Rise and Fall - CH1 (Horror/Murder Mystery, 16+!)

[scarfu]

★★★★★ DOWNLOADS ★★★★★

☆ WINDOWS ☆
Mirror 1 | Mirror 2

☆ MAC ☆
Mirror 1 | Mirror 2

★★★★★ PROMOTIONAL VIDEOS ★★★★★

Promo Video | ED Video

★★★★★ STORY ★★★★★

Redwood is one of the most prestigious schools in the nation-- once, it served as a private school for the rich and famous, hidden deep away in the forest, away from public eye-- but was soon opened to all enrolling students (if they could pay the tuition fees.) The new school year is beginning, and Redwood's Headmaster states that he's got an announcement to make. During this announcement, one of the empty classrooms is set on fire-- with five students trapped inside.

The story follows a few characters' attempts to solve the mystery of the classroom fire, as well as the other mysteries that spring up along the way. This is the first chapter of four planned before the story is complete.

Rise and Fall contains graphic images and scenes (murder scenes, body discoveries, etc.) as well as strong language/profanity. Reccommended 16+, but play at your own consent.

★★★★★ TECHNICAL FACTS ★★★★★

☆ Kinetic novel
☆ 77,532 words || 3,229 screens of dialogue || 6 hours of gameplay
☆ Contains 10 beautiful in-game CGs + 6 Guest Art CGs (when CG gallery is unlocked)
☆ ~700MB in file size
☆ Many resources are borrowed. The BGM is borrowed from other games/series/NG artists (with the appropriate credit given of course), and the backgrounds are filtered photographs. However, Rise and Fall contains original art created by many artists and users.


★★★★★ CREDITS ★★★★★

Sprite Art/Story/Programming: scarfu
Cutscene Art/CGs: D.Artemisatto
ED Art: Misha, Jadii
Guest Artists: Agi☆, vio., Hollikuru, umbrellaguns


★★★★★ NOTES ★★★★★

This is my first visual novel project, and so there are a lot of mistakes. It was done mostly for fun and also to provide something fun for my friends to play with, but I hope that with the upcoming projects I will improve. An important note-- all of the characters featured in this story are UTAU characters, which if you don't know anything about UTAU, you can read a little about it here. You don't need to know anything about UTAU to play and read Rise and Fall however-- Rise and Fall is an original story and merely uses the characters to fill spaces. All of the characters belong to their respective owners.

[KimmyBlue]

This sounds really interesting, downloading right now :B

[KimiYoriBaka]

my goodness, another work from 07th expansion? lol jk.

I just downloaded this and noticed the similarities to umineko rather quickly. so much so, that I decided to start playing the umineko bgm while reading...

anyway, I haven't read very far, so I'll probably post my opinion of the story again later, but this is what I've noticed so far.

I really like the way you presented the menu, and the intro is quite interesting, even if it doesn't give much in the way of narrative appeal (it feels like I'm about to play a playstation third-person shooter which is not necessarily a bad thing). The problem is that it's not a good idea to restrict the reader from access to the preferences and such. I rather like setting the text and auto play speeds based on how I'm feeling while reading.

Also, I don't know if anyone else would have the same opinion, but I really don't like your usage of {w=.1} and {w=.2} after each sentence. It doesn't really add to the writing, and it gets annoying after a while.

One last thing, before I get back to reading your work, you not only left config.developer set to True, you also left all the uncompiled files in, which is how I could tell. This is okay if you meant to, but otherwise you should probably fix that when you release the rest.

[scarfu]

Oh yeah my inspiration definitely heavily comes from 07th_expansion, I can't even sit here and try to deny that one lmao. This is my first visual novel project, so it seems natural that a lot of my work would resemble theirs--but now that I've finished this chapter, I feel like I've come to a larger understanding of the workings of things and what I can do, so I'm hoping with CH2, I can show off a little more of my own personal style. I've got a lot of plans in store for CH2, so here's looking forward to that.

As for the preferences menu, this is actually something that I recognized and wanted to fix in CH2-- as well as adding a menu button to the game screen. The main issue was that for the preferences screen, I just couldn't figure out how to customize it the way I wanted, but for CH2, I will be putting a lot more time and effort into working with the menus. I would have done so for CH1, but there was a lot of demand for this game to be released in the community that it was aimed towards, and I too was excited, so I figured it wouldn't be too big of a deal this runthrough. I'll definitely take this into consideration for CH2.

