lot to say, I just hope the two of them will sail together without any incidents in the future. Can't wait to see the after jam version!

The entire thing feels like a fever dream, and I mean it with all of affection and respect. The use of the crabs in a bucket imagery and the title in the context of office culture makes the message pretty clear, while still not being overly blunt, which I always enjoy. I think I need to sit with this game for a while, it's been An Experience

A really cool little story! I can't deny, I kind of want to know how things would go for Eric and August after the romantic ending...

GODS. This was an experience. I absolutely love the overall feeling of this piece, from visuals, through the song choice, to the plot obviously. There's just something so gripping in the way you write conversations. I really wish I had more to say except for [screams in Polish]. I love the vampire old man yaoi, 13/13, no notes.

Don't worry about being too harsh, you certainly weren't that and I don't feel attacked or hurt in any way. I ask because I genuinely want to know the opinion of people who play/read my stuff in order to improve later down the road.

Why is it meant to be unpleasant? I genuinely think that there's something interesting in exploring unpleasant scenarios, that's all. It's a bit selfish from me, I suppose, but I mostly write for myself, and then just release it into the world, since people sometimes enjoy it for some reason. You say that nobody likes an unpleasant game, but statistically, the most unpleasant games I ever wrote tend to be the most popular ones. I guess it all boils down to personal tastes? I completely understand if the things I make aren't for everyone (and I actually keep reminding people that they shouldn't read my works if they're uncomfortable with certain topics).

You can say this is not a game; to be fair, I wouldn't call it one either. I chose the "visual novel" designation because of the format the story is presented in is reminiscent of the way traditional VNs are formatted. There's "kinetic novel" tag attached to this game because it doesn't have any choices on purpose. You are powerless in this situation and the brain frying is inevitable, therefore I thought implementing choices would take away from hammering that point home. However, I do agree that the story could be better with some dialogue choices in there! I might look into that and maybe make a better edition in the future. I also agree that the issue's not presented in a very nuanced matter. Still, I need to say that I don't see visual novels as a "way to express yourself" as a player, but more like a vehicle with which a story is told. That's a personal philosophy thing though, I suppose.

Before I answer the last point, I'm going to say this. It's fine to dislike the experience! I don't consider it a particularly polished or well-made work either, but it's been made on a VERY short notice. Not that it excuses lack of quality and such, but it's an explanation for some things. I just made it for fun in a very short timeframe, according to the theme of the jam which revolves around men/men-adjacent characters who have a drive to kill and will act on it. If it's not for you, that's absolutely fine and I understand it. Also, thank you for taking your time to tell me what you disliked in a polite way! I'm making notes for the future projects.

Now, to the power trip part. I like to explore a variety of character types in my works to try and understand mindsets different than my own, and this includes people who are terrible. Rogue is no different; I wrote him because I wanted to explore an eccentric murder guy mindset (which probably didn't come across that well, considering how surface level it was...). This story is Rogue's power trip, I can't deny that; he killed many people before, he'll kill many people in the future, and he's never been caught or stopped. But this is Rogue's power trip, not mine. I didn't deliver a lot of enjoyment from putting myself in this scenario, I don't particularly want to be in Rogue's place here. I'm not Rogue. As to profile picture similarities: they might seem similar because they're made out of simple shapes. The character in my profile picture is called Little Guy, and they're my persona that I use for my dev "work". For every game premiere, I switch the Little Guy for a game-specific variant: in case of te/ra/to/ma and ROGUE, it's a monochromatic, dithered variant, consistent with Decker aesthetic (usually, Little Guy is rendered in color!). Little Guy design was also made way earlier than Rogue's. Little Guy's made out of a face for a circle and a rectangle for body; they don't have ears or mouth, and their eyes are lines. Rogue's a bit more "realistic" with his body shape, he has ears (though in the wrong place, so you might not notice it on the first look lmao) and mouth, and his eyes are ovals. They're only similar because their designs are simple on purpose, but other than that, I can't see anything else. 

Either way! Thank you for taking your time to reply to me. Sorry for the essay, too.

Hi hi! This comment really intrigues me on a personal level. Could you please elaborate on what made you think it's "creator's power trip"? I'm asking unironically and sincerely.

As to "who would want to experience this" - well, I think nobody really wants to experience having their brain fried in the first place. This is meant to be somewhat unpleasant. I thought that the last line of the description made it clear enough that it's an unavoidable outcome? Please tell me if it wasn't, perhaps I should update it accordingly. Also, the second person narrative isn't really for immersion; it's present here because I tend to use it in order to not define a character. I understand that people don't sit in my head, though, and that my intent may not be very clear.

It's Decker!

