Lemma Soft Forums

Story

The world has ended. The collapse of modern civilization happened in an instant, and for a time everything was still. Clara must survive this strange broken world with the help of her new friends, three able-bodied bachelors who probably wouldn't mind kissing her if they knew her a little better. Survival isn't enough however, as the clock could very well be ticking down to an even greater cataclysm. Could all the answers be hidden in the secret underground tunnels? What mysteries could be hidden in the endless wastelands?

Gameplay

This is going to be a dating sim at it's core. I'm using the DSE as a base for this project. Each day you decide what necessary chore you want to do, and who you want to take with you. Keeping an eye on your rations and the state of your shelter is important, but It shouldn't become too difficult to avoid starving or freezing to death.

why I'm sharing

I thrive off of positive feedback. Any kind of helpful/insightful comments are greatly appreciated, as long as they aren't condescending, or total downers.

general progress

-Adding more writing to the main intro, otherwise it's prettymuch wrapped up
-got a bunch of necessary sprites done
-Finished almost all of the modifications I needed to make to the DSE, So that's out of the way
-a few backgrounds done
-a few usable CGs done, been making some explicit ones as well but I'm not sharing yet.
-a few songs done.
-writing events now!

Hey look!

Character art:

old art: http://i498.photobucket.com/albums/rr34 ... prites.jpg
Those are the bachelors. I'm only having 3 because I want to actually finish this project. Are they kissable? Would you kiss them? For how long?

Here's a couple screenshots,

Hurhurhur.


This is what the menu looks like at the moment. IT DOES WHAT I TELL IT TO DO. ☺




Here's some character profiles,

Caleb. Easily flustered kuudere. He was an invading soldier in the war, but now that neither of the countries appear to exist anymore, fighting just doesn't seem to make sense. He tries to uphold the ideals of an honorable soldier, but he was never trained for this kind of situation. His main duties for the group involve keeping watch for bandits, and searching for food. He still wonders why the others trust him so much.


Odin. An easygoing guy who's main duties involve keeping the shelter from literally falling apart. Friendly and practical, he lives in the moment, and at the moment he needs more lumber, maybe you could help him find some. He seems most content when he's busy building something, but maybe he's just trying to keep his mind off something else.. Now if only he would remember to put on a shirt!


Milo. He's the acting leader of the group. He is somewhat of an intellectual and has a knack for fixing and/or constructing helpful devices for the group. He is wholly invested in learning more about the strange notes he has been finding in basements across the destroyed town. Where could the clues be pointing? Perhaps this newcomer has some insight that he lacks..

PLAYABLE DEMO

IT'S RIGHT HERE. TELL ME IF IT WORKS.
This is just the rough draft of the first part of the game, I've already started tidying it up a lot. Feedback is always appreciated though.

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I Will Hold Your Hand

I do greatly enjoy the art style. I'm going to do sort of a liveblog review of the demo, so you can know my feelings as I'm playing it. If you want general comments, scroll down. I bolded the section.

Detailed comments as I play the demo
Opening music is nice, I sort of just sat there for a bit listening in. Should the main character's portrait be fully in front of the bottom text? I see that some of the words, like "Hand" to the right are slightly overlapping it, which is odd to me given how it mostly is in front of the text.

Then I started it. The background behind the text box is a bit unusual, given how the game background starts fully as black. Perhaps using NVL mode during this little cutscene opening can help eliminate that strangeness. I'm also curious on the writing style as well. Somethings there's grammar inconsistencies, like on the third screen when your sentence is "you start to feel drowsy" without any punctuation and without a capital Y.

I'm not quite sure the purpose of having a menu choice with only option. If this is because the demo only allows one option, I understand, but in general it seems a bit unnecessary to have a one-choice menu.

Can you auto-time the screens that say "day 0" and all? I didn't realize both times that I had to click to advance on them. Perhaps a quick pause would be best for those. For the earthquake, I would recommend a sound effect to go along with the screen shake.

The text box background clashes with the color of the name "Yolok-tos," making it a bit difficult to see.

The silhouette of the man appearing from the cracks was nice.

More grammar mistakes, at least to me. For example, "You feel like you should call out to him but you cant seem to open your mouth.." I personally feel that could be corrected to "You feel like you should call out to him, but you can't seem to open your mouth.." These are a bit persistent throughout the demo, so I'd definitely brush up on them before a final release.

The full body shot of the first man is very nice. I would definitely recommend NVL mode though, so that the text at this part doesn't block the artwork with its text box. I personally want to enjoy the full extent of the art for this is why.

Watching the characters react with the art style for the game is very nice, I think the most enjoyable part of this so far for me has been the art style. Once again though, having a one-option menu choice is odd, and forcing your name is also a bit bad. If you wanted the name Clara to be the only option, you should just ignore the menus and go along with using Clara.