And yeah, I knew I left that True and I didn't realize it until after I uploaded it-- that sucked lmao. The uncompiled files bit, I'm not sure I understand that entirely-- if you're referring to the archived files, the only things that should have been unarchived were the physical scripts, because I wasn't sure if archiving them would cause problems for the game (I tried to archive .rpy files, but when I did, it freaked out a little bit and it scared me, so I didn't try again. In retrospect, it may have been because I had these files open in jEdit at the same time, so I'm not sure. For CH2 I'm definitely going to try and get the scripts archived as well if only because it looks messy and unprofessional and I'm a bit of a neatfreak haha.)

As for the {w} tags, that might just be a personal preference-- before I worked with Renpy, I worked on Ace Attorney fangames using AIGE and the PWlib library-- and Ace Attorney games contain pauses after periods and commas. That was just a personal preference and I haven't gotten any other complaints about it yet, but sorry that it annoys you! ;;

Thanks for the comments though, I'll definitely keep these things mind as I work on the chapters that follow!

[KimiYoriBaka]

Finished! that was...quite interesting.

I guess if no one else has complained about the constant pauses, it's okay. As I read, I got used to just constantly pressing space-bar. That said, I've also read ace attorney, and one of the things i didn't like about that one was the slow pacing of the text. The reason it bothers me more here, though, is because it's nvl mode and thus feels unnatural.

About the story itself, it's full of interesting things that make it entertaining to read, but I think it's hurt by two things.
1.

The horrific parts start unusually early, so there isn't much time to become familiar with the many characters. This is especially hindering for your story when you kill off so many of them in the first couple days of the story.

and 2.

The murders happen with very little between them and with very little connection shown between them. I know it's a horror story, but you've got a lot of chaos without much calm and structure, which makes it harder to feel like the horrific parts are supposed to be abnormal

Other than that I think the art and transitions are nice, with only the downside that they're so obviously from umineko. I'll be excited to see how well you do with making them your own. I would suggest that whatever style you use in CH2, try to make it fit the cgs more, as the ones in CH1 show a drastic contrast to the rest of the work, with the exception of the skull.

Lastly, I was very happy when I found out that

tatari was not the killer. seriously, with the name tatari, having him as the killer would've been pathetic.

[scarfu]

As far as the murders were going, the initial murders happening so quickly were primarily for the "shock factor" rather than an emotional thing--it might have been interpreted a little different by the people who are actually familiar with the characters to begin with rather than people who are viewing these people for the first time. This is something that I recognize and will try to fix in the future, but for all intents and purposes, Rise and Fall is a "fanfiction" rather than an entirely original story-- I feel the experience of R+F will vary between people who are already familiar with the characters.

As for the second part, I feel like I see where you're coming from, but if you could elaborate a bit, especially with some advice on how you think I could have handled it better, I'd like that. I personally thought I handled some of the murders towards the end in a pretty good way, but I can see what you mean by the lack of connection. We also have to keep in mind we've got quite a ways to go as far as the story goes, however, so there may be connections there you aren't aware of yet.

As for the character names-- realize all of these characters are ... not my characters lmao. Like, the only characters that actually were created by me are Hayari, Kasui, Tatari and Violetta. All of the other characters were created by other people, and have been placed in this story (with my own additions and changes to their backstories, personalities, etc)-- so their names ... XD Like that's why we've got names of all nationalities and types hopping around in one setting primarily, because I'm just using the characters as they are.

I'd just like to say that as for the transitions, uhm.. XD; Not one of them are from Umineko? Some were taken from the Utsukushii Effects pack and game that goes around the forums here, and I made a LOT of the effects on my own-- none of them were taken from Umineko. (You can't access Umineko's visual files anyway, how would I be able to get a hold of them lmao)

The sprite art quality vs the CG quality being different is a natural thing-- there are many completely different artists with completely different styles working on this project. The person in charge of the cutscene/CG art is an artist with talent that is about ten times greater than my own, and so naturally, there will always be a difference between the two-- if that's what you're trying to say.

I appreciate the analysis though, thank you!

In other news, one of the other artists has split the Rise and Fall installer into 4 parts for people who are having trouble downloading due to the file size.

[KimiYoriBaka]

if you could elaborate a bit

I think you could use more calm moments at the beginning of the story. Not necessarily before having murders, but just somewhere toward the beginning. I know there could be connections later with the structure being what is, but that in itself runs the risk of making it feel like people are just dying randomly. Try to make sure the horror is balanced out to some degree with scenes showing things like how the school works or what the characters do in their spare time, things that show what is normal for them.

sprite art quality vs the CG quality

I didn't mean the quality so much but rather how well the cgs fit in with the rest of the game.

