itch.io

Endearingly silly, purposeful in its presentation, and efficiently told.

There's a lot to like in how it's simultaneously so literal and straightforward (the supernatural premise is definitively unpacked in like 3 lines of exposition) while also building towards a concluding moment of reflection that really does create an impression of a story happening, of the protagonist moving from point A to point B. The Creature in My House may be short, but it has basically zero fat; the whimsical mayhem pushes the plot forward at a brisk pace, and the details it lingers on sketch a compelling picture of two characters going through a breakup.

A lot rests on the central monster design, and I'd say the game pulls it off. Like a lot of things in Spirit: Summoners of Áine-Chlair, it feels conceived with the art style in mind, coming off as unsettling really as a result of the dissonance between it and the visual associations – a child's drawings, or maybe scanned old-school furry art. The care put into the presentation is also just thrilling, with the lovely animations selling the sense of this creature being something living, having movements and mannerisms particular to it. In this way, the design comes off as holistically considered.

The writing is kinda to-the-point in general and not without a noticeable amount of ESL errors, but the dialogue is sharp, and shaky narration doesn't read as a fundamental flaw in such a visual piece. I don't think it will work for everyone – fair to say it's on a very specific wavelength – but I had a great time.

The art is cute, and there are a lot of nice touches in the presentation (opening credits! that's a rarity) that already make for an evocative opening before a single line of text appears. In particular, the minimalist title screen really works here, setting the mood instantly and providing a fun transition to the game proper.

There are, though, are a couple of formal things to make note of. I thought the pauses were perfectly calibrated in the tense scene outside earlier on, but for the later character drama bits, they came off as a little extraneous; could have let the prose set the pacing in a few places there. Sprites are used in a weird, inconsistent manner, with the protagonist sometimes being displayed and sometimes not, although I guess it works as a means of allowing scenes to be blocked with more variation, important with there being no expressions.

As far as the story goes, the first half is strong – the dialogue feels natural, all the setups pay off, and despite the aura of familiarity surrounding the premise, there's an arresting sense of rawness and vulnerability to the execution. I was less enthused with the climax, however.  WALLS is absolutely gripping when it lets its imagery and atmosphere do the talking, but I feel like the ending doesn't demonstrate that virtue; it goes a little too far with explicating everything and laying out what this means for everyone, ultimately being more of a slow dissipation than a punchy final point. Still, it's a pleasant read and a good jam entry.

The central idea is a fun one, kind of classical in its use of nonlinearity and how it positions the role of the player, and the prose is characteristically solid and polished (even if I did spot one cat-walked-on-keyboard core typo in "What the h µell").

Still, something about Daring Choices just didn't quite hit me. Maybe too hurried and brief for its own good, ultimately? Comparing to your last MAY WOLF entry, I think the slower on-ramp in that one allowed the pieces of setup and the unnerving moments to linger in a way that made the tonal shift land batter. The unassuming, minimalist presentation kind of hurts, too; I think the game doesn't push up the dissonance enough to excuse not accentuating its most shocking moments visually, and the song choices feel pretty basic.

I will admit that the reference got me in how blatant it was, and I do think it actually helped emphasize that particular story element pretty well and gave it some specificity & resonance. Hope team NeveN paid itself fabulously for this act of cross-promotion.

hey, quick bug report: i was unable to launch the game at all on linux, which turned out to be due to the icon the game uses (gui/window_icon.png) being so large (3000x2500px) it caused the program to crash. not being square might result in some problems, too. i recommend resizing the image down to something like 512x512px or 256x256px; it should make no practical difference quality-wise, since window icons are so tiny.

(for anyone looking for a workaround: delete or comment the line that sets the icon (define config.window_icon = "gui/window_icon.png") in options.rpy, and the game will launch without an icon)

I'm available if anyone needs an editor for their project. Besides just editing & proofreading the script, I can comment on an outline or a rough draft and offer more limited consultation on other VN development matters. You can find examples of my work (including my visual novel projects and FVN reviews) here: https://purkka.fi/lenkkipuu/

Contact via Telegram (@purkkafi) or Discord (@purkka).

thanks for your review!

re: the text formatting: i've implemented an option to use a dyslexic-friendly font into my engine for use in future projects, should make it easier to read.

no problem haha

well obviously you have no reason to trust what i say as the developer but the game has been out for more than a year now and plenty of people have played it, as evident by the comments on this page

if you're using Windows, i believe what you're talking about is how it flags all .exe files as suspicious unless the developer pays a lot of money for certification (Ren'py-based VNs avoid this by using the same executable file to launch the game, though this doesn't make them any safer in practice)

that's super understandable, you can tell a lot of work is going into the art!

you have my permission to translate!

as for Chinese specifically, though: be aware that i'm not sure how well the font in the game supports various scripts, and the translation system doesn't currently allow supplying your own. i plan to rectify this issue as i continue to work on the engine and the larger VN project, but i won't be updating this self-contained release of THE OTHER ISLAND anymore.

nice work on the game, enjoyed playing through it! here's my review on my website: https://purkka.fi/fvn_recs.html#devils-gambit

thanks!

as for the bug report: there were some problems with the window size on Windows that i apparently didn't manage to completely fix; need to look more into it. dunno if i'll be updating this game anymore, but i'll continue to develop games with the engine, so it's good to know regardless, thanks a lot

excellent game! posted a review on my website: https://purkka.fi/fvn_recs.html#a-handful-of-dust

wrote a longish review on my website, in case anyone is interested: https://purkka.fi/fvn_recs.html#undefeated

thanks a lot! glad you enjoyed the sound design in particular; the final sequence was all audio i recorded while on a trip to take the pictures, and it was my first experiment with doing something like that

(note: heavy spoilers)

Bold in concept, well-written, possessing a clarity of purpose to every element that I dare say surpasses most of the competition.

