LudumData

Harrr-vest by jaj

[raw]
made by jaj for Ludum Dare 52 (JAM)

A short visual novel about a suspicious pirate. Could this pirate be, A VEST? A Harrr-vest???

Go to court and convince judge Marie that pirate Graybeard is in fact a vest, not a pirate, and win the game! Or maybe there is a secret ending to all of this...? (Yes, there is a secret ending.)

NOTES: -For the best experience, scroll to the bottom right and press the blue full screen button. -Please let me know if the dialogue ends before you see the words "the end". This means I forgot to connect a choice to an outcome somewhere, sorry! -Game does not run in Firefox. It is confirmed to work in chrome and edge.

I used the following assets: Music from Alkakrab's free pirate game music pack: https://alkakrab.itch.io/free-pirate-game-music-pack Characters sprites by combining Sutemo's sprite packs: https://sutemo.itch.io/ Appartment background from this AI generated sprite pack by DevHowardJones: https://devhowardjones.itch.io/ai-visual-novel-backgrounds The pirate hat and courtroom background are public domain.

I used Unity with the Pixelcrushers Dialogue system https://www.pixelcrushers.com/dialogue-system/

harrvest.pngchapter 2.pngchaper 3.png

Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/harrr-vest

Ratings

Overall 257th 3.711⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 276th 3.579⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 459th 3.211⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 508th 3.526⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 24th 4.263⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 152th 3.895⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 6🗳️ 18🗨️

Feedback

Stormharrier
10. Jan 2023 · 14:36 UTC
I got the secret ending! Eventually...

I enjoyed that. It was funny and emotional, and an interesting take on the theme! Nice choice of music too.
digital bacon
11. Jan 2023 · 11:37 UTC
Giggled when I first saw the name and the thumbnail :laughing: Loved the graphics, the jaunty sea-shanty like music and the story. Very well done!
LDJam user 276121
11. Jan 2023 · 11:44 UTC
A cute concept, and I love a pun, but I felt the implementation of the concept was a little lacking, in that the court scene could have been more dynamic and involved. That said I'm not a fan of CYOA/VN so that's probably personal bias.
🎤 jaj
11. Jan 2023 · 11:50 UTC
Thanks for the feedback and compliments!
@stormharrier I'm so glad someone got to the secret ending :D
Frogman
11. Jan 2023 · 12:01 UTC
Amazing game! I loved the premise, and the dialogue was hilarious. The secret ending was also very cool and unexpected - I loved how you managed to turn a ridiculous concept into an emotional story, and the foreshadowing for it was excellent. It was a bit annoying to restart the entire game each time, though - I found myself skipping a lot of the dialogue in subsequent playthroughs, and sometimes missed the new parts because of that - and the web build didn't work on Firefox for some reason, but otherwise, great entry!
🎤 jaj
11. Jan 2023 · 12:12 UTC
@frogman Thank you for playing through the secret ending! I was unaware the game didn't run in firefox, I'm actually pretty new to exporting in unity.

I think for an update save states are a must. I'll look into how to do that!
LDJam user 261418
11. Jan 2023 · 15:02 UTC
Intersting story! The atmosphere was well established and engaging. The ending was somehow abrupt. All in all, a solid entry - well done! :)
exofrenon
11. Jan 2023 · 23:24 UTC
When I saw the game's title in the thumbnail I immediately had to click on it due to how stupid the pun was, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a visual novel in Ludum Dare. They are not that popular here.

I liked the writing and I found the premise hilarious and cute at the same time. The dialogue was realistic, as if this really happened to you. Solid implementation of a VN, no bugs or issues encountered. Unfortunately I couldn't find the secret ending. I though I would be bored, but I finished it before I knew it.

Good job overall.
Noskire
11. Jan 2023 · 23:28 UTC
Congrats on thinking outside the box! Very fun game! :laughing:
CuteSquirrel
11. Jan 2023 · 23:33 UTC
Lovely story, good music, and generally well executed. Though I missed a 'prev sentence' button, as I miss clicked a couple of times. I like the questioning in the court, making it way more interactive than most visual novels.
The theme is.. stretched, to say the least.
But good entry.
Duncan 3
11. Jan 2023 · 23:39 UTC
best interpretation of the theme
Doctor_Zeus
12. Jan 2023 · 06:58 UTC
Nice job! The writing was definitely the highlight, it made this little family episode believable. Humor and emotion came through well for me, and I especially like how the secret ending brought all of the different pieces of the story together.

Actually traversing the game's dialogue tree was a bit of a pain, though - I also accidentally ran through some new dialogue once when I didn't realize I'd triggered an extra question in the second half, and I had to do plenty of page refreshing to try to scour the game for that secret ending.

I enjoyed playing through it, but quality-of-life upgrades for saving / loading states and restarting the game after it's over would be very nice. I can appreciate that those technical bits can be a lot of work on the backend, though, so I understand that the time constraints of the jam make balancing priorities tricky.

I think that the time put toward the story, music, branching paths, and general presentation was all very well spent, thanks for putting together a fun (and definitely outside-of-the-box!) submission for the jam!
🎤 jaj
12. Jan 2023 · 16:46 UTC
@doctor-zeus @cutesquirrel @exofrenon Thank you for the feedback and compliments! This was my first VN, but I enjoyed making it a lot so I'll definitely look into a previous line button and/or savestate system to make replaying easier. Also to use for possible future VN's!

@duncan-3 @noskire Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

@xhadie thank you :). The two normal endings are pretty abrupt, and the game is still missing a proper ending screen.
secrt101
13. Jan 2023 · 05:40 UTC
as others have said, a save function to start from a certain spot would really help. Loved the art and found it refreshing to see a VN! Great writing, I found it funny and entertaining. Amazing job!
pazzi
14. Jan 2023 · 06:54 UTC
Brilliant. The dialogue, feels real and unpredictable at the same time- I'm at a loss....brilliant! ^~^
NBumgardner
20. Jan 2023 · 06:13 UTC
I am very glad someone made this pun!

Adding a way to reset would be nice to save on load times from refreshing the website. Or maybe show "The End" or something on the screen so the non-secret endings look finished and not like the next scene refused to load.

The writing felt believable to me and I look forward to seeing more of your games in the future.