The Flower Shop

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papillon
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Re: The Flower Shop

#46 Post by papillon »

At least in my copy, several times when I played the game meetings with Susana were bugged and Romance would never, ever go up. I could never track down exactly why it happened, though, and since the stat boost isn't directly displayed when you do an activity it's hard to tell when it's going wrong.

Sometimes it was fine. Other times, I would never get any of her events and my stat would not budge from the starting value throughout the entire game, despite lots of visits to the shop.

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Re: The Flower Shop

#47 Post by jack_norton »

Ah damn. I have another user in my own forums complaining about that. Will need to take a look then :)
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Re: The Flower Shop

#48 Post by jack_norton »

The popular casual games sites Jay is games reviewed the game today:
http://jayisgames.com/archives/2010/05/ ... r_shop.php

some extracts that might interest people here ;)
In terms of simple aesthetic value, The Flower Shop actually looks really professional; while the anime style won't be to everyone's liking, characters are well designed with vivid colours, smooth lines, and distinct looks. The story is never what you would call high drama, but both the dialogue and the narrative are well written and enjoyable.
and also:
The game winds up feeling like it would have been much better played as a pure visual novel, leaving the gardening similar to the sequences you have when interacting with people; small descriptive scenes with an occurrence and actions to take regarding it.
haha good to know, next time I'll save the time I spent doing the farming sim then! if I think I added it only because I wanted to please more casual players! :lol:
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Re: The Flower Shop

#49 Post by PyTom »

jack_norton wrote:
The game winds up feeling like it would have been much better played as a pure visual novel, leaving the gardening similar to the sequences you have when interacting with people; small descriptive scenes with an occurrence and actions to take regarding it.
haha good to know, next time I'll save the time I spent doing the farming sim then! if I think I added it only because I wanted to please more casual players! :lol:
Honestly, I think the takeaway point is that it's not enough to have a visual novel with a sim (or minigames). The sim needs to feed back into the visual novel somehow, and perhaps vice versa. The problem was that you were farming, but it was largely something to do, rather than something that influenced the rest of the game.
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Re: The Flower Shop

#50 Post by jack_norton »

Ah ok, I thought she said that simply the farming wasn't interesting/enough polished (which is, ahem, probably true).
The impact is only on the endings - indeed, if we make a sequel could be interesting if at least you could buy present/gifts or other objects that could be used to influence the relationships of the in-game character.
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Re: The Flower Shop

#51 Post by papillon »

It's easy to come up with ideas to overcomplicate things as well... :)

Use your garden to cook nice meals with!

Fruits may sell for less than vegetables, but fresh fruit makes better gifts! (Girl may be pleased by being handed fresh berries, not so much if you hand her a beet. Unless she's a cook...)

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Re: The Flower Shop

#52 Post by Aurelia-Aurora »

papillon wrote: Use your garden to cook nice meals with!

Fruits may sell for less than vegetables, but fresh fruit makes better gifts! (Girl may be pleased by being handed fresh berries, not so much if you hand her a beet. Unless she's a cook...)
That's actually a pretty good idea, Papillion. :)
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Re: The Flower Shop

#53 Post by Stripe »

I just played the demo and loved it, so...

I bought it. :'D

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Re: The Flower Shop

#54 Post by jack_norton »

Good move! :D
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Re: The Flower Shop

#55 Post by jack_norton »

Hi all, I'm reviving this OLD thread because I updated the game: http://www.winterwolves.com/summerinfairbrook.htm
It now uses my easier online activation system (was the only game to miss it) and I have also added the gallery section so you can replay the endings and see again the beautiful kiss CG scenes :) Most importantly, the game now is MUCH EASIER than before (something people complained a lot).
If anyone already purchased it, can play this new version simply using his purchase email to unlock the full game.
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Re: The Flower Shop

#56 Post by Blane Doyle »

I know this thread is old and I know it hasn't been updated in almost a year but...
Well, old threads get updated all the time here. And this is the only place I know I can give this game proper feedback where I have an account. So... here goes anyway.

NOTE: I purchased and played the Android version of the game, not the PC version. So what I note here in the later half is probably not going to match up to some people reading this.

To start off... I actually enjoyed this game a lot more than I thought I would. It was one of your earlier releases (your second if I am nor mistaken?) so I really wan't expecting anything spectacular. Just something simple and fun. And I did get something simple and fun, in the end, but I did get something better than I was expecting.

Let's start with the art. I... OK, I can't really say anything bad about the art myself, it is solid. It is noticeably a bit different from Deji's art as it is now, but not too much. It was very nice to look at and my only problems with it were some white pixel marks (probably from photoshop?) and an annoying pixely texture around the sprites when they were resized. But the later is not her fault at all, it's resizing to a teeny tiny phone screen. Resizing makes almost everything look bad, but this wasn't so bad I couldn't stand it, and it was only for the sprites. (If the sprites were recut I think they would have looked better, but given the age of the game I doubt there are plans for that sort of editing) All in all, art was very good and I found no major problem with it.

