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A jam submission

Second ChanceView game page

Can I have a Second Chance?
Submitted by Frory17 — 1 day, 7 minutes before the deadline
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Second Chance's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Implementation of Theme#392.2982.414
Presentation#412.4622.586
Writing#422.1342.241
Story#432.2322.345
Creativity#432.0682.172

Ranked from 29 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

What is the name of your wolf/wolfess/wolves?
Wage

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Comments

Submitted

This game has "my first VN" written all over it. That gave it some charm, but oh boy was it rough rough. Not only that, but it was carefully designed in a lab to cram in as many of my personal pet peeves in one package.

The little revelation at the end that it was developed in only a week instead of a full month explains everything. Honestly, it has a surprising amount of art for such a short amount. Speaking of the end, I think ironically the little dev talk was ironically my favourite part... The dev's sassy pose was quite expressive and the openness about the messy development made me mellow out with my feelings about the game.

The game itself though, my god... It's such a cliche storm. We open on a black screen, with the words anyone who's familiar with isekai FVNs has seen many many times in some form. "Dark. Cold. Quite (sic). Only darkness as far as my eyes can see." This, including a catastrophic typo on the third word you'll see in the story, is pretty much what awaits for the rest of your playthrough. There's a lot of unintentionally funny typos (Munch being used instead of much being one of my favs) and English that is more strangely redundant and tangled in its own construction instead of the usual ESL stilted. "I can forge a contract capable of making it possible." is one of pretty early examples you will stumble into, and there is a lot of instances of characters "beginning to start to stop", and similar. There was also the unintentionally funny habit of the player character curtly replying "I see." while a giant eye entity is going on long exposition tangents at him.

There are some jokes that were funny where we laugh together with the game, but a lot of it just very snarky semi-referential humor that didn't land for me. Both the narration and character dialogue have instances of pointing out some FVN tropes, and then going "oh what is this, a furry visual novel!" and it felt very weird, especially this this story is very guilty of repeating the same tropes.

The one non tropey surprise was that the protagonist isn't human (anymore), in fact he turns into a cute canine. I actually like his design quite a bit, better than Wage's.

While I wasn't a big fan of the story of several chosen ones from a prophecy having to save the kingdom from a bad king, the setup is interesting that it has Wage having to collect what is basically his RPG party of chosen ones. I think that could lead some some interesting character dynamics, especially if Wage himself isn't part of the prophecy and how that will affect everyone's feelings and approach to the whole thing.

I did have a lot of complaints, but I hope the dev continues and finishes this game, hopefully by keeping it under a manageable scope. One of my big issues FVN isekai stories is how aimless they often are and how they go on forever with no end or goal in sight. Second Chance gave us a pretty clear goal in build one, and now it just needs to lock in and focus.

Developer(+1)

Ahhhhh, thank you so munch for your insight ToT

Don't worry, I still working on this VN althought it will be slow since I have work in the morning. There's still a lot  thing I need to work on the Arc 1.

Submitted

It's kind of hard to comment on this one because there just isn't much here - it's quite impressive that this much was made in only a week, but these types of "empty" first builds certainly leave me wanting for more. What we have is pretty neat, though - I think the strongest part is the presentation. The art is stylized and appealing to look at, the sprites and their various expressions ensure that the visuals don't get boring, and the music was solid all around.

Plot-wise, I'll restate that there just isn't much to say - other comments have mentioned that the story could probably stand to be more economical with its scenes, figuring out how to more elegantly present various aspects of the world rather than just expositing them directly in a dialogue scene, but I feel like that's only really an issue because of how little information we do get in this build.

A large part of Isekai's appeal as a genre is in showcasing a whole new world to the reader, and VNs compound on that by adding a visual element to things, but the information we get here is only delivered via dialogue - we don't really get to see anything magical for ourselves, save for Wage's magic sword and the MC's reincarnation - and this lack of information makes the story feel lacking. When reading an isekai story, I'm curious about the world - what life is like in it and how it differs from earth, how the magic feels to use in action sequences, how the MC copes with their new scenario - but by having such a short build which goes so little into these things, I'm mostly just left feeling empty.

