Say You Love Me

[Mink]

Hello, forum. Since I've decided it's finished, I figured I may as well put my VN up here.

Say You Love Me is a short (~10 min) visual/kinetic novel about a young man who meets a strange teenage girl standing in the road. By the time the encounter is over, he may wishe he'd have stayed in bed that morning.

~Download here~: Say You Love Me

There's a specific point to this game, but I won't say what it's meant to parody/satirize, because hopefully I wrote it in a way that it'll click what it's about.

This game was made with Novelty, which I'm still learning, so if anything is wonky or may seem better in a different way, feel free to point it out. Also, seeing as it's made with Novelty, it only runs on Windows, so I apologize to any Mac/Linux users who'd want to try this.

Also, while it's complete, it originally started as a project born of boredom and as such, critique is welcome.

Here are a few screen shots:






And while I'm at it, there are credits in the README, I'll repost them in the thread:
-Sprite (s) - Skim/Skimlines
-Music - Kevin MacLeod/Incompetech

[Wright1000]

I played this game and liked it. But the story was too short and looks uncompleted.
But I have to say I found it very cute.

[Mink]

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm aware it's absurdly short and sort of just...ends. At the time, I wasn't sure if I'd actually continue or not, but hopefully the continuation will be longer and less abrupt.

[Alex]

Well, girls who act like October are always scary me...))

Kind of bug: if you finish the story and choose to start again, then you'll see the girl's name when you met her first time...

[Mink]

Don't worry, the sequel shows more of her actual personality! >8D

And that bug happened? I'm going to have to look at that, because no one else reported something like that, and I don't recall it happening to me. Weird. D:

[Taleweaver]

A nice little distraction for as long as it lasts. Your game has attractive art and a good choice of music, and the story is sweet if only for ten minutes.

My problem with the game is that it is over as soon as it begins. I don't mind the non-choice in the beginning, it's quite appealing to feel the frustration of your protagonist with the nagging of the girl this way, but there really should be more content.

If you make a sequel, my advice would be not to make a sequel. Take what you have and expand on that, and use the game you have now as a demo, maybe with a mysterious "to be continued" in the end.

[Mink]

You know, that's actually something I was considering but wasn't sure about at first. I kind of want to learn and continue it with Ren'Py (for a few things Novelty can't do), but for the sake of consistency would probably want to use sprites that'd match up.

Though it really shouldn't be that much of a thing to just continue it as a whole game, rather than two separate ones. I'm sure it'd also flow better, with one long one rather than a very short game and then a longer sequel. Also, it should only take a few minor changes to make both parts connect as a single story.

And thank you, I really do appreciate the imput people give. I'm a staunch believer that anything worth doing should be worth doing well (or at least as well as possible).

Also, as for the non-choice:

the idea/point around it is that you clearly never really had a choice in the first place, like how many games give you false choices.

So I guess it kind of worked in that regard, which is something I'd been worried about when I first wrote it.

[Celestine]

I don't know why, but I was finally able to play this. I guess my computer just doesn't like Novelty engine.

The girl surprised me. And your antics were funny , practically giving your reader no choice but to pick those options.
It's really too bad you didn't continue on in the story. This kinda feels like what a demo be like before the full game.

I hope you do continue it I'd like to see how the story progresses and how it ends.

[Cidz]

oh, i played this before i guess i never commented odd thought i did! well better late then never.

I like the idea about you expanding the game really I think its a good start and I am curious about more. I think if you expand it and flesh out the story it will be even better. So if you do that be sure and post a download link and ill be sure to play it <3

[Mink]

Celestine: Don't worry, my computer has it's moments where it hates Novelty, too.

And I'm glad the girl surprised you; I like writing things to throw people off. >83 And the choice thing was totally intentional, and basically saying, "Yeah, you don't really have a choice here at all." You know, like how games tend to actually do, which honestly annoys me. I was hoping I wrote in a way that people would see that was the point: oh you can pick another option, but you end up at the same place no matter what you do.

Don't worry, the redone version should be longer and less...abrupt.

Cidz: Yeah, having one long story may take a bit longer to put out, but would hopefully avoid any, "You're going to end it there?!" The 'old' version will probably continue to act as a demo or 'preview' of the longer story.

[Celestine]

And I'm glad the girl surprised you; I like writing things to throw people off.

I'm glad too. It makes the story more thrilling.

How long are you expecting the story to be? I hope you won't change October sprite in the new version. Got used to her facial expressions in this story.

[Mink]

Sadly (okay not really), it's a totally different sprite. Jadeookami's doing the art and I'm anal and wanted the sprites to be consistent. Hope you like them anyway, though. ^^;

For how long? Eh...at the moment, it's probably about 20~30 minutes, depending on reading speed and if you make a choice that gets you an extra scene. It's not done yet, though. Hoping by the time it is, it'll be about an hour at least.

There's a WIP thread for it here: clicky.

[kara24601]

Although way too short I kinda like it already. I know "fairy" vs. "faerie" is a personal thing - for me I prefer fairy and fairies over "faery" / "faerie" or whatever and other alternate spellings....but that's just me. You yourself said "demo" and I agree, this is more like a very very short demo and if it were me, I wouldn't put it in "completed games" thread. If I were a mod I'd move it to a "demos" thread or something similar. But I'm not a mod. LOL

Again, for what's there...or...rather...despite being so very short and very "super short demo" - like....it's nice. I look forward to the real full game ;-P