I AM RATING THESE ALL THESE JAM SUBMISSIONS RELATIVE TO ONE ANOTHER. THERE ARE HIGH HIGHS AND LOW LOWS BUT PLEASE DON’T TAKE THIS TOO PERSONALLY, AFTERALL, WE ALL ONLY HAD A MONTH.

I’VE ALSO ONCE AGAIN VERY MUCH PROCRASTINATED ON DOING THESE JAM REVIEWS SO THESE ARE BASED ON MY MEMORIES FROM 10 MONTHS AGO.

Implementation of Theme (2):

I don’t remember why I gave this a 2.

Story (1):

@W@

Presentation (1):

QwQ

Creativity (1):

UwU

Total (5):

I would’ve ranked this much higher if bored_kitty didn’t have all of that SonicXShadow FanFiction at the end to obviously get to the word count minimum. This is another one where we decided to let the judges give judgement instead of The Administration.

I don't know what point there is in really giving this one an in-depth review since it's a self-described shitpost, but I'm already committed to the bit so let's just run it. 

Spoilers from here on, for all that matters here.

Implementation of Theme:

Not really present, and I don't think anyone cares. I mean, I guess there's some "darkness" in Free dealing with his gravitational mixup and some "light" in that being resolved, but it's pretty thin.

Story:

Also not really present, if we're honest. There is a premise here that's used for a few quick jokes and then we're done. Ultimately, I just don't think the humor really lined up with mine, though a few jokes like the absurdity of the wolf turning into a car and the commemorative badges for seeing Free did get me. Honestly, I don't know much about Sonic lore either but the random fanfic at the end kinda felt like the best part, to be honest.  

Presentation: 

Actually kinda solid. The upside-down sprites were fun, there weren't many typos or other language errors, and the music weirdly just kinda slapped? Like I was just jamming the entire time.

Creativity:

The whole upside-down thing is really kind of a neat idea. I think if you had taken more time to flesh it out, you could have actually had a really solid parody, which would have been really welcome amidst all the drama of many of the other entries. As it stands, it's good for a quick chuckle or two and I don't think anyone can really complain about that.

I rate this 18 bottles of gravity juice out of 3 chaos diamonds. 

The upside-down sprite is such an inspired idea I wish there was more substance to this, anything really. How thinly the protagonist's character and the situation they're in are sketched leaves the plot entirely too vague; it's not even super clear whether what happened is supposed to be a good or a bad thing, and basically the only plot point introduced (the mysterious favor) is not resolved. After reading, I'm left pretty sympathetic towards MAY WOLF's minimum word count rule – it would not have hurt at all for this to use the whole 2000 words on the story it was telling.

As a comedy, it remains a collection of gags. Though some land, there is not much in terms of setup & payoff or escalation, and having more meat around the bones would probably have helped here as well. I'm inclined to think the meta humor around the author's identity and previous works feels kind of stale in how narrow of an audience it caters to, and I'm not a huge fan of how hard the game announces itself as something being thrown together in a day, either. Given nothing looks or feels "I ran out of time" unfinished, it's just sort of a weird signal to give to the reader.

I felt like this ended just as it was getting going. Having Free agree to do a favour for Mine without knowing what it is (and without it being revealed to the reader) reads like a setup for a longer story that involves the favour.

What we have instead is a story about Free signing a contract and moving from the mall to the outside. Which can be a fine and complete story. I feel confused about it, though. In signing the contract, has Free traded one form of imprisonment for another? Should we believe that Mine has nefarious intentions? If that’s the case, then what the exact details of the favour are isn’t important. However, it didn’t seem like Free was particularly imprisoned after going with Mine. He feels liberated after leaving the mall, in fact.

The story also doesn’t go into detail about why Free changes his mind. Is it just that he’s horny for Mine? Why is he horny at that point, and not earlier or later? If the focus of the story isn’t on the unrevealed favour, then is the focus meant to be on Mine persuading Free to sign the contract? Is that the central conflict? Mine arranges for protesters to disturb Free’s sleep, but that doesn’t seem to be as much a factor in Free’s change of heart as Free’s sudden horniness, or self-admission of horniness.

It’s an interesting premise that one of the characters is almost inexplicably upside-down, but I feel like the idea remains unexplored. It’s touched upon with how he feels after being cured and the mention of the scientific explanation for his upside-down-ness, but the story doesn’t go deeply enough into either aspect of it for it to be satisfactory for me.

Free does have an interesting narrative voice, and it was funny to see him quickly go from denying Mine’s hotness to being really horny for him, particularly during the stream where it was voiced.

The Sonic fanfiction was funny to listen to on stream, but it makes up quite a bit of the final word count and I can’t help but take off some points from my rating for it since its inclusion hurts the VN overall.

'RIP Me' is a bizarre experience to read, as I wasn't sure if this was meant to be a comedy or not. I enjoyed my short time with it, but I think I was more amused by the clever use of the visual medium of upside-down sprites than the other parts of the story. The absolute antagonistic relationship that the main character and the wolf character has in this story is bizarre to me. It makes me wonder if there's supposed to be some kind of theme or symbolism to this upside-down condition or if it's just supposed to be a bizarre scenario to write witty banter and cutting internal monologues.

The theme itself is only mildly metaphorical, as I find it's a stretch to have 'conflict being resolved' as a representation of 'light in the dark'. Creatively, it sets up a crazy premise, but then proceeds to have little interest in it. Perhaps that's to add to an 'absurdist' quality to make it overall more comedic. If this was attempting to be more absurdist, I feel like it should've added more elements of it. Overall, commendable for completing this story in one day, but feels like this came from a stream of consciousness that really needed more time to cook.

I gave it fairly low ratings because I don't think it deserves to win any awards or anything, but don't take that as me not enjoying it, I had a good time

A striking thumbnail for a striking VN!  The use of visual discordance was really clever and definitely caught my eye, I'm glad I read this one.

Implementation: A stranger reaching out with a solution to a problem feels fitting to A Light In The Dark.

Story: This was a fun and unique little piece of fiction!  The setup of the main character's predicament was bizarre and very much grabbed my interest.  I do wish the MC had a little more agency, though.

Presentation: The fact that almost everything is flipped was a really strong visual metaphor / theme, I loved that.  I'm not really sure I understood everything Mine did specifically (beep beep - is that a Revolutionary Girl Utena reference?  I don't think it is) and the erratic and self-deprecating humor didn't always land, but it had a lot of enthusiasm and was still fun to read.

Creativity: Like I said before, I think the flipped perspective here was absolutely brilliant and a cool way to work within the medium.  Really creative thinking on a month-long time crunch tbh

The wordcount padding was actually pretty fun and silly, but I wish the actual story of the VN was a little longer.  I disagree with wordcount limits in creative writing endeavors but I do understand why this one is implemented here in this jam; sometimes stories can be told in a few words but the point of a jam is supposed to be to challenge yourself.  Also, was the recoloring of Mine to green purely for the "red flag" line?  If so, that's hilarious