The Spirit Of Disaster (Competition 2012)

[Anarchy]

I don't think you're being entirely fair in directly comparing it to It's All Your Fault, but you doing so might be a symptom of Fragile's problem. Fault has all the room in the world to explore its character — there's just one or two characters (depending on who the narrator is), it doesn't really have to get a substantial story going, and it's kinetic. It's an exploration of a personality, but that's all it is. Fragile isn't so clear in its genre or in what it's trying to do. It has parts personality exploration, but it's too light hearted and not specific enough to really go for it (for example, we aren't aware of any quirks or peculiarities of Tom, other than his excessive intake of coffee). It sometimes almost hints to be a romantic comedy, but it obviously isn't. And then there's the endings: 3 is drama, 4 is a thriller or something. That's an inconsistent tone with the coffee jokes we were just hearing minutes ago. That is, of course, incredibly difficult, because Tom's character has to develop in different directions for every ending, and I think it'd laudable that Fragile tries to explore character growth (or shrinking?) in different directions through its choices, but partially as result of that it never gets to find a consistent tone throughout its story. You might even say that Kat and Alice don't belong in the same genre.

I think you hit the nail on its head. It's trying to be complex, but just ended up being unfocused. It just needs to identify a particular focus and do that one thing really, really well, instead of trying to cram in so many other themes.

Outlook of Spirit Commission

Which one was that again: the one that's just a barrage of jokes

I wouldn't know how to write much about Outlook of Spirit Commission. The idea that I get is that the author is very confident in his or her sense of humour, and can cram out a ton of these jokes. For me, about half of the gags fell flat, and the other half were genuinely funny, which, considering the sheer amount of them, still makes Outlook one of the funnier VNs I've ever played. There isn't much to criticise, though; it all depends on how well you appreciate the author's sense of humour. OokamiKasumi is absolutely correct in identifying a lack of meaningful or even coherent story, but, whether to your taste or not, this was never meant to be one. Its story isn't trying to be anything more than a coat rack to hang jokes on, and as long as it can bear the weight, that's good enough.

Yeah, I have to agree completely with this. It's so rare that a VN has genuinely witty dialogue - the jokes working 50% of the time is amazing, even if you compare it to professional comedic works.

Something I liked about this entry was that the result of the first choice, to observe or to steal panties, would come up again during the final boss battle. That the author could take a choice made minutes ago and apply it as a joke to a completely different situation is pretty clever.

I loved the brick jokes in this VN. My theatre professor always said that one of the keys to humor is "familiarity". I really liked how, for example, the protagonist wondered if the moon tasted like cheese in the opening monologue, and then he actually ATE the moon when they actually went to it! I didn't LOL, but I had a knowing grin on my face when that happened.

And kudos for the technical execution — it's second to none among the entries I've played so far.

Yeah, it was gorgeous.

Dusted Star had some really nice visual effects as well, but it was almost... MySpace-y? Like, the author had so many cool coding tricks up their sleeve they didn't really know how to edit themselves. This, on the other hand, had style and precision to its coding tricks. Loved it.

[Anarchy]

The Day I Died

The "It's not like I can bring her home" is also suffering from anime syndrome. You find a strange girl in the woods. Are the options so binary that you only have a choice between leaving her there and bringing her back to your house? You can't give her directions to the police station or take her to a homeless shelter?

OH MY GOD SAPPHI I LOVE YOU OH MY GOD

This. This is EXACTLY what I've been saying for the entire discussion so far! Every. Single. Entry. Has the protagonist taking the spirit home instead of doing something like, you know, CALL THE FREAKING POLICE or something a normal person would do but nooooo the spirit is obviously your new magical girlfriend and you HAVE to take her home with you even though she's a total stranger and there's absolutely no justification for taking her home and BLEAARGH. Thank you so much for saying that, I feel less alone now *sob*

Anyway, I would say that The Day I Died is actually better than some of the other entries in this respect because it acknowledges that taking her home is weird, but yeah, you're right. It still jumped to that incredibly artificial and cliched binary choice.

Overall I felt this story relied too much on cliches and delivered just about nothing besides cliches. So the story is about the last day of a person's life, but he doesn't realize it until the end. He freaks out until he realizes it was actually a wonderful day and can die happily. So flesh out that last day so that we can be just as happy and satisfied as he is with his ending! Let him overcome his mysterious problems instead of leaving them unsolved. This plot has the potential to be very emotional and cathartic if you tell it right.

