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Status update: EPISODE ONE HAS BEEN RELEASED! IT INCLUDES EP:0 WITH CGs. GO PLAY THAT ONE! Anton's Vacation Episode One

Heya, folks. Breaking our tradition of always releasing in the very last hour of NaNoRenO, we have a brand new mini-series visual novel for you all almost TWO full days before the end of the month!

WARNING: Contains cursing and minor sexual overtures (aka one or two very minor dirty jokes).

Episode Zero (Without A Pilot): Anton Rogers, Supreme Commander of the Katajion Directorship and hero of the universe, has had enough. After saving humanity from a destructive war that ravaged the universe for decades, there's nothing he wants more than to just take a few days away from the death and destruction. With his two beautiful bodyguards and assistant in tow, the young commander prepares for the blissful paradise. Yet, the most dangerous mission of all awaits him. What do you do when nobody needs a hero anymore?

Statistics:

The game contains 710 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 8,021 words,
for an average of 11.3 words per screen.
The game contains *** menus



The reasons that this is a beta, episode release, and when the next ones are coming out should be in the ranting readme.
EDIT: The computer gods seem to have devoured my readme. I will rewrite it and upload it somewhere.
EDIT2: http://komi-tsuku.deviantart.com/art/Ra ... -202846816

Windows: http://www.mediafire.com/?cqqjc4s7kr70z04
Mac: http://www.mediafire.com/?bi2y1uqr48ebif8
Linux: http://www.mediafire.com/?vv9fble37f3qb7s

Remember, IDHAS studios loves you. Why don't you return the love by leaving a comment about how you loved/hated/set fire to the game? (For the record, you can't kill it with fire.) And now with that done, I can finally get back to reading everyone else's!

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My common sense is tingling!
Woah! I actually have a website now.

I just played through the beta and it looks great so far. I can't wait until it's released!

The pilot will end up being merged into the first actual episode, which should be coming out in roughly a month. If things go well, it is slated to be roughly six episodes long, updated every month to two months.

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My common sense is tingling!
Woah! I actually have a website now.

Just finished playing through this.

First, let me say I liked what I saw. Space travel and cute girls push my buttons, so I was predisposed to like this game, and I did. The mix of characters, and the dynamics between them have quite a bit of potential, I think. I'm looking forward to seeing the next episode.

I'm going to comment on it a bit - if many of these comments seem negative, realize that I'm trying to make suggestions to improve future episodes, since I think this project has potential.

I played through a second time, to check some things out - It's interesting to see how some of the choices are remembered, and then called back to later.

The sprite and background art in this game was great, quality-wise.

Seeing a screenshot of the dark uniforms made me thing there was a funeral going on - but once I was actually playing the game, I began to see them as uniforms. Still, it might make sense to add a logo badge or something. like that.

The game ended quite early, without any sort of conflict or character development - it's great for an introduction, but if the next episode doesn't have an arc to it, I might wait until there are enough episodes to form proper arcs.

Anton's backstory could use some explanation - perhaps dole it out slowly. Apparently, he's from 600 years ago - how one goes from there to leader of a planet seems to be worth mentioning. (This isn't Idiocracy, I hope.) The character also seems to be a jack of all trades - I'm reminded of Lazarus Long a little. Not like I'm complaining about that.

I have a bunch of minor quibbles with the presentation:

* The font is non-standard enough to be hard to read, since letter like 't' have very odd forms. While you can probably get away with something like that in menus, it makes it tough to read the text of the game.
* The text seems overly small compared to the window frame. With the usual game, when I'm reading text, the characters' faces are in my peripheral vision. In Anton's vacation, I have to look away from the text to see the sprite's heads. I think a bigger font might make this less of an issue.
* The centered text jumps around, making it hard to find the start of a line when you click. Just one of those things that makes reading more difficult than it need be.

I'm looking forward to seeing the next episode, when it's ready.

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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming" - Theodore Roosevelt

I won't lie, my first reaction to seeing "many of these comments seem negative" and a long subsequent post was to consider my retirement. Then again, I was just so amazed that someone actually played it to throw my hand in this early. I can't thank you enough for not only taking the time to play it, but to leave feedback.

There was a lot that I wanted to institute and will be fixing/adding in the follow-on. (Unlockable art gallery, jukebox, voice acting if I could swing it, a couple mini-games and interactivity) The problem is that I'm currently working as a one man show with a 60+ hr day job. >.> I'm very slooooooooooowly getting things to the level I want.


You could say this was a major point where there was a lot of debate over the years on uniform design. In the end we decided that a more traditional, business-esque style would be better, forgoing the previous standard of the shield on the right arm. Some days I wonder what could have been... Either way, the only person who will be sticking with their uniform after Episode One will be Syl. Who wears a uniform on vacation?


Official answer: The pilot was just solely the introduction to see if readers would warm up to the characters. Off-the-record answer: We ran out of time and pushed it. Expect Episode One to have the beginning of the actual plot. Just need to actually figure out WHAT the plot is first. >.>;;


There is an explanation. It's called Katajion's Dream, Morterous Theorem, and Luck and Chance. I'm seriously hurting trying to figure out a way to do recalls of AV's text predecessors without dumping exposition on the reader at the very beginning. Anton's remark that he has done this too many times was a bit of an inside joke about it. I'm thinking of increasing the exposition at the beginning slightly and sticking to my plan of the occasional flashback and story.


