Talleyrand Simulator

This is one of the most UNIQUE visual novels I've played in a long while! I honestly never would have guessed I would enjoy a visual novel about history of all things (being one of my least favorite subjects in school), but, by golly, the team did it. 

I'll start with the technical aspects! 

The GUI was absolutely stunning, of course - the gold and blue color palette was gorgeous, and it really fit the "opulence of the nobility" that Talleyrand's character has. For some reason the champagne popping sound effect for the UI clicks made me laugh so much LMAO it was so fitting! The BGM was quite pleasant to listen to and fit the humorous tone. 

There were many different artists on the project, and as a result most of the sprites were drawn by different ones. I quite liked this choice! Apart from the obvious factor of not burdening one artist with 24 sprites for a one month game jam, it also helped make the characters look distinct and memorable, even when there were so many of them. All of the voice actors did a fantastic job with bringing the characters to life, and I was very impressed with their performances. Instead of sprite expression changes, the VN makes use of little animated emotes that can be reused between sprites. It's quite cute, and it struck me was a clever way to efficiently use assets, especially with so many sprites. I also really liked the choice of gender and race-swapping so many of the characters here (and also making it much more queer) - it made it SO much more entertaining and memorable to play (gosh I don't know what I would have done if all of the characters were old white men in the same outfit, I think I would have gone insane...) 

The character customization - the choice of portraits, with different skin colors for each, and even different voices for the leads - is nothing short of incredible, ESPECIALLY for a free project - and a ONE MONTH jam project, at that. It's nothing short of jaw-dropping. 

Now, moving on to the writing...

I'll be honest, I've never been much of one for history, so I was frantically trying to remember my high school European/World history as I was playing this, haha! However, despite my lack of knowledge, I found this quite enjoyable and engaging nonetheless. Despite the sheer complexity of everything that was going on, I found it quite clear to follow (and I do feel like a learned quite a bit, haha! Although I'm not sure how much of it was fictionalized, alas! I was Wikipedia-ing quite a lot as I played this!) 

I am in love with the writing style for this project! It's "opulent," exactly in the way that I imagine a nobleman with too much money for his own good might speak, and it perfectly matches the tongue-in-cheek, satiric tone of the game. There are MANY memorable lines that made me do a double take with how witty they were, but these in particular stuck out to me the most (as an American dfgdgdfgdf):

"But this is America - this is no place to emulate the ancient rites of decrepit feudal lords. This is a place to emulate the newfound rights of land-speculating capitalist lords" 

The line is very well-put (and pretty relevant, even now!) 

THE CHOICES DFGDF When I was given the choice to either support the revolution or the monarchy and then IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARD I was given lunch options I nearly choked, the irony of it was so funny. And it really hammered home how ridiculous all of these nobles/politicians were - deciding the fate of entire countries and playing political games while also having no real understanding of the plight of the working class (fitting that the game ended with Dorothea having an outing with Marx...). 

Overall the script was very engaging, with a good mix of actual discussion of politics and humor (ranging from the satirical to the simply absurd). And despite the parody it also managed to highlight some pretty interesting themes about the dangers of power and corruption (particularly through the monologues certain characters put on at key points in the story). It is expressly clear, both through the comedy and the way the story is told, WHY each of the regimes fell. 

More than anything, I could really tell that this game was bursting with a lot of love and passion for the subject matter, and I'm simply awed by how much was accomplished in a single month. The entire team did a really great job!