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Eastern Starlight Romance is a Visual Novel focusing on Marisa's search for immortality and companionship right after Subterranean Animism.
(http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_123_23565.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_3_418545.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_123_12269.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_3_527284.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_123_27433.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_3_466756.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_123_9827.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_3_404423.png)
(http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_123_7160.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_3_358196.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_123_6469.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_3_140433.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_123_21849.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_3_520118.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_123_26445.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_3_564305.png)
(http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_123_10360.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_3_348144.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_123_1275.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_3_220487.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_123_30909.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_3_62945.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_123_15657.png) (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/uploads/1308635784/gallery_2_3_467674.png)
We hit a few snags, but in the end, we've got a public release for you. You can get a direct download and a short list of the changes on our site here:
http://dsd.faceroll.net/?p=325
If you just want to grab it from off site (and if you're willing to put up with mediafire/megaupload), you can grab the demo from these links as well:
Eastern Starlight Romance download (Win32) (http://www.mediafire.com/?be304y00l600m6c)
Eastern Starlight Romance download (All OS) (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9C3LWL91)
The README, for some quick info (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/index.php?app=downloads&module=display§ion=download&do=confirm_download&id=65)
We've had a lot of fun putting this together, and I hope you all enjoy it.
The blog. (http://dsd.faceroll.net/)
The forums. (http://dsd.faceroll.net/forums/)
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"Don't worry Flan, Marisa's not going to turn into one of those people with no eyes."
...What?! :yukkuri:
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"Don't worry Flan, Marisa's not going to turn into one of those people with no eyes."
...What?! :yukkuri:
Mark of the Faceless Protagonist.
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I'm starting up a screenshot gallery on the forums, here (http://dsd.pkmndestruction.net/forums/index.php?app=gallery&module=cats&do=sc&cat=3).
There's not many matches for characters and backgrounds yet, but I'll post more as I get them done.
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Does that mean we're going to have Marisa onscreen eventually? :D
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Well now that we've shifted gears and locations, I should probably help transform this into more of a rundown of what we've done then a recruitment poster.
As Graph said this is a romance VN, starring Marisa, that focuses on her quest for immortality and the repercussions there of. It started around last Thanksgiving off a thread in Poolshimer and as usual there was a great amunt of initial interest and then a mass exodus. However unlike in most projects of this type, those of us who expected this stuck around and formed a nice core design team. And we've been working steadily on it ever since. Though happenstance and sheer bloody mindedness I acquired the position of lead writer while Graph claimed the head artist role (though if anyone wants to give him a hand...).
We chose Marisa... well because it was easy from a romance angle, and because there was a lot of interesting work that could be done with her quest to live forever. In fact the immortality choice easily is a third of the game in and of itself, and it's very heavily tied into both your romance options and your friendships with the main characters you choose not to pursue romantically.
Timing wise we tossed this in the spring after SA. So UFO and 12.3 (and the hilarious fallout thereof) will appear in game from Marisa's point of view. While the first screenshot isn't in the game (yet...) everything else should appear when we get enough together to put out a quality demo.
Anyway feel free to ask questions about the project, plot my demise, guess which writer did which excerpt or build little shrines to Graph.
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I'm curious about what you guys are make this visual novel. You seem to have writers and artists and stuff but no programmers or even a program to use.
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I'm curious about what you guys are make this visual novel. You seem to have writers and artists and stuff but no programmers or even a program to use.
Ah yes, we're using Ren'py for the program simply because it is fairly easy. We also have a good programmer Sigma, who's currently mainly tinkering up internal betas for us at this point since we need a full product before he can go all out. He also stated that he can tinker up some more intricate stuff if necessary, but we're probably just going to be giving him headaches with all the branch paths and variables we've got.
Edit: I should also note we have a musician in our merry band as well whos already given us some songs for us. Admittedly that's another area where one person has a bit of a hard time of things, but we may be getting some help for that soon.
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This sounds interesting to me.
Depending on how long till you want it done, what your after, and what degree of qaulity, I might be able to contribute CG backdrops and probably some interface buttons. I like doing buildings and items, and can probably blend what I cant do from photos as I'm not too terrible with photoshop either, although im no expert with PS compared to some lol. Looking at the list the one that'd specificly give me difficulty is the forest. Natural forms I haven't done much work with. I primarily do this kinda modelling in Sketchup and fiddle it where needed be in PS, so you get a drawn outlined style as I like that anyway. Bryce can do the natural forms better for the forest but its a proper renderer - so no lines.
Only concern though is that I'm pretty busy at the moment, I likely wont have enough free time to make any serious effort to assist till june. Though if I found time I wouldnt mind adding some bits in here and there.
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As luck would have it, nature backgrounds seem to be the easiest to grab stock photos for (we've been going to DA for that lately). If you can do buildings that would be great.
For hand-drawn/ painted bgs I'm not expecting overly much. I made this filler piece for the Meiling screenshot on the main site:
(http://s874.photobucket.com/albums/ab304/GraphyteR/gallery_2_15_284028.png)
Going in the filtered photos direction, we got stuff like this... we simplify the gradation a bit to give a feel like a painting.
(http://s874.photobucket.com/albums/ab304/GraphyteR/gallery_9_15_172579.jpg)
Probably the stuff most in demand now is bgs for Marisa's house and Alice's house, both having a kinda 19th century flavor. I expect I'll still be tidying up on things in June so I don't think timing is a large issue... even if your stuff doesn't make it for the demo, it'll still be good for the full release. If you show me some passable samples of your work, here or on the dev site, we'll let you aboard the dev team. Any other questions, just ask away.
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I really like those images actually. They've got a lot of character.
Most relevant best examples I have to hand are these I suppose.
Probably the most detailed building I've done so far. Its actually hollow inside with beams along the ceiling.
http://luketorpedo.deviantart.com/art/Tavern-153890608 (http://luketorpedo.deviantart.com/art/Tavern-153890608)
The ship is sketchup, the background is bryce, effects photoshop.
http://luketorpedo.deviantart.com/art/Transport-landing-71839275 (http://luketorpedo.deviantart.com/art/Transport-landing-71839275)
Background is some random photo off the internet, foreground sketchup again.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a180/manmuppet/monolithic.jpg (http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a180/manmuppet/monolithic.jpg)
Tend to usually make spaceship models when I'm bored so thats where most of the effort went, hence not too many backgrounds other than those two. I do have one scene done in all 3d, but its a mechanical enviroment so not really relevant.
