Guest of the Moon Princess: CYOA Story - FIXED!

[Tengukami]

http://tengukami.blogspot.com/2010/03/guest-of-moon-princess-cyoa-story.html

I love target links.

This was a lot of fun to write, and a lot of work. A lot of tedious HTML coding to keep it all on one page, and then making sure there were no dead ends, loops or incongruent transitions.

There's a number of bad ends, but the bad ends give hints before you start again.

Please enjoy it, and let me know if there are any glitches I missed. I would also love your feedback on the "gameplay" aspect of this, as it's my submission for the Visual Novel Project here.

Thanks!

EDIT: Gave the links a second going-over, and they should be all fixed now.

EDIT2: Dialogue fixed.

[Tunasatomimi no Miko]

Whew, first work to be added to the list on new shiny forums~

Also, Congrats on becoming a Shrine Janitor, Tengu! Very late edit: Damn similar colors, Gensokyo Cop I mean.

[Professor Paul1290]

I really like this one, but there does seem to be a couple problem links.


Both of the "oh boy, a secret passage" links for telling a story to Flandre don't seem to work.

The second "The Forest of Magic" part has a link that says "Thanks all the same, I'm going to hang out with Alice." instead of Marisa.


EDIT:
Ugh, darn I can't get spoilers to work. Well I guess they aren't that bad.

[Tengukami]

Fixed. Thanks for the head's up!

[sera]

This is a neat little CYOA and a fun read, thanks for sharing it! I don't see any major issues with the gameplay; the only problem I notice is that you can give Kaguya a particular gift without having obtained that gift already. I'm not sure how that'd be fixed, though.

I hope people start making more Touhou-based VNs/CYOAs; the genre's one of my favorites, but I haven't read any centered on Touhou before this. I'd try writing my own if I had more commitment and time (wait, that's not an excuse anymore, it's spring break... yeah I really should do something productive).

[Rouceanus Shenron]

I hadn't even noticed I picked up the winning item until about my tenth try

Anyway, this is pretty cool. Nice work.

[sera]

(Response to Tengukami's PM, since I'm not allowed to send personal messages yet. Sorry about the bother)

The 'possible to give a gift without receiving first' applies to the [redacted].

[Tengukami]

(Response to Tengukami's PM, since I'm not allowed to send personal messages yet. Sorry about the bother)

The 'possible to give a gift without receiving first' applies to the [redacted].

This isn't a bug but a feature. I am relying on the reader to be honest about what items they've acquired, because I can't have "locked" sections of the story that can only be unlocked if you have passed a certain story arc.

In other words, if you are given the choice of the three different possible items that you could have, choose only those ones you actually have.

[sera]

Hmm, that makes sense; I guess most readers wouldn't choose a gift they hadn't picked up yet, anyway. Again, sorry for bothering!

[Tengukami]

It's not a bother. I'm trying to make the most fun CYOA that I can, so it's appreciated.

EDIT: Prefaced the story with a note about item collection, thanks.

EDIT: Thanks, Purvis. That's a good point. I will add pauses in the dialogue where the protagonist responds.

EDIT: 'Talking to self' type dialogue fixed.

[Funkapurvis]

Got to the end with only one death. Fuckin' Tewi

About the only complaint I have is that explanations are taken without a break in text. Like this: ""Well, you're here now. What does she have you doing? Really? Best of luck with that. The moon princess hasn't been in much of a having-guests mood ever since the banquet got out of hand."

Doesn't flow all that well. Instead it just sorta looks like they're talking to themselves.

[Suikama]

Kita!! ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!

So, I assume you'll get working on those storyboards and outlines soon. And then there's the issue of artists but I guess we can deal with that when it comes

[Tengukami]

Kita!! ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!

So, I assume you'll get working on those storyboards and outlines soon. And then there's the issue of artists but I guess we can deal with that when it comes

I'd be happy to learn how to write a script for a VN. I'm guessing the information is available online somewhere.

[Suikama]

# A storyboard: This is to outline how everything will happen. The basic format should be something like this:

Start
Fade in
Play musicZUN
Show background1
Show lines 1 to 10 (in the notepad++ document with your story)
Transition to background2
Show line 11
Show Happy chen
Play CHEEEEEN sound effect
etc
(funny enough this is basically how Ren'Py code works)

Now this might be kinda time consuming, so you don't have to outline every little thing. You can shorten it up a bit an generalize at some parts. For instance you can say stuff like, "generally use Chen!happy except whenever she is sad use Chen!sad" "whenever Ran chengasms play CHEEEN sound effect" etc, and then leave all the hard work to me .
You can also specify things like transitions, text color, fonts, screen effects (like all the flashy stuff in Umineko), whatever else you can think of, and I'll do my best to incorporate it into the VN.
Oh yeah another note, you can also specify the text to either be at the bottom of the screen, or cover the whole screen.

# An overall outline: This is only necessary if you want to make a multipath story where the reader makes choices and stuff. Basically I need a flowchart of what choices lead to what paths and so on.

This is what I need. Remember to have your story in a notepad++ file so I know which line your talking about. If for w/e reason you can't do this, then you'll have to specifically refer to what lines your talking about with either excerpts or just copypasting it.

[Tengukami]

Alright, I can do that. I'll have a better idea about the time frame on Tuesday.

[Suikama]

To clarify on the outline, here a good example: http://ks.renai.us/download/file.php?id=957

[Tengukami]

I love flow charts!

[Suikama]

I love flow charts!

hi5

Alright now for some actual thoughts on the work itself. What struck me immediately as a bit odd is that you're supposedly some random guy and yet somehow you already know everyone's names before they have introduced themselves.

One more thing is that you may have to reword some areas for the visual novel. For example instances of  "she said" aren't really necessary. Anyways we'll see how it turns out.

[Tengukami]

Ah, yeah, the guy already totally familiar with Gensokyo and its residents is my having a tongue-in-cheek approach to breaking the fourth wall. i.e., you, just your average Touhou fan, gapped. That could easily be changed, though. A total stranger to the world is just as fine.

[Suikama]

So how's it coming along?

[Tengukami]

Slowly but surely. Finished the Inn arc, working on the Blacksmith arc.