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Thank you for your time and feedback! I agree that our characters and plot sequences could have been more fleshed out. Not only our backstory/history, but our character’s current motivations as well. I think our development moved forward at inappropriate times, altering the tone and direction of the game before fully settling down on something coherent. This is also apparent with mixed tones in texts. We will try to find a consistent path to follow as we go back over what we have so far. Thank you again for your review ^^

I like the premise, and am curious about what’s to come. The “gap” is a bit confusing to me, as I believe there are certain things that would be ahead of its time, but could be explained through the train and what it brings. I wasn’t sure if it only arrives every 3 years as Erin says at work, because Miq boards it at the end. Does our character experience time shifts as spacing out? Interesting time mystery potential all around.

What really draws me are the bits of supernatural happenings and the dream sequences. I feel the relationships/dialogues are really awkward, though I am trying to chalk it up to Erin preemptively rejecting himself, rebounding onto Miq, and being 19 years old. I am very wary of Miq as he seems to be selfish and taking advantage of Erin, despite being upset about other hookups exploiting himself in the past. If this is how the player should be feeling about this character, you’ve got it. They go really, really fast and it feels predatory.

There are a lot of scenes that are silent, or stay on one screen while the character is talking about actively being in a completely different place. For example, when Nemmi leaves and Erin goes to work, but we still see Nemmi up until the train arrives. Also, I think you mean to tag this with “kinetic-novel” instead of “kinect” although I know you plan to add in choices in the future. Aside from some jarring transitions, I liked how the story built up to the eventual realization for both characters.

Thank you so much for reviewing! After some discussion within the team we have decided to swap around some roles and try to rework our outline. Many ideas popped up along the way, without giving proper care to what we had in the beginning, including our characters. I think trying to spread out what we had over several days fed into disjointed settings and events. It became difficult to weave so many points together coherently. I hope to be more selective about our ideas and pacing as we review it in the future. Thank you again for your critique, it has been very helpful!

Thank you for sharing your review! I think you’re spot-on about our development putting a lot of emphasis on the setting, while lacking on delivery. Although our characters were outlined first, it fell to the wayside as we focused heavily on plot points, despite most being out of scope. I also agree with your point about the transitions. I let my excitement of figuring out custom ones get in the way of player experience. Thanks again ^^

Thank you for your feedback ^^ In the future I may play around with these factors: the vibes, the plot, and the character's backstory to better match their friendliness.

Nicely done, I only spotted one typo at the very beginning, “thourgh”. The stats/choices are fairly balanced, multiple ways to achieve certain goals. When replaying, I was curious to see if there would be any direct interactions with feral foxes, or a different fox ending. So I would look forward to possible differences, for example, if you end up TF-ing within town versus near the fox den. I also find the cloaked figures and alternate amulets to be an interesting gateway to more story elements.

I think the silhouetted style of the sprites fits very well with a dark and stormy night. I would be interested in seeing other characters/animals with the same look if you decide to keep it. I had friends who were in orchestra so as far as I can tell this is a nice window into what it’s like and it feeds my curiosity. From my perspective, they may as well have been in another world whenever they had to focus on their performance. It makes sense that they would practice overnight and it is a cool setting. I’d love to come back to a future update or even prequels or sequels!

I drew a lot of parallels from this to my life. Before I go on about my thoughts on some of the themes I see here, and to pad out this comment before spoilers, is that the bird SFX can be a bit loud, at least for me. That is the one thing I could possibly say in criticism. 

I have not literally lost a sibling (minus some scares), let alone a twin brother, but they gradually have become a point of contention in my family as of late. I don’t know how much influence I alone have over my parents staying married, but I suppose we both started out as the glue holding them together. I feel for Tom and Jamie, because being a mediator for parents sucks. Growing up in a home where you regularly pick sides sucks. I was wondering if Tom had run away out of frustration at some points. Sadly, it is not the case.

Parents can become desperately ignorant to facts and statistics, maybe for years. They start to stay together out of pure obligation. It gets harder to hide resentment. I think this was well-addressed with the outburst that occurs at the family gathering. 

In this story, the cruel reality for the mother and father is that they really could not have known anything. There was no chance to prepare for it. It’s like taking everything I have gone through so far, and suddenly striking it down upon them all at once. My own parents also had no way of knowing, and no reason to think that anything could happen. Realizing that has really gotten to me as I write this.

When a professional or someone of similar credibility tells a parent things are NOT going to get better, it’s quite the stark and sudden switch. Maybe by then it’s too late to do anything about it–that these false hopes led to decisions that were misguided and wasted time, or did more harm than good. I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to the final discovery. It is beyond my caliber. 

