Burn The Red Eta

oh my GOD.

(SPOILERS)

i'm genuinely kinda speechless, like... how do you even do this? how can you make something this absorbing, this well-written, this atmospheric, this visually stunning, this interesting, this... friggin good???

i don't think i could talk about everything i loved about this game, but i'll try to cover the important stuff haha.

the presentation!! the presentation. thepres entation. phe tresentation. tneh sreatopt tien. uhhhhhhhhh i don't know if everything here was done by you or not but yeah no this is some of the best use of visuals and audio i've ever seen in a jam game. knew from the moment the title screen music played in the beginning and that one note aligned perfectly with the beautifully made title that this game would go hard as shit with its presentation, and it did not disappoint for one second. the music? fcking flawless. so ethereal and magical and sorrowful and absorbing. the violin going crazy when you get close to the correct path never sounded out of place with the music a single time. the tileset? again, i don't know if you made it yourself or not, but it's INCREDIBLE. extremely detailed and conveyed the darkness of this world really well. i feel like it could've looked a bit more "broken" so it could give the feeling of a decaying world even better, but again i don't know if you made it or not, or if that feeling was even the intention. looks phenomenal either way; took a screenshot of the cliff where you find the second note cause it was just that beautiful. the art/cutscenes? this artstyle is so good UUUUGGH. the main character's design is so great and we don't even see their face. the sprites are so good too, i love how the darkness of the forest part makes it hard to decipher what are the creatures that follow you (trees? spiders? mangle from fnaf?). i love how detailed the clover field looks. the sliding/fading pictures in the cutscenes were the cherry on top. oh! and i loved the blurry pixelated filter! really gives off the sense that this story is really old haha. overall i'd give this game's presentation 7 stars if i could. just outstanding :>

the plot... ok i'm ngl i didn't understand a thing but i'm guessing that's because i haven't played this "clock game" haha. but the actual writing was SPECTACULAR. every piece of narration was so eloquent and poetic and beautiful, it genuinely transfixed me. i loved the word choice of so so many parts ("rests on restless shoulders" is my personal fav, along with the jump from 7th to 7 billionth haha), and i felt like i was being told a story by the world itself, it that makes sense? like this universe was actually telling this tale. the writing here is really something special.

the GLITCH MOMENT!!!!! i'm giving it its own section haha. it was honestly so so cool, totally unexpected and the way the screen turns into a mishmash of colors and a ringing sound plays was pitch perfect. i love how you made it look like an actual rpg maker error lol.

if i had to criticize anything, i think the forest part was pretty frustrating. the area was too big and trying to remember which path took where became more annoying that challenging, even with the light from the second time you play. and it's not really clear if i got the two endings or not; the game glitched the first time i beat it, and it glitched again the second time, and i'm not really sure if i have to beat it a third time or find a secret or something like that.

there's a thousand more things i could talk about: the way the font changes when the... creature? devil? speaks, the way it interrupts your walk through the building as "you do not give into temptation" repeats, the way the shovel spins in place before you grab it, the way the lights from the candles expand...

i thought it was illegal to make jam games this good. thank you for making it! :D