Think I like your inked style there on the first image though. Its sort of like what you get in flash animations.
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Looking good! We'll probably want to work on softening the edges and textures for the BGs, but I think you've got a solid base to work with. If you Register on the dev forums (http://dsd.pkmndestruction.net/forums/) I'll ask Sigma to add you to the Developer group, and then we can get down to details.
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Having done some *minor* writing for the project before dropping out due to university and still having access to the forums, if there is one thing I can stress is that this VN has ridiculous amounts of potential. If you have any of the talents Graph mentioned, please help these guys out, because the end result should be fantastic.
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Hm... I figure'd I should add this on at least once.
Now that we've started a serious drive towards a release (even if that is still a while off) I'm planning on updating our blog (http://dsd.pkmndestruction.net/) weekly on Tuesday evenings. I figure it'd be overkill to mention it every week, but for those of you with an interest I figured I'd toss it out.
I also figured I should mention that this isn't an H work. This is for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I think that the sex scenes writing would end up worse then Tsukihime's, and that's a line I'm not willing to cross.
Anyway once again feel free to toss comments (offhand or otherwise) at us. I'll get back to writing (one page for the VN, one for Cats and Crows, if time do weekly challenge fic...)
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Link's borked :(
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Mine? It works for me... Well I'll try it the "even I shouldn't be able to screw this up" way.
http://dsd.pkmndestruction.net/ (http://dsd.pkmndestruction.net/)
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I think the "pkmndestruction" sites were down for a bit earlier today. It's fine now, I believe.
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(http://s874.photobucket.com/albums/ab304/GraphyteR/Dracula01.png)
A new set of screenshots has been added to the site (http://dsd.pkmndestruction.net/forums/index.php?app=gallery&module=cats&do=sc&cat=111). I've been working on the SDM crew for some time now so I should be able to put out screenshots more often.
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I haven't had time to register on the development forum yet, but until I do, I'll post here that I should be able to help out with the sound effects and other misc sound bits. I'm pretty good at finding stuff and what I can't find I can easily make. Let me know if I can help!
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Hi Vanikoro!
Your help would be much appreciated. Our list of needed sfx is small at the moment, so it's possible that you'll get done quite fast. We might call you back after the demo when we've nearing completion of the game's scripts, though if you're unable to stick around that's understandable.
Anyway, I'll see you around.
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Vanikoro, let me rephrase that. I realized my post might've like we're not needing help on sfx at the moment. We do want to collect the stuff for the demo, it's just that we'll probably have to make another run after the demo is complete since we haven't decided all the sfx yet.
Anyway, please do register on the dev forums if you're up for it. Sorry if there was any confusion.
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Oops, sorry for any confusion of my misunderstanding. There were some issues that prevented me from posting yesterday. I'll get right on that!
EDIT: Registered and posted.
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New screenshots! This time featuring an excerpt from Patchouli's route.
(http://s874.photobucket.com/albums/ab304/GraphyteR/Remedial_classes_small.png)
Go see them here (http://dsd.pkmndestruction.net/forums/index.php?app=gallery&module=cats&do=sc&cat=112&sort_key=caption&order_key=ASC&prune_key=*&st=0).
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I think the Patchouli art in this game has actually made me start to like Patchouli just a tad :V
Great work so far! I'm not really a yuri fan, but I'm glad the Western Touhou fanbase is coming together so well! This'll be the first English-language Touhou visual novel, won't it?
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I think the Patchouli art in this game has actually made me start to like Patchouli just a tad :V
Great work so far! I'm not really a yuri fan, but I'm glad the Western Touhou fanbase is coming together so well! This'll be the first English-language Touhou visual novel, won't it?
Uh... *coughselfpromotion (http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php?topic=5728.0)cough*
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I think Sukima grabbed that honor with his "Down on the Corner" rewrite (heh, beaten to it), but I'm pretty sure this will be the first VN project of this size from the Western Fanbase.
I'd like to be able to claim that a dislike of Yuri shouldn't affect your enjoyment of the story, but I'm pretty sure I'd be lying. The relationship aspects, while not the entirety of the plot, are still a big deal. Especially considering some of the issues attached to those relationships.
(If we had more male characters in canon we might have had more straight relationships on the side, but you work with what you got.)
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(If we had more male characters in canon we might have had more straight relationships on the side, but you work with what you got.)
Doesn't help that we eliminated Rinosuke from the ranks of the eligibl...
Crap, I really need to start contributing again.
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Stop leaking secrets! :ohdear:
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(http://s874.photobucket.com/albums/ab304/GraphyteR/Bargaining_chip_small.png)
An update. New screenshots and a progress report, here (http://dsd.pkmndestruction.net/?p=128).
Our progress on the demo:
Writing is done. Programming will start when we're close to rounding up our Art and Sound.
Character cut-ins: I (Graph) am working on this. ~ 75% complete.
Backgrounds: No artist dedicated to this, but we got a few placeholder photos for the demo, and I sketched up some backgrounds to make the screenshots. ~ 50% complete.
Event CGs: Nobody working on this so far. ~ 0% complete.
GUI: I managed to work on this one alongside our new programmer, SleepKirby. ~ 80% complete.
SFX: Still waiting to hear back from the sound guy, but we more or less have what we need for the demo. Not seeking a new sound person at the moment, though it's a possibility later. ~90% complete.
Music: This one is getting done I think. ~80% complete.
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Oh man, I'm gonna be looking forward to this :3
Also if you ever need any help with programming, I'm here BV
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(http://s874.photobucket.com/albums/ab304/GraphyteR/SCpreview.png)
An update. New screenshots and a progress report, here (http://dsd.pkmndestruction.net/?p=145).
Our progress on the demo:
Writing is done. Programming of the scripts has started.
Character cut-ins: ~ 100% complete.
Backgrounds: I (Graph) am working on this. ~ 66% complete.
Event CGs: Nobody working on this so far. ~ 0% complete.
GUI: ~ 100% complete (As far as saying, it's functional)
SFX: We more or less have what we need for the demo. ~90% complete.
Music: This one is getting done I think. ~80% complete.