The pacing is economic despite the work essentially consisting of a single scene and a short epilogue; it has the confidence to linger in its images and characterize the narrator with subtle mentions of backstory. Seeing that the word count matched the game jam's lower limit, I expected to see more padding, but there's not much here that feels truly extraneous. In terms of presentation, Spaghetti uses both of its two (!) image assets to a great effect: the former's nightmarish mood is effectively realized via stark colors and edits reminiscent of digital artifacts, and it provides a nice contrast to the mundane photorealism and the offbeat composition of the latter. There is really nothing to add or nothing to change; the concept is executed perfectly.

What is off-screen is as important, of course. The spaghetti – in this context most obviously recalling Lady and the Tramp – curiously lacks a visual representation, only being present in the text via its absence. It functions as a fitting symbol of the protagonist's self-sabotage: no matter how hard it tries, the narrative cannot even bring itself to reveal the supposed centerpiece of the whole thing. This angle is emphasized even further by the Itch page containing a prominent image of the titular dish entirely absent from the work itself, as if a mere paratextual demon haunting it.

The transformation the motif goes through is equally interesting. What lies in front of the narrator is first ambiguously revealed as "not spaghetti" before the game settles on "popcorn", positioning the protagonist simultaneously as an audience to and an actor in the infernal dreamscape conjured from their feelings of guilt and shame. This self-inflicted mental anguish, the work suggests, can be thought of as a kind of private performance portraying them as a victim of incomprehensible circumstances, rationalizing their fundamentally nonrational behavior.

On the other hand, it's also a punishment. The self of the narrator is partitioned, the other half comprehending the other's transgressions ("But I always do that. I’m always lying. ... I don’t know what I expected from myself.") but lacking the power to stop them. Spaghetti hell, as such, acts as a form of unconscious justice the protagonist inflicts on themselves.

The wolf is an equally complex image. Fourth-wall breaking references to the furry fandom paint it as an object of desire, a fantasy (and, in literal terms, a dream) made real. The text's insistence on its unreality, then, can be read as another manifestation of guilt – even in an escapist environment devoid of consequences, the protagonist cannot allow themselves the carnal pleasures embodied by both MYWOLF and, through food–sex-dualism, the dish the couple is having. How the wolf is specifically and pointedly described as "two-dimensional" further emphasizes the gap between the narrator and other subjects: they are so unable to recognize and understand the inner lives of others that they're startled when MYWOLF is revealed to be capable of speech. The text seems to understand this as a psychological defense the protagonist employs to save themselves from the disappointment of not deserving love and attention.

Worth mentioning is also how the 2D sprite graphics traditionally employed by both visual novels and video games in general are here recontextualized as ontologically suspect, unattainable illusions. The genius of this move is the ambiguity of whether it is criticizing escapism by itself or the protagonist's woes: it is their own self-deprecation that renders them unable to partake in the seemingly harmless fantasy of enjoying a bowl of spaghetti with a wolf, after all. Would simply grasping the reality of the situation not be a healthier response?

If you're in the mood for nitpicks, the lack of audio feels like a missed opportunity in a work that manages to do this much with its limited visuals, and the jam's theme is not present in any self-evident way. Sticking to the defaults of Ren'py with the UI doesn't read as a flaw to me, though, given how deeply the VN is in conversation with its genre – framing it as just another furry visual novel feels right.

Let the masses know that there is no hint of irony in my bones when I declare Spaghetti to be one of the best entries in the game, a compelling exercise in formal minimalism not wasting a single pixel that doubles as a psychological portrait with admirable depth to it. Like the thing itself, it goes down easily while still containing plenty to chew on.

While the writing is pretty polished for a game jam project, the programming work is rough – dialog tags errors are so frequent it doesn't feel like anyone read through the finished product before hitting Publish on itch. There's no title screen (just using one of the pre-existing backgrounds or CGs would have worked in a pinch) or music, either.

Going for full custom assets is respectable, but the backgrounds feel too sparse, with a couple even lingering long after the characters have left the places they depict. I wouldn't have minded a stock photo or two to fill the gaps. Sprites lacking expressions, meanwhile, leaves the whole thing feeling pretty visually static. (Also, is it just me or have some of them, the protagonist's in particular, been stretched horizontally? What's up with that?)

