Very nice game! As the worlds biggest Cyberpunk fan ever (this is an official title, don't @ me) this checked a lot of boxes and really knew what it was writing about. From the understanding of immunosuppressants, to cybernetic side effects, to the horror inherent not just in a cyberpunk setting but also the horror of these kinds of corporate/military institutions. This game really touched on a very strong emotional core, and despite my lack of familiarity with MalViolence I never found myself confused or left behind by the game's writing.

Well, this was one hell of a way to get me interested in MalViolence! The core story is so interesting, and the different ways it was conveyed helped keep me engaged the whole time; switching from research log, to journal, text message and video interview was a really good idea to keep things fresh. It also made it hard to put down! Even when I needed to do something else, I kept thinking, "I'll just see this next one!" ...and before I knew it, I just played through the whole thing! Dr. Deirdre was such a great protagonist, and it was great seeing her grow from someone more or less complacent, believing it was possible to reform STOP from within, to someone willing to take actual action against them. The climax of the story was so tense!

Presentation wise, this is top notch stuff! The production values feel so high, I'm amazed that you were all able to complete this in a month! Fantastic UI as well. Great work to the whole team, and I'm looking forward to trying out MalViolence next!

Beautiful--fantastic writing and presentation.  Amazing characters.  This gut wrenching story of a researcher  and their struggle to stand up to the forces that have commandeered her research even as she sees the stakes rising like a tide hits SO HARD.  I was deeply moved am not ashamed to admit that cried more than once as I played.  I was especially impressed at the way Pavil, who seems to be coded as neurodivergent,  communicates his feelings, and how we (our individual as well as our collective selves) respond to him really rounds out the themes of the story. I loved how pace starts slow and thoughtful, and by the end it's a dead sprint.  Very well done!

wow finally got to finish this and, like I predicted, it's GREAT! I loved how the story is presented, text bubbles, adv, phone, documents, the way text is handled makes everything so dynamic and perfectly complements the beautiful art! well done!

WOW. Absolutely stunning delivery, my heart was in my throat the whole time. I love the character designs, the UI, the music, the story, everything felt seamless and I was completely immersed.

Pavel is so sweet, and I could absolutely relate to him, doodling in the corners of my books growing up. This reminds me of some brutal schooling systems in asia, especially the callousness of Angie. I was put right in the head of an overachiever academic and her reflections as she considered the career she had at stake and her morals were just SO GOOD!

At first, I thought the various media seemed tedious but it gave SUCH A POWERFUL FEELING when I was waiting for Pavel after processing

What a horrible term, processing. The clinical speak and whole tone of the story just click so well, and seeing Dr Deidre reflect through various media made it all the stronger

super polished with a heartwrenching story! really great voice-acting and camera work, too!

Oh my STARS this one hits all my soft spots: I adore stories that feature well-intentioned scientific geniuses who end up lost in the sauce, and later attempt to course-correct when their ideas escape their intended scope (gotta love the hot-house flowers that bloom, and then are horrified to find themselves an invasive species!); and as the parent of a child who best thrives when her unique needs are recognized and met, Pavel's storyline absolutely shattered me. The art is simple but stunning, and the cinematography hits the sweet spot for me in terms of adding to the story with life and motion, without subtracting by being unnecessarily distracting and moving for movement's sake alone: there is never any question whose viewpoint the camera represents, nor does it ever seem to shift unnecessarily or to the detriment of the story itself. An extraordinary achievement, particularly given the constraints of the jam--brilliant, brilliant work!

Incredibly well polished with very cohesive art direction and camera positioning. Absolutely haunting read. I am struggling to put all the things i feel into words, but know that it was Super Effective on me. Kudos to the entire team, that was incredibly harrowing and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Hey yo, wtf. Way to make a great horror entry! None of the other games I've played so far have gotten to me in the way that this one did. It was incredibly well polished, and painful to play. Good work, but also how dare you do that to such a sweet boy. 

I am like. So miserable right now lol <-- (I promise this is a compliment)

I work with children on a daily basis, so this story was pretty much engineered to hit me where it hurts... seeing the conditions that the kids endured, the way they were treated by all of STOP's employees, and watching Pavel's horrific transformation from a bright kid to a person broken by all the trauma piled onto him... uh, I am gonna have to try extra hard to be normal when I go to work in an hour LMAOOOOO. In particular, Dr. Deidre's earlier case study critiquing the rigorous schooling and Dr. Tan's comment about "throwing them snacks just to see if they run harder" mirror some of my real-life experiences (in education, not in a child testing lab, thank god) and sort of got my blood boiling haha.

I liked the art a lot - all of it is very cohesive, not to mention extremely well-presented. The combination of speech bubbles, NVL-style text, textboxes, and records combined with the panning backgrounds and the very dynamic sprites made this such a fun and beautiful game to watch. 

