That’s a lovely read! The visuals are neat. The backgrounds are beautiful and help sell the vibe. The premise is interesting, and I love the message. I can see you try to say a lot of things, and setting the MC as the Doctor helps avoid it from feeling “preachy”. It’s a feel-good story all in all. Unfortunately, I think the ending after the final confrontation felt really abrupt. All in all, it’s a charming one. Well done!

I quite enjoyed this one... the spiritist reminded me a bit of the Wizard of Oz in that he had a better grasp on what was really needed for the patients, still had some manner of supernatural ability, and yet still somehow fell victim to a scam he would have probably recognized had someone approached him with their issue (having his name stolen).  Nice, cozy entry for May Wolf.

It started as a chill vn, with a cute spirit to help the mc guiding others, I like their dynamics. The ending was a bit confusing Art is ok, the backgrounds are beautiful, good job!

This was an interesting read! I understood the plot for the most part, but the endings threw me for a little bit of a loop. I think I understand the message that you were trying to convey at the end of the story though.

I really liked the backgrounds and the designs of the characters were neat! I'm a bit confused by what I assume is the ribcage on some of the characters though. It kinda looked like another pair of pecs imo. 

And the characters were good as well, I liked the bantering between them, but I think it got a bit overused. But besides that, I liked how the two interacted with each other.

Great job!

The vibes are certainly good; the soft backgrounds are nice to look at and create a compelling atmosphere despite the prose being a little sparse with descriptions (though there is some nice imagery in the finale). I do think the banter gets a little tiresome, though, even if it's nice for the characters to have clear personalities.

The biggest structural flaw, I would say, is how blunt and frontloaded all the exposition is. The premise – a spirit haunting the protagonist – is pretty good, but how eager the game is to explain the history and the mechanics of this thing just saps out so much of the intrigue. Thankfully, the climax has some interesting beats that feel like good payoffs for some of the subtler setups.

First of all, LOVE the backgrounds. It's rare to see handmade backgrounds in this field, and these are especially cozy. Nostalgic, even. They do a great job at setting up the world they're found in. Beyond that, this is a simple but enjoyable fantasy VN. It doesn't waste too much time with the worldbuilding, which is good for a short story. Much of the dialogue is dedicated to sarcastic yet loving jabs between the doctor and the spirit. While cheesy at times, it's also refreshing that they're already close enough to prod at each other the way they do. I liked how it acts as a snippet of their ordinary lives, though the climax of the story was also exciting. The philosophical questions raised throughout were also interesting to think about, though I did feel like the VN ended abruptly. All in all, this is a great all-rounder of an entry that shouldn't go overlooked.

'Spiritist of Crescentfall' is a slice-of-life cozy fantasy story with a hint of therapy-simulator. The premise is a weird one, following the daily life of a local doctor/spiritist, as he does his chores, act as therapist/councilor to the nearby townsfolk, and deal with a spirit wolf that exists in his head. The wolf giving colorful commentary on all that he does while not wearing clothes. There's a series of townsfolk that come to the doctor with issues, and you get to choose from the advice that you can give them, ultimately leading to a 'boss fight' where the doctor comes face to face with a big magical force of depression that he has to placate. It's certainly out of the ordinary as a premise and gives cozy vibes, but the structure is so loose and the set up is light, it's hard to feel as if there's stakes or tension.

The dynamic between the doctor and the spirit is the biggest draw of this story, and while it's amusing that they have a 'roommates who put up with each other' kind of dynamic, the details for how they ended up like that are brushed under the rug as a 'possessed him to keep him alive when he was attacked'. There's also not really much of an arc for these characters. They seem to change by the end of the story by getting new names, but this revelation feels unearned and out of the blue. I'm still a bit puzzled at what exactly happened in the end, does the spirit still exist inside the doctor or is the arrangement different now? Since there's a lot of dialog between the doctor and the spirit, that could've been used for a lot of exposition for this world. While starting this story so far after the doctor gets possessed by the spirit leads to a calm slice-of-life story, it seems like that would be a much more active story if we got to see the events that led to the doctor getting possessed in the first place.