As mentioned, the prose is readable, and the sex scene has a pretty good flow to it. I think my biggest doubt about the story is its tendency to go for what feel like extreme tonal shifts – the game starts on quite non-horny note, and then the protagonist is suddenly admiring a guy's ass, which is both described at length and portrayed with an illustration. The same could be said about the near-instant jump to plot and action; even with some mild foreshadowing, it feels like it comes so fast there hasn't been enough time for character work to put weight into the emotional stakes. I do like the double meaning of the title, though.

Finally, Pursuit doesn't have the most elegant ending in the jam, with a "to be continued" that feels lacking both as a conclusion as setup – not a lot has happened so far, and the idea of what will happen next remains somewhat vague. I get what it's going for, but the execution could be smoother in a lot of ways.

this is my CHALLENGERS (2024)

The prose is as unpolished as you'd expect from what is basically an unashamed joke entry; won't go into specifics in the interest of not killing the author. It also does kind of feel like the shitpost status is used as an excuse to not present a story about sports in a compelling way, in terms of both the writing and the visuals.

That being said, there are some really, really good jokes in there, the 8K words fly past relatively smoothly, and many aspects of the production (like the soundtrack being full of the sweet tunes of Kevin MacLeod and other classic public domain composers) feel purposeful. Can't say I had a bad time, and the author's comedic chops are obvious to the degree that I'd love seeing them make something... if not more serious in tone, then at least willing to risk sincerity on an occasion or two. Badminton Ace is a perfect example of the kind of barely-tasteful satire that remains tolerable and even enjoyable as long as the whole competition isn't just those.

Stylish (the art style is just lovely) and well-written, with straightforward prose that does a good job at conveying information and a strong specificity of time & place. The tone is grounded and gritty without being miserable, and the central conceit of a card game where everyone knows everyone is cheating is so sharp as a metaphor that the social commentary basically writes itself.

Presentation-wise, there's stuff to nitpick. The single jam-provided sprite sticks out pretty badly, the lack of any kind of transition to the opening scene is kind of jarring, and how the card game is visualized works on a basic level but is really subtle and understated. Making use of more visuals and maybe animations of some sort to emphasize what actions everyone is taking would make a difference in terms of clarity, I think; as of now, the prose has to explain a lot by itself. Besides that, it would just be a cool way to use the medium to go all in on showing the card stuff.

As for the other formal elephant in the room ("Should this video game about a card game be playable?"), I found it all so engaging and so skilled in its use of the premise that the thought didn't really cross my mind. It's clearly a story not only written by someone who enjoys card games but someone who knows how to turn them into compelling drama! The player lacking choices has also felt like a pretty effective literalization of how the narrative portrays the competition in general; turning it into an actual game with strictly defined rules and boundaries would be missing the point, I think. Excited to see how this comes up if the VN does decide to go nonlinear in the future, but if it's entirely kinetic, I'll say the point lands.

While the "to be continued" screen dampens the mood somewhat, Three Aces does feel pretty well thought out as a serialized work – far from being all setup, the first act contains a fun twist and ends on a stinger that teases the continuation perfectly. My only concern is that the story is probably something the reader would want to finish in one go anyway. It's dense with information, and I have probably already forgotten something crucial while typing this.

Definitely a "more than the sum of its parts"-category entry; it all just works so well together, and I'm excited to read the rest.

Even if you can smell the looming submission deadline (there's a noticeable amount of typos and text blocks in need of line editing), Ugolino in the Tower has some of the sharpest writing in the competition. It's no-nonsense pacing never slows down after the great opening line; the atmosphere is all in the action, and bits of worldbuilding are incorporated with a careful eye for both the clarity and the stakes of the story and the flow of the narration on the whole. More than just making the work pleasant to read, every quiet moment feeling pointed and weighty does a lot to sell the urgency of the situation.

The imagery is sharp, with the game's particular focus on the physicality of lycanthropy conveying the social situation of the protagonist so well that laying it out explicitly feels almost extraneous. Equally stylish and meticulous is the presentation; a scene of two characters enjoying a conversation provides some of the most striking imagery in the VN. Heavy use of negative space and silhouettes also just matches the mood the narration establishes perfectly! Not a single visual element feels out of place, although some of the assets themselves could use a little polish – unaltered photographs feel slightly out of place with the game's striking aesthetic, and zoom-ins on the sprites' eyes are distractingly low-quality.

When it comes to what could easily have been the most disappointing aspect: the game convinced me of its episodic release model better than any other unfinished work in the jam with its insanely good final stinger. Honestly, I'm pretty content lingering in the excitement of the next part for now, like how good TV used to work before bingeing came along.

Excellent as a jam entry (the weak link probably being the implementation of the theme) and a thrilling start for a VN in general. We'd be looking at a breakout hit if the plain Itch page and the sort of messy, muted thumbnail didn't undersell the game's strong visual sensibilities.

The presentation is kind of rough, first of all – the UI is both really plain-looking by itself and not that different from the Ren'py defaults, even using the same font. Besides that, there are a lot of "missing image" errors. The backgrounds feel well-chosen, however, and the dungeon in particular is a nice interpretation of what that could look like in an urban fantasy setting. I also like all the things the game does with sprites, even if animations aren't as plentiful as they could have been.