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Gosh dang I'm looking forward to this~
I guess I could take a few CGs for Alice(I don't want to be spoiled too much, so just the description of what the scene should look like is fine), if my art style is alright.
http://img682.imageshack.us/content_round.php?page=done&l=img682/4845/workhouses.jpg&via=mupload
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Where do I go if I'm interested in being a beta tester :3
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Graph probably should have stated it's Beta testing for the demo. As he said, we aren't really ready for testers yet. We hope to have people on it in two weeks.
When we do get testers, we'll probably grab people who signed up for our forums first, just because it's easier to get constant feedback and to respond faster.
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If you didn't already got an artist, I would offer mimself to do the linearts of the characters ( I'm awful at coloring, but lineart is easy job for me ).
I'm also a programmer and programming a VN is easy enough even if it comes to programming it from scratch with C++ and SDL. But Ren'py is a nice tool, so you won't need another programmer.
There's just one thing I want to criticize...
It's just my opinion, but I think that VN's are supposed to have a cute artwork, something that the actual artwork doesn't look ( for me ).
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Hi Netwarrior. It's true that I didn't try to change up my style much-- it's a long haul so it's best for me to pick something I'm used to. If the writers are fine with it I have no complaints.
The beta demo is going to be ready soon, so we're gonna hold off starting people on the work for a bit. If you still want to try out as an artist, can you show a sample of your work? Either here, on the dev site or by PM is fine.
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I've got an DeviantART, but almost all the drawings there are VERY VERY old ( something like 2 to 5 years old ) and they are all uncolored and their lineart is awful because I didn't use Paint Tool SAI at that time. I'll scan some newer drawings and send them by PM later.
For the time being, just take a look on my DeviantART.
http://yoshimizu.deviantart.com/ (http://yoshimizu.deviantart.com/)
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Sign-ups for beta testing are here (http://dsd.faceroll.net/?p=194)!
If all goes well the beta demo should be ready in a few days.
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We have a demo release! Find it here (http://dsd.faceroll.net/esr/Eastern%20Starlight%20Romance%20Demo%20v1.0-win32.zip). (Or here (http://dsd.faceroll.net/esr/Eastern%20Starlight%20Romance%20Demo%20v1.0-all.zip) for non windows people).
We're about halfway done with the script and a third of the way done with the art and music, so we've got a ways to go, but we wanted to show a little bit of what we've put together in VN format. I hope it entertains.
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Wow... This is very impressive. I especially liked Nitori (in general); I think you can guess why.
http://a.imageshack.us/img266/4702/easternstarlightromance.png
Just a link, I don't want to ruin the surprise.
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Damn, demo ended right when things were getting good. Not that things weren't already good before the five hours it took me to get there. Excellent work here--nice character art, fitting backgrounds, great atmosphere and music, lots of options. (over 90 , not including selection branches :o) Characterization and writing is vastly entertaining. Oh, Nitori.
Flattery be damned, this is only a demo release and yet it's already shaping up to be wayyyy more enjoyable than a lot of the professional VN stuff you can read/play for a price. I'll definitely be keeping an eager eye out for later releases.
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While I haven't gotten around to play the demo yet myself, what I have heard and seen here already tells me that you guys are doing great work here.
As such, I'm taking the liberty of stickying this thread until the end of this week in celebration of the demo. Keep up the good work~ :3
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Some light unmarked spoilers below, as a warning.
I admit, I had sort of forgotten about this until the demo came out. My response to starting the game up can be summed up as 'okay, let's go have some fun being a haremmaster- huh? Keine? ...Oh.'
Seriously, though, the first complaint I had was the fact that there didn't seem to be much freedom in choosing where to go. If you're aiming for the Reimu route, for example, it can be frustrating to find yourself visiting the SDM over and over without much of an option to go to the Hakurei shrine. Maybe have Koishi drop a point about how you can't consign yourself to one route yet during her initial monologue at the hot springs, or point out that Marisa has a strange tendency to wander who's yet to really make the important decisions.
Also, it's not obvious what the uses for the four stats are. In the demo, at least, I didn't see any point where the stats had any effect on the situation. Is each of them relevant to one of the routes? Is it possible to get a bad ending from being too low on said scores, or are they just for show?
But honestly, those are pretty minor criticisms compared to the scale of what you've achieved here. The writing is consistently entertaining, the music is fitting, the characters are different enough to be interesting (the only problem possibly being we haven't seen enough of Reimu and Alice in the demo) and the art is pleasing. I liked the UFO foreshadowing with Alice's bookshelf
, and Flan's slip at dinner
gave me goosebumps.
All in all, I'm now very excited to see how this turns out. Keep up the good work, guys, you're awesome.
(And for the record, I'll be chasing the Koishi path because she's grown on me after DRK and PLotSS because it's the hardest. Yeah. Totally. <_< >_>)
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Good to hear you guys liked it! I was a little worried with how quiet our beta testers were, but I guess they were just distracted by Comiket's shinys.
Ah, in response to your two issues, I can totally underswtand the first. We probably should mention early on that the game will take a while to break, (thank god Koishi can bypass the fourth wall). We did the path breaks oddly for this game, so even after you make your final choice you'll still talk to the other girls, and possibly help them out with their own problems (or just become better friends with them).
As for stats... well there weren't a lot of checks because the demo didn't go far enough along for players to have leveled their stats much. Stats will become more and more improtant as the game progresses, there are certain points that have stat requirements, and they're each required to get the "Extra" end (though the stat required depends on the girl). Koishi will probably mention that later.
Also Koishi path? What Koishi path? It's... pretty obvious isn't it.
It was obvious the instant Marisa asked for help with the Koishi route in the hot spring. Also, she's on the game icon. :V
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...well, didn't see that coming.
So I think I'll just pick stuff that seems in Marisa's character; that seems to pop up pretty often. And hey, everyone else is in character too, even if Reimu's a bit nice. Hey, it's Nitori! Eh... invention number 218? It's a...
What is this I don't even
Also, it seems that Marisa is most inclined towards the Flandre-path character-wise. :/ The end-of-demo message was totally worth it, though -- "Hey, you're still alive! :V "
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Ugh I keep accidently clicking on choices when they suddenly pop up in my face, and then when I find out I can't rollback and I didn't save then well.... :getdown:
I'd say either create some unskippable delay before choices pop up or place them higher up on the screen or something like that.
