A short, well-crafted narrative game where it's immediately clear where the developer's main efforts went. It may not have the most engaging gameplay or impressive graphics, but I don't think those are the right criteria to judge this game by. The story, cutscenes, music, and some programming were the main focus, and in those areas, the game does an excellent job.
I have to give special recognition to the cutscenes and their direction. Without exaggeration, this is the only game in the jam that I'd put in first place specifically for its cutscenes.
Here are a few things I'd like to point out:
- There's no way to adjust the volume, so I had to turn my system volume all the way down. Of course, I understand that the developer probably noticed this too but had to prioritize more important things. Still, in future projects, I'd love to see at least a master volume slider somewhere in the game.
- Once you start playing, you can't pause the game or return to the main menu. I'd have liked a bit more control over the experience in that regard.
- The game could benefit from some additional gameplay elements to make the experience more engaging. Even simple gameplay sections between cutscenes, or more varied types of cutscenes, could add a lot of interest. However, this is more of a personal observation. I'm not particularly fond of visual novels, and given the three-day jam timeframe, I doubt this would have been feasible for the developer anyway. So take this suggestion with a grain of salt.
Overall, I had an incredibly pleasant experience playing this game. As a fellow developer, I can appreciate the challenges involved in creating the parallax backgrounds, rain effects, and triggers for the autumn tree scene where the foliage burns away. Finding suitable assets, developing the story, and figuring out how to present it all must have been quite a challenge as well.
And you handled it wonderfully! Great job! ❤️