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I loved the LI being presented in such a unique but unsettling way, and the story had no brakes on it. Very lovely submission!

Your story packed with funny moments and I loved the clever twist at the end. Thank you for the fun story, readthisifyouareahomo!

Beginning Anew with You creates a warm, cozy atmosphere that envelops the reader from start to finish. The characters are delightfully vivid, each with distinct voices and personalities that shine through the beautifully written dialogue and interactions. The art and music choices complement the story perfectly, enhancing the charm and bringing the narrative to life in a way that feels super legitimate. Very cute!

Very cute story! Thanks for the read. 

Very cute. A simple story, but a great one nonetheless.

A simple, short, yet beautiful story featuring Nova and Al as powerful characters. The portrayal of love and fear is stunning, and none of the submissions so far have affected me as deeply as this one. I wish it were a little longer, and the script could benefit from a more thorough proofreading. The art, music, and sprites are greatly appreciated; your style is truly original. Bravo!

I like the fantasy setting and the main cast has a lot of personality, even though they swear A LOT. The way the characters interact and deal with magic is pretty cool, and you cram a lot of lore in the short story. I do wish it was longer, though, as the world is genuinely intriguing. Needs some polish with the missing assets and the abrupt ending, but has lots of great things going for it overall.

Hope to see you submit again next year!

This was hilarious and I would totally read more. Great work, Gatr!

And with that, I am done with JMJerbear's submissions! Al and Omri were great, but I would have loved to see things go a little more slowly to flesh out their relationship more. Very unique concept with the videos, though!

All that's left for me to do is find the time to read Pressed. Great job and hope you continue contributing to this community!

Very novel concept with Wesley learning to navigate the world. Overall, I thought it was a very sweet (although perhaps a victim of the word constraints) submission to the jam.  I know you worked very hard on it and this is possibly the longest submission, but I still would have loved to see the ending fleshed out a little more. Those paw pads are so boopable as well, and I loved the little stargazing VFX. Thank you for the enjoyable read!

See you, space potato.

This story got me centeright in the feels. By the end of it, I was centerleft speechless. A legendary mishap, and also a relatable one.

But for real, it was a very heartwarming story with a lot of love put into it. One of the most powerful relationship developments I've seen in the jam thus far. The music, CGs, relationship, and overall aesthetic made for a very touching package. It ranks very highly for me. Excellent work, Karl and team!

Naw, I get it for sure! It’s a good thing if most of the feedback are things that can be remedied with time! Moar artwork! Make it longer! I want to know more about X! 

And meanwhile you have been spending every second of your free time working on this for the past month. 

It’s so impressive and lovely that you and many of the other devs here are able to produce such high quality products given that our games are driven by passion not profit. 

Drug is bad. Wolf is good.

Very ambitious project in terms of the amazing art, super cute wolf, and funny dialogue. This is also probably the entry that integrates the theme of expansion the most into the plot. The humor and the horniness are what stood out most to me. Lots of funny bits (and sexy bits) in the story. Overall an extremely creative story!

The only thing I was missing out of it was that with all the teasing, the main couple's intimacy could have been more fleshed out. The part where they finally get together is basically just a few sentences and a black screen. Can't fault you too much for that though, since there are so many unique and hand drawn assets made in such a short time.

I would highly recommend that everyone reading this play this game! 

Bien joué, Wacky!!!!

Awww this broke my tiny gay heart. They were so sweet and you capture love, fear, and sadness in such profound ways. Looking forward to seeing more from you!

Okay. Gonna go full ramble here so I do apologize.  One More Light just gives me a lot of thoughts and I wanna get them out.

Firstly, your VN is easily the most ambitious one I've seen so far in the submission. You put so much work in it like wow. There are so many powerful things about the story, and obviously the music, presentation, artwork, content is all top notch! This is the most technically impressive VN in the jam (other than Wayward Tower, which you also worked on lol). There are so many cool little effects and the overall presentation is just phenomenal. 

The artwork is mostly lovely and it's cool to see so many custom edits to the May Wolf assets. There is a little bit of issue in that the characters are drawn by different artists, but I don't think it's a big deal at all. The bedroom background and changes to it were very, very good. But I will say it is weird to go from natural looking backgrounds, to well-done MS Paint style backgrounds, to photos of vehicles, to scenes with actual human beings in them (ew!). The backgrounds also have varying levels of blur and censorship to them. What I'm trying to get at here is a project is more immersive if the stylistic choices remain consistent. People want that consistent aesthetic in the content they consume.

As for the dialogue and narrative, the depression parts were absolutely gripping. The lost of sense of time, passion, well-being are all relatable to anyone who has gone through that sort of thing, and the internal monologue was deep and thought provoking.

That being said, I do have a lot of concerns about the writing. And I am saying this because I care about this project and want to see it blossom into something beautiful. There is SO much potential here!!!

