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 honestly should’ve given at least a 2 for trying with the Jam Theme.

Story (1):

I remember the plot just kind of coming out of nowhere in terms of the titular Guiding Light.

Presentation (2):

I can’t remember why I gave this a 2 because I remember so many missing assets. I think this was one of the few VN’s that used The Conqueror Wolf’s Mafia outfit.

Creativity (1):

I think trying to make a Crime/Mafia VN was the most creative thing I can remember.

Total (5):

I think we were a little harsh during your stream but one thing that you have to keep in mind is that you did cross the finish line on time which a lot of people can’t say they have.

I do want to see where this goes with more time in the oven.

I like the premise behind this and I look forward for the updates after the jam is over!

I'm not going to reiterate what everyone has commented in terms of the presentation and state of this one... my primary motivation is to try and encourage would-be creators to step up and give making their own vns a try.  When you have a time limit, it forces you to make difficult decisions and rarely do game jam games live up to what the author hoped and intended, especially with a first-ever project.  

I congratulate you on releasing something and having the guts to sit in on the stream, listening to everyone's feedback.  Quite a number of people who sign up for the jam never reach that milestone.

That being said, I urge you to listen to what has been suggested.  Some things may come across as blunt or hurtful, but there are some good ideas to help you improve on your next attempt.  But please, don't give up on making fvns... use this experience as a stepping stone to grow and improve.

There's not much to say about this one. It's a pretty obvious first draft. The presentation is very bare-bones, and the writing is a bit inconsistent. There are some good ideas here, but they aren't explored interestingly. It's also not really a subversion/parody aside from a few lines, so it failed to hit that mark. My advice would be to iron out your ideas and make them into something more concrete and tight. It's a start, and hopefully you learned a few things from writing this, but there are still a lot of things you need to work on.

Calling yourself parody and that you subvert fvn tropes is... a pretty high statement to make for something you started in the last few days. I understand the appeal of doing that, but from what there is so far... I don't think there's much to that at all. Things need to be maybe just a bit more Extra to really hit that level of Parody instead of just being kinda.... mocking? at best? I'm missing the humor in this game and it doesn't really ever breathe to have any tropes to subvert. 

I can see the vision, but I’ll refrain from saying much since it feels like a very early draft.

Writing for your own enjoyment is a good, fun way to spend your time; but making a product that everybody else consumes is a whole different thing. Lots of the lines still feel like fragmented ideas that didn’t flow cohesively into a consistent narrative arc.

I would strongly suggest investing in editorial work before going further. Refine the rough edges into solid structures, maybe have someone beta-read and give detailed suggestions.

Dunno what else to say, this one is a pretty rough first draft. It's advertised as a parody, but it isn't really funny enough to be one in my opinion. Sorry. The good thing is, there is a decent plot in the works here, regarding a heist or something. The lack of backgrounds makes it kinda difficult to follow, and there aren't really any twists to make it more exciting than a standard heist, but at least it's competently constructed as far as heist plots go. I did enjoy the protagonist stubbornly going against what the guide told him to do though, I think there's some real potential there. Keep working at it, I'm sure you can take this further.

Like the itch page admits, a pretty rough read in this state. The unfinished presentation and the unpolished script with an abrupt ending do no favors to the story that is somewhat muddy to begin with (though the singular use of audio being a loud gunshot SFX is pretty funny).

As a parody, it starts off strong with a fun – if sort of obvious – lampooning of the void opening. The rest of the material is just kind of baffling, however. Maybe I've been reading the wrong FVNs, but the premise of the protagonist being recruited to do a heist in another dimension does not seem incredibly similar to a lot of games out there? A comment in the script declares the author's intent to satirize Adastra, but I have to say that I don't really get it. For example, it hardly feels like a subversion for the protagonist to not fall in love with the wolf when the two have known each other for less than an hour; at this point, Marco was beating Amicus's ass on the spaceship. It doesn't really feel like there's enough content to make substantial points about anything.

Furthermore, regardless of how hard the metacommentary hits (or doesn't), the joke density here is just pretty low. "This orb better have a really good explaination for all of this" is a good line, but the whole heist doesn't really have anything that amusing about it, being just kind of deadpan and understated.

'A Guiding Light' is... an attempt at a critique and commentary of general 'My Wolf' visual novel tropes though a subversion of an isekai story.  I applaud the nerve and gumption to present an entry of this caliber to be rated and judged. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I didn't think it was possible to craft a visual novel that does so much of the bare minimum that I would give it the minimum possible score. It's actually impressive, in a sort of twisted way. I feel like I could try to talk about the bare bones plot, the obvious references to Adastra, or how the implantation of the theme is practically non-existent. But what's more fascinating to me is the motivation behind this entry and the critique it tries to bring forth about the 'my wolf' tropes and the popular visual novel it parodies, being Adastra.

As a critique of Adastra, the main arguments I can gleam from this story is the lack of agency for the main character, the lack of chemistry between the main character and the wolf, and the implementation of an 'all-knowing presence' that contrives the plot to a specific ending. The story attempts to subvert or bring attention to these tropes by giving the main character an option to pick up a gun to defend themselves with, not bothering to indulge in a romantic option with the wolf, and to ignore the guide and jump into the fray to help Ray, the wolf.