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Also, it seems that Marisa is most inclined towards the Flandre-path character-wise. :/
That's interesting... because Alice is meant to be the 'default' path.
Could you elaborate more on this?
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That's interesting... because Alice is meant to be the 'default' path.
Could you elaborate more on this?
Well, the Alice path isn't terribly subtle, so while it's probably the easiest to pursue, many of the choices are so overtly romantic (that bit where she shows up to the shrine ohanami comes to mind) that they'd be avoided by anyone a) trying to keep Marisa in-character, such as myself, b) trying to procrastinate about choosing and instead focusing on the immortality potion, such as myself, or c) who didn't go in trying to push the Alice path. (There's probably some of the Alice-path in those giant multiple-choice "what do I do now?" bits that I put into potion work, but...)
Mind you, I could be speaking from the perspective of Imperishable Night's script, or someone who thinks of Reimu as the main incident-solver, or... well, any number of perspectives that would drag me away from the Malice path. Still, I don't think it's much of a 'default,' though I'll admit it's very easy to find if you want it.
Mm, I'll play through it a bit more and see if I missed something, but...
[quote = Suikama]Ugh I keep accidently clicking on choices when they suddenly pop up in my face, and then when I find out I can't rollback and I didn't save then well.... :getdown:
I'd say either create some unskippable delay before choices pop up or place them higher up on the screen or something like that.[/quote]YES
Though I worked out how to quicksave, I think a choice I couldn't go back and retry is what put me on the Flan path in the first place, and is also why I EPICALLY FAILED at shipping Patchy and Koa. >.>
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Hm... I think you might be surprised at what the best options for the Alice path are, and the actual results of those options. I suppose people not knowing the affection values will make that a little hard to compare. But yeah, personal assumptions about how Marisa should act will drive you in a direction.
I think that our length and the difference between us and the typical renai game may be our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. Maybe I should have Koishi or Marisa make it more clear that pathlock is decently far into the story (well barring a few oddities).
We are tweaking the menus to dissolve in, giving a visual clue and a bit of time before actions can be taken. If that's not enough we're looking into forcing the plyaer to move the mouse or hit an arrow key before allowing a selection.
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Haha, this is great. Heavy spoilers all over this post.
Right, so...
Seriously, though, the first complaint I had was the fact that there didn't seem to be much freedom in choosing where to go. If you're aiming for the Reimu route, for example, it can be frustrating to find yourself visiting the SDM over and over without much of an option to go to the Hakurei shrine. Maybe have Koishi drop a point about how you can't consign yourself to one route yet during her initial monologue at the hot springs, or point out that Marisa has a strange tendency to wander who's yet to really make the important decisions.
This, pretty hard. Many mornings had Marisa ask herself "What should I do today?" Which had me going "alright! Today I think we're going to the shrine to get some armpits!" Only to be cock-blocked by Marisa deciding she wants to go to the SDM to read some books, or something of that nature. Getting interrupted by Youmu wasn't an issue, since that at least didn't give the impression I was going to get a choice in the matter. Same thing with Reisen -- I knew there was an appointment with her in the future, so when I was told I have to go to the village instead of getting to decide where I wanted to go, I didn't have a problem with it. I figure, if Marisa is going to ask herself what she wants to do today, shouldn't the player get to decide? Even if you gave a silly excuse as to why I can't spend the day with Reimu or Alice (they're out doing something else, still recovering from yesterday when I invariably swooped them off their feet, hate my guts, whatever), I think I could take my forced route much better ;_;
Also, it seems that Marisa is most inclined towards the Flandre-path character-wise. :/
Agreed with this as well. It could be a product of this only being a demo, but it seemed that most of the "reasonable" Marisa choices seemed to point me to Flandre. Should I be stealing everything if I want a certain path? Be incredibly arrogant? Mess everything up with danmaku? IcedFairy saying that we'd be surprised what the best Alice choices are isn't really helping an argument towards her being the default path, either. There was also mention of a pathlock being decently far into the story... Is it going to be clear when that happens? Because I felt pretty pathlocked into Flandre after only making a few choices leaning towards her, mostly because I didn't want to go to the library and read books. It seemed Koishi pinned me for wanting to jump Flandres bones too, but I only wanted to see if my Fairy danmaku status would finally change to something more respectable.
Speaking of Koishi, her diagram was amazing. Yukari's "ohohoho" had me giggling randomly all day yesterday. Nitori's antics were priceless too, great stuff. The writing in this is absolutely fantastic, it was a lot of fun to experience this small taste. Looking forward to a full release.
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Nothing beats the flowchart
(http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/5959/flowchart.th.png) (http://img844.imageshack.us/i/flowchart.png/)
REMI GIVES YOU WIIIINGS
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Right, so...
This, pretty hard. Many mornings had Marisa ask herself "What should I do today?" Which had me going "alright! Today I think we're going to the shrine to get some armpits!" Only to be cock-blocked by Marisa deciding she wants to go to the SDM to read some books, or something of that nature. Getting interrupted by Youmu wasn't an issue, since that at least didn't give the impression I was going to get a choice in the matter. Same thing with Reisen -- I knew there was an appointment with her in the future, so when I was told I have to go to the village instead of getting to decide where I wanted to go, I didn't have a problem with it. I figure, if Marisa is going to ask herself what she wants to do today, shouldn't the player get to decide? Even if you gave a silly excuse as to why I can't spend the day with Reimu or Alice (they're out doing something else, still recovering from yesterday when I invariably swooped them off their feet, hate my guts, whatever), I think I could take my forced route much better ;_;
Aha! This is what I was missing. I can definitely see how the illusion of choice would get your hopes up. I'll work on making the setup more obvious so people don't feel like they missed something important.
Agreed with this as well. It could be a product of this only being a demo, but it seemed that most of the "reasonable" Marisa choices seemed to point me to Flandre. Should I be stealing everything if I want a certain path? Be incredibly arrogant? Mess everything up with danmaku? IcedFairy saying that we'd be surprised what the best Alice choices are isn't really helping an argument towards her being the default path, either. There was also mention of a pathlock being decently far into the story... Is it going to be clear when that happens? Because I felt pretty pathlocked into Flandre after only making a few choices leaning towards her, mostly because I didn't want to go to the library and read books. It seemed Koishi pinned me for wanting to jump Flandres bones too, but I only wanted to see if my Fairy danmaku status would finally change to something more respectable.