I made a LOT of the effects on my own

I figured, but they still feel like the ones in umineko (as does the menus and bgs which combined give the feeling as if you weren't being originally enough, as you said you'd fix). What I'm trying to say with both of these is that you should try to get the effects you make and if possible the rest of the art to stylistically connect to the cgs, even if loosely. does that make sense?

[Nanomot]

I'm really loving the game so far, I can tell a lot of work was put into the art and story. If I could give one complaint upfront, is that it gets very wordy sometimes. I find myself skipping over some sections and still retaining the context. Though, I disagree with the notion to completely remove Umineko's menu style for an original one. To me it very well fits with this type of story with the sheer amount of characters, especially being a mystery and all. Also, the effects and transitions don't seem very much like Umineko's either, if at all. I'll post a lengthier review when I'm finished.

Interesting arson case in the beginning! Definitely caught me by suprise, the bgm was almost perfect for that scene.
...
Though that headmaster sure is ridiculous ★... And the introduction of a real (hopefully) detective was quite nice as well.

[TsukiShima]

I won't talk about the story since I didn't start it there yet, but these is what I can say so far.

I really like the effects of the game, it's smooth, but I guess because so many actions are occurring in one time, the game became a little bit slow for me. But I'm sure it's not your fault, because I'm using a small laptop, maybe it wasn't made to handle this.

I check the option and load menu, is it me, or there is no 'Return' or 'Back' button? Did I missed it during the tutorial? I'm sorry for this, but I hope you can consider adding this in the menu later on because I'm sure I'm not the only one being a noob skipper.

I like the main menu, arts, and all, but you should change the default font as well, I feel that it didn't match the good quality in game. Also the quit menu, is the same as the options menu, the same as the chara bio... They're really bothering me.

However perhaps some of them are just my personal opinion. I apologize in advanced first.

[Taleweaver]

I want to be honest. Do you know what's keeping me from downloading that game?

★★★★★ TECHNICAL FACTS ★★★★★

☆ ~700MB in file size

Yup. Just that. I know for a fact your script file can't be that large, and you're probably not using BMPs for art, so you're using tons of badly-compressed music. Borrowed from other sources but with "credit given" - and I also hope with the consent of the copyright holders.

Tell me the truth: Am I downloading the soundtrack to "Ever17" together with your game?

[Anna]

I was very surprised by finding this game and decided to try it out, kudos for making such a project :3.

Let me just spoiler tag all of this so I can talk without worrying:

So far I've only played until the blonde haired boy (argh, forgot his name OTL) and the two freshmen girls were like 'Yes! Let's find out who did it!'. It was fun and I liked all the effects and art you used ^^.

I did notice some things which were bothering me though, so here's some tips! Please don't feel discouraged by this, I really do like your concept!

Tips:
- The story starts a little too slowly, introducing the entire campus layout isn't interesting when you don't care for it yet. It might be a better idea to weave this somewhere further into the story next time. The first thing you want to do is hook your reader >:D!
- You use the kick/punch/fight sound a lot, which sometimes makes an action seem rougher than it should be (like pushing someone behind you to protect them soon sounded like punching them out of the way XD).
- Too many characters at once @_@! I don't know when exactly it happened, but at some point in the novel at least 10 characters were introduced one after another or even in groups of three. That is way too much to remember and makes them a little bland, especially since five or so of them got ditched within the first half hour and the only difference in appearances is their face (their bodies and outfits and poses are usually very alike). It's hard to start caring for them that way.
- The pink haired girl who died in the fire and went like 'Uu', please don't do that ^^;... That's something which is obviously from Umineko and Maria has very specific reasons for saying that there, yet I don't understand what the use of it is here.

[AxemRed]

I want to be honest. Do you know what's keeping me from downloading that game?

★★★★★ TECHNICAL FACTS ★★★★★

☆ ~700MB in file size

Yup. Just that. I know for a fact your script file can't be that large, and you're probably not using BMPs for art, so you're using tons of badly-compressed music.

Had to check it out:

Code: Select all

data.rpa size: 760MB
PSD files (lolwut?): 101MB
Images: 158MB
Sound: 450MB of which 220MB uncompressed
Video: 51MB

After removing the PSD files and recompressing the images/sounds/video -> 324MB

[Taleweaver]

Tell me the truth: Am I downloading the soundtrack to "Ever17" together with your game?

You still haven't answered that question...

[Anna]

Tell me the truth: Am I downloading the soundtrack to "Ever17" together with your game?

You still haven't answered that question...

Funfact: The Ever17 soundtrack is smaller (1/3 or even 1/4 of that) :D!

So nope.

[GJsoft]

*CONTENT DELETED*