I feel that this story is not sure if it wants to be a parody or a subversion. If this were a parody, it would take these tropes, push them to extremes in order to bring attention to how ridiculous they can be. You could make a Maine (which, I just got the joke of 'main character') so inept and bland that it becomes funny that Ray (which i think is 'ray of light') is unbelievably infatuated with you, despite how little the main character does by just letting things happen around him. Another idea would be to highlight how 'the guide' could just retroactively say stuff like 'oh yeah, i knew that was going to happen' presenting itself with a facade of 'hindsight know it all'. 

Instead, this story does lean more into the a subversion, by having the story be presented in a similar fashion to Adastra, but with a main character that actively attempts to resist falling into the tropes of a 'my wolf' visual novel. Having him pick up the gun and being defiant against the guide try to show this, but you could've made a stronger point by giving the reader a choice menu. A 'pick up the gun?' option would give the feeling of choice and agency. I feel like this road is a bit harder to write, since you'd actively have to present ways in this plot to show defiance to the guide and that might lead to multiple endings.

Overall, I know it and you know it, this is an entry that barely scraped by. While I see that you have visions of greatness, the state that this is currently is in, is not it. But, it does bring up topics of tropes and starts the discussion to look at these tropes with a more critical lens. In that area, I hope that you hone those arguments more if you continue to work on this project after the jam.

Well, I am interested to see where this goes! I can envision it being quite the interesting little tale. It reminds me of stuff like Rainbow and Super Onmium which each have creative uses of the Isekai genre. I would be especially interested in if options were available, like Password or Daring Choices, which lead to more replayability.
Good luck on fleshing it out!

"I'm just going to assume your opinion on what you just read isn't going to be very high." Well, let's first acknowledge that we shouldn't discount the initiative to make an attempt or the confidence to post it. This may not be a masterpiece, but everyone has to start somewhere, and I'm going to go through and give the same level of feedback that I have on everything else I rated since I think that's only fair. With that said, I think we can also be honest here and acknowledge that this was very much a first draft.

Implementation of Theme:

Well, we have a light and a dude named Ray. I think we can say that there's an attempt at inversion of the theme with the emphasis on moving away from the light rather than towards it, but like most of the rest of the VN, it's fairly shallow and there's just not much else right now to really bite into.

Story:

There's, well, really not much of it at the moment. What's currently present feels almost more like an outline than a draft. "I'm dreaming; oh there's a light; now I have a mission; oh, I'll go through this door; wow everyone here is a furry; this must be Ray; he seems nice; now we're in the house; it's a pretty normal house" etc. 

There needs to be more at each of these "checkpoints" - I'm not saying we need intricate details about chairs in the house or anything like that, but with an isekai or any story where the protagonist is pulled out of their comfort zone, how they react to those changes informs their character. Right now, Maine doesn't really react at all to most of it, so it's hard to get invested as a reader. He doesn't understand why he's chosen? Press the guide on that. He's dropped into a world full of furries? Make him take time to adjust. Have him stumble over his words, or stare awkwardly at someone. Or, if you're going for full parody, really lean into him being an internet furry and adjusting too fast (it seems like you might have been trying to do this, but it was like one line).

Same goes for Ray - if you're trying to parody MCs falling head over heels the moment they see a wolf guy, have Ray be flirty or otherwise introduced in an outwardly sexy way that Maine rejects. Right now Ray doesn't have much of a personality at all and all of his dialogue just feels like small talk. 

I also didn't really buy that "don't take the gun" was the real turning point for Maine not trusting the guide since taking the gun frankly seemed like kind of a dumb idea to me. Nothing we've seen about Maine indicates that he's used a gun before or that he'd be able to do so effectively in a stressful situation, and guns also tend to be noticeable when not wearing clothing specifically meant to conceal them. Seemed to me like the gun would risk blowing their cover more than it would be helpful unless Maine had read the script and knew they'd be attacked later.

Presentation:

I'm not going to linger too much on this since I think you're aware of most of the issues here. Sprites, backgrounds, sounds, and music should be here if you're going to do a VN, but I understand that this was kind of a last minute thing and that you ran out of time to implement these things. Two things I do want to mention here are that the bright solid backgrounds were a bit painful on the eyes (I'd definitely prefer just like MS paint squiggles of a house or something) and that there were a lot of typos and other errors like capitalization and punctuation for something this short. Again, understood you were short on time, but definitely make sure to do proofreading runs for future projects.

Creativity:

So, in the script file, we have the following: "The goal of this was to do a subversion of Adastra and general My Wolf tropes. Instead of being trusting of the Gods and falling for the wolf frame one, Maine does not trust The Guide that much and isn't willing to put themselves in too much danger for Ray."

Ultimately, I'm not sure your subversion was really all that subversive. Like, I've reviewed several submissions for this jam, and literally none of them involve the MC swooning over the love interest from frame one. While I had plenty of personal gripes with Adastra, I don't think that really did either. People have been taking the jam themes in a bunch of really unique and interesting directions and I think there needs to be more than just not simping for the wolf to make a compelling premise.

Also, "isn't willing to put themselves in too much danger for Ray" - he literally did though. Maine put himself in danger by coming out guns blazing instead of staying hidden. 

Like I said at the top, it's not easy putting something together and putting it out there for the world to see. Everything I've said is intended to be purely constructive, and I encourage you to stick with it and keep writing. This one wasn't all the way there, but maybe with more time to really nail your ideas down and then get them written out and revised you can create something really special in the future.

Well, there’s not much to say, it’s very barebones. The story isn’t anything special but there’s enough intrigue to want to see what follows. Keep at it!