Overall, I'm so so impressed with how polished this game is for something that was made for a 30-day jam; it speaks volumes of both your prior experience and your clear vision for what you wanted this game to be. There are so many other myriad Thoughts (not to mention vague Feelings that haven't yet become Thoughts) that I want to communicate about what an experience this game was, but I fear that if I tried to get them all down this comment would end up very disjointed and rambly, haha.

Thanks very much for sharing this game, and I'll definitely be checking out malViolence after I've finished with this year's Spooktober entries!

(also I will be reposting this comment on the game page for algorithm reasons)

Absolutely outstanding visuals and haunting story. The speech bubbles make it feel like watching animated series while the various phones chats, logs and diaries add some interesting variety and depth to the story. The cinematography is absolutely amazing! Like seriously, that camerawork must have taken ages to do!

The partial VA really drives the emotions home. I grew really attached to Pavel throughout the story, the characters were amazing with very memorable designs. That whole team did an amazing job!

Thank you for making this game!

MalViolence Was a good puzzle visual novel, with a wonderful story. This ties in so beautifully, and its all so heart clenching, Highly recommend you play and experience them both! Developer has a good brain to come up with this stuff
SPOILS:

(I also desperately want a game to play as a villain, the closest i can get is the agent taking over for dr. danger. And i will gladly take it.)

I-I... I don't have words.... As someone who plays Malviolence. I thought i will handle it but... the music, color, voice acting is so goood!!! And its makes me feel so bad.

 wishing a french version of this game and malviolence for my friends. And i really like your work please keep doing what you like. 

(i will not lie i really hope a 3rd game👀)

This game was so, so good; I wish I was a little more eloquent so I could better sing its praises! I loved the creativity in the UI--the computer/diary setup felt very clever and impressive! The setting was portrayed in such a deliciously ominous way throughout the game, with the looming black structure that takes up most of the screen in parts really adding to the sense of dread. The character design was sweet and charming, and everyone felt very fleshed out for something that is (relatively) pretty short! Pavel really is a cutie pie, and watching the events unfold definitely pulled at my heartstrings...  he deserved so much better ;-;

One thing stood out to me above all, and that was the color design. The artists did an excellent job with the palette. For the most part, the colors present as bright, clean, cool tones that really enhance the coldness and sterility of the setting. And then, the warm, fiery red and orange tones that color the darker scenes, leading into the climax as Deidre's plan comes to fruition... ugh, so good. Really well done overall, and I'm impressed at the quality for a month of work. Kudos to everyone!

Is it bad that I wish this were even grimmer than it is? x3 I'm terrible, sorry T_T Feed me moooore despaaaair x3 Honestly though, I do love my horror on the dark side, and I think this is probably the darkest one I've played so far from the jam in terms of the narrative, so thank you for that ^-^ Wonderfully heartwrenching and bittersweet! 

I've been saying this a lot this spooktober (because there are so many incredible games!), so I can only apologise if I sound like a broken record at this point, but this is unbelievably slick and stylish! Probably one of the most stylish ones I've played so far in fact :3 The art & cinematography are beyond gorgeous, especially in some of those scenes towards the end! Just *chef's kiss* :D

I really love the way the whole thing is presented with different UIs and ways of printing the text onto the screen. It means there's always something cool to look at and your eyes are getting a treat the entire way through, haha.

The voice acting was fantastic as well, and as much as I adore and have a preference for full voice acting in stuff, there's no denying that the use of partial VA here absolutely meant that it packed more of a punch at the perfect moments :3

Overall, a fabulous triumph of a VN ^-^ I shall have to check out malViolence someday!!

Beware!!! Slightly spoilery side comments below:



*High five* for having Pavel as a name cos I have a couple of relatives also named that x3

*Double high five* for both of us having dramatic hospital bed reveal scenes in our spooktober games xD Love it!

This hurts a lot, but in the good way, it was really hard to go through this without the emotion taking over at some points. How you people manage with such great art, design, music and writing in such a short time is incredible. I'm very glad to see more out of these characters from malviolence, it's horrifying to see even. Thank you for giving us such quality.

Oh this is excellent, I could tell right off the bat. The UI must have been insane to program.
I love the sprites, it's all very... dynamic and they mesh with the backgrounds well vis a vis tone. And just excellente in terms of art, I'm not sure what you used but it's giving ms paint in a good way.
Very much enjoyed the characters, especially Pavel but I assume that was by design.
My only critisism is that even though the textbox was as opaque as I could make it, the contrast of the text on it was a little disorienting.

One of the most cinematic i've seen so far! It felt like I was experiencing an anime before my eyes! The story had a lot of intrigue, and the characters were compelling and very well designed! 

The dread inducing moments were gut wrenching but definitely supplied my horror fan sensitivities hahaha. 

The sound was also well thought out, the music was on point and the effects really elevated the experience, it is a total package!  

Overall great job! 

What a wild one - Incredibly horrific, but in an expertly crafted way. The storytelling and world-building are well-done, the intermittent voices work well, and the cinematography was well thought out - plus always nice to have a wider variety of accessibility options. Not halloween themed per se, so much as straight-up cyberpunk horror - definitely worth reading the content warnings, to say the least!