Having started Winter in Fairbrook I know that the writing of Ayu Sakata has improved, so a lot of what I am about to say here is moot. But I'm going to say it anyway. This game was not written amazingly, but it was written well. The dialogue was good, the narration was good, the pacing was... ok (I always have pacing issues for games like this, it's hard to fault her here). Overall it was just good. My main problem was that I wished there was a bit more of a coherent story when you didn't go to certain girls. For example, if I was to NEVER visit Clara at all Jacob and her wish to go to college would never be brought up. The notes about her and him in the ending, then, would have confused the heck out of me.

However, you are not supposed to play the game this way so that's silly to begin with. I really wish that some events were mandatory, like they happened between your scheduled days, so it would be a bit more complete. But I find this problem in many games like this (where you can plan your own schedule), so it is a bit hard to come down hard on it. The only other thing is that, in some cases, the ending and romance seemed a bit rushed, but that is a general problem in dating sims and this was, again, an early work. In the end, the writing itself was good and enjoyable.

The characters were... surprisingly not what I expected, despite being exactly what I thought they would be. I ended up liking Steve a lot after my first play, and Susana being a vegan who wasn't the stereotypical "all meat eaters are murderers" that I see a lot in the media was nice. I wish more was put into them, but overall I had no problems with the girls, Steve, or the Uncle. I wish Trent and Jacob had slightly more active roles (as said above, them being mentioned could confuse the heck out of someone), but for where they are in game it was ok. Everyone was, in the end, believable and that was what mattered, as that is what I look for in a good character. (Marian is also my favorite. Just sayin.)

The music was... ok. I DO wish I could get my hands on the music that was there, but there were long stretches of silence and I will be honest, I HATE long stretches of silence. That's really all I have to say here.

Now, here is where the PC and Android versions are going to have some differences, the technical aspects. The screen I played on was TEENY and everything was SMUSHED, so I thought I would have trouble clicking things. But in the end, it was a lot easier than expected.

When farming I did have some trouble clicking on smaller plants and when I wanted to pick the "stop working" button (which was almost never) it was difficult. I completely ignored the menu button in the corner and just clicked the menu shortcut key on my phone. The menu was also smushed, but it was easy enough to use since... I only ever used the save screen in game, really. I had no problems when making the day schedules.

The GUI on the other hand... this issue is personal and has nothing to do with the android version, but I really hate it when there is no separate name box and the text box keeps resizing itself. This is purely a personal gripe of mine. It just grates on my nerves when it happens all the time instead of for long sentences, gags, or specific characters.

In addition, I think this is a compatibility issue, but when the relationship meter would reach near the end, a pixel wide length from top to bottom on the left side of the bar would just... vanish. Like the bar was split into two parts. This would happen sometimes to the time meter when farming, when you get down to the very last hour. But other than that, there were not GUI specific issues.

There was one absolutely HILARIOUS graphics issue! It occurs during the following scene:
When you go to visit Marian and she is working on poems, the options for what you can do for her sometimes change. When the option for getting her some lunch from Susana's appears and is chosen, the following glitch happens.
You would be taking to Trent outside of the shop and, like in a scene before, Susana would come out. But while nothing happened in the previous scene, in this one the sprites go airborne. Trent's head is cut off and Susana's top half is, with both of them "levitating" in mid air in front of you. It's pretty dang hilarious to see and it fixes itself after that, and when only one is on the screen.

I was able to play through this entire game and get all 9 endings in a day, and I enjoyed myself completely. While this is definitely not "OMG AMAZING", it is definitely above average to me. I enjoyed it, it was well done, and I will probably play it again on a rainy day when I need some cheering up.

Hmn... should I put a grade to this? I'll put a grade to this anyway. 7/10.

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Re: The Flower Shop

#57 Post by jack_norton »

Thanks, first time I get such a detailed review from someone playing a game on a phone. The issues you have are "normal" for a game ported on Android since there are a lot of compatibility issues between the various devices :oops: (not Ren'Py fault, it's really a common problem even if recently things seems to improve).
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Re: The Flower Shop

#58 Post by Aseret »

Hi :D
Would you guys be releasing the flower shop: winter in fairbrook
for iphone? As I am a girl, I'm not interested in BXG, but I like GXB.
However, you only have this one in the app store, but not winter in fairbrook?
Please release it!
BTW, always remember me is in the android store, but not in the itunes store,
it would be great if you could release it for the iphone as well!
Thanks and continue making great games :D

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Re: The Flower Shop

#59 Post by jack_norton »

I'm working on this with the help of an external coder but is not easy to port to iOS, so don't expect them anytime soon. For Android the port is almost instant so all next games will be available there for sure apart some exceptions (games too big/complex to run properly).
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Re: The Flower Shop

#60 Post by Aseret »

Oh I see, well I don't have an android :(
anyways, thanks

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