Alright, last May Wolf '26 review! 

No sliding tile puzzles in this one. 10/10 no further comments.

...I suppose I should actually talk about this for real.

Very creative idea, as most FdRstar projects tend to be from my limited experience with them, and easily the one that best captured the essence of the theme. Not perfect necessarily, but this was still really well done and a great entry to close on. 

Implementation of Theme:

A+++. The whole thing is literally about how folklore itself is shaped and manipulated by its tellers and keepers for better or for worse. I'll get more into how that plays out in the "Story" section, but as far as implementation of theme goes, this absolutely crushed it.

Presentation/Writing:

Good, mostly, if a bit basic at times. No penalties for the use of stock assets in the folktale retellings, and this actually worked kind of well as a justification for using the same sprites, since folk figures can often be associated with multiple myths, as demonstrated by Mura and Urosa here. I want to give a special shout as well to the sprite manipulation with one of the witches gets caught in the snare. There wasn't anything wrong with the music per se, but it did seem weirdly loud without adjusting the settings and I thought it was a little distracting while trying to focus on the actual gameplay element. 

Text was mostly well proofread, though there were a few typos and instances of awkward phrasing that could've been things getting lost in translation. Tone was generally kept light throughout, though there were a few instances where I wasn't sure just how light we were supposed to be. There are some pretty heavy themes in the subtext here, and Chayon occasionally gets pretty heated about them, which makes gags like the wrong recorder picture feel a little random. Not really the biggest issue, but maybe that was some of the language elsewhere not conveying the tone the way it was intended instead.

Story:

It's a bit interesting to me that the game page for this entry states one of the central conflicts of this story, "The new generation doesn't know their stories aside from the "official" version that had been purged of anything deemed controversial," so explicitly, while in the VN itself this is buried in subtext. I prefer the latter approach, since it gives the reader an opportunity to learn and infer more about Chayon's traits, history, and biases as the process continues, but I also wonder if the reader is supposed to have that background in mind, and whether some might miss it if they were just downloading all the jam entries and didn't read that description. 

That all said, I think the complexity of folklore and the way it can be handled by different groups of people is well represented here. It's hard to know what the true "original" story is, with the archival versions incomplete and mostly focusing on adherence to religion, the "official" versions censoring or changing certain details to enforce the state's values, and Chayon's versions incorporating some of their own personal biases, experiences, and grudges against the state. 

I think it's interesting that Chayon's accounts of the tales sometimes mirror this theme within the folktale itself. In the archival and official accounts of the inventor and the automaton, the story is about maintaining control and the consequences of giving too many concessions to your creation, whereas Chayon's version is a defense of individual liberties, regardless of if the way someone chooses to use their freedom is what was envisioned by their creator (e.g., society) or not. Clearly Chayon takes issue with the characterization of witches as untrustworthy or evil as well, seeing them as a stand-in for being "othered" by a discriminatory government. That said, and maybe this is one of the things that kind of got lost in translation, but Chayon's moral of the second story doesn't really make sense to me either? Like "making people do their work" sounds kind of... overseer-y? I wondered while reading this compared to the other options if a better conclusion might be something like "cooperation is always better than being selfish". It's also never explicitly stated what Chayon's exact trauma is, but I did find it interesting that characterizing the witches as "charlatans" gives you an immediate bad end, though given the fact pattern of the story, this might not actually be the worst takeaway since while Mura was doing all those fetch quests, the village was still suffering and maybe he should have considered finding a third opinion. 

With all that said, I think there's some healthy nuance in the story's approach to Chayon as well. It's worth noting that you only get the special Mura ending if you push back against Chayon past a certain threshold. There are plenty of details in these stories that aren't all that important, like whether the witches needed flowers or mushrooms, but some of the changes made to the tales are Chayon trying to inject their own ideals to be normalized throughout society, which in itself isn't materially different from what the state did. It's up to the next keeper/teller of the story, in this case Homeka, to determine what's appropriate to keep and what should be corrected.

Creativity:

Not sure what else I can say for this category that hasn't already been said, but of course full marks here. This was a great implementation of the jam theme in a VN that also incorporated some unique gameplay elements to get its core themes across. Really great work here.

Final score of 10 adult Pinocchio puppets with functioning dicks out of 3 Geth that also have functioning dicks. 

FdRstar's games are always so technically impressive, I find myself praising that over everything else. Therefore, allow me to start with this: Folklore Reclaimed has perhaps the most inventive use of the Folklore theme I've seen in the Jam so far. More than being a technical marvel, the "Cross examination system" is employed to support an engrossing exploration of the nature of oral traditions. It combines queer erasure, dominant narratives, ageing, and other ideas to create a cohesive analysis of fictional cultures without having said investigation overtake the narrative. A lot is left unsaid in all the best ways, rewarding those who consider every bit of information given within and without the tales. That said, I do think this suffers a bit from flatness of its characters. The game can get away with this for the characters in the old stories, but Chayon, the wolf, and especially the MC came off to me as one note. Looking back on the two other games I've played from this dev, I do believe there could have been more love giving into making the MC more of their own person. While the wolf gets some of that affection, but I ultimately found what we get lacking. Folklore Reclaimed is such a joy in almost every other front, though.

'Folklore Reclaimed' is a delightful little game experiment about reconstructing a story when all the tidbits are from so many different perspectives. The main game play loop is taking the two folklore stories, and comparing the different versions of them to point out contradictions, to hopefully come out with the 'correct' one. It's a neat concept that takes inspiration from games like Ace Attorney, and there's a surprising amount of breadth to the stories and how the reader can interchange the details of the text.

