The Miracle Happen :')

[Trybien]

Only a few hours remain, I look forward to seeing a dozen pms in my inbox when I wake up. Best of luck to the rest who still need to submit, hope the final grind isn't too torturous.

[clcman]

I (miraculously?) slide in an entry at the last possible second - That Turnabout Where the Murderer Killed the Victim.

Spoiler : Final Hype :

[TimeAxis]

Good luck everyone.

[Spongesonic]

ChingKittyCat's/eerew's and skyem's entries have also been submitted!

[applekitty]

ChingKittyCat's/eerew's and skyem's entries have also been submitted!

I'm excited to see what you two + everyone else thinks of our case.

[GuardianDreamer]

Whoa I'm seeing like, eleven entries total (potentially more if anyone needed the grace period I suppose). That's a big cast. Good luck everyone, the theme for this competition really encourages a lot of creativity, so I'm looking forward to seeing how different all the entries are.

[Spongesonic]

And here I was, worried that the theme might be too vague for people to latch onto ^^;

[Trybien]

11 is the closest we could get to an angel number, so I'm happy with the turnout.

And here I was, worried that the theme might be too vague for people to latch onto ^^;

Me thinks it hit that sweet spot of specific enough of a task to allow for a lot of creativity with just enough direction fr.beimf too vague. Also meme name.

[Awsome2464]

And here I thought nine entries was some sort of record. Regardless, best of luck to everyone!

[Trybien]

And that's a wrap folks! We have officially entered the judging phase with a whopping total of 11 entries.

Here are our final list of entrants!

young_englander
GuardianDreamer
SonnieCelanna
TimeAxis
The Fury Wraith
XavierWright
SuperAj3 and MasqueradeDemure
trialdude
clcman
applekitty and eerew
skyem

Reviews will be trickling out shortly, I've written streams of consciousness along with each of mine, so if any of the entrants want to see theirs after their review is posted, please let me know!

[Spongesonic]

Hoooo boy... and I, not having a vacation as an excuse, haven't been allowed to touch a single one until now...

[TimeAxis]

Hoooo boy... and I, not having a vacation as an excuse, haven't been allowed to touch a single one until now...

Good luck to the judges too.

[SuperAj3]

I'm excited to see what you both thought of the entries! This was a lot of fun.

[Trybien]

Public Defender by young_englander

Spoiler : Screenshot :

My feelings exactly when seeing how many entries the competition has!

Spoiler : Synopsis :

Saved from a near-death experience by a mysterious figure, an amnesiac public defender is tasked with taking down someone truly evil.

Spoiler : Review :

Story:
Given the incomplete nature of the entry, there isn’t much too much to discuss here. The entry as submitted sets the scene and introduces us to the main character’s dilemma. There is quite a bit to infer on the direction of the story and quite a few seeds planted that could lead to some interesting developments. Unfortunately, that’s all we really have, promises of an interesting story with the vague hope young_englander gains the motivation to finish it in some form.

Characters:
Outside of the amnesiac main character, we are also introduced to two others who despite being distinct enough, only really serve to drop exposition on amnesiac player-character.

Presentation:
Overall the entry is a straightforward visual novel, with my only real complaint being the internal monologue being displayed with white text and blips. The character sprites utilize the free custom sprites you can find in the art section, and I am not super sure the chosen sprites match the characters as written nor the tone. Speaking of the tone, that is probably the strongest part of the entry. The choice of music and the two backgrounds we get to see manage to create a really unsettling atmosphere that compliment the writing style very well.

Gameplay:
Not much to say here, the entry plays out mostly like a visual novel. There is a single investigation scene, but it boils down to exhausting all of the dialogue options.

Theme Relevance:
Even though the entry itself is pretty short, the usage of second provided definition of “deus ex machina” is introduced from the get go. While the incomplete nature of the case means we get no payoff from it, it is clear the entirety of the story presented is designed around it.

Spoiler : Overall :

PROS
-Successfully haunting atmosphere
-Decent use of theme in set up
CONS
-Mostly just an info dump setting the scene

[GuardianDreamer]

Sounds like a pretty interesting setup and I hope that it gets finished one day. Oh also once again, good luck everyone, including the judges because of all the entries.