Yeah, even the most cliched premise can be amazing when executed with flair.

And to preserve the important twist at the end, don't call it The Day I Died, *especially* if it's written in first person!

Yeah. That title just completely undermines whatever emotional impact this story might've had.

Speaking of titles, I'm curious.

DISCUSSION QUESTION TIME~
(maybe? lol)
To everyone who's been looking at the entries, what titles pulled you in the most? Which of them grabbed your attention and stood out from the pack? Why?

The first few titles that caught my attention did so in a negative way. My Entry, because it was obviously a troll entry, and Outlook of Spirit Commission because it was so strange and wold salad-y and Engrishy. 4Dimensional seemed like one of those gimmick titles. The only exceptions were Dhumaketu and Umbra's Calling, which caught my attention because they used unusual, fantastical names, and sounded almost ominous.

The rest of the titles were just sort of... there. If this had been a bookstore and those were the titles I saw on the shelves, I don't think I'd be tempted to pick up any of them.

Umbra's Calling

The only thing I found odd was:
-- Why would someone invite a total stranger into their house? Compound that with: Why would anyone invite a spirit into their house?

From my personal experience, most people freak out badly around things they don't understand, but especially ghosts and spirits.

THANK YOU

However, this...oddity of the protagonist inviting a total stranger / spirit into their home without a viable explanation as to why the protagonist wasn't freaked out by this, happens in most of the games in this collection. I understand that it was needed in several of the plots, but still, it would have been nice to have even a vague excuse for their lack of surprise --or fear.
-- "I've always like ghost stories."
-- "I've always been interested in spirits."
-- "Someone in my family swears they saw a ghost when they were a kid, now I get to see one!"
-- "Wow! Now I get to live out my favorite anime fantasy! Sort of..."

Those are really great suggestions, and would really have improved the storylines of a lot of those entries.

[papillon]

Another walkthrough has been added to the second post with a guide to the true ending of Lady Misfortune.

[Carassaurat]

Fairy Tales of Innocent Children

Which one was that again: the one with the momless child and the depressed spirit girl

A lot of good things about this entry have been said already, and it's hard to disagree with any of them. The childlike writing is adorable and effective in warming you up to the protagonist. The 'spirit' exists in her own right and isn't just conjured up and dismissed around the issue of our main character. She's defined, has a clear voice that sets her apart from Dani, and contrasts with her wonderfully in every way. It may be the most creative take on the prompt that I've seen so far. It's all very well done.

...and yet...

I'm afraid this is a bit of an irrational criticism of Fairy Tales, but I felt it was trying too hard. It stacks layers upon layers of misery not just on anyone, but an innocent little girl. It tries very hard to tug at your heart strings. And the result is that I didn't really see Dani as a character — I saw through her, so to speak, and saw an author doing whatever he or she could to manipulate me. The efficiency of Fairy Tales's drama is almost mechanical and ruthless and uncompromising. That's my major problem with it.

Others things to be pointed out: the choice is a bit of an odd one, to be sure. I get why it works the way it does, but I'm not sure if it makes a thematic sense; Dani is hope and delusion, Spirit is hopelessness and truth. Dani has faith, Spirit has fallen to nihilism. Dani is obviously coping better with the death of her mother than the Spirit of Disaster is with hers; yes, her situation isn't ideal either, but the Spirit has resorted to the deepest of depths. Despite all of that, the 'correct' option to take is for Dani to move towards the Spirit's point of view, towards hopelessness. Now, if that caused the Spirit to take a step in Dani's direction, for the both of them met each other in the middle, that would've worked, but that's not what happens... The moral of the story is muddied here.

Another thing that I'd like to call into question is the decision to go for first person narration here. It's odd to have a young girl tell you her life story as she's living it, infinitely more so than the teenagers that usually do so. On top of that, the text doesn't always line up with what I'd imagine someone that young saying; “I clench my teeth to keep them from chattering as the clouds slowly drift apart”;“The clouds are smothering the moon again”; there are more examples, and the tone overall doesn't match up too well. I wonder what it would have been like if there had been an independent narrator; he could have absorbed the father's lines, to still end up with only three persons in the story, and it would have fitted well into the theme of fairy tales; though it's not inconceivable that a narrator would also ruin the loneliness of the forest meeting.

