While I liked the premise of the plot, and it wasn't too bad for a first outing into the VN world, there were some issues with this VN that prevented me from fully enjoying it. The writing tends to belabor the point, overexplaining the plot and describing the characters instead of letting the story talk for itself. I also didn't like the way the story skipped past all the important bits to three days after the funeral, only to explain what I missed. As they say, show, don't tell.  Still, even though the characters were practically explained to me, I ended up enjoying their interactions. It helps that the story established very early on that Gio is dying, which makes the light-hearted dialogue more poignant. The poems were cute too!

Congrats on finishing your first project. It's one of the hardest steps, and you made the leap! I'm gonna try to be more detailed for this one. Hopefully, my thoughts can be helpful.

You set up the vibe well with the title and the opening, which is great, but that also instantly sets some expectations for the reader. The writing aims for realism / a more grounded vibe, which is great for a sentimental piece, but I feel like it's not fully commited.

The spoken dialogues work well, doing the heavy-lifting even. The lines are fun to read and capture the characters' personalities. However, sometimes it's not the case for the narration.

For example, the line "We begin watching the movie. This is an action movie, fortunately, all four of us have a passionate love for this genre. Even Manny and Ryan are shutting up to focus on the movie." does not sound like a sentence someone would say, even to themself, mainly because it falls flat when it's supposed to indicate a semblance of passion. The line could do with a small touch-up like "Heck, yeah, this is an action movie. Fortunately, all four of us have a passionate love for this genre. Manny and Ryan usually could not stop talking over the film, but now they keep their focus on the screen."

Obviously, everybody writes differently. However, as someone who likes to write in a grounded tone, I would suggest first deciding on what emotion you want to evoke for each scene. Everyday-things are mostly mundane. Without a specific and strong angle, they will fall flat.

Last issue I found is lenghty lines. Longer sentences don't necessarily mean it's better. Considering the nature of the medium, generally it's better to pack the writing into one-or-two-breathable sentences per click. Readers need to breathe. Helps with the pacing, too, and makes it look neat / not crowded. If you really want to show a longer line on one screen, you can use pause {w} more often.

Overall, it's a good starting point. Well done!

It's hard to discuss how I feel about this VN without feeling mean because there's nothing really bad about it, and there were a lot of sweet moments within it, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to feel a lot of strong feelings toward it. I think my main thing was that I felt like it didn't do much with its premise. It's basically what you'd expect the VN to be like from just reading the description alone. Because of this, a lot of the moments that are supposed to have a big impact on me just don't. The prose is servicable, but there are a bunch of issues that have already been brought up by Peppekz, although I did like the line about nostalgia. The dialogue is good, but nothing really memorable. There are some good ideas in this VN. I think the romance between the protagonist and Sergio is really sweet and I like when they brought up their high school. That brought up some nice characterization between the two. I also like the bittersweet sentiments the protagonist brings up, that was nice. But overall, I get the sense that there's something missing. Considering this is your first visual novel though, this is a decent start, but I urge you to take the feedback of me and others to heart with any potential future projects you have. I already see you're looking to improve yourself, which is good! Good luck out there!

I like what you're going for, but I wish there was a bit more focus and exploration of the main theme of the work. There's a lot of further discussion to be had on what the characters might feel or how they might handle the situation, but the runtime was spent more on the present living with Sergio than what it means for him to be gone.

'The Parts That Live' is a poetically melancholic story about dealing with the death of loved ones. Rather than the over the top grief stricken moments, it portrays the quiet acceptance that comes with a terminal diagnosis and how not every moment is meant to be a grand over the top gesture, but a more grounded appreciation of the 'normal' time spent together, no matter how little may be left. I think what was interesting was that these characters are self-described machismo delinquents, but have matured into empathetic adults. I appreciated the little details about how one character has given up drinking for his family despite loving it, or how another one has a terrible taste in movies, makes them feel a bit more real.

The romance between the main character and the wolf can only be described as sweet, as their story is told through reminiscing memories and re-reading the poems that they wrote for each other when they started dating. The poems themselves really evoke a certain earnestness that you can feel through the characters, and how much they mean to each other. The time skip into after the loved wolf has passed really painted a sobering picture. I was particularly stricken by the final scene of the main character waking up next to his wolf and realizing that he wasn't warm anymore.

While the presentation is simplistic and effective, I don't feel like it fully utilized the visual novel medium, with the story and writing doing a lot of the heavy lifting. I did like how during the poetry portions of the story, it would change format to emphasize the importance of it. Creativity is a weird thing to gauge on a story like this, since it aims to be more sincere and grounded in it's expression, doesn't leave a lot of room to be experimental or outlandish, though the poetry was a lovely way to express it.

