First and foremost, I want to highlight 4 things that I really enjoyed about this project.
- The character portraits (especially Timmy's) all look great and super professional, nice work!
- The backgrounds have a distinct, almost crayon look that gives the game even stronger visuals paired with the previously mentioned character portraits.
- The menus and UI systems were responsive and easy to navigate.
- The dialogue and banter between characters felt natural for the most part and was well-written.
Now, let's get into the grit.
This project felt much more like a novel than a game, the vast majority of the experience is text on the screen and there's barely any meaningful interactivity, which is what makes a game fun. The premise of a small group of friends stumbling into a spirit world is a decent hook, but you did not develop it much beyond the cat and car transformations.
To make matters worse, without a solid autosave, restarting after a bug or mistake means re-clicking through a ton of dialogue, which made the pacing feel extremely sluggish. The dialogue choices also felt like they had no weight to them, as I would pick an option only for my character to pretty much ignore my choice a minute later.
My biggest issue with this game was the driving sequence, or lack thereof. This seemed like it was supposed to be the game's core gameplay moment, and it straight up didn't function. I don't know if this is a bug or if I did something wrong, but Tabby's guiding amulet never appeared, and the left/right arrows didn't respond to me clicking or pressing buttons on the keyboard. This resulted in me reading all of the game's setup and then not being able to actually do anything. Excuse my crude comparison, but this game felt like someone forcing me to watch a countdown and then kicking me in the balls the second it reached zero.
JUSTIFICATION OF STARS:
Concept – 2 Stars: A group of friends discovering a spirit world is a common plot setup, and I didn't feel anything unique was done with it here. I did enjoy the cat though, so I gave you an extra pity star.
Use of Theme – 1 Star: The "road trip" is just the characters driving to the forest, which they then stay in for the rest of the game. If driving to the forest is a road trip, then me going to the gas station to get a Monster is also a road trip.
Enjoyment – 2 Stars: Personally, visual-novel gameplay is not really something I find fun in a game, especially if said game is a part of a game jam. I am usually hoping for something highly interactive, and this wasn't it, chief. The game felt more like a chore than something fun to do.
Visual Aesthetic – 3 Stars: This is the strongest category by far, the portraits and backgrounds in the game looked super polished and distinct, and it's clear a lot of effort went into the game's art.
Audio – 1 Star: This was probably the second biggest letdown for me besides the lack of gameplay. There's only one song at the very beginning of the game, and then there's no music or sound effects for the rest of the game. Games like Doki Doki Literature Club lean heavily on audio to build atmosphere, and the silence in this game was part of what was killing the atmosphere for me.
In short, I think that you guys just really wanted to make a visual novel lol