I'm having a hard time getting an idea of how much I like Fairy Tales. It's one of the most clever entries out there, but I can't shake the feeling that it's... insincere.

[OokamiKasumi]

Who Are You?
First of all the Concept of multiple personalities was brilliant. However, perhaps a bit too brilliant for the constraints of this competition. I got the distinct impression that the creator didn't quite know what to do with it, or how carry it off. This doesn't change the fact that the idea itself was brilliant.

Now then...

I won't go into how much the use of juvenile, grammar-school styled, cutesy phrasing in the opening scene really made me want to shut the game down without finishing it because some people actually like that stuff. I'm just not one of them. Anyway...

This was written in the fashion of a typical visual novel; in present tense (mainly) and without a shred of description. This wouldn't have been so bad if the backgrounds had suited the text, and if the other two characters also had sprites.

In other words, rather than work With or Around the limitations presented in the competition, they Ignored them and pretended that the limitations didn't exist.

This leads me to believe that this entry was not written with the limitations in mind, but with the intent to make a game from it afterwards, or possibly even copy/pasted from a totally different unreleased game and hastily tinkered to make it fit into the competition's perimeters.

Next issue: Too much pointless silliness.
-- The creator spent so much time trying to be entertaining that they almost lose track of the story they were trying to tell. (I did not find the occasional breakage of The Fourth Wall amusing because it was utterly pointless. It had no bearing on the story's plot at all.)

When they Do catch back up to the plot-line, it felt crammed in tight; especially near the end.

This could possibly be due to coming up against the word-count limit. If this was the problem, the easiest fix would have been to chop out the more pointless humor bits to make room to flesh out the cramped areas in the story.

As I said before, the concept was brilliant. However, I strongly feel that this idea should have been allowed to simmer a bit longer on their mental back-burner until the creator's skills matured enough to carry it out effectively.

[OokamiKasumi]

Outlook of Spirit Commission

They made use of a ton of cultural, manga, anime, and visual novel insider jokes to create something clearly meant to be utter crack. I'm sure a lot of people found this entertaining. However, I didn't -- at all. Don't get me wrong, I did get all the references and jokes. I just didn't find the way they were so heavily exploited...entertaining. There didn't seem to be a point to them other than to possibly make the player laugh, which I didn't.

In fact, there didn't seem to be a point to the entire story other than entertainment. While this may have worked for some players, it did NOT work for me. At all.

I have to disagree with you there. I think that Outlook of Spirit Commission is a brilliant parody that provides cynical, funny commentary on the amateur VN development scene as well as the anime and video game culture that surrounds it and in fact, modern life in general.
...I found it entertaining, not just because it was random and ridiculous, but it was random and ridiculous in a very specific way. It was a pitch perfect parody of a very specific trend I keep seeing in visual novels as well as in my own work. There's a disturbing trend for VN authors to keep padding and padding their works with boring, poorly-written internal monologue just because for some stupid reason, longer is better, and this was a funny, yet surprisingly gentle critique of that particular trend. The entire VN is full of examples like this.

Gentle. That's the word that sums up this VN for me. It feels like a exasperated yet loving big brother. It's like it's saying "Oh you silly amateur VN creator/anime fan/convention-goer, why do you do all these silly things?", blowing me a raspberry, and then patting me on the head because it wuvs me anyway.

Well damn... I totally and utterly missed all of that. I took another long look at this entry, and you're right: it is pure parody. (Face? Meet palm.)
-- I guess I took it a little too seriously.

However, I still believe that the creator should cut Sugar completely out of their diet, and avoid energy drinks.

[PyTom]

At least for me, this is turning into as much a production contest as a writing contest. I'm kind of impressed with what people were able to convince Ren'Py to do, with a limited number of assets. Given the sophistication of some of these scripts, I'm surprised that nobody monkeypatched their own text-based image loader into Ren'Py.

(Or maybe they did, and I just haven't found it yet.)

Is anyone else trying to guess who made what game? To be honest, I didn't follow the original thread enough to figure out who's participating - but that hasn't stopped me from guessing. I think it would be out of the rules to actually post my guesses.

