Without further due, let's get to it.





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                      Starting off with the first piece, MR. Baffun, the background music collection by SpringMetal was not what one would expect for Valentine's day. However, as the songs continued, we found ourselves nodding to the beats! It’s very catchy and a lot of fun to listen to, especially when you want to incorporate these songs into the more intense moments in your visual novels. The next song, Watching The Stars, is the antithesis of the first. Listening to the song, we could almost imagine two characters under the stars, marveling at the speckled sky. The final song, Main Menu Sweet Metal, is also very beautiful and appropriate to be used in the main menu, with repetition mixed with subtle variety. Overall, the intricacy of these pieces is very impressive, especially with the creation of three long-lengthed songs during the window of Chocolate & Sweets Jam.

We enjoy your composition, SpringMetal4316, thus we will award it with 3,000 points.

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                      Sombee by Xhrystal is a character sprite asset of a Zombie Pastry Chef. Haha, love the wordplay on Sombee and Zombie. The lineart is crisp and clean, with a more dark and muted shade of valentine colors. Even though Sombee is just a sprite as of now, we could already imagine what sort of characters she would be as a visual novel character, given her dynamic expressions and poses. She’s. So. Cute!

This entry will receive 4,500 points. Thank you so much for letting us see Sombee, Xhrystal.

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                      This free GUI is cute and aesthetic, with textured buttons and half-transparent textbox. We loved how realistic the chocolate and donut looked on the textbox, and the buttons definitely popped with the attention to detail in its white outlines around the words such as “auto” and “load,” allowing the GUI to be compatible with all sorts of backgrounds. Something we love about the GUI is how readable the fonts are, even when one scale buttons down by a lot. This is important because these buttons are often small, and the users should be able to read all of the words clearly. 

Congratulations, foleso. We will give this entry 5,000 points for this work.

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                      The Sweet Chocolates VN GUI is elaborate and pretty. In particular, the color palette makes the GUI consistent and professional. There’s a lot of detail, from the laces around the textbox to the patterns and highlights on the chocolates. We can see this GUI be used in lolita styled games or just games with valentines and sweet themes overall. Stunning work! :D

As a thank you for uploading a stunning GUI work, we will give this GUI set 8,000 points.

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※ Visual Novel Entries Reviews ※

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                      The story revolves around a furry boy named Laz who takes pity on a poor boy, Ezekiel who does not have enough money to buy a donut. This sparks a relationship between the two as they start chatting and interacting with each other. They start with small talk such as their class schedules as romance driven by more and more curiosity blooms around them.

Because there is no music in this game or sound effects, for those who have a short attention span it may be difficult to keep on reading. If you are the type that needs background music to keep focusing, we recommend you to open a Youtube or Spotify to listen to music while playing this game. Also, other than one mention of a donut at the very beginning of the game, there are no hints of any themes from the jam in this game.

The character sprite and background are originally drawn by the creator but as far as the user interface goes, we feel like some improvements can be made. There is a custom textbox but there are instances where the message text overlaps with the character portrait on the left. This clearly shows that the message width has not been adjusted to accommodate the presence of the character portrait and it can be really distracting when it overlaps. The creator also chooses to use serif fonts for the message and sans serif for the speaker. We recommend switching it around - serif for the speaker and sans serif for the message. This will make it easier to read. 

We would like to applaud for your great effort in making the art! The load screen is cute with the fluffy clouds but we’d recommend making the color and font of the buttons (‘back’ ‘continue’ etc.) fit with the load screen and the textbox a bit more so it looks sleeker. The same goes for the choice box.

As for the writing, it is very obvious that the writing is not written for a visual novel. It is more likely to be suitable if the creator aims for novel writing but it does not work the best for a visual novel. There are a lot of descriptions in this visual novel so it does more telling but does not show us anything visual. In a visual novel, it is important to show more than telling and the easiest way to do this is actually by using less descriptive lines and utilizing more dialogues and monologues. 

Animate an action whenever it is possible. For example, instead of describing that a character is so shocked - like an earth-shaking shock,  you can use shake animation on the character to express how shocking it is. 

There are around 3,000 words in this demo but only a part of it has been animated and has assets. It is disappointing but we look forward to what you will have stored for this game in the future.

We still appreciate your effort to join the contest, therefore we decide that we will award this effort with 7,500 points.

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※ Staffs off-topic comments ※

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                      Right off the bat, we are impressed that the creator decided to use traditional art using watercolor and paper for its visual. All of the art assets used in this visual novel are traditionally drawn and what makes it even better is that they actually look really good! However, of course, this choice does have its drawback which in this case, the artist cannot make all the expressions sprite for a character consistent as we do with digital art. Every time a character changes to another expression, there will be slight changes in their sprite. Therefore, there are not a lot of character expressions in this game.

None of the user interfaces in this game have been customized. It remains with the default look provided by CloudNovel except for the main menu and choice box. The height of the choice box, however, is a bit too high. We recommended the height of a choice box to be around 40-75 px.

Story-wise, this game makes you play as the main character (MC) with a customizable name, who just began your internship in a bakery. It does mention, though, that you have several work experiences before you are accepted to work with the bakery. Unfortunately, there are times when MC acts like this is your first time working without any work experience so we get a little bit confused here. It is still enjoyable to read, nonetheless.

Does this game fit the theme of Chocolate and Sweets Jam? Yes, it does. It is still a bit lacking though but so far, this entry has the most interactions with sweets compared to other entries. We really appreciate the effort.

Congratulations, BeriiCreations. We will give you 10,000 points for this work.

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※ Staffs off-topic comments ※

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                      If we have one word to describe this visual novel, it will be absurd.

Not in a bad way - in a weird way! An excellent weird way.