Oh my gods, I'm so sorry! It really wasn't my intention to mislead anyone like this!  I can't imagine how upset you must've been after finishing this game. The experience is meant to be fairly "immersive" and it's based on things I went through, but I assure you that I'm alright, if that makes you feel any better. Please take care of yourself, I hope the feeling doesn't last for too long :c

Hi! I'll clarify the single choice thing here. At first, the script only had the "No" single choice. However, the jam rules specify that a choice must have multiple options to choose from, therefore, that "No" didn't count as a choice, technically. The second, multi-option choice was added to make the experience actually compliant with the jam rules (as it wouldn't have a single "choice" before). I didn't convert the "No" into plain text because I feel like actually interacting with it is way more meaningful, and I didn't convert it into a multi-choice thing because it would take away from what I wanted to achieve with this.

Thank you for your comment! Hope you also have a good time, whatever the time of the day it may be for you

feel free to catch me on Discord (ednaarel) if you'll have something in mind

we love an accountability queen and I mean this unironically

weed

Hi henlo! First of all, thanks for taking your time to play the game.

And yes. She's dead. That's it. That's because this is what the reality of suicide and death in general is like. Someone's gone and now you're left to deal with it. If you don't feel anything about it, that's still a valid reaction. Ultimately, this world is built for the living, and you need to carry on – as the narrator herself says.

This game made me feel numb, and it did so because I've been through this shit more than once and it triggered the numbness that comes with recalling it all. The way the lines became increasingly more difficult to pass, the realness of the conversations, it all made just the right blend. Thanks for making this game. It means a lot.

Hi henlo! Is there any way to reach you? I don't really know how I'd do it on itch unfortunately and I'd rather not have my e-mail hanging there

I think this might be because some people will vote on themes that sound interesting in general, but don't feel like using them in their work and would rather see someone else do it. I think I voted for Enemies with Benefits because it sounds like a great idea, but also I had no plans of choosing it for myself. 

I was working with my universe in which I already established a pretty strong symbolism with cornflowers so it was just the best choice for me since I didn't have to think about it a whole lot. Just pop that idea into the microwave and it's ready to eat.

Also, stats on theme usage because I just. Like to gather numbers ig??? I might be very wrong though, I am so bad at counting.

Enemies with Benefits 5

Flower Symbolism 11

Doomed by the Narrative 8

Trapped with Someone 8

Forbidden Romance 6,5 (since Dahlia had "a tiny bit of forbidden romance", I count it as "a tiny bit", which I decided is 0,5. Haven't played yet. It could be closer to 0,25... who knows! not me.)

Conclusion: I have to tell my friend who suggested Flower Symbolism that their theme fucking slaps

Jesus godsblessed Christ. I jumped into this jam right after i won't finish this game and I swear to gods that I will never do 2 releases in such quick succession. I slept for 8 hours total this weekend and consumed criminal amounts of caffeine. I still don't know if my script is coherent to anyone who didn't play my previous games, I'm not sure if I incorporated both themes correctly and I'm pretty much sure I fucked up volume when it comes to music. But I'm happy! A lot of stuff happened to me this week and the fact that I could make art, write, do music and release it at all is just wonderful. I love the challenge of having 36 hours to do it all, even though it's not my first rodeo of this kind (see, Shibboleth lol). Also I find it kind of funny that my first Velox game was about actively killing Pharmakon and the second was about essentially watching Heartling die, since Pharmakon and Heartling are sort of 2 sides of the same coin in lore... and they die by the same blade, in the end. I have a strange, subconscious tradition of holding onto a theme for certain jams (Pride-Shibboleth duology for O2A2, Blythe's gender woes for Trans Rep Jam...).

Anyway. I loved the fact that we had to incorporate 2 themes! This allows for a wide range of combos and interpretations (and I know the person who suggested Flower Symbolism! they're pretty happy that their suggested theme is so loved). I can't wait to see what everyone else did and how they blended their 2 themes together. Also, please y'all, drink some water, get some rest, eat a fruit maybe. Y'all did it. Hope you're fine. See you at next Velox, if you want to be there! I certainly do.

Hi! no worries! It's kinda my job to make sure my things are playable. If anything, I'm happy you can download it!

I didn't restrict anything (I don't even know if I have an option to do so) so perhaps it is your PC's fault. I'm not entirely sure what I can do about it; I'll try to look into it and see if there's something that can be done from my side. If you don't mind me asking, do you have an Android phone? I plan to release this story for Android sometime soon, so perhaps you could experience it this way when I do so?

Hi hi! I'm out of the game jam trenches so I can answer. I don't know what may cause this because I can download it just fine. Have you tried clicking the "downloads not starting?" text that's to the right side from the downloads themselves? There should be an option to enable alternative download mode and this generally should help. It's hard to see this option if you have itch's dark mode on, unfortunately.