Eh...heh...heh... Actually, all three of those brought back a flashback of several days, roughly 18 hours worth of time between them, of me tinkering and toying with it, unable to get it to do what I wanted, until I yelled "Screw this!", put it down, and decided to tackle it before the episode one release. Side images were the worst idea I ever had because they ruined an otherwise cool textbox design. I'm going to be spending another 18 hours to fix it, but I agree, it is utter crap in its current state.

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My common sense is tingling!
Woah! I actually have a website now.

I liked the game, so if you thought my post was overall-negative, I think you misunderstood me. Since I knew that you would be re-releasing this, I thought I would give you my suggestions as to what could be improved, in the hopes that the next version will be even better.

(I hope people can see reasoned criticism as a complement - it means that the game was good enough to spend time commenting on. I also hope the comments I had came across as reasoned...)





What I find kind of funny is that I'm not sure that this worked that much. In the introduction, we see the basics of the characters - the face they give to the world. It's when something happens to them that you start to see there true nature, which might be appealing - or not.



If you want to brainstorm ideas on the forum, that might help. Spending 18 hours of tinkering seems like a waste, once you know what you want.

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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming" - Theodore Roosevelt

I hadn't read any of the post, my first reaction to that line was the feeling of dooooooooooooom. All in all, you gave me quite a bit to consider, which is something I am grateful for. I'm rather blind to my own work when it comes to seeing mistakes.

Side by images are what killed me. I had managed to get everything looking right, then it moved all the variables around. I changed font, size, location, and pretty much everything in between. What I really need is someone who can design textboxes.

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My common sense is tingling!
Woah! I actually have a website now.

I really like the exchanges between the characters. They each have their own voice and I love the interaction between them.

The sprites are really sweet!

Susan

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In order to understand recursion, one must first understand recursion. (Anonymous)

Ooh, totally downloading and giving this a shot. <3

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Come visit me, if you like, at: http://www.miss-mae.deviantart.com / http://www.kinki-skiddles-games.deviantart.com <3 or on my NEW game making blog, which you can find here: http://kinki-skiddles.tumblr.com/ <3

Thank you very much. ^_^ I really enjoy writing these characters, which is why I've kept at this series for so long.

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My common sense is tingling!
Woah! I actually have a website now.

Interesting... very interesting! I'd definitely play the full game once it comes out.

The only problem is the readability of the text. The font, the small text size, and center justification make the text hard to read.

I'm looking forward to how this develops!

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Yeah, the whole text/textbox area seems to be a fairly large problem that is going to be addressed before Episode One. Episode One should be released by the end of the month, maybe sooner. I've finally found the plot of the story, so things are starting to move forward.

_________________
My common sense is tingling!
Woah! I actually have a website now.

Just got finished playing through the game and I liked what I've seen so far. I liked Anton. His background is interesting, his present is impressive, and his future is even more promising. He might even be the first main character that I liked in a long time. I understand that this is the first episode and I look forward to learning more about him in the future. He had a interesting life so far.

I liked the girls, I especially like Syl in particular and so far she's my favorite. I'm intersted in learning more about them and their backgrounds and I'm even more curious aboutg how this vacation may turn out.

I like the character sprites, I especially love Anton's and the backgrounds are a good quality. I'm interested in playing the next episode whenever you release it.

Question: How come when I went to save my game there was a picture of a toilet as the background?

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Development blog

I'm afraid I haven't beaten this yet, but since I don't know how long it will take me, I thought I'd write and tell you what I thought about what I've played so far! I read the linked readme before playing the game, and I have to admit, I found that hilariously written as well. Made me excited for the game!

The characters are fabulous. I was cracking a grin only a few seconds in, when Sora's husband showed up. I will admit it took a little getting used to the world when clearly much backstory/other stories have been written previously, but I think it was handled very well, and I found myself immersed. The artwork and music is very well done, as well. The writing was especially pleasant to read; a nice, somewhat stark style that makes the characters really stand out. The save screen really made me chuckle too. I quite like the characters; they are a good balance.

I did find a couple small errors in dialogue, though. I hope you don't mind if I list them here?
One line repeats itself (I think, perhaps it just adds more to the first?):

Syl has always been one of my favorite characters. (I might even call her my most favorite!) Rest assured, things never go quite as expected for poor Anton. Too many people causing trouble in his life.


I'm writing it as we speak. It will be a combo of the pilot and the rest of the episode. Looking at roughly 30k words, as opposed to the 8k in the pilot.

Hey, Anton has to go to the bathroom sometime. Do you want him going in the middle of the story? Might throw off the pacing.


I'm glad you enjoyed it. ^_^ I always like to rant and rave a little bit in the readme. Nobody ever reads them, so I try to spice it up a little bit by ranting for a while. Normally I write them after being up for at least twenty hours and surviving off of caffeine alone. I also never proofread them as it detracts from the humor value.


Stark? I have never heard my writing style called that. Then again, I've never really heard people say anything about my writing style. Most people tend to ignore my writing in general. Having people actually read and review warms my heart to no end. ^_^

As for the edits, thank you very much. The repeats were my usage of the ren'py command "extend", which adds an additional line to an existing one. Since I really don't use it very much, I'll probably cut it and make it one single line.

_________________
My common sense is tingling!
Woah! I actually have a website now.