Lemma Soft Forums

Now, I'm wondering whether or not any of you guys could post your opinions of any details you guys are willing to overlook. I'm not saying I'm going to drastically alter the known events during the Napoleonic era and say," Haha! I did this and none of you can do anything about it!". I know I've been given suggestions here and there, but I can't help thinking I'm going to end up dropping some of these worldly rules of the time period just to make something happen. Anyways, I'm just gauging the responses so I can make this project into a worthwhile one for both myself and the players.

Here are some of the details possibly to be overlooked:
-Claire's father got her into the army, there's no mother, father doesn't have a sense of compassion for Claire's femininity, Claire got promoted to an officer, she got onto Paris' military academy premises, suckered a too-nice-for-his-own-good of a general into letting her in, and she gets special treatment by this too nice of a general.

-The personalities of some known people such as Napoleon Bonaparte.

-How a French military academy of the 1800s worked at the time such as forms of studies and preparation for the actual military.

And those are the details I have in mind. If there are any other details I did not include in the story, but something any of you might have thought up as something expected in the storyline, please voice your opinion. This post isn't an indication that I will overlook all of these details, especially the historic ones, but something as having Claire be able to openly serve in the military and get close to the guys in the guise of an officer is something I'd much rather have than have her serve as a female servant. I could always have her disguise herself as a guy, but that's overdone for the most part. Having her serve as a female servant, to me, feels like she's doing a passive role where the drama wouldn't be as dramatic as being an active officer interacting with the obtainable guys.

I pretty much don't mind since I'm considering this as AU so almost none of the historical facts would technically applied. But the one thing that I won't overlook is the fact whether the MC's sexuality is known in the army or not. I can't really imagine her being treated the 'same' by the male soldiers as they would to a male commander you know. The men of that time were sexist then and I just can't see that part of them changed.

I guess what I'm saying is how the male characters will treat her. If all of them were polite gentlemen and not hostile with her position, I don't find that realistically. With a women in a leading position in a military, I should see some hostilities in there. While it may not be directly at the MC, I expect to see disgruntlement amongst the men or something.

I know this isn't really much of a post detailing what I'm willing to overlook, but for the most part I'm pretty much wiling to overlook anything as long as they made logically sense to me and the story is good.

Of course I'm not going to throw out the sexist views out of the window. Right at the beginning of the game, after the MC arrives in France, the male students are already talking badly about her. Perhaps it might help if I put a brief flashback sequence somewhere as to how the MC got to where she was in the British military in the first place?

As for the male characters, not all of them are really nice towards her: Alan has an idealistic disposition going about him (kind of like Code Geass' Suzaku and his ideals of non-existent discrimination in a general sense). Drake is already one of those men that do not think highly of a woman in the military. León didn't like the sight of her in the first place. Taylor is already military BFFs with the MC and André doesn't know about Claire working in the military yet.

_________________
Deviantart Account
Current Project: Our Crossing Paths [GxB] [Alternate History/Drama]

Well, I've already given my opinion at length. The one thing I would point out, though, is that the details you're talking about comprise almost the whole plot of the game, as far as we the readers know it. It might be a little hard for players to both accept that the setting is historical 19th-century Europe and suspend disbelief for almost the whole story.

The central inconsistency in the story, as I see it, is that Claire is supposed to be two radically opposed things at the same time. On the one hand, she's a woman in the military in a realistic 19th-century setting, a position which would necessarily be marginal, unpleasant and socially unacceptable if not impossible. On the other, the story requires her to be able to move in society and make friends with other characters who accept her position either right away or eventually.

Really, it sounds like what you want is to write an alternate history, which would be perfectly fine. Changing the historical setting so that the place of women in society is different enough to allow for women to be army officers would be easier for players to accept, but it ought to be obvious that this is an alternate history and that you're not asking them to square what they know about the real 19th-century Europe with an anachronistic plot and characters. Showing other female characters serving in the army would be a good way to do this; as I mentioned before, adding in elements of fantasy or steampunk would also work.