That said... I have a soft spot for isekai, and this one definitely feels promising. Like I said, the presentation here is strong - and I think that putting more effort into properly showcasing this fantasy world via the artwork and storytelling, now that you're not bound by the limitations of the jam, could really help elevate this story further. So while there isn't much here currently, I'm definitely going to keep an eye on this work to see what comes of it!

Developer(+1)

Ahhh, Thank You for your Input ToT. 

Yeah, there's a lot of thing I need to do to fix the prologue. You can even call this build 0.0 since it's still in an experimental phase.

But don't worry, I'm still working on 0.1 build, the Peasant Green arc. I will try to explain the world as munch as I can when our protagonist and his wolf companion arrived at the village, like the map, how the magic work, and the current situation in that world ;).

What do you like to see in the next update?

Well, it's a start, and I think sometimes it's underappreciated (and I am very often guilty of this) how much of an accomplishment it is just getting something out there. That's a huge step, and you should be proud of your first release. That said, this is just a start, and as of right now, there's not all that much to bite into here. I'll break things down by rating criteria:

Implementation of Theme:

From my reading, there are a couple different angles that meet the "folklore" requirement here: you have the forest in the MC's origin world, which has a legend about those who enter it being unable to return, and then you have the loosely defined prophecy in the isekai world, where the fabled heroes will unite to take down the Big Bad. Either can work as an attempt to meet the theme, but neither is really fleshed out at this point. Presumably we're done with the suicide-kinda forest, even in future builds, since we've already been squarely chucked from that world, but the prophecy is really only mentioned at a high level too. Presumably that will be integrated more into the plot as the story progresses and the leads gather the rest of their party, but right now there... isn't much of a plot, so it's hard to say the theme was cleanly implemented. 

Presentation:

This was probably the strongest area for this VN, though there were a few hiccups as well. Audio was serviceable, with really only two BGM tracks for the build, but neither felt particularly obtrusive. There were some (I think) campfire SFX upon arriving in the new world that seemed to appear irregularly and I'm not sure why they were applied when they were.

There's limited art here, but what's there is actually really solid. I like all the CGs that we get - looking into the MC's reflection in the puddle, Wage creating his magic sword, and the flash of the neon silhouettes of the other heroes all looked good, especially the last two with their use of the very distinctive bright color scheme. I also really liked the more cutesy style used to represent the author in the direct address to the audience at the end of the build - I wouldn't mind seeing a VN using more of that style, to be honest. 

As others have pointed out, the script needs some substantial proofreading. There are errors all over the place, and while I won't harp on all of them, I do specifically want to point out the opening sequence. We get one word at a time, centered against a black background: "Dark." "Cold." "Quite." I'm assuming the last one was supposed to be "quiet," and if there's any time you really need to make sure that you're free from typos, the first impression of your VN, when the words are isolated and literally front and center, is it. 

Story/Writing:

As alluded to above, there's not much of a story here yet. We realize we're dead, we meet a supernatural symbol of some kind in the void, we get isekai'd to Furry World, and then the rest of the VN is basically just direct exposition about the world we've arrived in. There's hints to the plot to come, but we're still at a point where nothing is really developed - we know very little about our character and his motivations, The Eye of the Curse and their motivations, or even about Wage, other than that he doesn't like the evil government. 

As others have pointed out, there are some missed opportunities for "show, don't tell". Before we even get to the void and the isekai world, this one might actually be a bit stronger if we followed the MC as he entered the forest and suffered his eventual demise. This would be an opportunity to flesh out some details about the character, like what he was struggling with and the extent to which those things were affecting him (right now it's unclear whether the MC actually intended to die - there's the legend about those entering the forest never returning, and he was looking for an easy way out, but he also tripped and fell into the lake on accident and appeared to be avoiding drowning, at least initially) and, more importantly, establishing the tone for the piece. There's a bit of a disconnect from the way this VN opens, with the "dark cold quiet" intro and the introspection on mortality and regret, and the conversation by the campfire, which has fourth wall jokes about the story sounding like a furry VN. The script isn't that long, and I think it could use some more consistency on exactly how seriously we're supposed to be taking this adventure. 