The story tries to address pretty heavy and emotional issues during the 'therapy sessions', and while there's nice advice and wisdom, it's fairly generalized doesn't seem to have any deeper exploration of these issues. The overall message that I got out of this story is 'change is hard but you can do it', that kind of goes into 'just think positive' territory. This is compounded by the way the rules of this world seem to imply that bad feelings can manifest themselves as magical maelstroms. If this was the direction the story was going to go in, it would be neat to introduce this idea earlier on, where bad feelings did end up causing physical/magical changes around the person, and suddenly, the doctor's importance would be far more apparent.

Overall the presentation is really nice, I appreciate that all the backgrounds were hand painted, and a lot of custom sprites were made for this visual novel. Even had a few funny moments with sprite positioning. I don't know how closely it stuck to the theme of 'a light in the dark', since the big climax of a depression torrent was the 'dark', but the 'light' didn't seem to address the depression, instead going with the 'lead by example' approach of self-improvement to show that the depression vortex could change too. I think this story ended up trying to tackle too many ideas when it comes to stuff like mental health and helping others through difficult issues, but I definitely applaud the ambition to tackle it anyway.

Quite intriguing. I don’t really get either of the endings. The spiritist stuff was interesting and I kind of felt like I didn’t need to fully get it, so it’s not really a problem. The rest of the VN was nice to read. The dialogue between the doctor and the spirit was really fun, and helping the two “patients” felt nice as well. The sprites and background are a bit simplistic, but they do look good (especially the latter). The music and sound effects were used well. Overall, just a nice little story.

This was a very enjoyable look into a day of the lives of an old married therapist couple capped off with an exhilarating finish. As great as the ending was, the relationship between The Doctor and the Spirit in the introductory segments felt rather static. It makes sense, since we're stepping into a single day of a years-long relationship, with the only impetus for change coming at the end, but the pacing does nonetheless suffer a bit for it.

This was really good! I'm actually a bit surprised this has so few ratings so far but hopefully more people will be making their way to this soon. Taking this one rating criterion at a time:

Implementation of Theme:

This one was a bit more esoteric than most of the other jam entries I've read so far, but the interpretation I'm getting is that the willingness to accept change is the "light" that illuminates the "darkness" of the maelstrom/I guess, like, feigned optimism of the populace. Not super clear if this was the express intention, but I think it works well enough.

Story:

While the chill atmosphere of the doctor interacting with a couple of clients (as more of a therapist/life coach than a shaman) is fun and relaxing (if a bit slow at times, which is totally fine), the banter between the doctor and spirit are what really elevates this one. I'm a sucker for snappy dialogue and there were quite a few zingers in this one. Love that "-_-" was basically the spirit's default expression.

The change in tone at the end of the story, while foreshadowed by the spirit's earlier comments, still felt a bit abrupt, and both resolutions to the maelstrom felt a bit rushed in their own way. It kind of felt like the last act of the story took place because the script needed a climax rather than because that's where the flow of the narrative was naturally going. 

This could either go here or in "Presentation", but though the banter is exceedingly well done, some of the other language choices you make can be a bit hard to parse, especially when it comes to lore-heavy topics. Maybe I'm just dumber than Gideon, but I really still didn't understand the whole name thing, even after the doctor finished explaining it. Also, the dialogue options really didn't feel distinct enough for me. For example, "living in fear is no way to live" and "caution can only take you so far" are basically saying the same thing in two different ways, and this makes decisions that have an actual story impact feel like essentially a semantic choice. 

Presentation:

Decent across the board. Obviously love the effort in providing your own artwork for the project, and the sprites' expressions were very nice. Not sure what exactly was going on with some of the bodies though (Gideon especially looks like he has two rows of pecs, which I don't think was the intent).

Music could have used a little work though. The same track repeats on a loop for most of the VN and I think there are ways you could have played with this a bit more so it didn't feel so repetitive. For example, when Gideon says he wants to attach a spirit to his daughter, have the music cut out to reflect the doctor's and spirit's surprise. 

Some typos and usage errors throughout (e.g., "confounds of the city" - I think you meant "confines") but nothing too major other than the language generally being hard to understand at times as mentioned above.

Creativity:

I think this was a fun take on the premise, with "My Wolf" being taken close to its most literal point since the spirit is inexorably linked to the doctor. I think you made a considerable effort in making the world feel alive despite the short time we spent in it. I'd actually kinda like to see a comic series or something with the doctor and spirit handling different "cases" - their chemistry was seriously entertaining.