How will you treat your enemies? Smash them?
\n……Btw, this maybe more like a visual novel more than a game……
\nAlways use mouse click to continue.
\n","source":"IMG25522/4JS13K_2025","stars":0,"post":"https://github.com/IMG25522/4JS13K_2025/blob/main/Post-mortem.md","comments":[{"at":410341743,"author":"Cliff Earl","login":"Antix-Development","gh":17822130,"text":"Graphically this is a great production. Unfortunately as a game it is not.
\nI think you didn’t quite grasp the “games” part in Js13k Games.
\nLook forward to seeing what you come up with next time :)
\n","games":["Black Cat - Nine Lives, No Mercy"]},{"at":410344740,"author":"Alexander Petrov","login":"baturinsky","gh":632779,"twitter":"baturinsky","text":"Is there a real choices there? If not, then it’s called kinetic novel, not visual novel.\nShowing the same situation from the different point of view, with different language understanding for them is interesting. But this particular theme/setting is a bit too heavy/touchy for js13k format.
\n","games":["All you have to do is Dream"]},{"at":410354965,"author":"RatoGBM","login":"RatoGBM","gh":80184495,"url":"ratogbm.github.io","text":"To play, requires knowledge of Russian, German, and English\nOtherwise, cool submission!
\n","games":["Laserpointer"]},{"typ":1,"at":410357315,"re":410354965,"author":"IMG25522","login":"IMG25522","gh":177809859,"text":"You don’t need to know these languages, since I add them purposely,(Let’s just pretend that you only know English, and can’t understand German nor Russian), so the mood will be created.
\n"},{"at":410416439,"author":"Michael M.","login":"Schnark","gh":17846729,"url":"https://schnark.github.io","text":"I speak German and English, but not Russian, and enjoyed the game.
\n","games":["Edgar's Mission"]},{"at":410417397,"author":"Jonathan Vallet","login":"jonathan-vallet","gh":5329099,"text":"📖 A visual novel in JS13K, very original! I love that a single choice completely changes the story path. It would be nice to have a way to speed up dialogues, or maybe add sound effects (typing sounds, or even a sound for each voices).
\n","games":["Witchcat"]},{"at":410483534,"author":"xem","login":"xem","gh":1225909,"text":"Nice graphics, I dn’t hate visual novels but sadly here, it’s a weird choice to use different languages and expecting us to sit through a fixed screen with text that appears too slowly on screen and is not skippable.
\n","games":["I got up on the wrong foot"]},{"at":410499907,"author":"Zang0l0tino","login":"Zang0l0tino","gh":167128079,"text":"The visual novel seems ok, but I don’t speak russian nor german; I think you shouldn’t have mixed various languages. You also could’ve added some sound, but it’s ok. I additionally recommend you to add an option to speed the text, it seems a bit slow to me. Good luck!
\n","games":["The Black Cat's Escape"]},{"at":410505408,"author":"João Lopes","login":"lopis","gh":2715751,"url":"www.jlopes.dev","text":"I couldn’t understand at first if my clicks were doing anything during the game. After playing a second time, I understood that there was one single action to take, which changed the ending. It’s an interesting entry.\nThe text is too slow for my taste, and the non-English text should somehow have been translated.\nOther than that, impressive visuals.
\n","games":["Meow Mountain"]},{"at":410762920,"author":"Elliot Nelson","login":"elliot-nelson","gh":58273,"url":"https://7tonshark.com","twitter":"7tonshark","text":"Interesting! So, my take here is that the other languages don’t matter; it seems like you get both sides of the conflict back-to-back, so it’s intended that you have no idea what the enemy is saying.
\nThe visual novel thing is not really for me, but that’s OK. My suggestions would be around a little polishing for the user, just consider for future: (1) click to speed up / skip current text; use a small visual icon to indicate whether clicking will skip or jump to next screen; (2) make choices more obvious e.g. hovering the mouse over the cat vs non-cat option should change the icon shown, or add a green or red, something to show that you are choosing between two options; (3) since gameplay will intentionally be very bare bones, consider adding simple music track or audio to shore up overall.
\n","games":["Ashes of Ulthar"]},{"typ":2,"at":411052613,"author":"Michelle Duke","login":"mishmanners","gh":36594527,"url":"mishmanners.info","twitter":"MishManners","text":"Tiny tiny game, you definitely have more room in the kBs to add some sound effects and music.
\nIt’d be great if we can speed up the dialogue. I like the way you setup the narrative and story, however it might be a little too close to home for some people/cultures.
\nIt wasn’t very clear what or how I was making decisions. ie. the rifle at the start. I did enjoy the graphical look and you’ve got a good base to build off here.
\n"},{"typ":2,"at":411470115,"author":"Victor Debone","login":"debone","gh":763457,"url":"https://javascri.pl/","twitter":"javascripl","text":"Thanks for your submission! First, I can’t know how much effort you’ve put on the game, so don’t mind me if I get cliché or repeat ideas you simply didn’t get the time (or kb) to finish. Second, great work on finishing and shipping this complete experience!
\nGreat work on the environment and short story. I got to take a very important decision on the protagonist life to what I assume reflected later when they were on the other side. Interesting the two stories repeat what happened to each other.
\nGoing through the mercy story first and then actually shooting the first cat, I must say I felt something towards those characters – all to say the pacing and dialogue got me moving, even if it was a quick one.
\n"},{"at":411906887,"author":"Jasper Renow-Clarke","login":"picosonic","gh":26137750,"twitter":"femtosonic","text":"An interesting concept
\nLots of narrative to the game
\nThe graphics were good, but a little dark
\nI didn’t feel like I was in control of what was happening, so I didn’t feel there was a particular goal
\n","games":["Mochi and the midnight escape"]},{"at":412030127,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Great work, very well done submitting something original and truly unique to the compo!
\nI’ve never seen anyone else attempt a visual novel before so I was glad to see that and ultimately I found the storytelling really strong here. Having the same scenario shown from different points of view is a great idea and really puts you in the characters’ shoes which made me quickly invested in their fates and I really felt for them which is a big achievement for such a short story and small game as this!
\nIt was one of the few games from the compo I was really glad to show to others as well because I was interested in their reactions. My partner also really connected with it and liked it a lot!
\nI’m very saddened to see that so many have completely missed the point of the game (you’re NOT supposed to understand the different languages, that is the entire basis of the story!!), even though it’s a pretty common trope in other pieces of media (e.g. a lot of war movies would have a scene based on soldiers from different sides having trouble communicating due to the language barrier which leads to misunderstandings and builds tension).
\nI’m also disappointed that some others didn’t even want to accept this game as a valid submission due to it being in an unfamiliar genre and some being quite rude about it. I’d however much rather see developers experiment with more unique games like this rather than yet another basic platformer or something, so major props to you!
\nSome moody music would’ve definitely improved on it as you still had some space left within the size limit but very good job overall!
\n","games":["A Voiding Your Problems"]}],"results":{"theme":{"rank":119,"min":1,"score":2.75,"max":4.24},"innovation":{"rank":97,"min":1.2,"score":2.67,"max":4.03},"gameplay":{"rank":172,"min":1.18,"score":1.5,"max":4.37},"graphics":{"rank":72,"min":1.6,"score":3.29,"max":4.56},"controls":{"rank":159,"min":1.6,"score":2.42,"max":4.45},"primary":{"rank":151,"min":8.68,"score":12.63,"max":24.89},"label":"Overall"}}