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):

I do not remember any use of the Jam Theme.

Story (1):

I honestly don’t remember much besides the MY WOLF being a black hole for the story.

Presentation (1):

We all need to start somewhere and I’m glad that you made your own assets but this one of the Submissions that makes me ask why not just use the Pre-Made Assets?

Creativity (1):

The busts of the sprites taking up so much real estate on the screen give it a unique vibe.

Total (4):

To me, the most memorable thing about this VN is how the Stream started horribly. The streamer called out or didn’t show up. We didn’t have a back up so we had to ask another Submitter, FdRstar to fill in.

I was expecting this one to get a huge update after the Jam but alas nothing seems to have happened and the creator hasn’t been seen since.

There’s a lot of potential with this one. Like most of the commenters said, the concept is good. The writing is quite enjoyable for the first half, but sadly, once we get to the My Wolf part, things feel so rushed. But it’s all to be expected as a side effect of the time limit of the jam. There are so many topics to unravel, but evidently, 9k something words were not enough.

I found the barebones, sketchy look of the sprites quite charming, actually. Some expression variations, a little tweak here and there, could do wonders. And some audio, definitely. If the project spends more time in the kitchen, I think things will be much better. Nevertheless, good job producing this project!

This was an interesting read! I liked the bareboned look of the characters and the ideas that were brought forth in the story.

I think given a month or 2 more this could have been a really good story! I think it fell flat in some places personally, like how the cabin was there and just so happened to have things they needed for the night, we didn't get much more worldbuilding on the curse except that it had been spreading around the kingdom and the king has been ignoring it, and we never learned what the voice was that was speaking to the mc's mind.

I also felt like the relationship with the main two had no substance behind it, besides being a long-distance crush and being saved by them. And then at the end declaring their love for each other, despite having only spent one night together. Please don't take this the wrong way, but this feels a bit stockholm syndromey. It probably only feels that way because of how fast paced the story got at the latter half, and how you probably ran out of time, so you wanted to finish the story with the finale you had planned before.

All-in-all though, Great job!

This was a good first entry, Barley.  I'm glad you decided to give this a go, and hope you had fun!  There are a number of good ideas here that I think need to be fleshed out just a bit more, but that is the nature of a one month game jam, especially for solo projects, first time attempts, and when you already have a busy schedule!  

Even though the graphics may be a bit barebones, the piercing wolf eyes definitely accomplish their intended goal.  Storywise, I feel the demon aspect may be a little underdeveloped; it's a bit disjointed from the rest of the story.  That's not to say it's a bad concept either, it just needs a bit more integration.

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This one's really a mixed bag. There are a lot of good ideas in here. I like the concept of the tyrannical king and a rotting kingdom, and there could be a lot of interesting things done with that. I also think the demon concept is really interesting and could interplay with the first idea. But they're kinda sidelined when we have alone time with the My Wolf, making those plot concepts feel like background details rather than serious plot ideas. Don't get me wrong, I think the interactions with the wolf are sweet and cute, but the first half really could have benefited from being its own standalone story. As it stands, the two halves of the VN don't connect very well with each other. I commend people for doing their art, coming from someone who does the art for every VN I make, as it's not very easy to do that while also writing the VN. Unfortunately, the sprites lack expressions, and every single one of them has the same standard pose. If you view the story as someone having a moment of joy in a doomed situation, then it's decent, but could have been better. However, I'd encourage the writer to make another VN in the same setting to explore some of the more interesting ideas that didn't have the chance to shine.

'The Demons We Hide' is a tragic tale of good people getting punished for doing the right things, only able to find a slight respite before they ultimately suffer their fate. In terms of expressing the 'a light in the dark', this story aims to craft a scenario where the 'dark' is so overwhelming and impossible to escape from, that the 'light' is but a flicker of joy before being completely snuffed out. The visual novel presents an interesting art style for the sprites which helps it stand out, and there's a choice system that allows the reader to speed run falling in love with the wolf.

The story itself is the standard medieval fare of knights, kings and peasants, but with a mystical twist of a curse that causes people to go berserk. Though this curse seems to be willfully ignored by most people in the story, instead being chalked up to the person just deciding to become a traitor even with the knowledge that traitors get executed. I think there's a bit of a logic gap there that could be better explained in a 'once you're cursed, you're a danger and need to be put down for the safety of everyone else', but then I imagine it wouldn't make sense to hold an execution spectacle on the chopping block, so I can understand the awkwardness of trying to make this plot work. Maybe the main character had a realization that he had become a danger, and wanted to willingly die for the safety of his king. But, they want him to stay alive cause he's a good knight, then the wolf wants to find a different way, might've been an angle to approach it with.

I don't want to say that the interaction between the main character and the wolf is rushed, because they don't get very far in their relationship, but much like the tropes of the 'my wolf' genre, the wolf does seem to fall for the main character with no friction or prior knowledge before he shows up. The slice-of-life activities of cleaning and cooking in the small cabin are cute. I like that there's a deeper world lore, like how the king only has servants and knights of have white fur, which paints a really oppressive atmosphere for anyone not of royalty. Maybe some kind of social commentary?

There's an element of the demon or curse, that seems to speak to the main character. Acting as a pseudo-narrator, telling the main character what do to, criticizing their choices, and foreshadowing the future. It never really gets explained, nor does it seem to add much to the plot. I'd figure that following or not following the voice might lead to different endings, but the choices only seem to indicate whether the wolf says 'I love you', before you both get your heads chopped off. Maybe giving more relevance to this voice might've been an interesting angle that explored 'good and evil', but the story is a bit too short to do that effectively.

