Author Topic: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou VN. (July 2: Demo 2 is out!)  (Read 59661 times)

FinnKaenbyou

  • Formerly Roukanken
  • *
  • blub blub nya
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #60 on: September 07, 2010, 04:48:57 PM »
Ah an important question I have.  For those who played through, did anyone actually visit Koishi during any of the optional visits?  And did people find the end of day stat choices to be mildly amusing interludes or just wastes of time?
I visited her every chance I could get because I wanted to get the Koishi route and got sort of puzzled by the fact that some of her hints never got any use.  I assumed, since Koishi offered to help you on the quest for love and immortality, she'd give clues as to the right choices to make, but a few of the meetings seemeed to offer little of worth:

- First one is just 'Return That Book', which you do whether or not you visit Koishi, so it's kind of pointless.
- Second one is choosing how best to win Eirin's favour. You never get a chance to choose anything in that regard.
- Third one does have relevance, involving how Reimu depends on you shortly before you need to help her with the shrine.
- Koishi Meeting #4 involves helping Flandre understand mortality. I suppose this leads to you bringing up the question with Remi later, so it does have relevance.
- 5 involves Reimu getting a job of some sort and how I need to get her jealous, but then Marisa walks off to chat with Rinnosuke instead. They mention the extermination later, but I couldn't figure out how to make her particularly jealous.
- 6 simply says 'you'll meet someone today, and you should focus on them in a positive way'. Then the Youmu visit happens, but there's no obvious difference based on the choice. Does the way you treat Youmu here affect a choice post-demo?
- 7 is mainly foreshadowing for 'OH CRAP FLANDRE IS GOING TO KILL THINGS'.

1 and 2 in particular are the most offputting in terms of the meetings. Does visiting her often enough lead to the Koishi route, or is there some obscure nigh-impossible series of flags you have to trigger instead? :V

As for stats...well, I just focused on Koishi, so I can't comment there. >_>

Iced Fairy

  • So like if you try to hurt alkaza
  • *
  • I will set you on fire k'?
    • Daisukima Dan Blog
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #61 on: September 07, 2010, 04:58:34 PM »
Hm, seems like we could have done better with them.  I admit we have trouble sometimes giving hints and not utterly detroying the fourth wall.  She does tend to focus on the romantic sections instead of the more linear days.  I'll remember to have Koishi state when her advice will kick in, if possible.

Spoiler:
(Oh and Koishi has 2 flags.  VIsiting and a Koishi Affection stat.  You.... probably overdid the Koishi visits, since you only need 4 or so end day visits to trigger her. :) )

Docteur Hartmann

  • Komeiji Koishi's Father
  • Found a Nice Remote and a Mind Screwing device.
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #62 on: September 09, 2010, 07:29:11 PM »
I think he's asking which program you guys used to make this. It was Ren'py, right?

Yes, that was that.
Thanks.
Bipolar, paranoid, half-crazy, hateful, philanthropic. That's me in a nutshell. And I'm a ddyk. Hahahaha, nobody's gonna get this one.

Kinzo the Astro Curious

  • One small step for Desu; One giant leap for touhou-kind!
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #63 on: September 10, 2010, 12:33:27 AM »
This is absolutely fantastic guys, I loved every minute of it. I think I'll give it another play through and try some more options... maybe I'll visit koishi this time on purpose. (I was focusing too much on the alice route  :V I wanna know the deal with her immortality)

Sorry I haven't had any time this holiday to help out graph, I was hoping I'd get more done than I have unfortunately. Though If I'm honest I much prefer this sketchy background style over the more mechanical style I have anyway. It feels a lot warmer and doesn't distract you from where you would otherwise be looking, at the characters.

Speaking of characters I'm suprised how wide the variety is. I wasn't expecting so many and I've only played through once, so I'm sure I missed plenty of encounters yet.

This is definately worth keeping up. How far do you reckon you are off complete now?

Iced Fairy

  • So like if you try to hurt alkaza
  • *
  • I will set you on fire k'?
    • Daisukima Dan Blog
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #64 on: September 10, 2010, 01:43:55 AM »
This is definately worth keeping up. How far do you reckon you are off complete now?
:ohdear:

I'm... still not sure.

We haven't met a single deadline with this project, so I'm really hesitent to give one now.  It's... going to be a while in my opinion.  Just based off of where we stand writing wise.  I just don't want to give a figure because I know I'm going to try to overestimate, and still underestimate.

Lloyd Dunamis

  • aka Amanie
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #65 on: September 11, 2010, 07:14:13 AM »
Why was I looking in RikaNitori's Garage Experiments...

