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Heiress II (NaNoRenO 2009)

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:49 pm
by mikey
Hi everyone,

Well, I knew it was going to be close, to the very last hour, actually 20 minutes before the deadline... but it's done.

It's the second NaNoRenO 2009 game from ATP Projects.

"Heiress II"

Information and screenshots:
http://atp.manga.sk/pages/hi2.htm

Enjoy!
And I'll write up something more once the adrenaline goes away.

Thank you Ren, thank you lordcloudx, and special thanks to Kikered!

Re: Heiress II (NaNoRenO 2009)

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:53 pm
by Ren
Not downloaded yet? Oooooh!

Re: Heiress II (NaNoRenO 2009)

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:01 pm
by DaFool
Dammit Ren, look at Cen's lips! Totally devastating! :oops:
Lordcloudx's lineless style, is it recent? The BGs mesh really well.

Re: Heiress II (NaNoRenO 2009)

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 7:55 pm
by Watercolorheart
Absolutely beautiful, can't wait to play this one.

Re: Heiress II (NaNoRenO 2009)

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 11:00 pm
by DrakeNavarone
How much more fortunate can we get, seeing two mikey games in one nano...? I know! Why not have Sensei do the art for one!!! Simply amazing, really. When I heard about Sensei working on a game ( by ATP no less ), I was thrilled and now I can say it wasn't without good reason. I was not disappointed at all. Masterful work as always, mikey, but Sensei...!!! Sensei!!! No matter how you will try to downplay it, the art in this piece is... is... uhm... well, it's really good, okay! Despite what you'll say otherwise!!! You won't change my mind!

Re: Heiress II (NaNoRenO 2009)

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 12:10 am
by lordcloudx
Oh! You made it, mikey. Hehe! This is my first time going through this as well...

DaFool: These are recent bgs, but it's the same style I used for Real Life. It saves time. Mikey's edits made em look significantly better than the originals.

(also, I just had to post after Drakey :D)

Re: Heiress II (NaNoRenO 2009)

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 12:42 am
by Wintermoon
Got the good ending on the first try. Liked the premise.
Didn't like how the good ending basically negated the premise.

Re: Heiress II (NaNoRenO 2009)

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 11:05 am
by lordcloudx
got the good ending too.
Hmm... a kiss breaks the curse? (or poison in this case :P) Hehe!

Anywayz, I have kinda mixed feelings about this. While I think the journey towards the ending was very atmospheric and realistic, (mikey seems to know a lot about airships based on this game and when we were talkin about the backgrounds) I'm gonna say that I don't really like the good ending (and I'm assuming this is the intended ending... but I'll give the game another spin just to be sure) It's nice that Cen lives on and all, but I really wanted to see something more, some kind of definite closure (not that I'm saying the good end is unfinished) based on the sequence of events leading to the ending. A more comprehensive denouement of sorts...

However, that's just my opinion and having worked with Mikey before, I kinda understand why he doesn't use a tell-all approach in his stories, leaving some things to the player's imagination, and apart from the ending, I think this was a nice VN. Just that I always want something more. (especially from Mikey's stories actually.) There's always this feel-good ambience about em when you reach a good end, but I'm the type of person who wants it to be "feel-excellent." but then... that's not what Mikey was aiming for in this VN, I think

Re: Heiress II (NaNoRenO 2009)

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 12:49 pm
by mikey
Thank you everyone for playing the game!
If you download the game now, there is hopefully a small fullscreen fix and something else as well.

Anyway, the ending, it's actually somewhat complicated, but hopefully I can explain:
The fact is, if you play the "best" way (the way I intended and consider best, at least), you will get the bad ending. Specifically if you decide not to kiss Cen (which in fact is the true choice, since she wants you to give her a kiss like being in love, but you cannot yet be in love with her that much for that kiss to feel like that), Cen dies.

And since not kissing Cen will get you the bad ending regardless of your choices before (even if you chose perfectly before), this in turn means that if you play "the best", or do the "true" things, you cannot save her and the bad ending is the true ending.

You can only save her by kissing her - so the good ending was "merely" my way of making it all right again, since that kiss, had you kissed her, would be inappropriate (you don't love her) - yet because she lives and you are together and in love, in retrospect, it is implied that you are forgiven for that moment of weakness by Cen. So, this is the explanation to that.
I don't know what "closure" of the story would mean, but
the bad ending
has, at least for me, all the finality that I'd want to tell. It doesn't matter what happened later, all that matters is what happened on the airship.

But yes, if I think about it, there are some things that are not explained in detail, and many topics come up, but they are not there to make you interested, merely to create the setting - and I guess the way to play the game is best if people don't look for questions or answers, just go with what feels right. Well, I don't know how to say that, but playing instinctively instead of logically, perhaps. What understand however is that it's not made obvious what to expect, so I suppose everyone comes in with different expectations. :?

Re: Heiress II (NaNoRenO 2009)

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:04 pm
by lordcloudx
Well, I've seen both endings now and I should clarify what I said as well. What I meant by "closure" applies to both endings for me, actually. What I specifically would've liked to see is just a few more sappy words added. For example: "... because she belongs to the skies (looks at Heiress II)" etc. etc.

I'd also like to make it clear that this is a purely personal preference on my part.

Re: Heiress II (NaNoRenO 2009)

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:07 pm
by mikey
lordcloudx wrote:For example: "... because she belongs to the skies (looks at Heiress II)" etc. etc.
But... you must know me well enough to know I would never do that... It's exactly those things that I know you like but I cannot write... :P

Re: Heiress II (NaNoRenO 2009)

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:13 pm
by lordcloudx
mikey: Yes, I know. Hehehe... but your stories always seem to lend themselves well to that sorta stuff IMHO. That said, I didn't dislike the game at all as much as my first review post might sound like it.

Re: Heiress II (NaNoRenO 2009)

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:38 pm
by Taleweaver
Another true mikey game, definitely. A surprising, shocking premise, a very engrossing (if somewhat short) plot and two endings that stand beside one another and none looks more "real" than the other.

Definitely good stuff.

Re: Heiress II (NaNoRenO 2009)

Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 12:51 pm
by herenvardo
First of all, congratulations for finishing it on time!
I've vowed to not play anything until I finish my own project, otherwise I'll never complete it; but I have bookmarked this thread to make sure I'll try it... I'll comment then about the game

On a side note:
mikey wrote:Information and screenshots:
http://atp.manga.sk/pages/hi2.htmhttp:/ ... /index.php
that link yields a ugly 404; maybe did you paste too much on it? I tried to remove from the second "http:" onwards from the address bar and reached the page. However, not everybody is used to reach the other end of broken links; and the fact that the boards cut it with some ... in the middle may add up to the confusion of a 404 message. I'd suggest you to edit the post and fix it, so people wanting to reach the project's page will be able to ;).

Re: Heiress II (NaNoRenO 2009)

Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:09 pm
by usul
The link above gives me a 404 and what, no linux version available?!?