Ho boy, I have a lot to say about this one. I was looking forward to this VN as it had high praise from others, and the visuals looked great. However, my initial reaction reading this VN for the first time was... not great. However, I have warmed up to this VN, although my enjoyment of the VN is still rather limited. So I'm going to do something unusual. I'm going to split this review: a non-spoiler section and a spoiler section. I can't exactly get into my thoughts about the VN without spoilering the game, which is why I'm formatting my comment like this.

So first off, the presentation's pretty great. Backgrounds and sprites look great and fit the fantasy setting pretty well. Music is good and appropriate for any given scene in the story. The Godot engine does most of the things Ren'Py does, except for auto-play, which was a little annoying to deal with. It also had issues where going back turned off the music. It does kinda drag on in certain scenes where there's a bunch of fluff, which can make reading certain scenes a chore, but thankfully, that doesn't happen with the whole game. I also couldn't understand the game's world building that well, but I have trouble with that sort of thing in general, so that's probably a me thing. That's about it for the non-spoiler stuff, but I will say that you'll probably enjoy this VN a lot more if you assume North of Moon is all a figment of Ilmari's imagination and/or none of the characters are actually real. The VN is ambiguous on whether or not that's the case, but I find that interpretation to improve the experience for me. I'll go more into detail in the spoiler section. Which is now.

SPOILERS BELOW

Okay, so I don't get the whole point of the surgery scene with the metal object in Sampo's belly. I get that it's to show off Ilmari's medical skills, but it's never explained how the metal part got inside Sampo. Honestly, it would have been better to have a monster attack Sampo and infect his belly.

I had to discuss this privately with a friend to understand Ilmari's and Sampo's motivations and try to better grasp the story. It's not really explained why Ilmari liked to hide away as a kid. It couldn't be his sexuality since it's not like six-year-olds usually deal with that sort of thing. I had assumed that Ilmari had a pretty happy family life, all things considered, but the whole thing about hiding away in the wardrobe implies otherwise. It's frustrating that we only get to see what's troubling Ilmari in the wardrobe world and not the real world, because the wardrobe world is blurred by Ilmari's potential influence and possibly being a mirror for the real world. This all makes Ilmari hard to understand as a character, let alone sympathize with. Which brings me to the breaking point of the story: when Sampo kissed Ilmari. This was the main thing I talked about with my friend. I didn't understand the motivations of Ilmari and why he did what he did. It was only when I considered that he was following the doctrine that more of his character made sense, and I got the critique on religion. I still don't like Ilmari, but at least I understand what the VN was trying to do. Ilmari is a consequence of religious dogma, whose doctrine is strict about material things and homosexuality. He's wrapped around what he thinks is right, as taught by his religion's domination. Sampo is then representative of going against that dogma, believing that certain "sins" aren't actually sinful, reflecting Ilmari's desire to explore his sexuality, whether figuratively or literally. Ilmari only realizes the consequences of those actions when he realizes that the doctrine he followed caused the death of his best friend, and he's able to grow out of that ideology from that experience. Once I understood that, I came to appreciate the coming-of-age story it tells as well as the criticism towards religious dogma it has.

But there's still one problem. Ilmari basically gets a slap on the wrist for what he's done. All the consequences of his actions hit everyone in the wardrobe world besides him. Meanwhile, he's able to become a best-selling author in the real world. Like why? Sure, he does get imprisoned in the dungeon, but that only happens for a short time. And he does have to experience the trauma of losing his best friend, but he seems to recover from that pretty quickly. I don't want to read about a person who caused an innocent person to die as well as an entire village to go to shit to become successful just because he learned to better himself, I want him to actually atone for what he did or suffer for what he's done. I personally think it would have been better for Ilmari to initiate the kiss, thinking it's a friendly kiss, and instead have Sampo be the one to betray him while Ilmari refuses to confess because he thinks he didn't do anything wrong. Then Sampo realizes his mistake and sacrifices his life to save his human from being exiled. That would have gotten Ilmari to realize the same lessons while being a more sympathetic character. Now there's an easy solution to the whole "not facing the consequences of his actions" issue, and it's one I mentioned in the non-spoiler section. That is, to assume the entire wardrobe world is imaginary, which would mean that any harm he caused there isn't actually real. Therefore, Ilmari doesn't actually deserve punishment for what he did when it didn't affect anyone in real life. The issue with this interpretation is that there are hints that the wardrobe world is real and exists alongside the real world, so I hesitate to believe that this is the case.

