Spare Change: A Kinetic Sound Novel

[reductoabsurdum]

• • • • • • • • • • [list][list][list][list]Synopsis
                    Fifteen minutes in the life of Fred, a coffee shop employee.
                    And for Fred, the most important fifteen minutes of all time.
                    
                    Notes
                    • Contains mild language and sexual references.
                    • Since sound is a crucial part of the plot, please turn on your speakers or use headphones.
                    • Text is set to auto-forward by default. Please keep this setting if possible.

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Download from Mediafire




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• • • • • • • • Spare Change began as a short story I wrote in the winter of 2010. Last year, I got into visual novels and was inspired to write my own. As the project became more and more elaborate, however, I realized that I lacked the programming experience to execute it. To learn the basics, I adapted Spare Change into a visual novel. It started off as practice for my main project, but in the end, I thought it might be worth sharing with you guys.
                
                I hope you enjoy playing Spare Change as much as I did learning from it!
                Please let me know if you have suggestions for improvement. Although I probably won't be making further revisions to this game, I can always use them for future reference.

[Crocosquirrel]

Picked up and will comment Nice job finishing your project!

[Riku]

This is an original idea! It was very interesting to see the life by the perspective of a couch. The art is well done and the fact that we see what the couch might see if it had eyes helps to feel the immersion, but the major part of the ambiance is the sound and music. The only negative point is the text scrolling, I think this isn't a good idea. Maybe that it is to make the reader feel like the action is in real time? You've should permit to remove it in the option, it was a bit hard for me to read (I am easily distract). I know that we can adjust the text speed, but I like when I need to clic. XD

So, good job!

[GlassHeart]

I'm mostly a lurker on this forum and not a reviewer but I felt this game deserved a comment, so here goes.

I didn't read the whole presentation and comments before I started playing the game and for some reason my brain was on auto-pilot and couldn't make the connection between the main menu picture and the synopsis. So I had no idea this was a story about a chair (should I put spoiler tags on that? ). I think it was better that way. At first I was like ... what? Then I went: oooh, he's a chair!

I didn't mind the auto-forward text. I usually prefer clicking but I was drying my hair while I played so I watched it like a movie (don't worry, I had headphones on so I heard everything).

The only thing I didn't get... what were they doing on that chair?! And in a cafe? Haha.

All in all it was an interesting story. The art was nice and clean, the sounds fitting and the font was pleasant to read. This stood out to me because for some reason I noticed lately people have been using all kinds of crazy fonts in unreadable colors.

I felt sorry for the chair by the end and felt that this could have well been some guy's story. I hope you'll keep making cool games like this!

[Reikun]

Totally watched/read this a few days ago xD It was interesting and I think the auto-forwarding text was paced really well. I loved the use of sound! I'm usually wary of sound novels because I'm afraid people will use really corny free sound effects that are used way too often but I'm glad I gave this one a chance because I think most of the sounds were very appropriate and fitting. I think the best part overall was indeed the narrative. I really felt like it was a chair speaking rather than someone trying to write from the perspective of a chair Good job! And kudos with the ending~ I thought it was very satisfying.

[DANKOMEN]

Brilliant idea; not bad writing. I don't think the auto-forward was a good idea. It was paced okay, but slower than I would normally read it, and I didn't see that it really needed to paced so specifically. Likewise, I think "a kinetic sound novel" is a little pedantic. It's better to avoid looking self-important, like a lot of amateur artists do; just focus on making good content and don't worry too much about philistines not appreciating your full intentions.

The screenshots did not look especially attractive. I got the sense you weren't going for all cute and pretty, but it would have been better if the ad gave me more of a sense of what you were doing. You need to hook people right off the bat or they won't give you the time you need to impress them. (I'm not saying the art has to be cute and pretty, just that maybe you should go ahead and lay it out there what this is about, for example.)

Once I actually did play it, the art seemed to fit just fine and looked competent.

Except the title screen needs more oomph.

The credits were slick.

You clearly are a competent and clever writer and artist. Basically I think the main thing you need to work on is reaching out humbly to your audience.

[JustALittleSin]

I didn't read the whole presentation and comments before I started playing the game and for some reason my brain was on auto-pilot and couldn't make the connection between the main menu picture and the synopsis. So I had no idea this was a story about a chair (should I put spoiler tags on that? ). I think it was better that way. At first I was like ... what? Then I went: oooh, he's a chair!

Haha, I had the exact same thing. Anyway, I loved it. The length was perfect (I like VN's that are short and to the point) and graphically it was well done. I always play on auto-forward so that wasn't a problem for me at all.

I guess I'll treat my furniture a little better from now on... And, am I the only one who gets REALLY annoyed by couples acting IRL the way they did in the game?

I'm looking forward to your main project now

[AlexisQuinn]

I liked it ^^
It was short and simple. I actually felt bad for the sofa and the narrative was really good ^-^
Keep up the good work!

[Pyun~]

Can you update the link? >.<

[Sheridan]

Is there a working link for this game? Thanks.