Iced, here's the notepad I put my comments in :3

Aheheh ^^;; Pardon, I haven't continued to where I left off...
2010.1212 <Sakana> The only time wasted is the time in which you really do nothing at all, not even enjoying yourself
You may send me suspicious files that could be infected/a trojan, and I'll try analyzing it for you. :3 -Mo?ware, your personal Anti-Malware Engineer

SleepKirby

  • ESR coder
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #66 on: September 12, 2010, 05:29:30 AM »
Hi, I'm one of the programmers for this game.

Lloyd, thanks for the comments!  Those are good suggestions on the user interface, I think I actually agree with all of them (especially the ones about the dialogue log).  I'll see how many of those things we can implement.

Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #67 on: September 16, 2010, 06:12:29 AM »
- 6 simply says 'you'll meet someone today, and you should focus on them in a positive way'. Then the Youmu visit happens, but there's no obvious difference based on the choice. Does the way you treat Youmu here affect a choice post-demo?

Spoiler:
]I've been writing the Youmu path, and it's hard for me to say at this point whether or not Youmu's success is dependent on Marisa's action (or perhaps lack of action) since the general consensus is that Youmu should succeed in her training regardless. One of her new attacks from Hisou will actually be learned here, so yeah.
 


Fiction: August Star in Autumn Sky Eastern Wonderland Story Book 1

Lloyd Dunamis

  • aka Amanie
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #68 on: September 22, 2010, 05:29:59 PM »
I swear, I was giggling the whole time Youmu & Yuyuko finally showed up >//////////<

Stopping at 3/15 for now -- gotten sleepy and all?
Also to motivate me to play next time because Youmu & Yuyuko, or I see MarisaXYoumu! Muhehe~<3 >w<

Attached contains the usual comments of mine while I go through the game :3

Edit: Forgot to upload the SaveHistory_screen.jpg yesterday :ohdear:
« Last Edit: September 23, 2010, 04:27:18 AM by Lloyd Dunamis »
2010.1212 <Sakana> The only time wasted is the time in which you really do nothing at all, not even enjoying yourself
You may send me suspicious files that could be infected/a trojan, and I'll try analyzing it for you. :3 -Mo?ware, your personal Anti-Malware Engineer

SleepKirby

  • ESR coder
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #69 on: September 24, 2010, 07:10:23 AM »
Thanks for all the comments, Lloyd!  They'll definitely help us to improve the game.  I wanted to reply to your comments about the user interface, in particular, since you went very in-depth in your suggestions.

Quote
The pop-up message, "Are you sure you want to overwrite your save?" and "Loading will lose unsaved progress. Are you sure you want to do this.", could it have transparency of some sort? Perhaps erase its background, and leave the bordered pop-up message solid (or a little transparent, if it's possible).

Yeah, I thought of something similar.  Currently, I have made the background of the pop-up screen dark and transparent, so that the previous screen is still visible, but looks darkened.  Though, I didn't think of making the pop-up itself a little transparent.  I'll try that and see how it looks.

And yes, I think that message can be worded differently... hmm... how about "If you load, you will quit your current game without saving.  Are you sure you want to do this?" Eh, that might be a bit long - not sure how to improve it really.  Maybe I'll ask the others.

Quote
In the Save History screen, the graphics on the current number and the cursor-highlighted number gives off a hint that it's apparently a square image. I mean, the image you used (if it is an image) for highlighting didn't have the whole white gradient, thus leaving an apparent square border or something.
Ah, good catch.  Will fix that later.

Quote
Also in the Save History screen, the save slots' period (.) in the text "Empty Slot." go off the border. It might just be my computer having an older OS or having older fonts that newer OS's could display in a more slim fashion though.

Yeah, I think I noticed that earlier but forgot about it - thanks for bringing it up.  I think it can be fixed by putting the number and "Empty Slot." on separate lines instead of the same line.  Either way, I should probably program it so that the text always goes to the next line instead of going off the border.

Quote
The Dialogue Log scrollbar's image could take some tweaking -- it looks like it's been enlarged from a small scrollbar image, so it looks pixely.

Yep, this is on my to-do list.  Never got around to getting a more suitable image.

Quote
Title Screens usually have the copyright year, some type of quick disclaimer, stuff&stuff at the bottom-edge or bottom-corner (wherever it seems fitting) of the screen.

Ah, yeah, we should probably do that.  I'll ask the others if we need anything other than copyright and year.

Quote
Remember that stuff I said in my first log (ESRlog1.txt) about the dialogue display?
...
I can think of two solutions:
-pause the dialogue when going to the menu/dialogue log (like I have suggested already)
-display the whole text upon menu/dialogue exit while retaining the auto-play trigger time, to avoid "immediately goes to the next dialogue" upon menu/dialogue exit.