The story framing is that we're a college student doing research on old country folklore, and we are going to talk to an old man in a remote village. What little time we spend in this set up is just really well detailed and gives so much personality to Chayon, the elder, and just how much backstory the old man has and how much it shapes the way he speaks and responds to the suggestions from the 'official' stories. The stories themselves are this one about an inventor the mechanical body he builds for his late lover's soul, and the tale of two witches who need to be made to work together to solve an illness coursing through the village. What I appreciate is how Chayon's got a particular bias to the way he tells his stories, as they're full of progressive ideals such as same sex lovers, explicit depictions of sex, and happy endings, while official stories tended to lean towards erasing some of the mystical parts of the lore, like making the witches charlatans and instead relying on medicine and doctors, and then the archival texted which heavily referenced a lot of divine intervention from the gods themselves. Eventually, you either change too much and the old man kicks you out in anger, you change too little and he sends you off, or push back just the right amount to run into a hot wolf guy before going to the lounge.

I've used the word delightful, and I think that encapsulates how I felt playing this game. The bright music, the pleasant setting and the low stakes just make this a cozy game to see how much you can play around with the story structure. It's kinda crazy coding all the replacement story stuff as well as making the whole "replace text scene" work, so I was surprised at how well it ran. The writing, with it's surprising depth, was particularly simple in the end. I did get a few good chuckles from how horny you can make the stories, but once you get beyond the initial amusement, there's not much more to explore with the story, as it ends after two folktales.

The folklore element is front and center, as it grapples with the whole concept of passing down stories from your old country, and how sometimes those stories can get twisted by cultural shifts, or can be lost to time or bad memory. Still, it's worth preserving and remembering those as best as possible. The creativity is always fun to see with actually getting custom folk lore tales, with different details coming in and out, and letting the reader pick them out, looking for those contradictions.

It's always fun looking forward to an FdRstar production, cause they always remember the 'interactive game play' element of a visual novel, either devising a maze game, mini puzzle games, or in this case, a contradiction finder game. As a result, the amount of enjoyment you derive is based on how good you are at grasping what you're supposed to do, and the reward at the end. There's no crazy secret ending, just a couple of cute endings, which I appreciate not trying to figure out what the 'right' solutions are. It would go against the theme of the game if the was a 'right answer'. Plus, the narratives for his games are always interesting, since there's so much thought and world building put into them. I love the proof of concept approach to the game jam, and it's always neat to see what kind of stories can be told interspersed with game play. Part of me wants to see what kind of experience could be carried with more focus the narrative, but also, I wouldn't want to take the love for putting in game play elements away from them. It really is such a difficult balance.

I really love the use of implementation of the theme! How folklore changes between person to person, as well as colonization, is one of the most interesting things about studying it, and the dynamic of a modern student learning (and contrasting) from an elder is really endearing. Plus as someone who doesn't really enjoy gameplay in vns, it's nice to have one that has no fail state. 

The story otherwise was sweet and simple, I like the little tidbits about the two characters, and it would've been nice to get more of them, as I think they're both more interesting than the stories presented. Also thank you for Chayon. Having a clock nonbinary character just about KILLED the cis people in my reading group, so job well done! I just wish they were a little less obfuscated by the gameplay. 

This is probably one of the more creative uses of the theme, and I really liked it. I'm a sucker for investigative-type games. And this is another distinct type of VN coming from you, which came out very well. The concept of history/stories being told, rewritten, changed naturally based on personal belief, bias, ideals, memory, and agenda is something that I, as well, thought of when thinking about this theme.

I liked the story told, and I did not expect there to be two, which was pleasantly surprising. I don't have much to say other than me really liking this a lot, and if there are any issues, it would be spelling errors like "responsability." Also never heard of Mx used as an honorific before, and my unwoke ass thought it was a misspelling of Mr so that was a good lesson learned.

Also heck yeah, trans rights. 5, 5, 5, 5, 5.

What an incredible implementation of the theme! The gameplay elements I've come to expect from FdRstar are here in full force, with a really creative gimmick of rebuilding folklore from scraps - which isn't to say that it's just a gimmick, of course - the gameplay melds in well with the story's themes about how folklore changes over time, and how it can frequently be "sterilized" by ruling powers in order to enforce societal norms and rules (such as changing a homosexual lover into a woman).

The gameplay was a bit hard to wrap my head around at first, but once it clicked it felt quite intuitive - albeit with some trial and error to figure out where exactly to place my refutations. 

My only complaint here is that I would have liked to see more of an overarching narrative surrounding this - I really enjoyed seeing the recurring characters between the two stories you rebuild over the course of the game, and I would have liked to maybe get a bit more context for them. That said, I can imagine that it was quite hard to implement the mechanics during the jam period, so I understand why it feels a bit short in this regard.

Still, this was a great experience, and just like in last May Wolf, I think this was a fantastic example of how to implement gameplay into a VN! 

Reminds me of the old "choose your own adventure" books. Very clever and fun, making your own twist to the story! Give this a read and try to spin the tales. 

I really liked this! I wasn't expecting an ace attorney style of game play, but it was fun to change the stories. The story telling parts with the animated sprites made me think I was watching a puppet show. My only critique is that I found a bug after the first story where the axolotl god stays on screen after the story is done, but besides that I had fun with this game.