In terms of writing, The Greener Side is not a bad read; the pacing feels fast even with all the travelogue in the beginning, the character voices are distinct, and the tastefully implemented worldbuilding wisely prioritizes fun details. The frequent punctuation errors (most often a missing comma) are kind of distracting, though, and some character backstories are exposited smoother than others.

I think the story's greatest strength is feeling appropriately tropey, with the isekai conceit and various other fantasy elements being given an entertaining, gently satiric spin. The ending feels way too brief, however – I'm actually not even sure if this was supposed to be it or if there's more to come, which I guess various unresolved plot points suggest. (It's also very sudden in its implementation, with the instant kick back to the title screen feeling slightly jarring.)

The overall lack of polish betrays that we're dealing with a game jam project, but the story is inoffensively realized and eminently readable. I honestly had a pretty good time with The Greener Side, just wish things could have been pushed a little further all around.

If some other games of yours almost break the fundamental limits Ren'py, then this one might just actually do so; it made my laptop (which is, like, not that shitty and can run Minecraft just fine) scream for mercy. Some of the most visually intense scenes were actively laggy, while button presses in the codex took seconds to register. Limits of the jam and the engine aside, I feel like Wolf Bolo Two might be reaching a point where performance should be an active consideration – a lot of people play VNs on low-end devices, after all.

The sheer density of the visuals is kind of reflected in how the game reads as well. I was confused by the pixel filter at first, but in hindsight, it may be the only thing making it possible to see what's going on when so many characters are on the screen at the same time. Alternate ways to deal with this could have been explored, I think; the worldbuilding would have allowed having the wolves appear and disappear more flexibly. The UI is fun in its theming, though, and downright tasteful while still remaining true to the Unagi spirit.

In terms of writing, I think the conceit is communicated well enough at the cost of a lot of exposition-heavy dialogue. Honestly, battles aside, the pacing almost feels too quick? There's a lot of stuff happening and not a lot of downtime spent just hanging out in this world and forming an emotional connection to these characters. It's too early to judge the plot in its entirety, but I hope the last act has some crazy stuff in store, since everything has felt quite straightforward and literal so far. (oh and apparently the whole thing is a reference to a video game i haven't played, maybe someone who has will have something more insightful to say)

It does feel more than a little disappointing that there is no interactivity to the battle system, considering how many words the story spends on it and how hard the technobabble threatens to drown moments of characterization and plot happening within the fights. The structure even mirrors what you'd find in games you can actually play –there's the tutorial battle against a weak enemy, fights getting progressively more difficult and convoluted, filler random encounters between plot-relevant boss battles...

You just have to wonder: is it necessary to replicate the inspirations this faithfully without some kind of additional layer to provide the engagement you'd get from interactivity? There are strictly linear ways people enjoy this kind of thing – watching streamers play games, card game animes that do a little more to narrativize and dramatize the fictional game – but I don't think Wolf Bolo Two really reaches for the appeal of any of them.

There are a lot of bold ideas executed here. The first minute or so, with its onslaught of wacky exposition and wild visuals, was some of the most thrilling stuff in the entire jam for me. Unfortunately, a lot of the later parts just felt... kind of tedious to read, in a way? The constant references to other FVNs stop feeling exciting after a while, quality banter is too sparse for how endless the battles are, and the plot is as simple as the characters are thin. Really hoping to see a third-act rebound for this, but the currently released portion is far less compelling than your entry last year.

you're welcome for the feedback; hope the jam has felt like a good learning experience & good luck on your future projects! submitting three whole entries is an impressive feat, you'll achieve a lot if you keep putting in that amount of work

The surreal premise compels me in a strange way, and the dreamlike visuals feel like they communicate the essence of the story. As for the writing, I have largely the same feedback as for your other entries: with no narration, it feels less like a story is happening and more like the characters are explaining a story at you. Characterization in particular takes a big hit here, with so many scenes where characters state their personalities and traits to each other rather than it all being conveyed through a narrative.

A pretty good read! The presentation is admirably polished – the UI is stylish (I could lose the texture behind the text box, though), and there are plenty of nice audiovisual choices that underscore the horror moments effectively. One thing I'm not quite sure about: does the art style lean too far towards cartoony & cutesy to really work with the genre? This kind of juxtaposition can feel purposeful, but I fear how the characters are drawn is just kind of inherently silly, making the goriest image in Silverstone: The Morning After fall flat. Also, while I shouldn't be mistaken for a music critic, a lot of the songs sounded, for a lack of better term, a little "default presets"-esque.

The VN gets a lot of mileage out of its nonlinear structure. I like how it recontextualizes various details across the routes. Though this may just amount to personal preference, I thought there were a lot of choices, however, especially since most of them served the same function of deciding what ending you were heading towards. The story did not feel difficult to navigate – getting all three endings was straightforward – but more could perhaps have been done to experiment with the mechanic.

