Firstly, I want you to know that you should be very proud of the progress you've made in your fight against your depression, Abelle~ To go from being completely bed-bound to making and releasing a VN in the span of a year is HUGE progress, irrespective of whether it's the VN you were originally hoping to make.
Secondly, you're being much too harsh on and unfair to yourself—which, of course, is part and parcel of living with depression, but it's important to reflect on it and push back against it, lest it spiral out of control.
To use an example from the work, you mention how you don't know how to draw, and how your lack of technical skill discourages you from drawing any more than once a month for an hour or so. As you know, however, the only real way to improve at drawing is to draw regularly, with even the sloppiest and messiest sketches being important stepping stones in developing the necessary muscle control and grasp of the fundamentals to be a skilled artist.
Shutting yourself down from drawing because you don't like how your art looks, then, is ultimately an act of self-sabotage, one that perpetuates the problem rather than helping you to improve at all. That goes doubly so considering how an hour is scarcely enough time to warm up for a single drawing session, much less when trying to shake off the rust after not having drawn in a month!
That is to say, all of your art is doubtlessly better than you're imagining it to be, and you're capable of far more than you think~ All you need to do is give yourself enough time and space to create at your own pace, without letting any comparisons to others' works or destructive thought patterns stop you before you've even given yourself a chance to succeed. It doesn't matter if your work isn't quite as polished as you'd like it to be at first; that's all a part of the process of learning, growing, and improving as an artist~
Abelle, first things first, I thank and applaud you for creating and submitting this novel/game for the jam. I'm honored that, despite your struggles with artistry, you found enough motivation to complete a project for our jam of all things.
But secondly, my applause is light and can only go so far. While your completion of this may have backing in the thematic relevance of the "Menhera VN Jam" in that mental tribulations make it hard to commit to projects, the amount of brownie points that one can be awarded based on that fact alone are scarce. You have created a visual novel, you have produced something in the great subset of art, and you deserve credit for that alone even despite mental struggle. This alone does not impact the quality of said art, though. And, of course, all art is subjective, but there are objective measures that dictate points of quality. Visual novels are theatre and so, for example, the less transitions, the lack of smoothness, and the inconsistent art direction a game may have detract from the wholeness of something within the medium. This is all a drawn out way to say that I do not think that this is a very good game.
To not mince words, your game is an embodiment of failure. It is a failure about failure and I can sort of appreciate that about it. In the sense of a meta-commentary, it complements itself nicely. The music doesn't feel shoehorned and your art, while simplistic, isn't bad or offensive. The majority of my qualms comes from what's being said. Towards the end you start giving advice about game development, and while I think that is a nice and thoughtful thing to do, to advise anyone on this front falls a bit flat considering your unsuccessful development ventures. This is a game about your failure in development and the whole that it is does not necessarily resonate the voice of someone experienced enough to advise someone in development. Your game falls short in what is being attempted and starts to equalize itself into someone's vent post rather than an artistic expression of one's struggles. It's not much of a game nor a novel nor a story - but at least it is about something and in that I can enjoy your intention, because that does shine through.
The thing I can appreciate the most from Make a Game or Die Tryin is how earnest it is. It is about what it is about and this obviously resonates within you and I truly appreciate heart. Abelle, despite my seemingly harsh words, I don't think this is the worst thing ever - not even close. I think there's absolutely potential behind this, it just takes willpower to find the surge to create. I personally wish you will make more and I hope once it crosses my path in the future that it blows my mind. You have the capacity to make something far better than this, you just have to truly work to find it and hone it. To create is a beautiful thing and to create something you can truly be proud of and have people consume is a bliss unlike anything else. If I am to strongly advise anything, it'd be to proofread a lot more. I know you spent some time going out of your way to fix the English errors, but there were still errors, whether it be diction or grammatical, pretty much every other line.
Good luck, Abelle. Make more games or die trying. Don't back down.
Thank you Isabella for taking the time to write this long, detailed and honest post about what you think about my game. It really is a precious thing having this much different lines of thoughts and it really encourages me to do my best for futur projects !!
I liked this game. I thought it was endearing. A lot of people never end up actually making a game, but even if you wanted things to be different you still get to say you released one. I hope that this will be the first of many games for you.