First of all, as soon as we load the game, we are greeted with a rather unique and interesting graphical user interface. We are absolutely loving the idea of handheld console game GUI. The downside of this GUI though, we are not used to it so it takes an effort to learn which button is functioning as what. Well, not that much of effort but no matter how mighty is our Empress DAX, she has a weak memory so she keeps forgetting. Congratulations to her for making it until the end.

You play as the main character (MC) who is not given any name but the enter-your-own-name MC, trying to muster the courage to confess your love towards your crush, Boba Boy. Before you make your move, however, you are intercepted by your friend, Glaze whom you think will be absent today. Nervously, you start to chat with Glaze and he shows you the support you need and prepares you for the move. Wonderful! Now, all we have to do is confess and invite him to the festival, right? Well, not exactly. What happens next takes us by surprise. Even until now, we are unsure what kind of endings we got. Is it good or is it bad? One thing for sure, it is a rather interesting experience.

Now, let’s talk about art. The aestheticism of this game that uses a limited, pastel color palette turns out a rather good choice as it works really well in this game. Despite the cool-looking UI though, not everything has been customized. The load screen and settings screen remains with the default look. Great job, nonetheless.

We found the music is used very well in this game. The background music is not distracting and the SFX sound when hovering a button is cute enough to not be an annoyance. Kudos to the creator for finding the right music. It fits the atmosphere and the vibe really, really well.

To thank Astara for giving us such a unique experience, this game deserves 10,000 points.

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※ Staffs off-topic comments ※

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                      Instantly, we are given a very good impression on the main menu. It has nice music and cool looking buttons that glow if you hover on them. It is simple but works. It makes us feel excited to try this game.

In this demo, we play as Mr. Spark, or later on known as Aiden. Aiden lives with an android called Nautilus who easily blushes blue. Later in the story, we find out his blush is blue because android blood is blue which is actually a metal substance that runs through their body.

Although Nautilus seems to be fixated to February 14th, Valentine’s day, this game only mentions Valentine’s Day and sweets several times only. We cannot really determine that this game is about sweets or Valentine's Day because clearly it is not. This game is more like a slice of life of Aiden’s daily life as most of the dialogues are about Aiden’s pondering about his life and how he should fix it but nothing really happened.

The textbox in this game is huge. The design is stunning but the height should be lowered. Other than that, other screen interfaces such as load screen and settings screen remain with its default look. There is an additional page that deserves to be mentioned which is the Chapter page. It is looking good.

The music on the main menu that leaves us with a good impression from the start has been used again and again through the demo. It does not necessarily make us feel bored and tired of it but we believe there are scenes that are not suitable for that music such as when Priscilla visits and starts talking about a case and androids. The dialogues are toned seriously but the music is too upbeat for serious scripts. We believe this scene can be improved if the creator uses more calm music to give it a more serious talk vibe. The first part of the first scene is also too silent. Maybe, with a sound effect, every time [???] speaks, this can be better.

The last scene of the demo is perfect. The CG, the music, the atmosphere are just perfect. Kudos to Persephius for ending the demo with a beautiful moment.

Anyway, we enjoy playing the game and we agree to give 15,000 points to Persephius.

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※ Staffs off-topic comments ※

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                      The story starts off with our main character, Karis Papillon being down when he thought he was getting demoted from his old department and had to move out to a new city for his new post. He started his day by visiting a cafe where he met a gorgeous guy named Ray. Later on, he went to his new department only to find out his so-called demotion was actually a promotion. Of course, the new workplace was not complete if there were no interaction between new coworkers including bantering with them as well.

This visual novel is supposed to be a mystery visual novel but the demo does not cover the mystery just yet. However, the creator has cleverly teased us with a hint of mystery so it is not hard to guess what will be the main object of the plot.

That said though, the visual novel does not revolve around the main themes of jam which are chocolate, sweets and Valentine Day despite the fact that it does mention sweets several times. However, the sweets only take a very small part of the demo to be considered that this is a visual novel about sweets.

As far as art, we have no complaints. The character and background arts are absolutely stunning. This game has a very distinguishable art style that cannot be mistaken for others. The graphic for the user interface, though, is not complete as it only has a custom main menu and a custom textbox. The rest, however, still use the default look. Those that have been customized look superb, not lying.

We are absolutely entertained with the music on the main menu. It is rare for a music asset in a visual novel to be accompanied by a singer’s voice unless it is a theme song (which is only used for Opening and Ending movies) but it really suits the main menu. Therefore, we are looking forward to what other music could the creator choose for the next scene and the other parts of the game (which currently doesn’t have any BGM).

The visual novel ends somewhat abruptly but that is understandable as it is only a demo. It does leave us wanting more which is a very good job.

We will reward this amazing work with 20,000 points. Thank you for the experience, OHISASHI.

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※ Staffs off-topic comments ※

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Finally, we have a staff entry.

※ Staffs off-topic comments ※

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And, we are done. Thank you so much for those who participated in the jam. We hope you enjoy reading our review and each staff personal comment.

Also, this is a final reminder from us. Only completed entries will receive their points. Most of the entries are demo and ongoing so you will not receive the points right now but as soon as you completed the entry, please contact us by PMing or messaging us on the site or Discord. If you completed your entry, please ensure you have tagged the entry as completed. For those who enter with asset entry will be receiving your points soon.

Again, thank you so much for joining the jam. I hope we can see you soon in future jams.

P/S: Currently, the world is experiencing turmoil with the ongoing cases of Covid-19. Therefore, CloudNovel would like to take the time to remind you to take care of your health. Love yourself and your loved one. We wish you the best and we can overcome this soon. Stay hygiene and practice social distancing.