Complete playthrough, plus bonus chapters. A short story following a group of two adults and two children on a camping trip, Wide Ocean Big Jacket certainly has a certain charm. Don't expect any big revelations or plot twists here, but for a relaxing experience over the course of an hour or so, there's some enjoyment to be had here. While the game uses a deliberately primitive polygonal graphical style, its strength comes in its writing, with dialog at times amusing and other times poignant. The game didn't hit for me as strongly as it seems to have done for many others, but I can see why it has its fans.

cute, well-told, nice art style. kind of feels like a jam game that felt right so it got another polish pass and released, still a little janky but not in any meaningful way that harms it, but like, that's also because there's not much to harm. i enjoyed my time with it, enjoyed the characters and vibe, but one thing i question consistently when playing games like this, or night in the woods, or gone home, etc. is that a lot of these games (maybe not nitw actually) kind of pack in the narrative of a short story into a 2ish hour experience (i mean a lot of movies do this, too, tbf. arguably short stories are better sources for films than novels) but without a lot of the elegance of it? everything takes a little longer, you have to go in a set path for a while before you get the next bit of story, maybe you even hit some invisible walls along the way or get stuck on an object, and over the course of this time something has to carry you through that and keep you in the moment. i kinda think it has to be the feeling of playing the game, but that aspect of a lot of these games is usually undercooked because it's not essential to the project. i think this game does something kind of cool and comic booky with these conversation circles that change and react to the story bits as you make your way through the dialogue, but there's still something clunky happening here. i think if games like this are gonna really resonate, they need to be more palpable, and that means wasting the time to make a game that platforms as tight as celeste just to not really do much with it. that's probably over the top, but that's what i mean, you need to be able to meaninglessly interact with the environment and explore while still being guided through the story invisibly, it's a tall order, but otherwise it's tough not to play these games with some sense of detachment. i was actually struck while playing this and thinking about how "this form is in its infancy" that even the dialogue in this game is presented like silent movie intertitles. it feels like there's a lot of possibility ahead. now that i think of it, a short hike is a great example of this kind of hybrid approach. anyway, this game really tickled me on a narrative level, gave me some stuff to think about, and was cute and fun, i do recommend it, i played the whole thing over the course of a bath lol.

More or less a 3D visual novel. Well, sort of. The actual dialogue scenes occur in black screens with little hand drawn portraits accompanying the dialogue. The quirky visual style is accompanied by equally quirky writing that is ultimately in service of a story about mundanity, which actually winds up being a fairly nice balance. Wide Ocean, Big Jacket offers nothing that is particularly profound or revelatory but that is in part the point, that small, quiet realizations and conversations are stories worth telling, because they still shape our lives. That might not leave the game with a lot to work with but it makes an impression nonetheless.

Easily one of the best games I played in 2020, condensed into a perfect ~50 minute package. Fantastic characters, genuinely funny writing, and a great aesthetic make WOBJ an unmissable experience. I have to admit that, while packing up the campsite at the end of the game, I was a little disappointed to see the end rapidly approaching. But as the credits rolled, and I was left with a view of the campsite where I've spent the last hour, I'm delighted that the folks at Turnfollow had the confidence to leave it as-is. The short run-time ensures that the peaks stand out, and don't get lost in a swirl of filler.

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!