As for the prose: smooth to read, largely without the kinds of polish issues characteristic to game jam projects; the horror scenes in particular were full of atmosphere. My feelings about the character drama are more complicated. I think the post-credits scene for one of the routes, where the story goes into retrospective mode, felt like the most affective moment in that regard – the main story itself is so sudden and limited in scope that it's hard for it to hit emotionally. I felt like there was not enough outside context to really hone in the impact of this one night for both parties and really sell its narrative importance.

Also, there's nothing wrong with wearing one's influences on one's sleeve, but referencing Echo while also replicating its central horror elements – a small town known as a hotspot of paranormal activity, a mysterious voice haunting the protagonist via the narration – felt kind of jarring. Maybe it's just that with the setting not getting a lot of description and all the questions remaining without answers, the game simply had no opportunity to set itself apart yet. Still, it doesn't necessarily make for the most thrilling intro to the larger project lore-wise.

While all elements may not play together perfectly well, the amount of work put into the game is impressive, and it has fantastic moments of horror. Looking forward to more, especially if it keeps those strengths while also becoming a little more precise and purposeful in its literary intentions.

Psycho Spiral Beast: incredibly weird and kind of rough all around. Writing-wise, the tense is inconsistent, typos are plentiful, and many sentences flow strangely. The medium isn't used perfectly, either – dialogue is sometimes jankily presented through the narration, and a couple of lines are too long for the Ren'py default text box design.

Surface-level issues aside, the story is just kind of confusing and doesn't feel like it coheres into any kind of clear point or emotion. If "What is real and what isn't?" is supposed to be understood as the central question, I have no clue about the answer. Mostly, I guess, it feels like the plot opens in the middle without ever circling back into whatever inciting incident started it all and ends without a clear conclusion.

I'm kind of doubting myself as a reader here, honestly – did not get it. (No hint of the jam theme either, as far as I can tell.) Points for sound design, though.

The concept is pretty bold and a very difficult one to pull off in shortform – as a result of the therapy session being quite one-sided in its focus on a guy who basically doesn't exist, there are so, so many gaps you have to fill yourself to get invested in the present-day characters and their situation. It's also just a challenge to write therapy that feels specific, especially if it revolves around characters the reader has no prior familiarity with. A lot of the dialogue here feels general and interchangeable, like something any therapist could say to any patient dealing with vaguely similar problems.

I have to admit that it didn't really work for me on an emotional level; the ending just lacked context and finality to provoke a reaction other than "huh, I guess that's what happened". It also feels like the Itch page lays out the premise in much clearer terms than the story itself, and there might be a risk of confusion if you don't read it too closely.

On the art side, the character designs are fantastic, some of the best I've seen in the jam. They manage to both feel cohesive within the fictional world sketched by the story and purposeful in regard to the individuals wearing them, and all the details are just lovely to look at. While I wasn't able to engage with the transformation & journey of Jesper on a narrative level, the two outfits are so good they almost sold the development by themselves. Excellent work there.

How the game is put together feels less polished. I appreciate being able to see the entire designs, but the use of full sprites feels pretty weird, and the UI is both somewhat underdetailed and kind of messily made in general, showing pixel artifacts near the borders. The buttons are also often in danger of disappearing against the background. On the web side, it feels puzzling that the Itch page doesn't have any styling, since the game has a pretty well-defined aesthetic and a clear signature color scheme.

I respect ParaBEN as an experiment and am thankful for its excellent character designs, but unfortunately, the VN just didn't really grab me.

Kind of difficult to get into. The writing lacks polish; the tense is inconsistent, and there's some room for tightening, with many simple actions being described quite thoroughly. What feels like the main event – the two characters interacting – is brief in comparison, and it's hard to get a sense of either as a character or their relationship. Visually, many of the photo backgrounds used are noticeably low-quality, and the extremely simplistic art style clashes with them.

The structure feels a bit disjointed – there's the mystery of what the protagonist experienced last night, then a flashback showing the truth basically unprompted, and no real conclusion that would connect the two parts. I honestly also just cannot make any sense of the explanation or what it's supposed to imply?

Being a part of some kind of larger project, the game feels basically impenetrable without further context. I wasn't really able to enjoy as a standalone thing. (No idea how the game jam's theme is supposed to factor in, either.)

Really good, though not without its question marks!

Imperfect Facets feels appropriately scoped and tightly paced, telling a complete, satisfying story that doesn't overstay its welcome despite being one of the longer entries in the jam. The worldbuilding is integrated smoothly into the narrative; even without many instances of what you could call direct exposition, the mechanics and the stakes of the whole thing are clear enough, and all the little tidbits only serve to make the setting feel more interesting.

There's a clarity to the structure, with emotional beats and setups and payoffs where you would expect to find them. Elegant POV switches help the game maintain its momentum, and I don't think the result feels too fragmentary for it. The only thing I'm feeling slightly iffy about is how straightforward everything feels after the crucial setup is done – the classic Hollywood second-act twist is missing, and you can kind of notice the story being moved more by inertia than exciting new developments in the back half. To surprise is no obligation, of course, and I get the impulse to not introduce new stuff as the game jam's word count limit draws closer and closer, but I wonder if the finale would have hit even harder with more complications to the plot.