Now I really wish I could be peering over the shoulders of people as they play the game just to see the details. I'm especially curious as to who people saw at the festival before waking up and seeing Alice.
I'm not sure if I mentioned it here, but the game's design actually started out more as Persona 4 style social links where you were allowed to choose where to go every day. This turned out to be a nightmare, both in programming and script writing, so we had to drop it (mostly. Reimu still has some choice based variables). Still you can think of each girls path as being a story in it's own right, each with a friendly/romantic end.
Thus because of that setup we have two breaks for most of the girls. One break where you decide if your interest is romantic or friendly, and then a little latter pathlock where you decide which of the girls your going to stick with. We're trying to make both blindingly obvious (assuming you meet the prereqs). Flandre doesn't have the friends break, and her chance in the romantic pathlock is next to last (meaning you've already turned all the other main girls down) so it's likely most people not trying to get Flandre's end will have the story just be about Marisa and Flandre becoming friends.
The demo focused on Flandre a little bit because her story peaks first, making it a good cliffhanger to end on (that and Graph would have had to make art for Sanae if we had kept going). It starts so early because you can actually quit or fail out of Flandre's friend path (and you can die a lot too). Flandre's sort of a side quest and you can actually get boosts for the other girls
Oh and when we state Alice is the default path, that means the requirement for Alice's Normal end is "still breathing." Basically we don't have a flat end, we have Alice Normal. Doing Alice's path right however give you Alice True path which is in my mind incredibly awesome and blows Alice Normal path away.
Oh and that chart was all Graph. I only asked for the disclaimer.
(I've been hiding out in the Librarys IRC recently so anyone wanting to critique really minor things, or see if I slip and reveal more info, you all can hunt me down there.)
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I just want to make a comment about the music. It's really well done, but overall I feel that every track seems to lack intensity.
I'm not sure if it's exactly because of the quality of the instuments in the synth you're using or the lack in volume of instrument tracks compared to other songs, but if you compared each song to something like a ZUN track (yeah yeah he's ZUN but still :V) there's a clear lack of intensity.
Take a look at Oku's theme for instance. The ESR version starts of slow, which is nice, but it doesn't really build up much, and by "build up" I mean there's no cresendos, no increase in tempo, no increase in timbre volume, not really any of that good stuff. Then listen to this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxrQIOoRiI0&feature=related) :V
Now on the other hand I understand that the music is mostly for ambience, but it can serve a much greater purpose than that. If you look at some of the comments on youtube for remixes of touhou songs done by the top names like dbu, UI, Redalice, whatever, people often comment about how they can invision all sorts of crazy danmaku fights just by listening to the song. Visual Novels are a mix of both words, sounds, and images, but the images don't move so a degree of imagination is still required on the reader's part. That's why having really intense music can stimulate the creative energy of the reader and make them a lot more engaged in the story.
So yeah my thoughts on the music :3
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I have the opposite opinion about the music. I found it much too distracting. In particular, the remix of Okuu's theme was way too cacophonous, the varying volume of the lead instruments was very distracting (and actually rather unpleasant). I could see where Suikama's coming from if this was a music CD or something, but I think the music should stay as ambience... Heck, I'd even slow down most tracks and make them more relaxing, except if they're used during a danmaku fight.
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I have the opposite opinion about the music. I found it much too distracting. In particular, the remix of Okuu's theme was way too cacophonous, the varying volume of the lead instruments was very distracting (and actually rather unpleasant). I could see where Suikama's coming from if this was a music CD or something, but I think the music should stay as ambience... Heck, I'd even slow down most tracks and make them more relaxing, except if they're used during a danmaku fight.
I will fight you
Yeah I guess it does really depend on the situation. Stuff like Reimu and Flan's theme were nice and fit the atmosphere well. Still I'd try out different things and see what fits best.
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I watched everywhere, but I didn't find the application you were using.
Can you precise just a bit? Thanks.
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Docteur Hartmann, if you're looking for the game downloads, they're on the first post of this topic now. Or click one of the links in the quote here.
As of 29/8/10, the first demo's been released! Linking here so people don't have to crawl through the topic to find it. :P
Windows (http://dsd.faceroll.net/esr/Eastern%20Starlight%20Romance%20Demo%20v1.0-win32.zip)
Non-Windows (http://dsd.faceroll.net/esr/Eastern%20Starlight%20Romance%20Demo%20v1.0-all.zip)
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I think he's asking which program you guys used to make this. It was Ren'py (http://www.renpy.org/wiki/renpy/Home_Page), right?
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Yeah. We did a couple of Python tweaks, but it's mostly Ren'py.
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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?
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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. >_>
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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.
(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. :) )
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I think he's asking which program you guys used to make this. It was Ren'py (http://www.renpy.org/wiki/renpy/Home_Page), right?
Yes, that was that.
Thanks.
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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?
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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.
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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...
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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.
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- 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?
]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.
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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:
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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I was only half serious, but grimdark endings are fun :3
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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.
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I was only half serious, but grimdark endings are fun :3
PoSR bad end confirmed
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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.
(http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/5761/meworenji.th.png) (http://img818.imageshack.us/i/meworenji.png/)
Here's the explanation for this madness. (http://dsd.faceroll.net/?p=275)
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Omoshiroinya~
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Oh hey, nice to see this is still alive.
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Also the title is misleading and I thought there was a new demo out :ohdear:
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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.
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I love this so far! Can't wait to play the next demo in summer.
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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.
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We have a release!
http://dsd.faceroll.net/ (http://dsd.faceroll.net/)
Offsite link for Windows : http://www.mediafire.com/?be304y00l600m6c (http://www.mediafire.com/?be304y00l600m6c)
Offsite link for multiplatform systems: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9C3LWL91 (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9C3LWL91)
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...and I was just about finished my post on the testing board...
cardboard box here i come :ohdear:
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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:
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We have a release!
http://dsd.faceroll.net/ (http://dsd.faceroll.net/)
Offsite link for Windows : http://www.mediafire.com/?be304y00l600m6c (http://www.mediafire.com/?be304y00l600m6c)
Offsite link for multiplatform systems: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9C3LWL91 (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9C3LWL91)
This is very cool. Does it come with a list of changes made?
