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Content Warnings
Depression, Grief, Domestic Violence, Light Gore, and Blood
Log Line
Your brother is a magical girl. And you can't trust him.
Work Start Date
September 1st
Which engines and/or plugins did you use? (NaniNovel, Light.VN, etc.)
Ren'py
University League Participant
No
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Comments
The premise and the theming of this is so, so interesting, and I really enjoyed how information was slowly fed to the player throughout Clover's conflicting internal monologues. I actually wasn't expecting to feel much for not!Olive, especially after learning the truth, but after receiving the ending I got, I ended up thinking about Morning Sunshine's responses to Clover and the monster they fought earlier in the story... I started to feel a little sorry for them.
Additionally: I really liked the use and formatting of NVL-mode, and think it was very effective with the CGs you have!
I love this story and the visuals! The UI layout is unique, yet I find it very easy to read and interact with. I got both endings! The beginning is mostly about introducing the characters and the world, which is really hard to pull off, but I think this game does it extremely well. I think one of the biggest reasons is that the protagonist constantly reminds you that something is wrong, even when everything happening on screen seems to suggest otherwise. While reading, I kept trying to figure out what the twist could be, and I was constantly revising my theory as more information about the world was revealed. Another thing is that it raises the stakes are right from the beginning by having the protagonist's parents die immediately at the beginning of the story.
Some spoilers below!!
I think the main theme of the story is ultimately about giving the player a difficult choice of whether or not to love the brother after the reveal. What makes this especially effective is that throughout the story, the protagonist chooses not to love him, while the player, without knowing the full context, is thinking the opposite (from all the loving scenes between Clove and her brother). Then, after the reveal, the player is suddenly forced to make that same choice themselves. This is actually something I tried to do in my own entry as well, but I think your story does it better! One thing I think could make the final decision hit even harder is adding a little more weight to the choice. Julissa is likeable, but I felt that her character was weak compared to the brother. On the other hand, the only real "sin" the brother committed was killing the original abusive brother. Because of that, the decision felt a little easier than I think it was intended to be. Also, it wasn't until my second playthrough, after choosing Julissa over the brother, that I learned the consequence of that decision. So if the goal is to make the player genuinely struggle with the choice, I think making the consequences more explicit and making Julissa more likeable could make the decision much harder. But if the intention is instead to have the player make the choice first and then feel guilty or shocked afterward, then I think it works perfectly as it is!
Overall, I really liked the story, and I agree that I keep thinking about it after finishing it haha!
Hello!!! Thank you for your kind and thoughtful words! I've been thinking about them a lot during these last 4 days while I've been busy IRL this past week
I'm happy to hear the UI is unique, easy to read and interact with! It was something I switched to halfway through the jam so I didn't get much time to refine it or the readability/interactivity of it before I submitted this jam project
Your experience with this project almost entirely echoes what I was hoping to aim for in this work: a story that tells you something is wrong even when everything is right, thus getting you invested in the truth that's slowly being parsed out the farther you go along until you get your theories proven right/wrong based on the info given :Dc And the choice part is something you definitely got nailed! I wanted to end this work on the idea that it's really up to the player to decide on which conclusion you agree with more based on the framing of the plot since this work ultimately touches on the idea of "can harm that's done be forgiven? if so: what does it take? if not: why?".
(obligatory spoilers below)
I 100% agree about Julissa!!! That is, in fact, my own main criticism with this work and one I knowingly enacted by choosing to prioritize concluding this story over leaving it unfinished and her part of this narrative fleshed out. I'm totally remiss I couldn't flesh her out more (especially since I'm a big advocator for focusing on gal characters in stories as much as their male counterparts), but if I'd gotten more time in this jam I'd have liked to spend more time fleshing out her side of the story and reinforcing the story behind her ending (because, yeah, it definitely falls flat and doesn't hit as hard when you kiiiiind of have no reason to get behind her since she comes out of nowhere lol).
Thank you again for the kind words! I really enjoyed reading your thoughts and hearing about your experience with this funny little jam game ^^
This was a lovely little story! I just finished both endings. I think the way you decided to go about visuals is really creative, having that middle bar and putting the images on either side. I feel like you were able to use the CGs quite effectively!
Magical girl stories always draw me in. The profile picture on this account is one of my partner's own magical girl OCs, and I'm playing a pair of magical girl guys in our current campaign setting. I feel like we sit in similar themes about where magical girls end and monsters begin, what does it mean to be a person, as well as why these hero figures are kind and the complexities that come with unwavering kindness. I like that this is sort of an inverse of Madoka's trope, where instead of turning into monsters, the monsters turn into magical girls. Really, this is just my type of story! I kinda hope to see more stories take place in this setting you've put together here. Ah, I'm all inspired now :] Thank you for the game!
- Clouds
Edit: It's been several hours and I'm still thinking about this one. I just like this a lot-
thanks so much for the kind words!!! I was really afraid this story might not hit home the way I was hoping so I’m beyond happy to see your kind words about this work!!!
To tell you the truth, I meant for this to be in the typical VN style (textbox on bottom, visuals the main focus above all else) but I scrapped that idea halfway through and settled on this current format (which is a format I’m currently using to tell the stories of my other projects, albeit I’m still undecided if I go the Disco Elysium narrative style route or something close to this).
i worried the design style might not work out for the story I wanted to tell so hearing that you enjoyed that design is actually really reassuring (especially since now that I’m thinking about making use of it for my other, bigger projects in the future!!!)
And same! I love magical girl stories and miss their whimsy. I was reading the recent Shugo Chara manga a bit ago and got starstruck by how much I missed their whimsy era of kindly heroes draped in cutesy outfits learning to grow up in a world where they’ve gotta beat up negative sentiments to save the day and grow as people.
Here, I took that whimsy and mixed it in with a bit of eldritch horror lore since I liked the idea of monsters masquerading as magical girls and the irony of that idea. And yes! I like studying hero type characters and understanding the kindness behind them (especially if that kindness is paradoxically selfish and magical girls foil the monsters they seek to defeat). It sounds like you’ve got a lot of cool magical girl things going on for you too (that campaign sounds like fun lol and your profile pic is so cute!)
I do plan to do at the very least a devlog talking more about the world-building ideas I couldn’t fit in here! I’m actually pretty big on exploring the worlds I make and presuming there is a lot more depth to them than what you see on the page haha.
And while I can’t promise I’ll pick up writing for this world again (my project backlog is huge atm between my fangame and OC projects), if I did continue this I’d probably explore more of Morning Sunshine (she’s so cool to me can you tell) and the relationship between magical girls/boys/knights and the monsters they fight (since imo the lore behind them would be fun to explore and it’d be a good excuse to give me practice for figuring out how to import my puppet rigs into Ren’py!!!)
(And waaah I’m glad you like this story so much to let me know you’re still thinking about it hours later!!! Hearing that feels like the highest of praises to me who wants to make the kind of stories that stay on the brain even if you’re done playing through them :Dc)