Even the attitudes you describe for the characters would have to belong in an alternate history; they would make sense in the Second World War, perhaps, but not in the early 1800s.

So then should I rewrite the summary clearly stating that the visual novel is purely an alternate history of early 19th century France? If the summary simply stated that the visual novel would take place in an alternate history of early 19th century Britain and France where all the necessities of women's rights were granted much earlier than in the real history, would that suffice?

Honestly, I think the medium itself grants you a bit of freedom in regards to "historical accuracy."

It's a VN - a work of fiction - not a textbook, an informative account, or something that's supposed to portray a real person. Thus, it's a given that it's not going to be completely historically accurate. Just watch basically any movie or TV series (or anime) that takes place in a historical time period - unless it's based on a historical account of a real person, they tend to take all sorts of artistic liberties when it comes to scenery, costumes, and yes, even plot. Heck, even when it is based on a real person, it's rarely completely factual, or else that would make for a less exciting movie/show.

So, seriously, do what you want with it and don't worry so much about how "accurate" it is; your average player probably won't care. As long as the story is good, entertaining, and isn't completely unbelievable, that's what's important.

And personally, I think your justification for how she can be a commander even during that time is fine, especially if it's clear that people don't accept her being in that position (at least until she does something amazing to earn their respect) and you show how that affects her and her ability to perform her duty.

Granted, this is coming from someone who knows (and cares) very little about history. The most important part of any story to me is the characters, how they interact, and how they develop over the course of the game/movie/book/series. The setting just serves to add another dimension to the story.

_________________

Check out my development blog for all the latest updates.

Yeah, if you were to put that flashback sequence, it would help--not to mention, it would feel like it make sense.

Pretty much what broken_angel says, as long as the story is good and is not totally unbelievable, then people would enjoy it.

Hrm... As much as I appreciate all the help the members on this thread has given me, I think it might be best to hold off anymore constructive advice until I actually release the demo. The demo will contain the beginning up to the end of the day the MC takes her first exams which will be approximately 5-10 minutes for going after a route depending on reading speed (It took me about that much since I read fast). That should be enough to lay out the basis for the setting and the MC's background, but I would like to avoid any info dump on either of them and how the entire universe in the visual novel works. It's already slightly confusing for me to keep track of the story and weeding out any discrepancies. Other than that, I'm taking a long time to color in all of my sprites in order to release a complete demo with the sprites and the changing facial features as well as the very few CGs available for the demo.

While I'm not always looking for the flaws in my writing, I do appreciate the positive feedback as to what this project will turn out. Though, I can't help feeling like I'm raising expectations higher than they're supposed to be since this project I'm doing is for fun and I'm not out to prove anything.

Oh yeah, I uploaded sprites for Taylor Williams and León Lambert for those who didn't see them yet.

I still feel I should answer your last question, though, so I'll just do that, and then no more. I promise.


I don't think you necessarily need to add disclaimers, although letting players know that it's set in an alternate history might be good, if that's what you decide. As I said, just envisioning the world as an alternate history and then writing it to be consistent with the things that are different in your version of history (e.g. most characters accept that women can join the military, even though they might not be thrilled about it; there actually are a few other women serving in the army, and the social consequences are no more than that some consider them a bit odd) should make it clear what's going on.

I'm really looking forward to playing the demo - especially since I want to see more of your art!

Updates:
- General Walter's sprite is up.
- I implemented a function on the interface that allows the player to click on "Affection Points" and a "screen" of all of the guys' affection points will be kept track.
- Changed Drake's name to "Marc". Not sure if that will pass the foreign name test...
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Questions:

Any opinions about a bad end and a good end mixed into one? How about the only ending available at first is the bad end unless MC made a decision that would lead to a good end attached afterwards?