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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.)
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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
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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!
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Well, I played this for... six hours? Kind of a relaxed pace, but I did a whole playthrough (doing a Flandre centric run, with edging towards Patchy and Alice a little; Reimu's path was cut off at the end). So, notes, spoilered for his and her protection:
Noticed weird music problems when playing for a while, might just be computer itself
Marisa portraits VERY nice touch.
Music is great: Crystal Melody is still a favorite, and I already noted to Iced that Grimoire of Alice sounds like a grinder organ (fitting) and Nitori's theme sounds like something out of an old Disney cartoon (my thought was "Peter and the Wolf").
In the "read Alice's diary" path, "Part of the 'Everything is calculated' image." Should everything be capitalized?
Talking to Alice in the village, "Ah, which reminds me, was the herbology book I lent you". Should "herbology" be replaced by "potion brewing" or "alchemy"? EDIT: Went back and checked, it was an alchemy and herbology book, so it should be fine.
Patchouli's music when she's introduced seems a bit hostile.
Need to make sure that capitalization is consistent (Capitalizing youkai when speaking to Reimu)
Talking to Koishi when Utsuho leads us down to Chireiden, Marisa says "Huh, well I shoudn't annoy Flandre. She likes me, and I'm not that stupid. Blah blah", then says the same thing again.
Top portion of the nineball symbol gets cut off.
Mystia doesn't really fry her lamprey, so the scene where Nitori's trying to seduce Marisa with the tulip rose...
Gaki needs a notation, when Yuyuko is talking to Flandre. There's also a bit where I think Patchouli is talking about sho-something that could use a notation, I don't remember yawn.
When talking to Flandre about what to do about her camera, fix the second option so Sakuya doesn't have the apostrophe s.
Anyways, highly enjoyed playing through it. I think I'll try again, going for a Shanghai ending.
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Graphs updated the first post in the thread with screen shots for the interested.
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Played through it today, loved it immensely. The game definitely feels more polished in pretty much every regard, and having portraits for Marisa is a brilliant idea.
:3 Minor complaints: I spotted a then/than mix-up towards the end of the demo (unfortunately, I forgot where it was. :ohdear:), and the game ending on a cliffhanger again makes me very frustrated. =P. Anyway, can't wait for more, this game's amazing. Thank you very much.
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Well. Wow. Where to start? For one, as it has been noted elsewhere the Marisa portraits are a really nice touch. For another, the character dialogue... Let me start at the beginning. Spoilers for game ahead-
This has one of the most intricate choice/interaction systems I have ever seen in an visual novel - to be fair, I don't play that many, especially not ones with a companionship twist. But, the amount of insanely cool stuff I've noticed by playing around and trying different choice options is just amazing. For those who haven't tried it yet, you should give it a go for that alone.
And the unity! The music, character art - especially facial expressions, which I think suited every character perfectly - background, and writing just clinched together perfectly. And it's definitely not in need of Koakuma's grammar workshop!
Speaking of, the jokes are great - there are subtle jokes, references to games and things, and clever insertion of other mediums; Flandre and Joeseph Conrad is a brilliant thought. And as good as they are, the characterization and seriousness are paced even better. Again, the art and music does a lot to help with the transition between the two. I want to repeat that a lot, so instead just know that I'm thinking it.
In addition, this made me really think about Gensokyo. It has one of my favorite things in any fiction, world-building. For one thing, I've been convinced to add Rinnosuke/Yukari to my shipping wall, ohohoho! Secondarily... The amount of thought actually put into Marisa's quest for immortality... Geeze. As someone who couldn't imagine not dying, it's really mind-blowing.
There's a lot more I'd like to comment on, but word limitations and I talk far too much already. Lemme finish by saying that a certain chart-sequence cleared everything up for me, and now I only need one for all the choices - I go visiting Koishi too much as it is, eheheh!... This is amazing work. I don't know what else to say and for me that's uncommon. I usually can say something, even if it's useless!.. If you want me to go into more detail, please don't hesitate to ask. Seconding cliffhangerness - and again, is there a 'Tired you goofball, check things in this order' hidden document or something I could use? Either way - superb work. I can count the number of times I've enjoyed a visual novel so much on one hand.
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I played the first demo a long time ago, then continued the same file in this second demo. I'm loving the new artwork, and I absolutely love all the new music. They just seem so much more... atmospheric. It's amazing. (More notes on what the music tended to... do to me in the spoiler below).
Anyway, I did a single run without going back and changing routes (other than simple curiosity, but I always went back to my original route). I tried going for an Alice-centric route. I was also trying to get close to Patchouli but I was more trying to get Koa to reveal her feelings to her
, I basically ignored Reimu until she started complaining about not wanting to die alone
, and I would be nice to Flandre and try to get her to go out more
. MAJOR spoilers coming up, because it explains my ending:
I got bitten by Flandre, couldn't push her off, went to Reimu, killed her, and then got killed by Yukari. Goddammit. All that just so happened to be right after I was wondering if there could be a bad ending, too. Imma go back to the choices when she bites you and see what happens with different combinations. But I went the "BLAST HER OFF" route out of curiosity (before I got the game over above), and I went up until the screen turned black and white. I went back to my original file after that so there'd be no spoilers.
Anyway, as I said before, I loved the music. The Gensokyo Five scene made me laugh like crazy, but the background music was what sent me over the edge. It was, simply put, abso-freaking-lutely hilarious. The "romance" music also worked extremely well for the Koakuma and Patchouli scene. I ended up whispering for Koa to kiss her, and the music added up to the perfect "d'awwwww" scene.
Of course, some of the music, as well as the scenes, ended up scaring me to death. Namely the whole Flandre biting scene. I got there at 4AM in the morning in the complete dark and with a headset with fairly loud volume. I'm scared pretty easily, but when it got to that scene with the music, I was practically pissing myself. And then when Marisa went insane with the dreams and then went and killed Reimu, I nearly lost it. And then that Game Over... God, dude, I'll admit, I wasn't particularly impressed with most of the music in the first demo, but in this demo, my opinion has changed DRASTICALLY. You've managed to make me fell sympathy with a lot of tracked, and you made me feel freaking scared with some of the tracks.