When you introduced the other characters, it took me a bit to realize Odin was the yellow one, even though the font color matched up. Perhaps you can do something to make it a bit more apparent who is who at this point, like having them come onto the screen one at a time. I took the option to make Odin leave to get his shirt, and his sprite sort of vanished without a transition, which was a bit awkward to me as well.

When Milo pulls Caleb in front, you sort of did a fade transition. I think a literal motion transition would have worked better, with Milo's sprite going back as Caleb's goes forward, and with the overlap switching roles as well. That way it would look like he literally was pulling him in front, and that'd be very cool indeed!

Definitely needs a proofread. Milo says "So you'll say!" instead of "So you'll stay!"

Overall Comments
The art and music is wonderful. You should definitely give your script a nice proofread. All one-option menus should be dropped. NVL mode would be beneficial for the more dramatic opening. Perhaps add some slight motion animation to Yolok-tos, moving it up and down slightly, almost as if it's floating. Tidy up some of the transitions and character motions a lot, fades aren't always the best option. Keep at it though, and definitely use your art as a selling point for this one, because the backgrounds and characters look great!

Thanks for the feedback!
After test-running through some of the other stuff I've got down, I think I'm definitely going to be looking for proofreaders to help me find all the missing commas I forgot to add.
I explained in my previous thread that I really like the one-option menus, because they let the player know that they are supposed to be making decisions on what to do, even if there isn't anything to do just yet. I'll look into auto-progressing the day display though. (I'm learning renpy as I use it, so my grasp of it at the moment is mostly just the necessities)

I was planning on moving Yolok-Tos around a little. Just got to get around to it.

As for the name mix up, I actually added cute little icons for each character, should help that a bit.

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I Will Hold Your Hand

yay still working!

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I Will Hold Your Hand

Great to see you're still working!!
I just played the demo and it was SO, SO ADORABLE ;______; <3
I loved the music. It was very calming and I thought it really set an awesome tone for the opening. The CG scenes were all placed really well! I really enjoyed the
I'm never played a sim where you actually had to manage your days before, so I'm really excited for this project... ehe!
Overall a really cute demo and it was a SUPER TEASER O___O!!!!! I also love the little head by the name in the dialogue area... I think it's quite clever.

MoPark already gave you a lot of awesome feedback in regards to the grammar and some visual aspects of the demo. The one thing I concur with enough to mention again is that "Yolok-tos" was definitely hard to read (and even "Caleb" was a bit hard to read for me) against the background of the dialogue box. As for one-choice menus, I LOVE THEM. I think they're really neat because when you talk to people in real life you have to take action to speak, so clicking a one-choice menu is like doing the action of speaking. I think it comes across very well. It seems to me that Clara will never (or rarely) speak through the dialogue box and will only speak through choices or thoughts in the dialogue area, which is fine in my opinion. It really puts the player into Clara's shoes since they are essentially "acting her out" and it also puts a lot more focus on the three men and the world (or what's left of it) that they live in.

Haha, and I'm not sure if you're serious about the bachelor questions but I WOULD KISS THEM ALL and for a VERY LONG TIME!!! xD;;; <3
I don't know who I like best yet, but judging from the demo they are all so cute I just really CANNOT DECIDE xD
YES. But I do love your character designs. Clara is so pretty and has a realistic body type. And I just spazzed out about the dudes so you know how I feel about them

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tumblr | twitter | I believe in you!

Thanks much! I'm actually going to have Clara become a bit more talkative on her own, but one thing I really love in videogames is when they play around with the relationship between the actual player and the character they are controlling, so that might come up a little if I'm feeling clever enough.

Glad you like the guys! So far feedback has been pretty positive for all three, so I'm pretty proud of them.

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I Will Hold Your Hand

Ooh an otome game with the protagonist surviving the end of the world?
Count me in!
The art looks great! That was what really attracted me into the game
And the daily planner feature adds more depth into the game!
Loving the game soo far~
Stalking 8D

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My DA Account: http://xprincess-akina.deviantart.com It is very, very outdated and on hiatus, so don't expect much from there.
My Blog: http://xsakurahime.wordpress.com Somewhat on hiatus, because I'm super busy at the moment.

Oh man, Caleb is really cute. I really like this so far, and action-adventure theme. I really love independant heroines, so this is a treat. I`ll be watching over this! The art is great.

It was so cute! I like how you can protest to Odin putting his shirt back on.
One thing I noticed was that in the beginning you use 'you' instead of 'I', like 'You start to feel drowsy', but switch when you're being carried ('Am I being carried?').
The little icons by their names would be so cute! I really like the art
I like all of the bachelors so far (I wish Odin would never wear a shirt). I can't wait to play the whole game!

How is this going?

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My blog : http://briannafactory.blogspot.com/

Oh man, that art looks so nice, I might have to check this out later when I have time!

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Yay!
I really like this, don't die on it if possible >~<

C: I enjoy the demo; even got two of my friends to play (they wouldn't leave my computer until they finished it, gosh people.)

I would like to chime in on the hopes that this project isn't dead. Really cute art.

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