Overall, this visual novel took me a while to understand, and while I can't say for sure if I'd recommend it, it does do some pretty great things all in all.

Technically speaking, everything is packed with superb quality. Not gonna say much about the visuals & audio bcs they are excellent.

The premise is interesting, but for some reason, I don’t think the narrative delivers the goal of the story that well. Don’t get me wrong, I think the story structure is clever. But if the goal is about telling a tale of someone embracing himself and finding the strength to come out of the closet, there is this… dissonance. I really cannot sympathize with the MC. I didn’t think the conclusion meets the sweet spot between satisfying, and making him redeemable. In fact, I hated how the MC got away with not enough consequences lol.

Maybe one of the reasons I felt that way, is that during the final act, there is somehow a shift in dynamic to be more telling with Kylliki as the mouthpiece. It just felt… less genuine on the MC’s part? It all just felt less grounded. While the epilogue serves as a logical narration to call the curtain, I found it slightly jarring. I kinda wish there were more sections of the IRL parts that show the other side of the MC’s struggles, because that part felt realistic.

Regardless, it’s a fantastic work. Whether or not it’s your intention, you just made a new human MC I despise so much, thank you very much.

The game page call it horror, but really it’s more of a tragedy. The first part has important context, but it felt too long to me. Similarly, I felt the ending dragged on a bit (but the epilogue was cool). The middle portion was definitely compelling, but the religious aspect made me more frustrated with the characters than anything. It works for the story though, so it’s more of a me problem. The presentation is pretty good, good sprites and backgrounds, the CGs are really nice, so is the UI. The music and sound effects work well too. Overall, I liked it, but there was something that made it leave a bit of a bad taste. Just not my thing, I guess.

Wow this was a good one. I thought the Wolf in the Wardrobe exceled at the exploration of identity and coming of age, and Ilmari's viewpoint is very grounded yet profound as he navigates his traditional upbringing and relationship with Sampo. It was a little hard to get into because of the MASSIVE walls of text at the start, but it picked up once the narrative got going. I was a little disappointed with the ending, but I think that made the overall story hit much harder, much to my chagrin.

In terms of the presentation, the sprites and backgrounds are wonderful. I love the hand painted effects on the backgrounds, and I was surprised to see multiple characters with expressive sprites and the CG art. The music was also well utilized, and the overall experience was powerful (albeit depressing). Honestly, I'd love to see more content in this world. It kind of reminded me of Adrasta with the more Roman influence, and we love the C.S. Lewis metaphors.

Excellent work, team!

Really enjoyed this one, y'all did a fantastic job.

(Mild spoilers ahead, you have been warned)

Me being me I was holding out hope for a happy ending, but I do see why the story took the direction it did. 
Seeing the MC's internal struggle manifest in the world after they and Sampo get back and things take a turn was hard to watch. (In a good way)
I just wish we had more time with the two of them together, even as friends/bros just to see their characters bounce off each other and see the lead up to the inciting incident.

Coraline Sendak Lewis' Gay Furry Phantom Bridge to Narnia. 

I kid. I liked it. Maybe not quite to the extent that apparently everyone else did, mostly since I thought the thematic throughlines were very strong, but the actual narrative seemed to drag at times.

Going to get right into the breakdown, so spoilers from this point forward.

Implementation of Theme:

Oh yeah, easy one for me. Ilmari is mired in the darkness of self-doubt, his lack of understanding of his own identity clashing with his conservative, religious upbringing. Sampo is his tragic guide towards self-discovery and his exile and death, though emotionally brutal, lead Ilmari to reevaluate his attitudes towards himself and on life. He reaches the "light" by coming to terms with his identity and sexuality, at which point Sampo, North-of-Moon, and the wardrobe are no longer relevant as he doesn't have to hide himself anymore. Though the memories of Sampo and that part of his personal journey are always with him, he is figuratively and literally out of the closet and into the world.

