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 (1):

???

Story (1):

I remember that the creator during the stream was explaining a lot of things that they forgot to put into the VN. It was pretty confusing in terms of POV.

Presentation (1):

The one custom CG kind gets overshadowed by the numerous missing assets.

Creativity (2):

The Superhero/Supervillain idea was unique for this Jam. The idea of the reporter being able to read people’s thoughts through his rabbits ears was a twist I wasn’t expecting to happen…?

Total (5):

Out of the submissions that I gave a total of a 5 to this is my favorite because even though you have less time to work on it you still showed other people up by finishing it. There are so many people’s work that will never see the light of day at all and yours is not one of them.

Congrats on making a vn! Considering you did this in the span of 6 days it's alright! 

There isn't much that I could say that you needed that you probably already know, so I'll just give my opinions on the story.

The concept behind this was interesting, and it could be a pretty good story! Throughout the story I saw we were switching perspectives over and over again, but there wasn't much to notify the reader that we had switched perspective, except for being able to listen to their thoughts. Maybe you should incorporate something like resizing the text, but on that topic I did notice you used a different color text and underlined it. That is what helped me realize that, that is when we were supposed to be changing perspective.

And now I want to talk about how well you implemented the theme. I think I understand how you implemented the theme, but we only get to catch a glimpse of the darkness part of it before being shown the light. And we don't even know about it until we are basically done with the story. I think if you wanted to keep the perspective changes you could have the character's backstory happen before they each have their moment where they start to change their lives.

I enjoyed the idea of this though so I'm excited to see how the story will change if you are able to update it!

Congrats on your first vn!  It can be a bit overwhelming to step out and make something like this... learning to code, adding music, transitions and cutscenes,

Implementing sprites, and writing are all things that can be overwhelming by themselves, much less putting it all together.  It can be intimidating, especially when your efforts are compared to seasoned veterans and teams working together who have the entire month to finish a project.  Please don't be discouraged by any criticism or negative feedback, but consider it as a place to learn and improve... to me, that's the best part of participating in the game jam to begin with!

To start with, the cutscene/title screen graphic is cute!  I also like that, when displaying the character names, you gave them their own unique colors.  Not all creators do that, and especially when multiple ones are introduced at once, it makes it much easier to follow.  (I also personally try to take a prominent color from the sprite amd make the text match that color if possible, though here, the colors are quite similar, so it would be a bit more difficult). 

I did have a bit of difficulty following the story; sometimes I wasn't quite sure of the point of view.  One thing I use to sometimes help in that situation is to set a character when they're thinking as opposed to talking out loud as a seperate character with the same display name, but a darker, more grayish text to help the reader understand.

There are a number of things you didn't have time to work on and complete, and I know you are aware of those, and can add them in the future if you desire, so I won't comment on the backgrounds or music and sounds.

Again, congrats on putting out your first (of hopefully several more to come) vns, and I look forward to seeing more in the future.

To be honest, between the shaky English and the lack of visuals, this was very difficult to follow. None of the lines seemed to logically follow each other, and as a result I didn't really absorb any of the plot. It was pretty much a lot of random things happening. There's definitely some creativity here, though, and I love the concept of a superhero and supervillain falling in love. Blacktail was also quite likeable, thanks to him having a monstrous exterior yet a soft heart. At any rate, I'd love to see what this VN would have looked like with a little more time in the oven.

I think the premise could be interesting, but this was honestly tough to read. To the point of making me a bit confused what was going on a lot of the time - aside from the mess of grammar issues and leftover comments, the writing seems a bit confused over who's perspective it's telling the story from (unless I missed the reporter having the power to read thoughts?) The game's current lack of backgrounds and sound did not help with the disorientation.

Still, knowing you're new to this, it's an achievement to get as much done with this project as you did - especially during the time you had to work on it! If you do more jams, I hope you get the time to fully realize your ideas <3

'Breaking News' is a modern take on a classic super hero and super villain rivalry and their odd relationship with each other. The view point is supposed to be from a local reporter who has been following these two, and is merely bearing witness to the developments between the two. It does it's best to provide positive representation to the hero who is supposed to be fighting on the side of justice, including social justice. There is also hints at a deeper analysis of the villain and his motivations.