I'm wondering if it's a problem that I got too close to Flandre... I remember there being a choice whether or not to even try to get her to go out more. Maybe I shoulda picked no just to avoid Flandre altogether, but I was afraid that she'd end up throwing a fit and killing me for not being with her often. =P Of course, I haven't explored any other routes during the biting scene, mainly because it was 4AM and I didn't want to get another Game Over that would potentially give me more nightmares. XD
I'm really liking this. The story is really good, the art and music really work well together and set the atmosphere, and the game already has a lot of polish. I'll be looking forward to more demos in the future. =)
I might try restarting the game from the beginning if I don't find a solution to the... situation I explained. You said there were a lot of changes since the beginning, anyway, so I'll try to explore a few more things. =P
EDIT: More spoilers since I finished the demo, so yeah.
Took the BLAST HER OFF route this time. Glad to see Sakuya save the day, I didn't make it there last night when I saw the screen change to black and white. =P
The cooking challenge was pretty cool. I like all the Iron Chef references, lol. I picked Alice as a partner, but apparently I failed at choosing the right combinations for the meal cuz Mystia and Reimu won instead.
And of course, the final advice for the second demo. Turned out exactly how I expected... friends with Reimu, pretty close to Patchouli, on good terms with Flandre, and closest to Alice. Will there be another demo before the final release, or is this it for now?
Oh, and really unexpected appearance by Byakuren. I wonder how that's gonna turn out, as well as the whole "rivalry" issue that's hinted at. Sounds like it'll be interesting...
Oh, and will there be more bad endings? I don't know why, but it seems somewhat tough to die other than have Flandre bite you. Maybe a little more challenge should be here. =P
Well, that's it. I'll be eagerly looking forward to the next demo, or the final release, depending on what it ends up being. =)
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It's really great to hear all your replies. I'm passing them on to the other devs (that don't already check the site). I'll also try to cover some of the commentary, though if you have questions feel free to ask.
Bad Ends - There aren't a lot of bad ends for a variety of reasons. First because a lot of bad end setups just don't make sense (yandere Alice was cut for being stupid for example) second because they eat a lot of time. It's really hard to set up a bad ending that isn't something stupid like "you didn't wipe off the blood on your chest, now you die." And it's not very worthwhile in design time because the player will see it once, then reload. We tried introducing more flat ends and failure points. Flandre has a lot of places where she'll give up on going out, Reimu's prereqs are pretty tough, and you can hamstring your Patchouli relationship in a lot of ways. So it's less likely that well kill you and more likely that if you aim poorly you'll end up with only Alice willing to date you (if that).
Music - Mixtape really did will with his work, and the extra tracks he gave us allowed us to cover the emotional spread a lot better. For example your early meetings with Patchouli use his stronger locked girl arrangement to show the distance between the two magicians at the start. Just as an aside, you can unlock every track in the music room, though 2 tracks require you to get one of the bad ends, and one requires a very specific choice with Koakuma.
Byakuren - Yes she'll be playing a role in the future. After all she's a transformed magician too. We can't leave her out. :) Besides, you've always wanted to see Alice fangirl over someone who isn't Marisa, right? No? Oh dear, that could be worrisome....
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Enjoyed this a ton. My thoughts on all the stuff added in 2.0 in the spoilers.
I enjoyed the music most out of everything else. Specialised battle themes for most characters is great, and 007 Magus Night is is most amazing surprise. I kind of wish Reimu had another theme like the other three choises, but I still have three tracks to unlock so *shrug*. I'm also kind of wondering what happened to Nuclear Fusion? I uderstand that Heartman's Girl fits more, considering it's Koishi's theme, but I really liked the Nuclar Fusion mix from the last demo.
Now, onto the story. Everything after Flandre's first freakout made me giddy like a kid's first time at Disneyland. The best moments were when Marisa's initial reason for starting magic was revealed and made me bawww, and the entire Gensokyo Five sequence. Please tell me there's more of them. That was the most hilarious thing ever, right after Iron Chef Gensokyo. Also, this may be my "help everyone you see" mindset, but I really want to help Sanae and her hidden homesickness and it may not be a thing that gets attention :(
Onto more techical stuff, I really like how there's a lot more choises based on your stats. Makes me feel like those nightly excursions have a purpose. The new portraits are a major step up from the previous demo, and, just like everyone else said, the Marisa portraits are amazing.
I would've thought of more but I just woke up, but I really just wanted to say that you people put a lot of work into an amazing project. I can't wait for the full release.
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I spoke with Mixtape, (our head composer) and he wanted to thank everyone again for the compliments. We removed Nuclear Fusion because it didn't really fit Koishi's segments well, but we'll bring it back in the full version, probably with some tweaks and improvements. (We can also include the original in the music room, if people want it.)
He also said that he tried to think up a second theme for Reimu, but he hasn't found any he was satisfied with yet.
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On day... 3/21, iirc, And god do I love this. I was thinking and alice route because its not because i like her or anything but then I said 'fuck it' and went all patchy in this motherfucker. Also, Is there a Nitori route? Seriously, I cant get enough of her music. ITS GOT A TUBA IN IT. HILARIOUS FOR ALL THE RIGHT REASONS
Also, How do I find certain characters themes? I'm half tempted to just upload all the themes on my youtube channel. That is, with your permission of course. tubatubatubasTUBASTUBASAWSHITYEATUUUUUUUUUUUBAAAAAAAAAAAAAS
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If you try to go for the Patchy route (or one of the Harem routes) helping Koakuma to some degree is just fine. And if you do decide to pursue Patchouli you are given choices to act as a friendly rival. However those choices require you be knowledgeable and charming, while shooting Koakuma in the face before making your move is somewhat easier.
kips , there's a music room. Also our musician has a youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MixtapeSounds
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And what glorious music it is.
I have a question, if that's alright: How many endings are there planned to be in the full version? And how many playthroughs are necessary to see them all?
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We plan to have 8 endings total, we hope to have 9 but that'll depend on design time. In addition there will be 4 bonus scenes attached to the main heroine endings.
In theory if you do things right you could have a save at a certain day that allows you to get 7 of the 8 paths we're sure to include. However you'd probably need at least four playthroughs to get all the endings and the bonus scenes.
If we have the time to implement it the ninth ending will require a full playthrough on its own.
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Ninth ending should be MC perspective being switched to Nitori, and at the end finally gets Marisa.
I'd be down with it.