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Firstly, I want you to know that you should be very proud of the progress you've made in your fight against your depression, Abelle~ To go from being completely bed-bound to making and releasing a VN in the span of a year is HUGE progress, irrespective of whether it's the VN you were originally hoping to make.
Secondly, you're being much too harsh on and unfair to yourself—which, of course, is part and parcel of living with depression, but it's important to reflect on it and push back against it, lest it spiral out of control.
To use an example from the work, you mention how you don't know how to draw, and how your lack of technical skill discourages you from drawing any more than once a month for an hour or so. As you know, however, the only real way to improve at drawing is to draw regularly, with even the sloppiest and messiest sketches being important stepping stones in developing the necessary muscle control and grasp of the fundamentals to be a skilled artist.
Shutting yourself down from drawing because you don't like how your art looks, then, is ultimately an act of self-sabotage, one that perpetuates the problem rather than helping you to improve at all. That goes doubly so considering how an hour is scarcely enough time to warm up for a single drawing session, much less when trying to shake off the rust after not having drawn in a month!
That is to say, all of your art is doubtlessly better than you're imagining it to be, and you're capable of far more than you think~ All you need to do is give yourself enough time and space to create at your own pace, without letting any comparisons to others' works or destructive thought patterns stop you before you've even given yourself a chance to succeed. It doesn't matter if your work isn't quite as polished as you'd like it to be at first; that's all a part of the process of learning, growing, and improving as an artist~
I hope to see more work from you in the future!
Thank you so much for this comment ! It resonate a lot with what I reflected on the last couple month, and it’s good to read it from another person 🐌🐌
Abelle, first things first, I thank and applaud you for creating and submitting this novel/game for the jam. I'm honored that, despite your struggles with artistry, you found enough motivation to complete a project for our jam of all things.
But secondly, my applause is light and can only go so far. While your completion of this may have backing in the thematic relevance of the "Menhera VN Jam" in that mental tribulations make it hard to commit to projects, the amount of brownie points that one can be awarded based on that fact alone are scarce. You have created a visual novel, you have produced something in the great subset of art, and you deserve credit for that alone even despite mental struggle. This alone does not impact the quality of said art, though. And, of course, all art is subjective, but there are objective measures that dictate points of quality. Visual novels are theatre and so, for example, the less transitions, the lack of smoothness, and the inconsistent art direction a game may have detract from the wholeness of something within the medium. This is all a drawn out way to say that I do not think that this is a very good game.
To not mince words, your game is an embodiment of failure. It is a failure about failure and I can sort of appreciate that about it. In the sense of a meta-commentary, it complements itself nicely. The music doesn't feel shoehorned and your art, while simplistic, isn't bad or offensive. The majority of my qualms comes from what's being said. Towards the end you start giving advice about game development, and while I think that is a nice and thoughtful thing to do, to advise anyone on this front falls a bit flat considering your unsuccessful development ventures. This is a game about your failure in development and the whole that it is does not necessarily resonate the voice of someone experienced enough to advise someone in development. Your game falls short in what is being attempted and starts to equalize itself into someone's vent post rather than an artistic expression of one's struggles. It's not much of a game nor a novel nor a story - but at least it is about something and in that I can enjoy your intention, because that does shine through.
The thing I can appreciate the most from Make a Game or Die Tryin is how earnest it is. It is about what it is about and this obviously resonates within you and I truly appreciate heart. Abelle, despite my seemingly harsh words, I don't think this is the worst thing ever - not even close. I think there's absolutely potential behind this, it just takes willpower to find the surge to create. I personally wish you will make more and I hope once it crosses my path in the future that it blows my mind. You have the capacity to make something far better than this, you just have to truly work to find it and hone it. To create is a beautiful thing and to create something you can truly be proud of and have people consume is a bliss unlike anything else. If I am to strongly advise anything, it'd be to proofread a lot more. I know you spent some time going out of your way to fix the English errors, but there were still errors, whether it be diction or grammatical, pretty much every other line.
Good luck, Abelle. Make more games or die trying. Don't back down.
edited for phrasing
Thank you Isabella for taking the time to write this long, detailed and honest post about what you think about my game. It really is a precious thing having this much different lines of thoughts and it really encourages me to do my best for futur projects !!
I liked this game.
I thought it was endearing. A lot of people never end up actually making a game, but even if you wanted things to be different you still get to say you released one. I hope that this will be the first of many games for you.
Thank you so much 💚💚