Okay so it feels like this is 5 different VNs stitched in one. The slice life aspect, the depression aspect, the detective aspect, the supernatural aspect, the romance aspect... All of this is converging into one here and the pacing feels very awkward because it feels like I am reading a totally different story from scene to scene. I would suggest a restructuring of the novel, or at least the order in which information is divulged to us. 

My number one suggestion ... I would actually love to see Cal be made into a full protagonist. Mikkel is so mentally distant for the scenes with his friends anyway that it doesn't feel like he's a proper narrator at these moments. We see touches of Cal's concern, his care, his love, and his perspective would more throughly develop the scenes in which he is present. 

Because of the constant genre shifts, I think cycling the POVs more often would help us adjust to the theme changes. Basically, it helps the reader know what mood and tone to expect when the scene starts.  

The pacing of scenes is quite a bit off.  The introduction to Mycroft was off-putting to me, as he sort of materalized in the middle of a parking lot. I was not expecting a new character, one with unique art, to show up that far into the narrative just out of nowhere. What he has going on is super cool, I just want his introduction to be eased into us more. Maybe at the party or when they are at the dock, we could see a brief flash of him in the distance and Mikkel could have a feeling of being watched before shrugging it off. Another good option could be moving the parking lot encounter to BEFORE the room depression arc starts. 

The backstory with the parents also felt a little rushed to me. Maybe delve into it more gradually and pepper in some forshadowing about it before we get the full flashback. 

The writing also frequently shifts from having character dialogue exclusively to getting lost in description. I would like to see the narrative tone be more layered, with descriptions of environments, the narrator's internal thoughts, and character's physical reactions being more interlaced with the dialogue. Another thing that stood out to me was all the fact/trivia dumping. While it is cool to learn these things, the main goal of the story should be to either develop the character or advance the plot. You don't want to get too sidetracked into the little things that ultimately aren't important.

Rant over! Obviously I wrote so much because I am very fond of this work. Please please PLEASE continue working on this project!

That was a nice read, and I really appreciate the custom assets. And more f/f representation is always appreciated! Thank you for the submission! 

The reveal and the overall emotion was gripping, but I think the 4th wall breaking commentary went on a little too long. I would have instead liked to see more interaction during the date scene. I did appreciate the read though! Hope to see more from you.

Wayward Tower was a wonderful read, and Warren is easily the most beautiful wolf in the whole jam. Incredible presentation and the artwork and custom music are phenomenal. The plot was simple and perhaps a little too forced, but the moment to moment narrative had a very strong and distinct charm to it. The only suggestion I have was that the dialogue may be too heavy on forced speeds and forced progressions. Most of these are great for the narrative and the subtle nuance adds to the overall reader experience. However, there were multiple occasions when my spacebar mashing combined with the variable speeds caused me to skip text on accident, making me check the history several times. Thank you all for the lovely story!

The setting and characters were some of the most unique and interesting I've seen in the jam, and I loved the expression through sign language. The poems were also a nice inclusion. Great job! I think you did very well for your first VN and would love to see more!

I thought this was a very lovely concept, and it's different than most submissions because you had two 'routes.' True was a dear, but I would have liked to see the narrator call Lupus's bluffs. He felt like he was just horny baiting you the whole time, which is fine, but nothing ever actually happens. And given the inspiration for his character filling in for parts of his backstory, I would have liked less exposition and more action from him. I also wanted to say that the artwork was really well done. Great work!

Almost 40% of my downloads for my submission are on Android, which I was surprised to learn. Media consumption is evolving!

P.S. I read your novel and have my comments saved on another PC will post them soon. 

Light spoilers.

This was a chilling experience. Going from the lack of choice to seemingly infinite choice gave me some very powerful emotions. The story was simple, but I loved Didi's slow descent as she searched for Gogo. I very much enjoyed the piece and it's easily in the runnings for the best horror novel in the jam.

As for suggestions for improvement, I think the permutations started to blend together, with the same concept being played out over and over again, even when the content was "new." I'm sure that was part of the vision, but I admit I did start getting frustrated and it hampered my overall enjoyment of the project. But overall, the strengths of the novel far outweigh the frustrations.

Thanks for the fun read!

Firstly, I wanted to say that the production values are absolutely through the roof. The backgrounds, animations, GUI, music selections, and citations are all masterfully done. The narrative voice is unique, with countless clever lines coming out of nowhere. You obviously follow the theme of expansion in a dedicated and creative way, and the Hetalia-style personification was very cool. This is an extremely well-polished VN, and I understand you put a tremendous amount of work into this project.

However, I must say that it is a very hard read. As an ignorant American, I was immediately put off by the influx of territories, dates, quotes, and people. It's difficult to follow the historical events, and I ended up getting lost in the sea of information to the point where I could only focus on the cast of the 'irl' scenes of the main three.

Of course, their banter and complicated relationships across the various 'dates' were really fun prose, and I found myself laughing at the absurdity of it all multiple times. Perhaps the target audience is meant to be people from Finland, but I was glad to be educated on an important historical event that I previously knew nothing about in such a clever way.