This is all to say that I think the characters’ actions are realistic, and it hits home accurately and painfully! It makes me reflect on my experiences so far, and imagine what’s still to come, and it hurts my heart. Sometimes in life there’s just nothing you can do, and no one you could blame.

I like this concept and the high amount of customization. Maybe the TF visuals could also include the player’s hands? I feel that is a big draw from the game’s thumbnail. The text can be hard to read as there’s not a lot of color contrast between the font and background. I would also try adding some sound effects, especially for typos or game overs. I’m glad you’re also trying to accommodate multiple keyboard layouts, hoping there is a solution that lets you get whichever char the key press corresponds to, directly.

Nice use of the community-made sprites from NovemBEAR! I’m glad the descriptions for each route were balanced and explored unconventional TFs in a fun way. I was worried for Wes for a moment, and am relieved it didn’t go too far. It does need a bit of proofreading, and at times was unclear who was the current narrator, but overall it’s another sweet TF entry. I also recognize some BGs from your other VNs, so I’m not sure if the “painted” BGs are new, but I liked them the most.

I admire Mike’s design and voice acting, some really fun lines there. I also liked how the controls are given on the phone screen and from the voice lines if you wait long enough. There is a minor bug when setting the HTML version to full screen where the balance indicator gets moved to the far left, but besides that I found it fun to replay. Nice touch on the dialogue for going into the tent without talking to Mike as well. I think it’d be cool in future levels for the cubes to TF other parts that can affect sound, balance, speed, etc.

Thank you so much for your feedback! At this point we are still vague on details, so I am more than happy to read through anything you and other players have to say! Some steps I could improve on as team lead would be to give more firm direction on our game's themes and character profiles. Although this "open field" approach did lead to us brainstorming the Change about midway through--we then spent even more time back and forth on what the Change exactly does. So we did have to rush on character development and outlines.

I also agree on your points about our characters, visually and personality-wise. I was eager to experiment with different ways of showing portraits and look forward to adding more variety to their poses with this system. More effort was put towards details of events rather than interactions between characters and it shows. We do currently have events that were out of scope that I hope to add, albeit with concerns about pacing (as-is, and in the future).

As mentioned before, we are admittedly at an open-ended thread when it comes to character backstory and plot, and are taking speculative ideas into serious consideration. Thank you again for your extensive feedback, we greatly appreciate it!

This was touching to me, as I have loved ones who are in therapy who are seeing real improvement and appreciate media that promotes trying it out. I think the summary gives away a little too much, in contrast to how the game tries to hide information with “???” names and unseen sketches. I liked the feeling of realization I got after the session. I went back and re-read in slight disbelief. Perhaps it was out of scope, but I would also like to see what the sketches would look like in the future. It would be fun to have visual hints that are faded/hidden away due to repeated erasing trying to get it to look just right.

Right off the bat, love the expressions and the GUI design. I accidentally went into this without reading the content warning on the game page, which differs from the warning at the beginning of the game, my mistake! Made the events even more surprising. I went into this way more blindly than intended. I will also note that the in-game warning calls the game “Silver Bullets” instead of “Silverstone.”

I made one “slip up” and got the neutral ending first. Didn’t want to beat around the bush when I told Walt he’d have to stay. I did think Walt reacted a bit strongly and brushed it off until the end. Sadly, I ruined the panic attack transition by rolling Back/Forward at just the right time but I still appreciate it being in the game. I think the best silent moment was right before this as well.

As I progressed in my first playthrough I darted between possibilities of what was going on: “Another panic attack? Something supernatural? Walt coming to our rescue? Uh oh.” I wasn’t sure if I was going to replay it again, but after calming down I’m glad I did. Seeing the stark differences between all the routes was illustrative of how much influence the Silver Bullet legend has, to a volatile degree. Looking forward to more!

I have gone through this a few times, searching for answers and trying to come up with a solid interpretation of this mystery for myself. This did not happen to me on my first playthrough: I found that if you press Escape to close a Journal Entry instead of Return, it can prevent you from opening other Entries or using most of the menu options. Going Back a step before this can fix it or by making a Quick Save/Load.

The reading level for this was a little higher than I am comfortable with, but I tried my best to comprehend it as I went along. My favorite parts to read would be whenever Didi walked across a part of the ruins, a good amount of text in a lonely transition. I think this does a great job from the novel side, fueled further in atmosphere with the selection of sounds, music, and discordant backgrounds.

Can’t figure out why exactly, but I felt very drawn in after reaching the tree. Machines in the ruins? Sure. Pool room? Expected. Mattress laid out next to a seemingly harmless tree? Eerie. I can only imagine what it would have been like from Gogo’s perspective with no one else around.

Entry Nine was the only piece I had misunderstood, thinking that the answer was going to be “at least one of each.” A few specific things took me out of it, wondering what a “pregnant pause” means (I have since looked it up), the use of “betray” in both “failed to betray” and “betraying no traces,” and finally, “Wuzzat?” Haha.