This story has a couple of shortcomings that make it hard to follow. I'm sure it's pointed out, but the wolf villain acts as a second point of view, as the reader is able to hear the inner thoughts of him, and there's no transition to establish him as the new point of view. There are a lot of questions in this plot that are left unanswered. What kind of powers do these two characters have? Why is Fanatic a hero and what do they fight for? Why is Blacktail a villain and what kinds of crimes does he do? Why do these two characters just sit and have a chat after their epic fight? What does the reporter have to do with any of this? It seems that Blacktail is actually just someone who wanted to be an actor, what stopped him before? Otherwise, these are two characters that seem to talk past each other and talk about interesting platitudes that don't seem relevant to their current situation.

Presentation wise, it's in a rough state, using only sprites and no backgrounds or music. There's one sketch of a cut scene at the end between the hero and villain, which is very cute, but seems to be the only custom asset added. The theme of 'light in the dark' also doesn't seem to be too well represented in this. There's a mention of 'star's in the hero's eyes', but without a proper establishing of what the 'dark' is, I'm not sure what the 'light' the hero is supposed to be, aside from the trope of villain=dark and hero=light. I do think it has an interesting premise, examining a hero/villain relationship that isn't completely hostile, but there's not enough details as to what that relationship is based on. I think (much like the text points out) it's a rough draft that has the seeds of interesting ideas, that needs a lot more time to be worked on.

Solid idea and decent effort at crafting a unique story on short notice, but was a little rough in execution.

Breaking things down by criteria, spoilers from this point forward.

Implementation of Theme:

Looks like the interpretation of the theme here is Finetic providing a light for Blacktail to escape his "darkness", which manifests both in his supervillain career and in his personal struggles that led him to becoming a villain in the first place. Some things are a little unclear because of the writing (we'll get to that), but if this is the idea I think that's fine. It gets the job done.

Story:

Love the idea of a journalist spying on two supers having a personal chat with the added ability of being able to read their thoughts. As others have mentioned though, this premise isn't really adhered to consistently, and there are large stretches where the journalist character basically isn't mentioned at all. As it stands, especially since we only see Blacktail's thoughts for most of the story, you basically could cut the journalist entirely and just have the whole thing from Blacktail's perspective and you really wouldn't be losing much. Since what really contributes to the novelty of the premise is that third character, he needs to be developed more even if he's not a direct participant in the conversation. Does what the two primary characters are doing and saying make sense with the other information he knows? Does he think they're full of shit? What's his opinion on them generally? How does this opinion change over the course of the narrative? That sort of thing.

Presentation:

Don't want to beat a dead horse here since I think you know what the presentation issues are. No music, no backgrounds, dialogue that's very hard to follow, etc. I know everything was on a time limit because of the jam, but I would have rather seen some quick doodles like a gray rectangle to show that the characters are on a building, or some green squiggles to show they're in a field, than just having the black background throughout. 

Creativity:

Like I said earlier, this was a really solid idea, but this VN, both in terms of script and presentation, really needed some more TLC before it was ready for primetime. Stick with it - you've certainly got a foundation, and I think with a little more prep and time management you could pull off something really special.

Interesting take on the genre. I thought it was gonna be something like Nightcrawler, but the light tone of the story works for a short story. Obviously, it needs more time cooking in the kitchen. It's a bit trickier since action scenes / the superhero genre in general usually rely more on visuals to deliver the beat with the right pace, compared to y'know, flat-out romance scenes. The CG at the end does the job, despite the drafty sentences.

Frankly, I have bit of a hard time reading the dialogue, especially with the viewpoints. Not sure why we can read Blacktail's inner thoughts, but not Finetic's, when the PoV-character is a complete outsider. Well, maybe not "really" an outsider because of the reveal at the end, but that part could do more fleshing out.

Regardless, congrats on creating your first project. Taking the first step is already half of the challenge. Hopefully, you will keep going and complete the story.

Cheers!

Congrats on releasing your first VN. With there apparently only being a week of development time, it's not surprising that this version feels a little rough around the edges; there are no music or backgrounds, and the sprites are positioned in a kind of awkward way. As for the plot: an outsider's perspective to a superhero battle is an inspired narrative direction, but it feels like large stretches of the story do not use this premise well, basically forgetting our viewpoint character in favor of a lot of dialog they don't really react to. It would maybe have been more interesting for the protagonist to be more of an active participant.

Very interesting idea! Quite the unique spin on a superhero-supervillain genre. I also adore the idea that the rabbit's ears are so big that they can hear thoughts! Great job on getting this done this quickly! Do remember, though, that you can't submit a new version during June, as you mentioned in the closing notes.

Once you hit the un-edited parts it got difficult to read. I like the idea you are presenting, but needs editing as you point out. Keep chipping away at the project!