There were some missed opportunities pertaining to the Eye as well - I thought it was at least a little surprising that the MC didn't have any follow-up questions about the Eye's side of the deal being traveling with them in the new world. You'd think one would want to better understand the motivations and consequences associated with that rather than taking it at face value, but maybe if the MC was established as impulsive or desperate to live again that would have been easier to digest. I also found it odd that the MC never questioned at all where the Eye was after he arrived in the new world considering traveling together is part of the deal. The MC clearly remembers everything up until this point, so even if the implication is that they merged or something, some indication that the story didn't like, forget about that plot point would be helpful. 

Last point here, as others have pointed out, I think some of the MC's reactions could have been toned down. I'm not the strongest supporter of fourth wall meta humor in general (I feel like it's played out and has to be very well executed to land), but some lines like "MAGIC IS REAL?" feel a bit unnecessary. Like, the MC died, met some kind of deity in a void, and was reincarnated as a furry. How is magic possibly surprising at that point? 

Creativity:

Like the other areas of this VN, it's kinda halfway there. There's definitely an attempt to build a setting for your story to take place in, but the actual narrative we have so far is more or less paint-by-numbers isekai. It's a good foundation to build on, but there need to be some twists in the formula to set this apart from similar stories. 

As I said at the top, despite all the feedback, this isn't bad! I'm happy you want to keep working on this and building on your ideas, and I encourage you to keep writing and building your style. 

Final score of 8 tutorial NPCs out of 4 truck-kun.

Submitted

At the beginning, I thought this story showed promise. I'm a sucker for suicide-into-reincarnation stories, even if from experience they might need to come with a disclaimer that, no, killing yourself will not lead you to a better life. Anyways, it's a good hook and an interesting premise. So that's why I was disappointed to see it turn into yet another furry isekai. We get it, you're a furry now, oh no! No, that big wolf man isn't going to eat you. Yes, magic is real, no need to act so shocked. It's just going through the paces at this point. And the FVN references are a bit too obvious, since they break my suspension of disbelief and ruin any chances this had of me taking it seriously. That being said, there's an interesting narrative hook at a larger story, since there's a prophecy relating to some potential future characters, but more interestingly, the protagonist might be the Master of Curse mentioned in the prophecy. I'd love to see an expanded story, one where the protagonist is destined to be the "bad guy" yet defies that and saves the world anyways. That would be nice, but the story cuts off before we get anywhere interesting. Still, some decent ideas in here. Just because the opening is a bit of a cliche doesn't mean the VN is bad. Just needed more to make it stand out.

This is an alright introduction to a larger story. Apparently this was done in 7 days, which is impressive. The premise of the story is pretty neat. I did find the whole "OMG a talking dog!" And "What's a hue-min?" Back and forth pretty cliche and annoying, but that's about it in terms of gripes, other than the grammatical issues mentioned by other people. There's not much to say since it's only an introduction. I'll be interested in seeing how it develops in the future, but right now, it's just a fine VN.

Submitted

It really is but a prologue to something bigger. Congrats on releasing a VN for the game jam! But of course, there isn’t much for a reader to get into.

That beginning feels a bit cliché but it really feels like the author has got a handle on their setting. So who knows how it might develop?^^

The writing has unfortunately lots of typos and grammatical errors. You should make sure to get someone to proofread the VN if you can.

The sprites are basic, but look pretty nice. Same for the couple illustrations!

Overall, it’s an alright start for your first VN. Keep at it!

Submitted

'Second Chance' is your standard isekai/'died and born in another world' kinda story. It's very straight forward in how it sets itself up, and I don't hate how non-descript and generic it comes off. In a way, it has it's own stylization to it that makes it very easy to understand visually what is going on. I should also point out that this entry was completed in seven days, so while that doesn't look good for time management aspect, it's still impressive what could be put together in such a short amount of time.

The story itself is only the introduction and the first scene of what would be a larger visual novel story. The first scene is a black void scene where [insert character name here] has gone and drowned himself because of non-descript personal issues that made him give up on life. He's approached by the "God of Curses" in the void, and gets reborn/re-materialized as a dog person in this new world of magic. Fun to have the human to furry wish fulfillment happen right off the bat. He wakes up to a very shirtless wolf who has found him in the forest and tells him of his quest to gather the four non-descript heroes of the non-descript prophecy so they can take down the non-descript evil brother of the benevolent king after the non-descript prince had gone missing. They talk a little bit, and then you fall asleep. I joke about the non-descript stuff, since it sort of evolves into it's own style the more it's used, color coordination for magic styles, and what not.

