Spiral Destiny Demo [NaNoRenO 2012]

[dizzcity]

Finally played through everything. Just some quick notes about the writing:

As PyTom pointed out, the pacing is uneven. Specifically, the "action sequences" are too descriptive, with too little emotional reaction and anticipation before choices and actions are made. Satria's reaction to the earthquake is okay, but Ratana's flight up the escalator is problematic. I recommend reading Jim Butcher's advice on how to structure reactions according to ERAC (Emotion, Reason, Anticipation, Choice) here. I'm not sure if you're trying to show Ratana's panic and numbness as a result of being overwhelmed, but if you are, it doesn't come through very well. You need to write something about the emotion (or lack of emotion) as she goes through this crisis, before each action is taken (the flight upwards, the elevators, the not-throwing-shoe, the falling asleep, the meeting with other survivors). She can be dithering and lost (which happens quite well in the underwater rescue scene), but she cannot have no reaction. People are usually frozen because of very strong conflicting instincts, not because they're numb. And they only become numb after a prolonged assault on their senses and emotions, which you haven't shown enough of to make numbness believable.

With regards to characterization, I love Satria's character voice. Very well done, the whole country-bumpkin trying to be cool in the city, but loving everything. Kanye's character is pretty believable as the older, responsible sister. Eun's character, while lovable and cute, is inconsistent with some of her actions. Specifically, for a girl who's always been lucky and had her way in everything, I would imagine her first reaction would be denial, rather than getting down to solving the problem. You show a little of this when she complains about trivial things (her knee, her shoes) while escaping, but then the whole water-bottle thing seems out of character. Kanye seems to be the more likely one to think of it, given her responsible personality and experience as a life guard. Alternatively, if you need Eun to be stronger-willed in the future, then you should show flashes of a stronger personality in the introduction. Or make it a part of her character development arc throughout the story.

Hope that helps!
-Dizzy-

[Nellie]

@greenheartnellie - Thank you I hope the final release won't disappoint you.

@dizzcity - Wow! Thanks so much for your in-depth review! I'll try my best to work around it!


On a side note - we've finished a revised demo, but the voice clips are taking longer than expected. Just wondering if we should
1. Continue waiting for the voice clips (while working on the full version) and only release the revised demo when the clips are in, or
2. Release the revised demo without the voice, and have a voice patch when the clips are in - so we will be able to have feedbacks on the changes, etc before putting too much work on the full version.

Thanks.

Regards,
Nellie

[Ziassan]

Hum ah ah, some people could wonder why all this time just for a kind of "demo v2".

Since the story was the main thing to improve, and since it'd take some times to complete it, we thought it was better to first work on the others sides of the project (ergomonic etc.) with the same story as input.
Also new BGs etc etc of course.

With this new version we'll make a WIP thread, more appropriate for questions (from people or from us), feedback, and letting the - ahem - horde of berserk fans express themself merrily~

Ah well, getting back to work now.

[princessofbalance]

ok so i played through the demo of this game, i for one can say that the character designs were amazing as were the backgrounds,the flow of the story was nice and steady and the music i think was good in my opinion, the unique menu bar you have is like a signature for you and i think you should keep it. i cant wait for you to finish this game so we can find out what happens next, but i think a few thing need to be put in english like im sure many before me have told you. You also have very well developed characters as well which i for one can learn from. i will await the finished product of this game. with baited breath i hope this helped you

[Iarumas]

It's been a while since any updates where posted, but I'm still looking foward to the full release of this.

[Geckos]

I'm quite interested in seeing the full thing, whenever it comes out

[Ziassan]

Yeah our apologies to everybody, we have most of the graphic assets ready actually - but the feedback told us that without a good writer (with a style fitting the kind of story), this would be a waste. So we're still working in the behind to maybe, a day, find this person, ahah.
Though working on others project, the experience earned will benefit this game for sure !

[philip]

Golly, it has been over two years since the game's creator has posted anything. Hope this isn't another one of those projects that started out with great promise and then simply faded away.

I played the demo, exploring all the choices, and found the story to be very interesting. I would love to see the completed version.

philip