The prose is perfectly pleasant to read; the descriptions of cosmic horrors do their job, and the dialogue flows nicely. In terms of character writing, I'm kind of unsure about everyone having such a short temper – it feels like people yell at each other so much it threatens to pull the tone closer towards farce than intended. The sense of escalation is hurt a little, too, with the visit starting off so horribly it's difficult for the drama to get a lot more intense.

Sound design: very good, but ultimately way too sparse. Everything you hear works, but having such long silences to sit through goes way past what would be appropriate as a means of emphasis (if that was the intent). There are plenty of dazzling magic-adjacent visuals, though, and the cohesive backgrounds successfully convey a mood. The initial car scene feels a little sloppy with how the sprite is placed, but besides that, the work feels very natural in its use of the medium.

Overall very good and largely devoid of the kind of jank and lack of polish you would expect from a game jam project. A solid package that tells its compelling story so well it's made to feel effortless.

Clearly a blockbuster entry in terms of production values. Besides having a lot of nice art and a great central character design that communicates a lot visually, the dynamic animations of The Wayward Tower elevate its information-heavy opening in particular. The original music rules, and though stock photos are used extensively, they're picked with enough care to look cohesive together. The UI feels fully thought out, too – the skeuomorphic icons scream "fantasy", and the font suits the fairly grounded drama of the story while also recalling the journal central to the plot. The text box maybe feels slightly underdetailed in comparison, though.

Smaller nitpicks: some of the transitions feel PowerPoint-adjacent in a way that clashes with the mood a little, and the buttons in the title screen have some sort of weird border around them. These are non-issues in the big picture; it's a gorgeously made VN.

The writing is solid, carefully maintaining a good balance between otherworldliness and the relatable mundanity of the emotional conflict. If feeling harsh, you could accuse it of veering too far towards overexplaining at times ("Warren, this wise master of magic, can be as excitable as a puppy" – needless to state when already shown), but in general, the game doesn't get bogged down in lore, maintaining a mercifully tight focus on the character drama. Bits of backstory feel thoughtfully incorporated, too; there's a sense of the history between these two without the need for explicit flashbacks. Just a really smooth read, honestly.

While the jam theme does not feel like the most important piece of the puzzle (I maybe wish there had been more about the journals), I like the images and ideas the story plays with. Not to get too Literary Analysis 101, but the protagonist's cyclical life of being unable to settle down feels like a fitting representation of the self-sabotage inherent in his reluctance to confess his emotions, even if the magical mechanics of the back half muddle this interpretation a little. In any case, I think the climax works on an emotional level, being precisely open enough.

Just a very good entry all around; not necessarily groundbreaking or rapturous, but a pleasant reading experience that feels solid on a technical level.

Sorry if my feedback wasn't clear & specific enough, let me clarify:

> I do not know when to stop explaining, since apparently I don't know the limit of it?

To me, it felt like there was a lot about the backstory of the characters in comparison to the present-day conflict. It's a tricky balance to get right, and this is just my opinion, but it felt like the story could have focused a little more on the characters interacting with each other.

> ESL-isms

Oh, I'm basically just referring to grammar or vocabulary a native speaker would likely not use that way. One example I can remember: "made the house go to fire". This kind of thing can feel a little distracting to read, although being able to use language in creative, novel ways is also a strength.

> caps lock overuse

There were a couple of consecutive lines that were in all caps (the section starting with: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?!"). It's a stylistic thing, and again just my opinion, but I feel like it's best to be a little more sparing with it.

> On the other note I don't know what you mean with back half not being represented with visuals?

I mean that the mushroom wolf lady's backstory felt like a really striking, evocative part of the story, and it was sort of disappointing that it was all narrated to us by the character instead of shown with art or emphasized in some other way. As a general rule, I think visual novels really shine when the most exciting parts are enhanced with visuals or audio.

> And on last note, yeah the design of the original dragon would have been nice to use.

Yeah, it's really good! Hope you get the chance to use it if you ever work on something mushroom-related again!

Hope this clears things up and the feedback feels more constructive than discouraging; writing is difficult, as is finding your own voice and style of doing things. Good luck on your future projects!

The writing does feel raw in many ways – punctuation, caps lock overuse, strange phrasings – and there are enough ESL-isms that it's gets distracting. A gentle but firm editorial touch to hone out the issues would help a lot; you can kind of tell that only the beginning was edited at all.

Besides surface-level polish issues, I'm kind of bothered by the game constantly explaining things. Emotions are sometimes needlessly stated (the "in my angry temper" feels extraneous when she has shown to be angry quite clearly), the flashback does a lot of slightly awkward backstory filling via characters mentioning facts about their daily lives, and the most interesting and evocative moment in the back half is told in monologue without any kind of visual representation of the events. It might be that there's just too much explained in general; the story being this short, the central conflict really needs to be in the spotlight for its emotional stakes to work. There's a decent amount of information conveyed, and you do get a sense of who these characters are (especially the protagonist, who has some good comedic bits), but their interactions in the main plot feel hard to engage with because it's all so hurried and abstract.

The premise is admittedly a creative one, especially in how it uses the game jam's theme. (A fungal network expanding wasn't my first thought when it was announced!) And while the central character design is not bad or anything, I really like the original mushroom dragon lady in your devlog – curse you, MAY WOLF's stringent rules.