So yeah, nailed this part. Unless you come back with a comment response telling me I got it all wrong :(

Story:

Before I get too far into the weeds, I just want to comment quickly that I'm not sure calling this a "horror" VN is really apt. Outside of one slightly gruesome body horror scene and a monster that literally cannot hurt you, this was like 97% drama rather than horror, so I feel like labeling it horror might scare off some people who could otherwise deal with what's actually in the game and might draw and subsequently disappoint people who are looking for something much spookier than what this actually offers.

To kind of transition into my next point, I'm not quite sure what the point of the shard was? Like other than to set up the bloody scene. There's not really any need to generate added tension between Ilmari and Sampo. I think you could have easily gotten there otherwise. Was it foreshadowing that Ilmari was killing him? A mirror of Ilmari's internal crisis tearing him apart from the inside? I don't really know. Kinda question the point of the ailspawn now that I think about it too. Just to give the reader a false sense of hope that Sampo can be saved maybe? Cool CG though, not complaining about that.

I think the broader point that I'm getting at is I wonder if some things could have been cut, especially early on. There is a lot of text, especially in the first act, where we're jumping around ages and settings and I think that probably could've been streamlined to get to the meat of the story faster. Once we've established that Ilmari is religious, homophobic, and curiously not interested in girls, we're probably ready to roll. Also regarding the flashbacks, Kylli and Kylliki are so similar that 1) I guessed that the characters in the other world were just reflections of Ilmari's real life immediately; 2) I feel like that had to have been intentional; 3) I cannot believe that it took Ilmari that long to realize Pellervoinen was supposed to be his dad.

Two parts of the story that really didn't work for me:

1) Kylliki showing up in the dungeon so Ilmari can explicitly explain the premise of the story to her. I think this may have been better conveyed by a purely internal struggle where the breaking of the chains signals to Ilmari when he reaches the correct conclusion than the pseudo Socratic dialogue between Ilmari and Kylliki. With that said, as one of the .01% of readers commenting on the jam that would prefer Kylliki to Sampo, I appreciate the sprite :)

2) The epilogue. This just felt... a bit unnecessary to me and I wish the story had just ended with the wardrobe door closing. "And then I wrote a book about it" feels a little overdone at this point and to me it kind of takes away from the deeply personal journey of discovery we've just seen play out. 

Other than that, what's there is good and supports the themes that, as discussed, are conveyed so strongly here. I know I have a lot of opinions (and it's not just you, I do this for everybody) but a lot of this was really quite good.

Presentation:

Mostly strong here - the sprites and CGs provided were good quality and expressive and the music and sound effects worked really well for setting the scenes as well. I'm not entirely sure why this was done in Godot and not Renpy but I didn't experience any major issues inhibiting my enjoyment (or emotional turmoil or whatever). Also love to see some accessibility options and the fact that you managed to put a pretty long jam entry out in two languages, especially with very few typos (at least in the English version) is seriously impressive.

Only knock I have on presentation is that I think there were quite a few long walls of text, especially towards the beginning, that took the "visual" out of the visual novel a bit too much. Not that big of a deal though.

Creativity:

I mean, as joked about in the top line I think some of the influences on this one were pretty clear (and maybe also referenced in the epilogue where Ilmari muses about needing a bibliography more than an actual story) but I think you did more than enough to set this project apart from other stories like it and tell its own thing. This was a really solid take at telling a fantasy-infused story of self-discovery from a difficult starting point. 

Really good effort here, I'll give it 43 Blind Channels out of 28 Lordis.

There's a lot to say about this one actually. It's a bit of a slow start, as much of the VN was told in a third person perspective with a lot of narration. It's nevertheless an interesting premise, but I'll admit it took me a while to warm up to this VN. However, it unfolded in a way I did not expect, and as a result I've grown to appreciate the clever ways the writing took advantage of the setting to create situations that would not be possible in any other world. Ilmari has a unique power over the residents of the other world, and he did abuse that power. He's a pretty horrible person, to be honest, but still a fascinating one to turn into a protagonist. The resolution of his actions unfolded in a clever and organic way, allowing me to come to the conclusion myself that the reason Ilmari lost his powers of protection was because he felt he deserved to be hurt, and thus he was hurt. Not to mention what happened by the end of the story. There were definitely a lot of strong emotional highs in this one, as slow as it may be at times. And it's done things no other VN has done, such as having religion as a core theme, one which the protagonist fully subscribes to, to the point of being homophobic himself. (side note: I can't help but wonder whether this particular theme was inspired by the one other FVN I know of that has religious themes... purkka should know what I'm talking about). The VN definitely tackles some uncomfortable subjects head on, yet it's hooked me into the plot all the same. So... ultimately, it's one of my favorite VNs in the jam, if only for how much it's stuck with me. Really good work all around.