The presentation I think is serviceable. There's some really strong direction with the bold symbols in the void, the bright saturated magic colors, and even the character designs being simple but distinct. The music works well enough, and there's a lot of text timing to add impact while reading. The writing does need a lot of help though. Plenty of typos, awkward grammar from mixing of the tenses in words, and some weird sentence structures. I wonder if this might be an ESL thing or just no time for proofreading, so I can understand that element.

The folklore aspect in this entry is represented by the generic prophecy that is the main plot thread in the story, and I guess it serves it's function to give the wolf character a reason to go on this journey. The bits that really made me like this entry were the little self-aware jokes, that could almost have this function as a parody, if I knew it wasn't trying to be a parody, it was one of those 'look to the camera tell joke' moments. "Ah... you're finally awake." being a recognizable meme and the out of left field "want to see my dick?" and "what is this a furry visual novel?" give this visual novel a weird charm to it that is a breath of fresh air from trying to take itself too seriously. That being said, it is just another isekai that doesn't seem to be trying anything particularly different, almost paint by numbers.

I would say that what this visual novel needs is direction, because it's hard to gauge just how serious you want this visual novel to be. If you're going the route of making it more serious and straight-forward, it's going to need a lot of outlining and a lot of internal consistency. Stuff like figuring out the main character's motivation. He's getting a second chance, at what? To lead a regular life? To feel like he's doing something good? To make up for a mistake in his past? Why would he go on this seemingly dangerous journey in a new world with this wolf to fulfill a prophecy he has no investment in? These are questions that you'll have to think about as you continue to develop this story. If you want to go the comedy and parody route, you'd also need to have internally consistent lore. Just how aware is the main guy of isekai and visual novel tropes? Does he know he's in an isekai? Just how ridiculous are you going to make the characters?  

Overall, I noticed that his is a first time build for this author, and honestly, I love the gumption. It's got a strong bold art style to it, and there's potential for it to grow, but that's what's there, potential. It's a bit hard for me to praise what hasn't been made yet. Another thing I would try to work on is time management, goal setting and establishing scope. A big pitfall of VNs is having too lofty and grand an idea that it either never gets made, or remains in an unfinished state. Set a time limit and a goal for doing updates or chapters. If it takes you a week to do this intro, try to set a goal of one to two months to finish the first chapter which will get the characters to the village and meet the healer. Outline how many major 'things' should happen for your story. Figure out what characters should show up when and where, design the characters, design the villains, come up with a cool conflict. That's really all the fun of making these, and I hope that you continue to have fun making it.

Submitted

Hey there!

Congratulations on your submission!

I'm glad that you joined us this MayWolf.

Here is my basic impression of the game, sorted by Jam's criteria.

Implementation of the theme:

There are different ways to interpret "folklore" as a theme. The story is fairly short, and it's quite hard to make a lot out of its lore.

However, the general presence of the magic in this world and the mysterious prophecy are something that, in my view, is enough to fit your game into the jam's theme.

Currently, your lore is neither well-developed nor based on anything that can be considered part of real folklore. 

For the future, I would advise using real-world prototypes as inspiration. This way, you can easily connect with a reader and create interesting folklore.

Even if you won't find these suitable, you can always use them as a general inspiration. 

After all, art is all about mixing known concepts to create something new.

3 out of 5 stars

Story and creativity:

The story seems to be very generic. It's hard to find something untypical for the isekai subgenre. I believe the beginning is the most crucial part of a story. There is only so much time to grab a reader's attention before they get bored. So it's important to introduce the concept that will flesh out your story from others.

It may be a conflict, characters, or setting details. etc.

Always think about what makes your concept unique and memorable.

The story also suffers from info dumping, zero actions have happened so far, and it breaks the most crucial principle of storytelling.

Show, don't tell

Instead of letting us know about the prophecy, magic, and curses via dialogue, a better solution would be to introduce them as the story goes its way.

For example, instead of:

Mc wakes up along the wolf - Mc asks the questions - wolf tells him about the world.

It could be:

Mc wakes up alone - meets the danger in the face of a werewolf - Black wolf saves him with magic.

By using that scheme, you already introduce your two important world concepts in action. You don't have to explain everything right away.

