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I’d be happy to playtest & contribute if you decide to keep developing the concept 👍

It reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus but in text adventure form - I think it could be really good :)

I really enjoyed this a lot! It's a really good introduction to text adventures, especially for young kids. The tutorial was really well written and funny too. In fact the writing style generally was funny and engaging. I also like that the puzzles are not too hard, but they do require the player to examine *everything*, just as the tutorial says, and as the most important lesson for a newcomer to learn.

I liked the drawings as well, they added such an authentic child-like element, but were in excellent contrast to the implementation, which was anything but childlike - puzzles were made easy by how forgiving you've made the parser, even using objects automatically if they are in the player's inventory.

This adventure is shorter than thte others I've played, but it's entertaing; it's very solidly designed and executed; and I think it introduces new players to text adventures in an exemplary way.

I thought this was good fun and it kept me engaged all the way to the end. It's not perfect by any means, and I wrote some notes as I played through in case they're useful. Please don't take these the wrong way, for a first game I think this is a really good effort!

***SPOILER ALERT!!***

The story is fantasy, of course, and quite cliche - and that's in no small part related to the jam's theme - but there's also a lack of realism. Why are there only two objects in the fridge, for example (it could have been well stocked, with just too items that we decide to take out, rather than being almost entirely empty); and why do we need to lie down? There's no rationale presented for this. The tutorial is good, but quite brief and I feel ot could have been integrated into the story better. At one point it suggests "look"ing twice in a row, and just repeats itself as we carry out instructions that involve going to another location. It explains talking to NPCs but without one present. It also mentions a soldier - but why should we have a conversation with a soldier? Is this foreshadowing necessary? And it could have just included abbreviations in initial explanations, rather than separate ones, I think.

I presume the images are AI generated, and it looks like a lot of effort has gone into this - its not easy to get AIs to capture the right feeleing in an image, as well as the detail. Personally I don't like the art style, but I do understand why the images are here.

Regarding the puzzles, I thought they were generally quite straightforward, although there's probably too much use of the Skykeeper and it's not consistent - if the prisoner requires water, then why doesn't spraying him with Aqua Nero work? Risking firing flames at the prisoner is not intuitive, so puzzles like this turn into save loops where the player tries each of the options to see which one works.

t would also have been nice to have had to make it rain to wash the slab and then sunny to read the 'etchings' - i.e. use the weather to clean the map enough to read it. With a bit more signposting.

There's a fair amount of incantation required on some of the puzzles, generally - for instance dropping the string on the deck isn't well signposted at all, especially after giving the string to lulu in the Crow's Nest to be told she isn't interested. As is not being able to move Lulu enough to see the key - this doesn't seem realistic.

Putting the crystal in the stone and slipping the letter under the door could also have done with more signposting and synonyms. It's obvious what to do, but players may well struggle to find exactly the right combination of words.

These are all things that could be a bit more polished, but overall, as I said at the beginning, I enjoyed the game and it kept me interested until the end. I only needed one hint, which was to drop the string on the deck, not in the crow's nest, and so the game zipped along at a nice pace :)

Nice work!

SPOILER WARNING!

I really enjoyed this game and very much liked the introduction to Japanese culture and the small 'reveal' at the end :)

It could certainly be longer and although it's quite professionally put together could do with some more polish, especially in the puzzle design. The writing is generally very good if a little clumsy in places, and there are some typos (Hayao-san is called Isao-san at one point, for instance).

Things like forcing the player to search a bin in a public place, or finding enough change in a vending machine to buy food, batteries, a talisman and a small box are clumsy and break reality a little. As does simply picking up a wrench and throwing it at a monster - could there have been something less incongruous at that location (or nearby) for me to neutralise the monster with? In Hayao's house, picking up the brush results in being forced to put it back down, while then going east results in being forced to pick it back up again!

At the end Hayao also tells you exactly what to do, it would have been good to figure it out a bit more.

There are some larger issues too, for instance as another reviewer pointed out, it's very easy for the library manager to start referring to a book that you never received. The reason is that you have to "talk to the manager" first, before then "asking them about" things, to which they refer you to the book they never gave you. The trouble is, if you previously talked to the Okami, the response suggests that "talking to" is not the correct way to interact with NPCs and you should "Ask about" instead. So you may well then not try that with the manager at all.

There also too much faff with containers, unlocking with a key, then opening to get things, and closing afterwards, etc. You shouldn't really have to close the torch after putting batteries in it for instance.

The tutorial is very good, I enjoyed that it explained things very simply but didn't force you to perform the instructions before allowing you to move on. One thing that occurred to me is that it would have been good to have included save and restore in the tutorial, (at the beginning the player has no idea how short and forgiving the game is going to be, of course), but I don't know whether that's hard to include in a multi-platform implementation like this?

Overall, I really liked the concept and the idea that objects, locations and characters are present for educational reasons and do not necessarily have any bearing on the game itself. I think with some more development it could be a really excellent adventure, and realise the full potential of trhe concept - I would love for Isao and Hayoa to have had to neutralise other yokai before completing the game, including the Kirin and the Akaname we discovered right at the beginning! :)