look i'm a mark for quippy indie games about small slices of mundane lives that may or may not reveal other things going on with the characters and Wide Ocean Big Jacket isn't NOT one of those but it's certainly a sweeter and quieter one than most, and i do mean that in a good way.

i've been ben and i've been cloanne and i've been brad here, and i think the game is actually better for not having a big gotcha or real hidden darkness, for choosing to spend its time sitting with quiet fun and mundane conflict.

i also gotta give the game kudos for doing a good job at capturing the adolescent and the 30-something points of view separately and when they're interacting. You see a lot of projects doing one of those or the other but mixing those voices and doing both of them well is a cool little treat.

and as ever game that can do cool shit like this in like an hour is always welcome thank you for short games

Wide Ocean Big Jacket é uma historinha curta recheada de personagens fascinantes, uma narrativa super agradável, ambientação relaxante, diálogos divertidos e intrigantes e um visual super bonitinho e estiloso.

Imagine que alguns anos atrás você fez uma viagem que durou um final de semana. Foi uma viagem super simples, sem grandes acontecimentos, mas foi super divertida, cheia de conversas e uma sensação de paz e tranquilidade inexplicável. A viagem foi tão curta né? Pois é... E é bem capaz que você nunca mais faça uma viagem como essa, ela vai existir somente como uma memória que aquece seu coração toda vez que você se lembra dela, aquele tipo de memória que você quer morar dentro para sempre. Infelizmente, isso é impossível. Mas tudo bem, outras viagens virão e novas memórias serão criadas. Afinal, é assim que a vida é.

Acho que isso resume bem como eu me sinto em relação a Wide Ocean Big Jacket.

There are a lot of little/simple game design gestures in this project that are just so well executed and seamless that make it pretty easy to admire this project.

Moments where the playable character turns to perform a task, executes a small action, and then turns back around to continue their tasks to find the scene changed behind them in order to enable new moments of interaction/dialog are just such an inventive and subtle way of working around cumbersome and unnecessary animation while nicely fitting into the overall distinct aesthetic crafted by Turnfollow.

The dialog also feels so effortlessly written; so natural and carefree, so unburdened by the need to "REALLY EXPRESS SOMETHING" and as a result flows in profound, moving, and delicate ways. There's moments that just just "right" and they happen all the time. The way the characters interact with each other is so consistently written that every time you change playable characters it doesn't feel jarring or uncomfortable.

The "arc" is also so nicely crafted—so clearly set up and then so satisfyingly delivered. You go from "this is cute" to "I'm feeling something" to "I've been there" to "I don't want this to end" in such a wonderful way. Nothing feels alarming or unrealistic, but also not so pedantically predictable or trite. It's "coming of age" meets "knowing your place" in a way that confronts and sensitively challenges the tired tropes of each of those literary and game design genres.

WOBJ is genuine without being twee, sincere without being saccharine, wistful without being childish, mature without being pretentious.

charming art-house style without pretention, gorgeous lo-fi visuals, short and simple to play

subtly hilarious and believable writing

perfect afternoon into evening game

make sure you go check all the art in chapter select after finishing the game

sweet, funny, and poignant all at the right moments. to me it captures the term visual novel beautifully. the visuals are more than words on a screen, rather they create a positive, relaxing atmosphere for what amounts to a small story to live beyond some pages or a computer app.

it's like textbook definition of what makes a game a game (and not a movie or a book).

also i cried at some nerd kid putting a stick away. gaming!

Reminded me most frequently of Before Midnight - my least favourite of Linklater’s Before movies, but nonetheless an impressive feat for a little text-based walking sim that I played on my telephone. Video games aren’t often able to invoke the feeling of serious/arthousey cinema (despite many of them desperately, desperately trying to), so it’s always nice when a lo-fi lo-budget experience somehow manages to draw that precise curve of style, substance and feeling that good film evokes. Almost singlehandedly redeems the Flat Design, California Camping and Twitter-Speaking game genre/aesthetic movements in a single hour. A truthful triumph of human relationships! Fingers crossed that we get a 7/14/21-year Big Jacket trilogy that tracks this cute little quad’s progress through life’s biggest trek.

Lingers. Could have gone for another hour or two without a hiccup but the beauty of something like this is that it ends without any concrete answers to the established character/narrative arcs. Such are waning memories. Only the moments of implied catharsis shine brightest. The smaller, possibly even more meaningful gestures, fade away with the mist of moonlit waves. Before you know it the vacation ends, the recollection simply that. A pocket in time that existed for a short while. There are no stakes but to simply observe playful interactions coated with minimalist nature designs. It's simple and cute and occasionally touching, and that's all it needed to be.

A nice little game that can be easily completed in one sitting. The style is cute and I especially liked how dialogue was presented, as well as how it was written. The story is pretty simple but full of fun characters and also is a concept I haven't really seen done much before in any medium, with some interesting themes. My main problem is actually that it's too short and could use some padding. The dialogue is good but in a lot of scenes that's all there is to do, and some more segments like the bird watching section or the unpacking the car section for example I think would really add to the game and give you some more time to digest the story after some key moments. If you play it keep an eye out for the bonus chapters at the end, they're nice.