Outlook of Spirit Commission

I believe I cleared all segments of the game. At least, the game told me that I saw a segment that would only appeal to people trying to clear the game.

<--- A picture of my face while playing this game.

It's a comedy, with a lot of fourth-wall breaking in it. I'm not usually a fan of fourth wall breaking, but here, it's pretty much entirely aimed at the VN development community - and that makes it relevant to me, and probably everyone here.

I think Spirit Commission succeeded at what it tried to do. I've said in the past that I tend to like series that aim appropriately high, and execute well. I like them a lot more than series that aim higher, and fail. I'd say Spirit Commission knew what it wanted to be - a comedy - and knew better than to throw in unnecessary things. And it worked, at least for me.

It's another game that used engine hackery to create a protagonist-heroine-antagonist structure, although in this case it does it using recolors. It worked, although the P-H-A structure was mostly just used to provide an excuse for ending the game, rather than being spread out through the game. (That's fine though - at least the game had a reasonable ending.)

The only downside is that there was a run of jokes that fell kind of flat to me - maybe three acts in? It's not the start of the game, and not the end - it's somewhere in the early middle. That's the risk you take with comedy.

[papillon]

I'd rather people not think too hard about who wrote what, as it may affect their opinions of the work. In many cases, it can be found out easily enough with detective work (like reading various other posts on the forum) but that would just be a distraction from the stories as they stand. (Although making your own personal guesses - NOT sharing - based solely on the text as presented is fine.)

For that matter *I* can't remember who wrote what in most cases. My workflow was such that unless I had to engage with the author to work out technical details I probably lost track.

[Funnyguts]

Oh god this thread is going too fast all of a sudden. Stop feeding my addictive tendencies.

If you're wondering what titles pulled me in, I liked the ones that had more than a word or two to them. Dhumaketu was the exception due to it's exoticness, but the ones that most interested me on first glance were Fairytales of Innocent Children, Outlook of Spirit Commission, and Anniversaries, Adversity, and Pepper.

[OokamiKasumi]

Living Through Disaster

I liked this entry, mainly because I liked the contrary and sarcastic heroine, Genevieve.

The prologue was a trifle long, but it wasn't gratuitous. It gave a good solid snapshot of who the main character was and how she looked at her world. Then the story leaped into Action and stayed that way with short breaks for sarcastic introspection.

I found the story a fun read and the main theme, though quite serious, handled rather realistically despite the spirit at the center of the story. The closing scene was a trifle heavy on 'The Moral of the Story' but it wasn't enough to break my enjoyment.

What I found interesting, however, was how much it resembled another entry: Falling.

Both entries dealt with a terminal protagonist facing an early death, and both made use of both nvl mode and adv textboxes. The characters, however, were very different. Living Through Disaster's Genevieve was stubborn and exasperated about her circumstances, where Falling's Matthew was angry and almost...spiteful. How the stories were delivered was also vastly different. Falling was clearly a game, where Living through Disaster was kinetic. Where the two most strongly diverged, in my opinion were their themes. Living with Disaster's theme was about Life on the edge of death, where Falling's theme was about what happened after death.

Still, it makes one wonder where their ideas came from.

[Coren]

I'm trying to figure out if there any games that haven't been discussed at all yet. I know there's quite a few that have been only mentioned/reviewed once or twice. Let's see, we've talked about:

1.Fairytales of Innocent Children
2.Meaning
3.My Entry
4.The Day I Died
5.Ariana
6.Dhumaketu
7.The Final Test
8.Who Are You?
9.Sepia
10.Sacrifice
11.Balancing Act
12. 4Dimensional
13. Nostalgia the Dead Child
14. Living through Disaster
15. Lady Misfortune
16. Umbra's Calling
17. For Stellie
18. Anniversaries, Adversity, and Pepper
19. Endless Night
20. It's All Your Fault
21. Dusted Star
22. Falling
23. Fragile
24. Is She A Spirit of Disaster?
25. Lonely Spirit
26. The Golden Hound
27. Outlook of Spirit Comission
28. Disaster Reborn

I believe the only entry yet to be mentioned is "The Face of Tragedy."

Hmm, okay, then I think I'll play through some of those which have only been reviewed once or twice, as well as The Face of Tragedy, then. Once we finish up as many entries as we can, we should start having full-blown discussions instead of separate reviews.