Deaths are going to be involved, but any opinions about having an ending crafted after a different small decision is made? Ex: MC can kill her target, but she gets caught. She can choose to use a scapegoat and escape, ensuing a particular bad end for the scapegoat. Or she can admit her crime and it would lead to a typical bad solo ending.
Personally, I'd rather just steer the player into a bad ending without any minor changes.

One thing that annoyed me about multiple endings that calculate every single detail (I'm looking at you, Heavy Rain), is that half of those endings I could care less about. Yeah, I like the extreme happy ending where everyone lives () or everyone dies (). But the trophy-achievers might find it a pain in the butt when it's known that gamers have to sit through 20 endings or so. Times that by 10 hours of gameplay and gamers will have 200+ hours to sit through. Meaning more than half of the endings aren't that significant because it just means that a character or two is out of the picture or is placed in a different circumstance (Don't get me wrong, ).

It's a little unclear to me, but are you talking about having the "bad" ending always occur, and the "good" ending being a plot twist or some such that can occur after that? I don't see anything wrong with that, as long as it all makes sense together. But then do both the good and bad endings involve the same people dying?

One thing to think about if you do want variation is that it's possible to put it in without making the game into a tedious trophy-hunt, simply by not giving out trophies - i.e., by making them just icing on an ending that's always essentially the same. I don't know whether you've played Dragon Age, but it did something like this. There were only two really distinct ways the game could end (other than a game over), but the game remembered some of the minor choices you made and told you the results in the epilogue. That way, you got the feeling that your choices made some difference in the way you experienced the game, but it wasn't enough new content that you felt compelled to play the game over again. So, some minor variations in the endings (a matter of a few lines each, probably) would be achievable without actually multiplying the number of endings - because the same major plot events would happen every time, and the variations wouldn't be things you had to see in order to "unlock" ending CGs or anything.

So, you might decide that the bad ending always has the same major plot event - Claire always escapes back to England - but the player could get there in a couple of different ways. Maybe she has a choice of blaming someone else, or fighting whoever catches her and going on the run. If she blames someone, a line is added to the ending about how she hears that that person's career was ruined. Or if she fights her way out of it, she's forced to kill one of the characters (it could be the same one in both cases, even!) and a line is added to the ending about how she regrets that. Either way, the player gets pretty much the same ending, with the same CG in the gallery.

What I mean to say is that one of the endings (lets call it Ending #1) involve two characters dying, which indicates that it's a bad ending. The good ending with the same two characters, however, can be attached to it without any conditions needed (like Kingdom Hearts II with that extra ending scene after the credits, I don't mean the secret trailer). On the other hand, I could put in a dialogue choice that needs to be selected in order to make this good ending appear after the credits (even though this dialogue choice won't affect the outcome of the bad ending's death). The good ending being as cheesy as being reborn after death or something...

Ending #2 (as I call it) with Claire having the opportunity to use a scapegoat in order to escape certain death is a little more tricky in my opinion. As the situation stands for Ending #2, Claire is cornered by some of the military guards and can not escape. Right now, I only have two options available: Have Claire turn herself in and be killed for being a spy or use a scapegoat and escape with her secret identity intact but with regrets.

I don't know why, but it's so much easier coming up with the bad endings than with the good endings. I'm trying to make each ending have a different experience or presentation without repeating the same scenario (e.g the heroine getting married at the end of the game with any guy she followed the route for)



I haven't played Dragon Age, but I have heard of it. Instead, I have played Fallout 3 with that similar use of multiple endings where the ultimate outcome was either saving the world or not. The only difference was that in the spoken dialogue and footage that follows are shown and mentioned depending on minor changes(although I think it would be hilarious and illogical to have the protagonist be evil the entire time in Fallout 3 and then save the world at the very end ). I'm starting to think that I will end up producing a visual novel where the player can accumulate enough affection points to just save at a major point in the story and then reload to see either the good or bad ending. The only time replay value is needed is when getting the solo or harem endings.