On Wednesdays is trope-heavy, irreverent, and packed with odes to classic high school films. At times it is hilarious with a darkly comic edge honed by poking at cliches, at other times it is conceptually solid even amidst random and incoherent segues. Unfortunately, despite heavy story chops, the gameplay brings it down. Battles are repetitive and shallow, some of the town structure is incoherent and baffling, and design decisions are sometimes jarring and unintuitive. The game, however, is short, spanning less than 30 minutes in length, and at least providing a fresh and unique take on the frequently schmaltzy setting overcrowded with harem-based Visual Novels - the high school setting.

The game’s ode to seminal films isn’t surprising, considering developer Cap_H (otherwise known as Capage or Captain Hovado) is a screenwriting student himself. A teen girl named Africa, due to the her parents’ extreme obsession with the continent, goes to a school that is dominated by the popular trio The RTPs, mirroring Mean Girls’ pink-donning girl posse The Plastics. The concept is fuelled by a high school wish-fulfilment dream, with catty backstabbing and lipstick on mirrors reigning supreme.

Fair warning: spelling and grammatical errors pervade this game. Capage is an international developer, and his grasp of English, whilst improving, is still less than perfect. However, one aspect I appreciate about Cap’s writing is that, while not being standard English, there is a pleasing flavour to some seemingly incorrect usages of words. As Kurt Vonnegut would put it, “the result is usually delightful, like a very pretty girl with one eye that is green and one that is blue”.



Starting off evocatively and with strength, the first line captivates and only draws one in from there. Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer-like in terms of framing, the game begins with a tensely baffling intro and waffles on to its less than stellar gameplay counterpart. For the most part, On Wednesdays is a string of cutscenes, which is not at all unwelcome considering dialogue is the game's strong suit. It's a pity that the game is too short to develop any of its characters to any capacity, and that the situations that happen are loosely correlated but do not construct an engaging overall arc. The idea of a deathly prophecy spelling doom over the main protagonist's life is engaging and mystical, but the mystery is not developed, considering that all the main protagonist does while waiting for the day is wonder whether it is true or not. No mental preparations are made except for the unseeming final decision to face her fears, and I did not connect to the main protagonist's fear of the inevitable doomed conclusion.

The inciting incident is when Africa is invited by the exclusive club of RTPs to join their table at lunchtime. Apparently this is a huge thing. They call each other "byatches" and wear pink on Wednesdays, which is a direct reference to Mean Girls. However, it is subverted to read "on Wednesdays we wear swords", which is foreshadowing of the deathly prophecy once again.

In the game, you must choose between 4 cliques: the Elves, the Artists, the Freaks and the RTPs. The game contains RMN references, of which I counted: direct cameos and main roles for 3 users, references to 4 users, references to 6 games including a simulated board game version of a community game (do not be misled, this portion does not contain any gameplay related to the game, but it's a loving sendup).



The world's structure hints on a dynamic model that may have proved interesting, being able to return to previous areas and find new content, but there simply isn't enough content, due to time constraints or otherwise, that had been implemented in the game to warrant several visits. I suggest that a longer game with more branching paths would benefit from this structure, as long as there is very many things to do when you return to a new area, and that different events happen on different days, some of which are missable, so you would have to choose between events.



This is your world map. It's cute, compressed, and contains separated easy-to-enter locations. But due to the limited nature of the RTP, the sprites don't always reflect what is inside. Some sprites are non-interactable when I believe they should be, such as the shopkeeper, who should at least say "hey" when you interact with him. Currently, no feedback is given when you press SPACE BAR while facing him.

Fighting is a bit lazily implemented, requiring you to grind on arena creeps at a ninja-led training facility until you're strong enough to venture into a dungeon. It would have been more engaging to make combat a central component of the gameplay canvas rather than as an aside that happened to be compulsory that you would have to grind and train for. Fighting is heavily imbalanced in favour of more encounters. 2 weak enemies are a lot stronger than 1 strong enemy, and this is a sign that battles have not been balanced extensively. Given that this was made for a contest within the span of 10 days, this is forgivable, but viewing through the lens of objectivity, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Another design mistake is when items are given to you, but you are not notified what is given. For example, an NPC will say, "Here, have this", but there is no notification as to which item you've got. The final boss fight is not very thrilling, because 3/4 party members are trained not due to your competence, and they are controlled via AI, making for an unexciting boss fight.

Summary
On Wednesdays is a refreshingly offbeat, story-centric high school homage with abundant references and humour that derives from intending to appear unintentionally hilarious. As such, it's irreverently funny, but flawed in the area of repetitive gameplay, strange design decisions and a counterintuitive structure. The cameos and RMN references are hilarious and on-point, with what could be potentially lovable characters if given time to mature in a longer game. The game is still enjoyable if you ignore gameplay aspects, and perhaps do the taboo thing and give yourself a couple levels in the editor before playing, so you won't get too frustrated. The concept of the game is full of promise.

I give On Wednesdays a reluctant 2.5/5.