Wow you made the dad hot. Sorry. It's true. Sorry. But it is. Though I guess Luca also acknowledges it so it's fine.

Anyway my obligatory furry reader comment aside, astounding work. I like all the subtext, about the main character's struggle with whatever mental illness he inherited from his father (I assume bipolar, or maybe schizophrenia, some sort of psychosis), the nature of his relationship with Noah, and Noah's family. I think maybe it could strike some as a bit... brisk? the vn moves at a pretty heady pace, and resolves at the same speed. However, in this case I think it sort of works because the two characters are already so barely held together. If they were both more sound of mind people, it would be harder to believe, but Luca is crashing out, and Noah is a hermit who has rotting shrines to his two dead family members. There's not really a "scale" of grief, because different events affect people differently, but if then, in psychology we kinda have an unspoken agreement Parental Bereavement is far and away the worst kind of tragedy a person can experience. I of course prefer the Human route, because I think stories of self forgiveness, as well as repentance are far more interesting than just suicide revenge. However, I think something a bit subtle but clever is that when Luca starts beating Henry's face in, he gets scribbled out... much like how Noah's face is scribbled out. So it's not hard to imagine where he got shot. 

Anyway the story aside, the art is phenomenal. i mean the hot dad aside, I love that Noah's face is only in the preview thumbnail. I love that Henry presumably has the bullet casing that killed his son around his neck. His expressions are so varied and complex, which works in great contrast to his son, who... has no face. 

I really enjoyed this entry, and it seems like others had a lot of good feedback to give you, so I just wanted to take the extra time to praise the parts that  I thought worked really well. You should be proud of yourself, and I really hope you consider joining other jams, or continuing to engage in the community, in the future! 

"Stuck in November" is a mystery tragedy wrapped up in a bit of amnesia ribbon. The neatest part of this visual novel is the art style, it's really good at evoking this haunting aesthetic. This story feels like one part mystery thriller, and one part self-fulfillment revenge fantasy, and one part saccharine catharsis fantasy, two extremes on a scale. As for the mystery thriller, I think that the structure and framing of the story is what hindered it the most. Starting off with the knowledge that the cop was the missing person's boyfriend, lessens the impact of his true motivations and in a roundabout way, undermines the story's own mystery. The memory loss reveal feels like more of an contrivance that also seems to go against the premeditation of it all. I feel like the framing of the mystery would've benefited without the knowledge of who the cop's true identity until the choice itself, when it really starts to take on a meaningful color to the cop's motivation. That being said, the two choices at the end lead to very extreme self-fulfillment fantasies. Personally, I found that the 'Pathetic' route made more sense in the grand scheme of things, as trying to create sympathy for the 'villain' in the final hour doesn't really land well. That being said, it's a well executed visual novel, with a lot of polish that went into it from the backgrounds to the sprite art, and the use of menus to indicate anxiety. Try to be a bit more mindful of your plot structure in future projects, cause it feels like all the pieces are there, they're just not in a very effective order.

A haunting VN for sure. I liked the sprites with the moving lines, and there's even a nice moment where they stop when Henry is shocked. There are some issues with the writing. Not just the typos and missing ending punctuations, but some moments here and there that strike me as a touch melodramatic. For example, the repeated step/knock choices at the start, which strike me as unnecessary and ill-timed, as opposed to being placed at the climax of the story for instance. I also wish the dialogue had character tags, because I couldn't really tell who was talking from just the color alone. All that aside, this is a creepy and unnerving story about people who are damaged in many ways. There's a constantly ramping sense of tension throughout, and Henry's unraveling is difficult to watch but gripping all the same. There were some moments that felt out of place, like Nick's personality during the interview and especially when he saw the hunting trophy, but I guess all that later made sense in context. The Pathetic route was haunting, but the visuals were great. The Human route was more touching than I expected it to be, though I still have to question how Henry couldn't recognize Nick. Either way, the story was emotionally heavy, but again melodramatic in a lot of aspects ("I notice the floor getting wet from my tears?" That's a lot of tears!) It could have used some more nuance for sure, but either way I enjoyed it. Good job.