I think my favorite of the Jam so far. The anguish that comes with personally destroying the one place of solace you had. 

Enjoyed the laying down of rules for the fantasy world and how those rules hinted at the overall concept the VN was working with. Then using those rules to break the MC. I appreciate that fucked up thing happened and not everything turns out happy. I especially loved the section where MC compares himself to a god and comes to the realization that any creator being should have love for his creations. Creative way to have some deconstruct harmful parts of organized religion.

No notes really. A tight script and clear messaging. The heavy parts hit heavy and all in all a devastating read.

'The Wolf in the Wardrobe' is one of those really good allegorical coming-of-age stories, with inspirations drawn from stories like 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' and 'The Neverending Story'. The overall general package of the visual novel is clean and crisp, the art is great and sets up the fantasy vibe really well, especially when contrasting it with the 'normal-ness' that is the real world. The story sets itself apart from the previously mentioned references by being a tragedy rather than a hero's journey, which is an interesting twist on the genre. Thus, the crux of this story for the main character, is that this story is portraying the failure in the fantasy world of his own internal contradiction, but he uses that lesson to better himself as a person in the real world.

The major theme from this story is definitely centering around religion and beliefs, and how the strict teachings and threats of punishment can really mess with a growing kid's sense of self-worth and identity. I think the story does a really good job in making those 1-to-1 relations of the fantasy world and the real world: the strict father, the friend confidant, the idea that the fantasy world is an extension of the main guy's imagination, where he's able to will powers into existence, but also be trapped by his own feelings of guilt and self-doubt.

It was a bold choice to kill off the love interest wolf in order to give weight to the actions that the main character did in order to save himself. I can imagine that this might've had a similar a similar 1-to-1 relationship in the real world, and that this story was the main character's way of processing a scenario with his a human best friend where he hung his friend out to dry out of fear, and thus killing their friendship. At least, that's how I interpreted the text. At least in the epilogue, the main character takes this experience and allows himself to grow from it, even going so far as to use the story as a way to bring hope to the next generation with his YA novels. I like to imagine that's what the vision he has with his older wolf signifies, that he rewrote the story to allow him to live a happier life in his books.

The story does rely on the reader to make all these connections, and as a result, the 'as written' plot in the fantasy world and the quest that his wolf is on, does end up feeling arbitrary and hollow. I think that's where I feel that the chemistry between the main character and his wolf could've used a stronger foundation. The first that we see of the main character's lust for him is after a quest when he gets to feel him up and be actively attracted to his physicality, and the implication behind the wolf's lust for the main character does get a bit contrived in a 'convenient-time-to-have-the-main-character-confront-his-gay-feelings' kind of way. It makes me wish the scene where they're delving into a dungeon didn't start during the middle, and we were able to witness more of their dynamic, some more hints to the wolf's and human's suppressed feelings for each other.

The theme for 'light in the dark' I think does get communicated well in this one, but only just shows up in time for the epilogue. I never really got a sense that any of the characters act as a 'light' in a metaphorical sense. There's an interpretation that the dark of the wardrobe, is quite literally the main character being 'stuck in the closet', and it's through enduring a tragedy that he gains the strength to buck the religious doctrine he's been conditioned into. But I think the strongest example is in the epilogue where his stories become the 'light' for other youths, so that they can have the inspiration to make their own choices.

Overall, I rate this story quite high, as it plays around with familiar story structures, it has a tragic angle to it, the art and presentation is great, and there's a hint of saucy time with the wolf. Do I wish that it indulges more into his fantasy world? Yeah, but I can understand the introspective angle that this story wanted to take was a higher priority.

Kill twink with rock

really I think I said most of it in call. Extremely tragic, love someone who gets everything they wanted in the end, and becomes hollowed out by it.