Lemma Soft Forums

This sounds really interesting, downloading right now :B

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.

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!

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. and 2.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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



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

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

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?

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Scriptwriter and producer of Metropolitan Blues
Scriptwriter and director of Daemonophilia
Scriptwriter of Zenith Chronicles
Writer for Pet Project II: Heavy Petting
More about me in my blog

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:

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Nanolife | Dev Blog | Pegasi's website | Twitter

Had to check it out:

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

You still haven't answered that question...

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Scriptwriter and producer of Metropolitan Blues
Scriptwriter and director of Daemonophilia
Scriptwriter of Zenith Chronicles
Writer for Pet Project II: Heavy Petting
More about me in my blog

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

So nope.

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Nanolife | Dev Blog | Pegasi's website | Twitter

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