The most outstanding issue is probably the writing being in need of another proofreading pass and, in general, not feeling like a perfectly natural fit for the medium. Besides all the missing periods, basically every textbox is exactly one sentence long, which makes the pacing feel relentless – you really want to use longer and shorter lines as appropriate to set a rhythm just as books would use paragraphs of varying length. I appreciate the custom touches in the UI, but coloring dialogue differently for each character instead of using name labels is a pretty annoying choice that also hurts accessibility.

As for the story itself... I can't say I had a bad time on the whole, but I think the soap operatic antics and all the wild twists left me more baffled than emotionally engaged. Both endings feature over-the-top plot beats that it would be hard to buy into regardless but that especially suffer from lack of setup in the form of subtle characterization to emotionally ground the characters. Being a bit coy about the extent of the protagonist's obsession and true intentions makes for a shocking surprise, but it also means that the reader gets very little time to settle into what's actually going on by the time it becomes relevant. Also, I feel like a lot of the dialogue in particular betrays the author being quite young, which harms the believability of a story about aging and living with grief – in contrast, though, the instant messages do come off as realistic.

The art feels like the game's strongest suit: the sketchy style is good to look at and conveys a distance that makes the story a bit easier to read as purposefully exaggerated, and I like that there's a consistent color scheme across the sprites and the photo backgrounds. Strong cyans and reds are used in a thoughtful way, too. Congrats for releasing your first VN!

Well first off, congratulations on your first VN! I think you're getting out of the blocks pretty well here with a lovely gun safety PSA featuring a cast of characters who are clearly very sane and have no trauma-induced psychological conditions. At all. Whatsoever. 

I'll just set the general spoiler warning here. 

Presentation is decent here, especially considering how new you are to the process, the time limits of the jam, and the fact that you're a one-man show. Not a ton of sprite variation but what's there is solid; wish we could've seen Luca in the game since he's visible on the store page, but I understand that it would've been difficult to incorporate without like, a forced mirror shot or something given the very limited first person perspective. Coloring out Noah's face works well once you realize that Luca's last memory of Noah's face has a big hole in it (double nice if that's what the scar on the store page image represents). Binary text kinda does the same thing - Luca won't let himself remember anything that could indicate his guilt. Music and sound was incorporated well enough, though I thought the "crazy" music on the "pathetic" route may have been a bit much. I think maybe some more atmospheric or subtly unsettling music would've worked better there since it's already very clear how nuts Luca is by that point. Also, the car horn quasi-jumpscare was probably unnecessary? Might've been better just to fade out of the dream and into reality to avoid the cliche.

I did think it was weird that Stuck in November was written not only on the computer in the menu, but also within the game. I interpret the title as being the three central characters being trapped in the same moment in time, either through psychosis or being dead, so I'm not sure why this would be written on the computer itself (unless it's just an error and that was just supposed to be for the menu). Writing composition is mostly solid, but there are some pretty egregious typos (e.g., "how tight my hands grasp at the steering win" -> wheel) that could have benefited from another proofreading pass. 

In terms of plot, to be honest I had a hard time suspending my disbelief for most of the interactions between Luca and Henry prior the climax. I understand they're both supposed to be varying degrees of crazy, but nothing really felt like a normal cop-witness interaction, so I wasn't buying that it took Henry as long as he did to get suspicious. I think Luca's plan falling apart earlier on could've also added a lot more tension leading up to the climax instead of Luca being in control of the situation mostly the whole way through. 

For other issues with the story, I felt that it was fairly predictable once Luca gets on the computer and finds that the last interaction was the hunting trip, but I could also see that as intentional to build a feeling of dread. Also, while the thematic throughline appears to be coming to terms with the guilt stemming both from Noah's death and the efforts to cover it up, both routes seem to end a bit abruptly once this realization is achieved. I think the "human" route attempts some introspection on how both Luca and Henry repressed their memories to live in denial about the killing, but I think it could've been fleshed out a bit more to let that scene breathe since we go from realization to hug to credits really quickly. I also think it would have been much more impactful in the "pathetic" route if Luca's suicide attempt failed (e.g., the rifle backfired) so, after killing Henry without acknowledging how significant his own role was in Noah's death, he'd then have to live with to deaths on his hands without being able to take the easy way out, emphasizing that he may have been just as "pathetic" as Henry.

Overall, as stated above, while there were a few parts I think could've been improved, this was a really solid effort for your first attempt!