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You know what could be neat for the final version? An image gallery, with backgrounds and special scenes being unlocked as you see them.
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You know what could be neat for the final version? An image gallery, with backgrounds and special scenes being unlocked as you see them.
The CG gallery was lower priority for a while since it grows linearly with the game's progress, as opposed to music where you get most of it pretty early on. Plus the CGs weren't impressive at all for a while, until about two weeks before our beta release for demo 2 when I found myself with some time after taking care of the other stuff. So I revised the CGs from demo 1 right around the end.
So yeah, CG gallery should show up in the final release. We'll discuss about including other image viewers in-game.
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⑨th ending should be
obvious joke is obvious
.....
:colonveeplusalpha:
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Should this be spiking my processor at 100% usage (2.39Ghz P4, 1GB of RAM)?
Even in an "Idle State" (Everything loaded and waiting for input) it was doing a 100% Processor Draw.
Also quite the nice Koakuma you have there. Had a bit of a flashback to a certain WWC post...
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Should this be spiking my processor at 100% usage (2.39Ghz P4, 1GB of RAM)?
Even in an "Idle State" (Everything loaded and waiting for input) it was doing a 100% Processor Draw.
Hm... Did you minimize the game right before that? THere's a bug in the current Ren'py build we think that might cause that.
If not then that's just weird....
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I don't think it would be the minimize problem (see the "Known Bugs" section of the README for what that is), or you'd be seeing a screen glitch as well.
Once in a while I've seen ESR use a lot of memory (on the order of 500 MB out of my machine's 4 GB), but I didn't know what caused it. If you ever notice a correlation between certain actions and a CPU/memory spike, please let us know about it (as well as what OS you're using).
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I've also noticed ESR uses up a lot of memory, and it icreases a lot over time as well... Maybe it has to do with a custom function with poor runtime or a never ending loop or something...
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Hm... Did you minimize the game right before that? THere's a bug in the current Ren'py build we think that might cause that.
If not then that's just weird....
Running XP for my OS and I'll do a long term test to see that if its a constant thing or not. Check your PMs Iced for a cap of a monitored cpu usage chart with connected screenshot (Avoiding posting here because maybe spoiler or something and the image is wide.)
Notes: Date was 3/12 and it was raining.
When loaded in processor use spiked to 100% for a bit unless right clicked to bring up menu (would drop almost instantly to near 0%. When conversation began It'd head up to around 50-70% usage. The Dips actually coincided with Spellcard use and associated sounds. General conversation actually used up MORE power than those 'action' screens.
Update: Its weird today and it's not drawing as much CPU usage. Maybe its that day that's kinda weird.
More testing seems to show that Rainy Day starts seem to cause the most noticeable spikes. Not sure exactly why but they seem to be connected
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Milliparsees.
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Thanks for the info, Zelinko! It seems Graph (our artist) found the main CPU bottleneck just now.
It's the fading-in-and-out star that shows up at the end of a line of dialogue (and when you highlight a choice). As is, CPU during dialogue is 20-25% on my system (Win7, two 2.13-GHz cores, 4 GB RAM). If I disable the dialogue box star in my copy of the game, then CPU during dialogue can drop down to 1 or 2%! Crazy. Apparently, Graph had read something about Ren'Py fading effects using a lot of CPU. I'd like to read more about that... anyway, thanks for pointing us in the right direction! This'll definitely help.
Oh, I'm not sure what to say about your observation with the rainy days, though. I didn't notice that myself...
For memory usage, the only thing I've noticed is that memory usage goes up when the readback (previous text) window is opened, and especially when you scroll all the way up in the readback log. So that's one thing to look at, at least.
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Apparently, Graph had read something about Ren'Py fading effects using a lot of CPU. I'd like to read more about that... anyway, thanks for pointing us in the right direction!
There really wasn't a definite answer, I just happened to get a lead. It seems like we're not the only ones with performance problems on alpha transitions. http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=9525
Kirby happened to notice that the CPU usage goes up when you highlight a choice, and that's when I put two and two together. We can probably fix this by making it a frame-by-frame animation instead of making Ren'py compute the images... though I find it strange that it has to work so hard just to show us a little blinking star...
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I spent a good few hours playing this. I have to say it's really good. Not much I can say on it (I'm not a good judge for Visual Novels), but there was one problem. If you right clicked to save or check your stats or go to the main menu at the wrong time the game would freeze up and I'd have to close it and restart it. Is there any way I could fix this problem?
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Thanks for the info, Zelinko! It seems Graph (our artist) found the main CPU bottleneck just now.
It's the fading-in-and-out star that shows up at the end of a line of dialogue (and when you highlight a choice). As is, CPU during dialogue is 20-25% on my system (Win7, two 2.13-GHz cores, 4 GB RAM). If I disable the dialogue box star in my copy of the game, then CPU during dialogue can drop down to 1 or 2%! Crazy. Apparently, Graph had read something about Ren'Py fading effects using a lot of CPU. I'd like to read more about that... anyway, thanks for pointing us in the right direction! This'll definitely help.
Oh, I'm not sure what to say about your observation with the rainy days, though. I didn't notice that myself...
For memory usage, the only thing I've noticed is that memory usage goes up when the readback (previous text) window is opened, and especially when you scroll all the way up in the readback log. So that's one thing to look at, at least.
Maybe I was noticing the spikes for the star effect. Since That seems to coincide with spikes as well. Still the day was high usage until about 6 or so dialogue exchanges in. Even after the Rain sound effect was long gone. Perhaps its tied to the fade in effect and I only noticed it when I started hearing distortion of the music and general sluggishness.
Thing is that I've had entire game days where there is no maxing of CPU usage (maybe getting to 50% usage max.) I'll see if disabling the star fading (which option is that) makes it avoid the high CPU usage issues.
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Ah, well, players can't disable the star - I was able to do it since i can change the game code. >_> I'm pretty convinced that the star is the main CPU culprit, though in the interest of science, maybe I could put together a mini-demo with a star option for people to try out.
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Posting to both follow and tell you guys how much I enjoyed this, I really REALLY can't wait until the entire novel is out, the myriad of choices were wonderful as was the stats tracker. Ended up becoming BFF's with Flan and Alice, ignored Reimu then felt incredibly bad for it :D
Flandre's basement, did I hear sounds from Umineko in there?
:3