Thanks for your review! Glad the art/dialogue/execution of the concept are alright. I'm not sure which way around the tone/pacing consistency is being addressed. Is the mall section better for its consistency, or is the difference between the other parts too much? Writing is one of my weaker skills and I am grateful for feedback about it!

Leon and Nico are so sweet, cautious yet still comfortable/eager with each other. I feel the descriptions are effective, especially when they move furniture, or become engulfed in fur/breaths. I was half-expecting Leon to accidentally walk into a growing wall of fur in the dark, or Nico’s green tint to be illuminating. I’m hoping for a fun, future foreshadowing description of Nico’s shadow growing on the wall as he gets closer to the light. Like the pacing, and the slight tease as Nico’s sprite moves to show a bit more, bit less, and back to the reveal.

I played through the demo of PRESSED just in case before going through this VN. Hopefully I have not missed anything available that would show what happens in-between. I may have an emotional bias towards this side story, as I grow increasingly aware of the passage of time, and detachment from my own family. 

It felt real and raw, it was difficult to get through (in a good way). It is a good teaser for what is to come next, or chronologically before, for the PRESSED storyline. Maybe even some foreshadowing for Josiah and his own father? I'm very interested in reading more about Winston's family!

It was jarring for me to listen to Timothy’s backstory, presumably through Winston’s eyes, and have his sprite show up at the end. Timothy looks huge in comparison, but it could be said that the "runt" grew up to be the tallest after all.

Going back and forth in the story, I finally noticed the attention to detail in the time of day outside of the window and the lighting. A bit covered up by the size/presence of the character sprites and transitions, but a nice touch.

Thank you for commenting! After I finished the final CG it was tempting to revamp everything in a similar style, really want to try to apply this in a future VN. I'm really happy you liked the cafeteria scene, it has been lovingly labeled the "Slightly Paradoxical Panorama" in my notes.

I implemented the mall beats backwards from what I should have done--came up with the directory image/implementation and regretted having so many new CGs to draw, dialogue to fulfill. Good practice in hindsight, but could have strengthened other areas more.

I went lightly on the topics addressed and it has hurt the connection to the theme, after seeing just a few other submissions I am getting a better feel of what I can say and do. Thank you!

Thank you for your feedback! It is representative of many personal things at once that I think you have pointed out accurately. Creating this game has helped me confront such difficult feelings and topics and I hope to learn from what others see. Changing their name was one of the last additions I made, and I had was anxious about breaking my game at that point. If I could do it again, such a vital development in their identity would come first. I have learned that experimental features for my skill level, such as the mall navigation or a flagged name change, is best taken care of as soon as possible. I did create as much of the visual assets as I could by myself, except for the dialogue font and other RenPy defaults! Thank you again :)

Sure, my Discord is shapeshiftstitch

Ah I see, I will have a look and make note of them right away!

An epic showcase of wolves and what is possible through animations, filters, effects, and customizations. With so much going on, the fix that has been implemented is worth doing to experience the rest of the game. There is quite a lot of variation in fonts and styles of dialogue, a little tricky at first, but I found it easy to adapt to.

I have just joined May Wolf this year, but am already getting a good sense of who these wolves are through their depictions and look forward to further exploring their sources. I feel that each character gets a good amount of representation and screen time. I looked forward to every reveal and read all unlocked entries. Hoping to return to the continuation of this, after I become more familiar with the cameos!

I like the "system" that is being used here, with a balance of elements and unique terminology. There is a lot of meta commentary that makes for an interesting interpretation of gachas and a character's individuality.

I enjoyed the interlude text between days, they were beautifully poetic and illustrative. The outfits of the wolves are well-designed, with an interesting backstory of opposing groups as they slowly mingle with each other as seasons pass. Having the main color of the UI be purple also alludes to this mixture. Communicating complex feelings through shared sign language is something I have tried to do before, I can understand their struggle. I noticed in the final scene they do not speak in italics anymore, have they learned a common language by then?

Two small errors I noticed was some beginning dialogue describing the heatwave being skipped, and a typo that had an extra space in, “Before I knew it, I arrived at the park,  again.” Finally, if the main menu music continues as the game starts, there is no need to “play” it again in the script.

Wishing the best for Hennalin, their worried expression is precious, and I can relate to them!

Thank you too! Creating these characters was a lot of fun, and I wanted to draw someone like Kinna for a while. Really happy with how they fit into the story! I hesitated a lot in adding the animations and the GUI, but it was well worth it in the end :D

Whoops, forgot to do that after updating them, thanks for the heads up!

Thank you very much! It was a little tricky for me to get the click and drag to work together with the engine's physics, will have to return to it in the future ^^