The presentation is functional but somewhat barebones on the whole; the backgrounds and music choices are inoffensive, and all the other stuff is mostly just the Ren'py defaults. While the engine does deserve some of the blame, not having the option to choose the language at startup is a pretty painful UX papercut – I really recommend looking into a better way to do it, since you're in the business of releasing dual-language VNs. Some more nitpicks: transitioning instantly back to the titlescreen from the last line is somewhat of a mood-killer, and the title is cut off in the Itch thumbnail.

As for the writing, it's sharp and comes with a clear voice. After having playing that VN, it's fun to spot the NeveN-isms – all the short, witty comments with exclamation marks remind me of Erik's narrative voice. There's a lot of fun character writing in the beginning, and I also like how the game is patient enough to revel in the mundanity for so long that the genre shift really lands. I wonder, though, if having stronger foreshadowing would have made the juxtaposition feel stronger (at the cost of some surprise, I guess).

Overall, I do get the sense that the game could have been slightly more formally adventurous and stronger with its imagery; how the backstory is ultimately revealed, for instance, is not particularly interesting or effective. Just would have been nice to get the chaos and the excitement of the finale get reflected in the form and the prose as well, you know? The poem is well-written and a really nice touch, though, especially as such a stark tonal break. I'd probably call that the best moment of the game, even if I maybe feel like there could have been something in the visuals or the audio to really underscore it.

Anyway, all in all, Blazing Passion is an enjoyable read; my congratulations to the NeveN team for delivering yet another solid MAY WOLF entry.

So, ok, the presentation is admittedly quite sparse – there's no audio (discounting some sort of technological mishap on my end), the title screen is imageless, Hiram's name color is too dark, and some of the backgrounds work quite badly with the sprites in terms of perspective. When a story has such a strong sense of tone & style, it would be really nice for the visual and auditive aspects to reflect it as well. Although the writing feels very natural for the medium, there's really nothing making Maywolf Mysteries feel like it benefits from being a visual novel.

That being said, while information is not conveyed with perfect clarity all the time, the amazing script nails most of the crucial elements of the genre. The characters are memorable in their limited screentime and easy to get a grasp of, the in-story time limit makes the pacing feel sharp, and the solidly constructed mystery itself has a unique furry flair to it thanks to the, uh, mechanics. While the meta elements could have felt slightly tiresome with weaker execution, the wacky worldbuilding is just so much fun it's hard to care. Even the title strikes a perfect balance between descriptively literal and expressive.

Anyway, this might be on me here, but after forgetting to pay attention to the jam theme in particular, I'm not sure how it is supposed to be invoked. In any case, it feels like a missed opportunity not to do some meta stuff with it, considering the tone of the piece.

A quite unpolished game in general, but won me over with its sheer sense of fun.

First of all: Nalet's Park is nicely atmospheric and comes with an art style that feels like it matches what the evocative prose is going for perfectly. Good music choices, too.

Despite the short length, the conflict works on an emotional level, and you get just enough about the characters. The game does need a little line editing in the form tightening – I think having relatively short lines is just very important for this medium – but the incorporation of poetry is a fun choice that serves the scope of the story well, providing natural opportunities for transitions and timeskips. It's a great mix of formally familiar and adventurous, recognizable as a VN while having such a fresh touch.

As for some nitpicks: the societal conflict in the background could use a little more explication – it feels kind of abstract since so much of it is just in what the characters say. Also, the incredibly brief ending stings a little; given that the prose is pretty good at conjuring evocative imagery, it would have felt right to end on something a little more vibrant than the very simple exchange. The angle for the game jam's theme feels a little obscure, too, although I get how the concept is used in the poetic sections.

Still, Nalet's Park packs a punch for being such a short read. Congratulations on your first published VN.

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?)

Easily a standout entry; utterly charming and competently written, with a steadily executed aesthetic that gives the game a unique visual identity before you even download it. The character designs are all brilliant and don't feel even slightly burdened by the lack of colors, and the illustrations play with the visual language of comics in what feels like a fitting nod towards the obvious influences. Full points for style.

The interpretation of the game jam's theme is fine; I get it, even if the slightly weird repetition of the word "expanding" feels like the most explicit sign of that being what prompted the story. It could have felt weightier in some other way, I suppose. At first, I honestly thought it was going to be one of those "expand your horizons" cases since that feels more fundamental to the story on an emotional level and the "expand your time with him" angle mostly just sets off the plot.

The first couple of scenes are fantastic – there's a fun satiric touch to how the game uses its archetypical characters to examine a setting where queerness is unremarkable, with the high school bad boy using his frankly bizarre grip on the entire institution to stage an elaborate confession of gay love. As the story goes on, however, the sense of escalation to the drama and the absurdity of it all feels pretty muted, and the conclusion comes off as a little jarring in how sudden it is. I like the full-color illustration, though – it's visually punchy, one of those things that remains an enduring classic because it works.