Those are good ideas.  I don't know the internal details about how Ren'Py (the game engine we're using) types text in the dialogue window, so I am not sure if we can make the first suggestion come true.  (I may try to look into it though.)  The second suggestion might be doable - thanks for pointing out that the Quick Save does that already.

-----

I wasn't one of the writers, but I did go over most of the script a few times.  Thanks for the typo corrections.  I will just comment on the missing commas: IcedFairy has said that commas are his weakness :) , but in some cases, I think it is okay to leave out the comma to make Marisa (and some other characters) sound more informal.

Of course, some of these judgments differ from person to person, but to show what I mean: Take "Hey Marisa! Open up!" in 3/12 - if you imagine someone saying "Hey Marisa" without a pause between "Hey" and "Marisa", it doesn't really sound weird, just informal, or perhaps Reimu is just calling Marisa in a hurry.  But compare with "Anyway, we need lumber to fix Reimu's roof Kourin." - I think this needs the comma before Kourin, otherwise it just sounds a bit odd.

In contrast, we probably want someone like Sakuya or Remilia to use commas in all the correct places - unless they become super angry or something.  But that's all just my opinion, and I'm not actually one of the writers. >_>

Anyway, thanks again for the comments!  You're very good at game testing.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2010, 07:21:30 AM by SleepKirby »

Stuffman

  • *
  • We're having a ball!
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #70 on: September 24, 2010, 10:31:51 AM »
I enjoyed this a lot more than I was expecting to.

The premise is pretty interesting, actually maybe a little too interesting; it feels like the immortality thing should be the main plot and the romances just subplots, yet whenever you have choices of what to do they seem targetted at the romance subplots and I keep thinking "shouldn't I be working on that potion"?

There should be a route where Marisa shuns all romance options and becomes obsessed with her immortality research and descends into madness :V

Iced Fairy

  • So like if you try to hurt alkaza
  • *
  • I will set you on fire k'?
    • Daisukima Dan Blog
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #71 on: September 24, 2010, 03:38:31 PM »
I enjoyed this a lot more than I was expecting to.

The premise is pretty interesting, actually maybe a little too interesting; it feels like the immortality thing should be the main plot and the romances just subplots, yet whenever you have choices of what to do they seem targetted at the romance subplots and I keep thinking "shouldn't I be working on that potion"?

There should be a route where Marisa shuns all romance options and becomes obsessed with her immortality research and descends into madness :V
:ohdear: Another ending!?

Actually this comment reasures me a little since I just got done tying the romantic plot and the immortality plot together.

Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #72 on: September 24, 2010, 09:36:41 PM »
Also to motivate me to play next time because Youmu & Yuyuko, or I see MarisaXYoumu! Muhehe~<3 >w<

Well I do try to fit a Youmu appearance into a lot of the days that I work on. But as for MarisaxYoumu... well, Youmu does have Yuyuko, after all. Maybe if we ever do a bonus disk or something.

There should be a route where Marisa shuns all romance options and becomes obsessed with her immortality research and descends into madness :V

Though it's an interesting idea, I think that while we are trying to give the player certain control with what Marisa does with her time, she's not quite the type to shut herself in for very long. 


Fiction: August Star in Autumn Sky Eastern Wonderland Story Book 1

Stuffman

  • *
  • We're having a ball!
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #73 on: September 25, 2010, 05:27:07 AM »
I was only half serious, but grimdark endings are fun :3

Neonie

  • EYE AM A TYE TILL
  • ⑨ Baka Nine
    • Gem Wings
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #74 on: October 18, 2010, 04:27:14 AM »
Wow I've been playing the demo of this for about an hour now and it's actually written really well, quite funny in some parts.

Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #75 on: October 19, 2010, 12:10:22 AM »
I was only half serious, but grimdark endings are fun :3
PoSR bad end confirmed

Iced Fairy

  • So like if you try to hurt alkaza
  • *
  • I will set you on fire k'?
    • Daisukima Dan Blog
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #76 on: April 02, 2011, 12:45:00 AM »
Yeah I know we've been terrible about updating our site, much less keeping people up to date here.  But hopefully we're approaching something of a milestone, so I figured I'd toss out some stuff for people to see.

Also you guys should know what Graph's been making in our art mines.



Here's the explanation for this madness.



Conqueror

  • Here I am, dirty and faceless
  • waiting to heed your instruction
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #78 on: April 02, 2011, 01:25:07 AM »
Oh hey, nice to see this is still alive.


On tue un homme, on est un assassin. On tue des millions d'hommes, on est un conqu?rant. On les tue tous, on est un dieu.
Every saint has a past and every sinner a future.

Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #79 on: April 02, 2011, 01:26:19 AM »
Also the title is misleading and I thought there was a new demo out :ohdear:

Iced Fairy

  • So like if you try to hurt alkaza
  • *
  • I will set you on fire k'?
    • Daisukima Dan Blog
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (The demo is out!)
« Reply #80 on: April 02, 2011, 02:20:57 AM »
Whoops.  I'll see about fixing that.