I think this story is one that's reads well, but it doesn't seem to a strong view point. The message I gleam from this is something like 'life sucks even if you do the right things, enjoy what little things you can', which is a depressing thought, but it is a view point, so I would hope that it leans more into it with the dialog and the way the characters act. Have the main character lament his unlucky fate, have him wallow in despair, so that when the wolf comes along to try and save him, the tragedy hits harder when it's all futile. Overall, strong initial effort, especially for a first time VN, don't be afraid to make bolder choices in the plot and characterization, and try to keep your view point in mind when mapping out the story.

A very rough time in terms of presentation – with the low-quality backgrounds and the jam-quality art, it's not really much to look at, and there appears to be no sound at all – which looms over the game while judging it as a jam entry. But on the whole, the story fares a lot better, I'd say.

Though there are some errors and the English doesn't always sound completely natural, the voice is pretty good, and the premise compels. The opening is steadily paced, too, especially with the neat cold opening; however, I feel like the back half falters a little. There's really no way around the fact that the romantic plotline progresses very, very fast (at least if you make the right decisions), and the final "I love you" feels neither earned nor necessary. The scope might have been just a tad too ambitious, or maybe the structure could have been reworked to support the romance better.

Lots of good ideas here, but I don't think they were combined in a way to make them all stick, and unfortunately this one fell a bit flat for me.

Breaking things down by category, spoilers from here on out:

Implementation of Theme:

I don't think we're really being coy about this one; the last line of the VN is literally "Through the muddled darkness and dread of life, your white wolf shines through, ever-smiling." So there's the attempt, but this didn't feel particularly effective to me because I just didn't really buy that Arkadiusz was Marcin's "light", and to expound upon this point I think it's best to just jump right into plot and characters.

Story:

This VN is approximately 1000 lines long, and in that space we're covering: 1) the corrupt king, including his inaction towards serious issues and his weird racism thing; 2) the curse affecting the town; 3) the specific instance of the curse affecting Marcin and its relation to his accidental treason; and 4) the escape and budding romance of Marcin and Arkadiusz. Each one of these things could probably be the basis for a decently compelling plot, but trying to cram them all into this short space made all of them feel a bit underbaked. 

I think the curse elements fall a bit short because we don't really get enough of Marcin's character and his relationship with the curse. There's no real introspection or interaction with the voices in his head between his initial realization in the dungeon and the night before the duo are recaptured. Like, I kinda feel like you could have written Marcin as a normal traitor against a corrupt, oppressive regime that Arkadiusz rescued because he also resented the regime, skipped all the curse stuff entirely, and you wouldn't be missing much from the second half of the story.

So. Arkadiusz then. The way this character was being built up before and during the rescue scene, I thought once the mask was removed he was going to turn out to be someone Marcin knew from a long time ago or something that either knew he wouldn't actually betray the king or liked him enough from the past relationship to save him regardless, but this wasn't really the case. Arkadiusz, at least how it came off, was just a guy that kinda had a long-distance crush on Marcin and decided that today was the day to stick it to the man. Not the strongest of backgrounds, but you can salvage a lot of that with future interactions. But that doesn't really happen either. Arkadiusz basically just stands hunkily for a while, gives a quick background summary, then Marcin towels off his nutsack after a bath, gives him a little smooch, and now they're in love. The only real exchange of substance in this sequence is the bit about Arkadiusz's mother sending him off for a tax credit as a reason why he resents the king, but this shouldn't really resonate with Marcin all that much since Marcin himself didn't really have a reason to resent the king until like, today.

So when Marcin and Arkadiusz get recaptured and executed, I never really felt like Arkadiusz was Marcin's "light" at all. He was a brief distraction from the inevitable, but I don't feel like Marcin ever materially changed from Arkadiusz's presence. Really the biggest thing that happened because of Arkadiusz's actions was getting them both killed instead of just Marcin.

With that said, I do applaud the decision to go for a more downer ending. I think the "happily ever after" route would be tempting to go down, but it takes discipline to be able to go through with killing your characters.

Presentation:

I don't have any problem with the sprites or backgrounds, other than thinking you maybe should have gone with a different color for Arkadiusz's shirt since it was a bit too close to his fur color. I actually kinda dig the simplistic sprites and think they work decently well. There were SO many parts of this VN that could have been really helped by SFX and music though. All the shots of Arkadiusz staring at the camera through his executioner garb could have been complemented so well by tense music, as could the reveal that the lynx was cursed, and the flashbacks showing Marcin succumbing to the curse in the throne room, etc. I get that it's a jam and time was short, but it does feel like kind of a missed opportunity.

Definitely could've used another proofreading run through the script though. Some typos throughout (both regular mistakes and some more egregious ones, e.g., "here-say" should be "hearsay") and quite a few missing or incorrect speaker tags for dialogue.

Creativity:

I know this was a bit of a critical review, and I hope you take it all as constructively as it was intended. But what's really driving my feedback here is that there were legitimately fun and interesting ideas to be explored here and you were so close to having a really awesome story. I hope you keep it up and keep writing because I really do think you have it in you, you just have to take that extra step to refine those ideas into something special.