But if the original ending is sort of weak, the very last part (which I'm understanding is some kind of bonus thing added after the initial release) feels even less appropriate as a stopping point. The scene itself is cute and fun like the rest of it, but it's more in the business of filling the gaps than revealing anything genuinely new about the dynamic of these characters, presenting a final turning point, or summarizing the journey so far. I wish there had been a stronger, more conclusive note to really cap off the narrative gracefully.

Let's not be hyperbolic and say the ending ruins the entire game or anything, but I'm Now the School Delinquent's Lover, but I Want Out!! does feel a little underwhelming on the whole, a great setup in need of a conclusion to match its highs. Still, very enjoyable, can't imagine anyone having a bad time playing it.

thanks for your extensive comment! respectfully: i feel like you're overthinking a lot of things.

this kind of text just works such that there is no coherent fictional reality to it, no consistent logic behind how its various layers correspond to each other or what functions the characters serve in any given scene. starting with a clearly "non-narrative" bit to frame the rest was a very deliberate choice; that's the primary lens you're supposed to be reading the game through.

despite it being subordinate the essay-esque framing, there is a story somewhere in there, true. if i had to explain it myself, i'd say it's about two guys getting whisked away from their seemingly mundane lives into a postmodern hellscape where their fates are suddenly controlled by an incomprehensible, shifting metaphor, Helsinki's sudden real-life legal intrusion manifesting as a narrative one in the fiction. this is the basis for the drama, but also for the comedy, and particularly how they intersect: many of the jokes serve to undercut the coherency of the storyworld to cruelly underline the absurd horrors the characters are now facing.

whether this works or is fun to read is up to every reader to decide, of course. i guess it's an easy text to read "wrong" in the sense that there's a very specific way it demands you engage with it. i'm honestly somewhat surprised that so much of the reader response so far feels like people get my literary intentions!

anyway, as a result, i don't really have much to say to most of your comments. as for some specific ones i can try to elaborate on:

> She says things that are inconsistent with her character (someone posh saying balancussy?).

the word choice is an attempt to translate the specific pun from the original script, which i felt was important enough to not change into some other kind of joke. i honestly dislike the final result more for being anachronistic to 2006, and would gladly change it if anything better occurred to me.

in general, though, i think it's not too far from the character's voice, since Helsinki's whole point is the ambiguity of how much her "sophisticated city folk" thing is a role she plays and how much it's just what she's like (and what the difference would even be).

> the movie theatre scene felt more like you advertising your taste in media

well, i'd say the major references are pretty purposeful in their intertextual meanings. the whole scene being a homage to Kaurismäki's FALLEN LEAVES is a deliberate move to put the game in conversation with his filmography, particularly his brand of comedy, and it's worth noting that this is a reference the average Finnish reader is expected to probably get. as for SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY, the film the characters watch, the countryside/city dualism in that one is relevant in a fairly obvious way.

(even in more general terms, the soap opera the guys watch vs. Helsinki's preferred arthouse cinema is pretty central to how the text constructs the positions the characters represent and returns in a very big way later on. honestly, i worried the first date was too load-bearing since it had so much important material compared to the other two.)

> The third date didn't even have an outcome, but had Dom propose Sipoo's plan on behalf of Sipoo?

yeah. just pointing out that this is one of those places where you really don't want to over/underthink things – the rift arising between Dom and Sipoo in the story dramatizes the internal tensions in Sipoo's local politics resulting from how those two guys mishandled the private negotiations with Helsinki

> Is the Vanta panda joke a commentary on the region? We barely interact with Vanta throughout the work. What it is trying to say with that absurdist joke?

it's a specific reference i won't bother going into here, but more importantly, Vantaa is kind of just a guy who shows up, gladly hands Helsinki the key to her scheme (the Wedge of Vesterkulla) with no clear motive of his own, and refuses to elaborate. this is more or less how it went down in real life, too.

> I did like the presentation of the map screens, and the use of transitions, although the font you used made Sipoo look liked SIP(two number zeros). Skinny O's become 0's.

true, though you'll have to send this feedback to whoever designed the road signs in Finland! (what i'm using is someone's CC0-licensed reconstruction of the font, but it's very close to the real thing.) i guess there is no risk of confusion in practice, since place names don't tend to have numbers in them.

The writing is generally pretty pleasant to read and feels polished; character voices are adequately distinct, descriptions do their job. In terms of pacing and structure, the opening feels quite weak – no need to do the whole "I just woke up" routine if there isn't life-savingly important setup in there – but the story moves fast enough after that.

Mostly, I think it just felt kind of impactless? While I get that the premise itself doesn't come with the highest of stakes, the whole thing feels so devoid of conflict and tension. Not every scene feels like it really progresses the central relationship, and both Callum and the protagonist feel ultimately quite flat as characters.

I think this kind of lowkey slice-of-life thing lives and dies by its style and flavor, and Beginning Anew with You might not quite be there. The writing is detail-oriented, yes, but it spends a lot of time talking about fictional video games and comparatively little fleshing out the setting and the characters. There's nothing straight up unenjoyable in the game, but for being more than 10 000 words long and having plenty of space to make its point, it feels like it's missing a hook, the memorable thing that makes it interesting to read.