[Carassaurat]

Sacrifice

Which one was that again: the one in which Matthew has to kill himself or disasters will keep happening

Ok, I get the idea that I'm saying this for everyone entry, but I'm having a hard time critiquing this one. It may be better explored in a dialogue, which is why I'm quoting Auro below. I also agree with her assessment that some more characterisation would not have hurt. The characters aren't bad, but they're not very memorable outside of their role in the story.

For a visual novel that takes its times to show the protagonist's response to the situation around him, it's odd that Sacrifice gives the death of Matthew's wife Anne its place, but doesn't, as far as I can remember, mention it anywhere else — it's a traumatic experience, I should imagine, and very relevant to the story, so it could do with being worked out more. Alternatively, if she'd survive the story then Matthew would have one more reason not to sacrifice himself and one less reason to do so, which might, perhaps, have made him and his position more relatable. But I appreciate the irony that Matthew is eager to berate the folks who have it easy in life when Anne is one of them.

The main character was a bit of a jerk. Well, more than a bit. I gather that this was the point in the way, and it is what kept me reading since I was hoping for a choice to pop up where I could sacrifice him. I was particularly angry over his lack of grief and remorse considering who his wish killed. You think he would have leapt at the chance at redemption and I was a bit annoyed I didn't get that choice. So I wasn't sympathetic with him at all, which made his struggle a bit wishy washy for me. I also found his friend's reaction near the end to be a bit unbelievable. Where was the rage? Instead he apologises. At that point I'm not sure if Matthew deserved it from him.

I think that was exactly the point of Sacrifice — the idea that it's easy to decide for a sacrifice as long as you can work within a completely rational framework. It's easy for you to say that Matthew should perish; it's easy enough for Jonathan to say that Matthew should perish. Even Matthew himself realises that he should — but survival instinct is a bitch. You can't always willfully override your drives. That's Matthew's problem, his biology or core psyche doesn't line up with his ratio. It's why he can express his willingness to be sacrificed to the disaster spirit/demon, but can't actually do it himself. That isn't too far-fetched, many suicide attempts are made to fail too, consciously or subconsciously. It requires, perhaps, a state of mind more than a decision. And Jonathan, well, he too suffers from a similar conflict between heart and head. Matthew is his friend and it's unreasonable to hold him accountable (hence the apologies), but if the lives of many can be saved by sacrificing one... I realise the VN itself poses its conflict a bit differently, between selfishness and sacrifice, but this is my reading .

[Funnyguts]

Anniversaries, Adversity, and Pepper:
Summary: (I'm doing this one a bit differently because of how this story's branches are set up.) Protagonist is told by someone to wait for her on the street where they rode a bike together and fell, causing Protagonist's arm to break. Apparently it's the one year anniversary of the day Protagonist and the friend met after Protagonist found her in a forest, although Protagonist has less than happy feelings about what happened after. Then the girl, named Pepper, finally appears after having chased a dog around town. She says she wants to spend the day remembering what she and Protagonist have been up to over this past year, which does not particularly excite Protagonist, as Pepper's curse has been as aggravating to Protagonist as it has been to the moon sprites that kicked Pepper up to Earth. The two travel on their way, remembering things like the bike incident, a time when Pepper managed to burn pasta that was still in the water, and the time when Pepper accidentally killed a cow. Throughout the night, Protagonist thinks about the situation with Pepper and wonders what needs to change in their lives together, while Pepper slowly gets more and more frustrated with Protagonist, until she finally snaps and starts yelling that Protagonist gave up as soon as they met. When they reach the forest where Pepper first fell, Protagonist decides to do something about it. What that something is depends on what choices you've made as Protagonist remembers things.

I've found five endings and can't find any more. There are a few endings that can be reached in different ways. Here are the endings:

Dull end: Protagonist decides that nothing much has to change, and offers to take Pepper to Macbeth, where no one can blame her for any accidents on stage. The two paths I found to get this ending require you to not go through with something drastic, so Protagonist's reluctance to not rock the boat makes sense.

Love end: Protagonist realizes that Pepper's trying her hardest, and actually cares for her a lot. They share a tender moment together in the forest, although Pepper is a bit confused about how to handle human intimacy.