I think that of the things I was craving while reading this, a bit more of a focus on the wolf character is what I'd want. Since we learn about him mostly through the main characters recollection of him, I think it would've been effective to be witness to more of the wolf's personality and shenanigans. I wish the wolf had a bit more characterization/quirks and agency in this story. The theme of 'light in the dark' I think holds up well as a metaphoric through line in the narrative. Despite it's goal of evoking a somber and muted emotion, I interpreted it in this story as the terminal diagnosis as the 'dark' and the choice to focus on the time spent together being the 'light'. Overall, a very emotional story that pulled at my heartstrings and left me wanting

This is a cute love story, which includes subjects which I will be using later for my own writing, namely transience of connection, limits of time, and the change and immutation of love.

(Copied from discord: I did not review based on the themes here.)

So the fvn as a whole is a good attempt, but sadly falls flat a bit with the may wolf part. The story is kind of split into two ways at the middle. At the start it's a story about friends and his relationships with them, but there is no wolf to be sighted. Just in glances. Afterwards we go to the school and than it becomes a story how the MC LOVES LOVES the wolf boy with just the school background. The second half misses the sprites and it just made the whole experience awkward to read through. 

The poems were neat. Although, it needs some working. They are not set as narrator lines that's why they are awkwardly not in the middle. My main point is that we have two storys that wanna work together, but in tone do not mash well. Now one of the main issues of the story was overtelling. There is a lot of unnecessary extra lines that were already told out. For example: "I love him, I love him so much!" This scheme was told TWICE in the fvn. It's also a bit unnecessary, since we should by reading his experiences already that he loves him. The sentence was not needed. 

Than they are other flaws that happen in the overtelling department at the first part of the story with the rabbit. (Sry I am bad with names ;.;): Example 1: The rabbit tells us by his dialogue that this is a bad movie without straight out saying it. That was good, but than the timing was cut, by a comment that tells us what this rabbit wants to tell us. Afterwards the rabbit explains in detail. Why the movie was trash. So the whole small tidbit with the mc detailing was an issue with the pacing. It just got me out of the flow. Example 2: The MC tells us in the middle of the rabbit dialogue that he is like a dad to him. Afterwards the rabbit tells us that he feels like his dad. So the whole telling was not needed.

There was a lot of beginner writer problems with the proses. Being scared of writing indirect prose in non-poem parts and not wanting to make short sentences. (Idk why people believe short sentences to be bad in writing.) Sometimes the writing does not want to make it indirect with telling it's story, which is fine. Nevertheless, it does make some scenes... boring to read? 

Since there is no small ambiguity in the words. It does not turn my monkey brain to fill in small gaps and it doesn't make me invested in the story. Ambiguity in the smallest forms helps a lot to just make a reader more willing to take part in your plot. Moreover, the reason why is simple. It makes the brain turning, which means they do not get everything on the silver plate. 

This is where I compliment the dialogue. It had flaws. At the start the phone conversation could have been made into the phone UI that can be looked up in free resources in renpy to make it visually more appealing. It had no period endings, so it was hard to get through the messages. Although, this is may wolf and as far as I know this is their first time programming, so this is more of a future tip. The dialogue most of the time has worked to make me invested, even with the sudden cuts sometimes. There was a little scene to point out that I liked. There was a small "Please kill me." in the left corner that shows up just for a few second, before he was telling the poem. It's miss able and I liked the inclusion of it! Now to the second part to wrap this review up: Some textboxes were hard to read, cause the writer was probably afraid of writing too short sentences! For example: "He said it made him realize and cherish those things, they were the love for his dreams, the love for his family, the love for me, Manny, Ryan, and the love for the things that came to pull him up through the darkest times of his life." Cut this sentence up and it becomes more readable! And one thing that came to my mind:

"He said" is not a passage you wanna use in a vn. Try to convert those words to a dialogue! Overall, it has a lot of flaws, but also a lot of potential. I had a decent time with it. I hope this doesn't come of as rude or anything. The story itself was ok and a bit of a mess, but it can be learned from.

Oh, geez, where to even begin with this one.  It's a melancholy ride with a steady beat and a wrenching finish that sticks the landing and left me in tears but feeling satisfied and happy at the end.  I'm gonna be thinking about this one for a long time.

Implementation: Stellar.  A great metaphor for Light In The Dark without being literal light in literal darkness but definitely appropriate.

Story: Grounded, real, heavy-hitting but not self-indulgent.  The cast establishes itself quickly then gets out of their own way to let the story sing.  Everyone has a distinct voice and a unique relationship with each other in a way that feels realistic and intentional.

Presentation: The black-and-white backgrounds was actually brilliant; what brings the color and life to the world is the characters so it made sense that they were the only things in color.  Each one was vibrant and alive and the backdrops were just that against their drama.  The music was a little cheesy but it felt appropriate (especially for a month-long jam).  The modified text speed, however, was my favorite part of the presentation.  That really helped with the pacing of the somber moments and really punched at the heartstrings when they needed to be plucked.  Excellent work.

Creativity: A great way to work within the theme in a stoic kind of way.  It's self-contained and simple but clean and striking.

I did actually cry at this, you did an excellent job with it.  Thank you for submitting such a beautiful little piece!  I know the characters themselves cringed at it but I LOVED the poetry they wrote to each other, it was very, very raw and absolutely dripping with metaphor and meaning and auigfhhaf I just loved it.