The idea is to intrigue the reader. You have all the time in the world to come up with natural ways to develop them after.

Lack of mystery is also an issue. You had a perfect opportunity to create it with an opening scene.

Instead of MC right away realizing that he has died, and eye of curse offering him a deal, a better idea would be to turn it into an opportunity for the first conflict.

Make the protagonist question what has happened.

Don't explain the conditions of the deal. Leave it a mystery for now, and preferably come up with something more than its desire to watch Kliwon's journey.

2 out of 5 for the story and 1 out of 5 for the creativity, respectively.

Presentation:

It's the strongest part of your entry.

I appreciate using your own assets. They may not look professional, but it's a matter of time at this point. 

The music is pleasant, feels natural, and complements scenes.

It would be nice for you to learn how to work with transformations instead of using dissolve for everything.

Custom UI would be nice as well. You can find a lot of free assets for Ren'Py on itch.io and edit them to match your atmosphere better.

3 out of 5 stars.

I hope you'll be able to continue this project, and turn it into something great. Good luck!

Developer

AHHH, THANK YOU Gr_Cat ToT 

I think I know what to do now to improve my story. Yeah, there will be so many rework for 0.1 build

Submitted(+1)

Always nice to see a new face! There's... not a lot to say about this since it's still pretty early on, but I'm proud of you for getting something out there, and joining the jam. Looking forward to the continuation after the jam is over. Wage's surprised face is very cute. 

Developer(+1)

Aaaaah, thank you for the comment. Yeah, there's not much to talk about this VN right now. I'm still fixing the writing, art, music, and programming before continue to build 0.1. This VN is a rush job in the first place LOL.

Good job for your first vn! You tried your best, all I can say for now it’s promising, and I look forward for the whole vn :3

(+1)

First of all, congrats on making your first VN! It's always a pleasure to see new people making their own stories. 

-----------Spoilers ----------




Now, given that this is only just a very small demo for the greater world you are planning on making, there is very little we get to learn about the characters and the world around them. From what it looks like so far it seems that it's going to follow a pretty common trope in old fantasy stories, where the hero travels around the world to gather companions to save the world in the end. Combined with a reincarnation isekai seen in many mangas nowadays. That being said,  I do like the dynamics that could come from this. Though, this is me thinking about the possibilities and not what was submitted for the jam.

Let's get the negatives out of the way.

Sorry if this sounds rude, but I would recommend finding someone to help you with the writing/english translation. There were a lot of grammatical and spelling errors in this. I wasn't counting, but there were issues on probably over half of the lines. Also, some of the dialogue could use some re-writing to flow just a bit better.

Since this is so short we aren't able to get really anything about the characters.

The campfire bg needs to be extended just a couple of pixels at the top, because it doesn't cover the whole screen. And since it's a darker picture it's really apparent.

And now the positives!

I do like the designs of the characters, and the art is good! You should see some of my art lmao. As long as you like what you've made I don't think you should change them.

The concept behind this story, where the hero is going around the world, looking for his companions, is always one of my favorites. The concept can take quite a few turns and it allows the creator to be flexible enough to make some twists here and there.

And finally, my main concern with this kind of project is the scope of it. It seems as though this project will take years probably to finish. If you plan on keeping this as a solo project, make sure to take some breaks because you can burn-out if you work nonstop on it,

Sorry for the yap fest, but I hope you find my comments helpful! Congrats once again on submitting your project!

Developer

Hi, Xone101

Thank you for your input, I really appreciate it. I'm so happy that someone spare a time to read my very first public VN and leave a comment like this. It's make my work feels worth it.

Yeah, english is not my first language, I think the reason why the grammar looks weird is because I basically use my own language first and then translate it to english. And I mostly use Google Translate to translate it, so yeah, sorry for the bad english teehee. (Should have ask for a proofreader)

And for the background, I just take free image from google and edit it a bit. Sorry about that, I'm afraid that drawing the background will take too much time. I even scrapth the music I made for the campfire.

And I think I need more time to developt the character further, I actually was planning on introducing Wage by making him save the MC from a monster, but again, time.

Did you get the hint I put inside the story? Their name actually have a meaning, The secret of the body, World Zero, The Connection between The Eye of Curse and the heroes, 

Anyway, thanks again for your input. I can't wait to continue the story. ;)