Attempted Murder end: Protagonist is absolutely sick of Pepper, but because Protagonist is the only one who can see Pepper and vice versa, the only way to get rid of her is to end her life. Protagonist gets a trowel from the farm shed, and in the forest decides to try and kill her. Naturally Pepper's curse causes Protagonist to faceplant onto the trowel and die instead.

Abandonment end: Protagonist isn't quite willing to kill Pepper, so Pepper is tricked into being chained to a tree in the forest while Protagonist runs away and skips town.

Help end: Protagonist learns that the curse is tied to Pepper's mobile, and takes it from her. Then Pepper tells Protagonist that it can't be given to any creature on this Earth, in the same way she couldn't give it to any of her friends on the moon. Protagonist considers giving it back, but decides to let Pepper return to the moon instead and get her old life back.

Characters: While we AdComp writers seem to be a snarky bunch, Protagonist just might be the snarkiest of them all. Meanwhile Pepper is cute, but is trying her best to hide her frustration with her life for Protagonist's sake. Protagonist's thoughts in a scene can change depending on choices you make, so Protagonist's reasons for actions typically make sense even if they're a bit rushed.

Things that stuck: The Help end was my favorite. It made the 'should I take over as Spirit of Disaster' scenario a lot more painful and immediate. Sure, it was a bit cheap to conveniently have the curse's rules force a scenario, but it still worked overall. Also, I love Pepper's breakdown at the farm.

Technical aspects: Pepper is static other than her face. Changing Protagonist's thoughts depending on previous choices was a nice touch. I'm not sure if I'd like to see more of that, or if it was enough as it is.

Limitations: At least Pepper is on screen for most of the game, so I'm not staring at backgrounds for forever.

Uniqueness: Out of 29 entries this was the only one to do something with the mobile other than just briefly mention it's there. It actually had a role and purpose, and added to the theme of childishness. It's also the only one to have the action take place long after the initial finding of Disaster Girl, giving a new way to look at some of the same scenarios that appeared in some of the other works.

Themes: I noticed childishness, reminiscence, and how to handle the past to make a better future.

Overall: One of the better entries. There were some problems like Protagonist resolving to do things a bit too quickly, and maybe a bit too much narration. But overall I'd disagree with Kasumi's suggestion that this take place right when Protagonist finds Pepper, as it would lose a lot of the charm. Pepper's anguished outburst wouldn't have had nearly as strong an effect if it didn't have a year of constant pain pouring from it.

Discussion question: With games like these where the protagonist has no name and gender, how do you percieve them? In this entry I went with female, I think because Protagonist felt a bit tsundere to me.

[Coren]

"The Face of Tragedy"

Running commentary

The game opens off with "She fell down from the sky..." - and suddenly, without a pause, it turns into "The evening has started normally", which can be pretty jarring, at least to me. Hmm, so protag-chan is the only person who can see the shooting star. He meets the white-haired catgirl. Catgirl mentions how her landing isn't the most graceful of them all. Catgirl is a snarky and caustic girl. Refreshing. Catgirl smashes a tree into a parked car. Protag-chan isn't shocked, surprisingly enough. Might want to make his reaction a bit more realistic for a person smashing a goddamn car. XD Okay now we get catgirl's name - Xeri. Sounds alieny. Now I have to choose between whether I think she's cool or if I want to get out of there.

I chose to say she's cool. She's sort of like a demolition worker! Xeri doesn't mention what's the worst thing she's ever done. I suppose it might be something really serious, like destroying the world or something. (And other spirits came back to rebuild it) Protag-chan has people who "bug him" which he want killed or something. Background transitions have no dissolve to them, so it feels weird, but ah well, it's consistent. So far, I enjoy the writing style quite a bit. OMG SHE WANTS TO MAKE A GODDAMN FOREST FIRE. OUCH. So what do you say, player? Hate her, or tell her she can be so much better?

I said hate her, because I want to make protag-chan in this playthrough look like a little brat. Awww poor Xeni. "You and what army?" HAHAHAHA. Okay, now follow her and stop her, or warn the townspeople? I choose the latter. The game ends.

Ah well, I'll come back later to get the other endings.

So far, the writing looks polished enough, but nothing in the plot really strikes me. Not enough for me to want to go back and try the other endings, that is.

[papillon]

Walkthrough for Nostalgia has now been added to the second post.