Might as well state it here in addition to our April 1st update: The 2nd demo will be most likely out during summer, though we'll probably hunt up some testers before the art is 100% done so we can bug hunt better.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2011, 02:23:49 AM by Iced Fairy »

Yuyuko Yakumo

  • Carry me~ow
  • Rawr I eat your face with maaaaaagicalness
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (Updated April 1)
« Reply #81 on: April 02, 2011, 09:33:04 AM »
I love this so far! Can't wait to play the next demo in summer.
I know, I know. I'll get a real avatar and signature soon. -_-

Iced Fairy

  • So like if you try to hurt alkaza
  • *
  • I will set you on fire k'?
    • Daisukima Dan Blog
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou Visual Novel. (Updated April 1)
« Reply #82 on: June 14, 2011, 03:48:29 AM »
2nd demo is almost ready.....

A little under a year ago we released a quick peek at the VN to see what people liked and didn't like about it. We got some positive feedback, and some negative feedback, and we took that and the long list of things we wanted to do, but didn't have time for, and started work on this release. This second demo is more polished, contains most of the features we intend for the main release, and of course contains a much greater chunk of the story (though there's still a lot left). We'll be releasing it to the public soon, but first we need someone outside the dev team to look at it.

We need people who can catch our internal contradictions, point out where we?re just wasting words, and clearly explain why they feel the way they do about our characters. In addition, since we?re working on the late game now, this is probably the best chance to change the direction of the scripts. Some things we?re doing by design (Flandre?s story is very strong early on, while we?re planning on Alice?s end to be very involved) but if characters are too much in the background we need to know now. Our playtesters will have the first shot at giving us that info.

So if you?re interested in being a beta tester please drop us a line at
beta@dsd.faceroll.net . Things to include in the e-mail:

- Your member name on the DSD forums if you?ve registered there.
- How much time you think you can spend testing.
- Any other reasons we should pick you.

If you get chosen we?ll send you info on how to acquire and comment on the demo as soon as we finish all the tweaks we?ve been working on.

Iced Fairy

  • So like if you try to hurt alkaza
  • *
  • I will set you on fire k'?
    • Daisukima Dan Blog
We have a release!

http://dsd.faceroll.net/

Offsite link for Windows : http://www.mediafire.com/?be304y00l600m6c
Offsite link for multiplatform systems: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9C3LWL91

...and I was just about finished my post on the testing board...

cardboard box here i come :ohdear:

Iced Fairy

  • So like if you try to hurt alkaza
  • *
  • I will set you on fire k'?
    • Daisukima Dan Blog
Go ahead and post it.  Something to refer to is always good.

But I'm still cursing you to have market crashes.   >:(  I've been flipping out since yesterday over getting this out.   :derp:

Tengukami

  • Breaking news. Any season.
  • *
  • I said, with a posed look.
We have a release!

http://dsd.faceroll.net/

Offsite link for Windows : http://www.mediafire.com/?be304y00l600m6c
Offsite link for multiplatform systems: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9C3LWL91

This is very cool. Does it come with a list of changes made?

"Human history and growth are both linked closely to strife. Without conflict, humanity would have no impetus for growth. When humans are satisfied with their present condition, they may as well give up on life."

Iced Fairy

  • So like if you try to hurt alkaza
  • *
  • I will set you on fire k'?
    • Daisukima Dan Blog
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou VN. (July 2: Demo 2 is out!)
« Reply #87 on: July 03, 2011, 03:40:05 AM »
Yes, both in the readme and on the blog with the direct download links.

(Seriously don't use the mediafire link.  That's purely for completeness.)

SleepKirby

  • ESR coder
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou VN. (July 2: Demo 2 is out!)
« Reply #88 on: July 03, 2011, 04:13:56 AM »
Here's the Manual/README, complete with screenshots and a list of changes made since demo 1. (This is also in the game package, but that's 200 MB, so if you just want to read the manual first...)
http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=65
« Last Edit: July 03, 2011, 04:33:44 AM by SleepKirby »

Tengukami

  • Breaking news. Any season.
  • *
  • I said, with a posed look.
Re: Eastern Starlight Romance: A Touhou VN. (July 2: Demo 2 is out!)
« Reply #89 on: July 03, 2011, 04:50:40 AM »
Linux version runs great in WINE, and it's overall got a lot more polish - the Read Me was well put together, too, and appreciated. This is looking really professional here. Good work!

"Human history and growth are both linked closely to strife. Without conflict, humanity would have no impetus for growth. When humans are satisfied with their present condition, they may as well give up on life."