That Cheap and Sacred Thing - Drama/Sci-fi

[GeneDNC]

Whew! XD Glad to hear someone who doesn't like AI likes TCAST.
Psht, I love rambles! I'm not sure what you which status is the status quo though, if you could explain that.
Thank you for your comments and thanks for liking the characters.

The status quo thing of Elly basically representing the innocence side and Jude the sexuality and how their different kinds of love will interact with each other around Autumn. I guess I like stories that also feature a different love than just a romantic one and I wouldn't want both Elly and Jude to get lumped into the same category. That said, after more thought I have switched camps to the no-sequel side. The ending was bitter-sweet, but just sweet enough so that I can easily plug in my own happy ending. I think if you ever do make a sequel, it would be cool if it was set in the same universe and maybe feature the TCAST characters in a small and passing role, but following a different story.

[SilentWolfie]

Congrats!

And then... hmm. I'm nervous. Playing this game made me wonder about the story that I wrote for my game.

Let's see...

The protagonist is 17. She is slightly cynical, has great observational skills and is attached to something that has been gone for over 10 years. Honestly speaking, I have problems remembering the past things when I was 7. How many 17 years old teens you know are highly clingly to the past? If you take a 7 year old child and ask about the future dream, and compare it to the same 17 years old age... I wonder if there will be a difference.

My personal guess is yes, for an answer.

Well, either it's OCD or the rarest type of person who just gets attached to past things way too badly

(or the memory of a dead 7 year old kid in her mind)

...Sorry, bad habit to analyze characters.

Story wise I think that it has depth for the limited number of lines. We know that she has a number of friends, she calls herself a plain Jane and she really thinks a lot. There's thought to her questions and she tries to get her AmorBot to admit his real self. I get the feeling that she has the power to sort of make robots go erratic rather than just being

committed

.

It was also interesting to see that Jude eyes change colors when he switch to Elly.

It is slightly unfortunate because my own sense of

objectivity

hinders me from feeling sad about this part. It is how it is,

a robot that's metal and plastic in all actual truth.

I'm not

subjective enough in the sense to be affected as much as the protagonist.

Supposing that even if it's true that the

robot really has codes equivalent to a human's emotions level,

there's just not enough time to be emotionally attached, at least for me (I did go "hmmm, interesting..." near the ending.). Still, many people find it enough to shed tears over this, so I can say that you're successful in bringing out the emotional depth, and very successful, given the limited amount of lines you have.

Art and Music wise, well it's free, and that's really as good as it gets.

I'll look forward to your next game.




Sigh. I wonder if my own dialogues between my own story characters are natural or not...

PS: The spoilers are really spoilers in chopping up paragraphs...
PPS: Seeing as I'm a dude just like Jude! I *cough* would personally like to see adult scenes if there's a sequel. I'm sure the others want it too (Probably. Like, deep down. Haha)!

[OtomeWeekend]

I just finished it and all i can say is.... I'm crying and I feel like I wanna bash my head now TT^TT

Very awesome VN, one of my faves now!!!

[carosene]

I wrote a really long post to everyone's awesome comments... so long that my browser timed out... X( I had that browser sixth sense where I knew it was going to time out and I tried to copy everything and it was epic fail. Saved none of it.

Also, if you have an Android phone and feel like playing TCAST again, you can be a beta-tester for the android version!
http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 38&t=10642

The lazy reply:
Thank you everyone for your caring to leave comments and reviews! It means a lot to me. I know I tell everyone thanks but I do mean it.

@south desert islander: Thanks! I'm not sure what you're referring to by "odd looking backgrounds with clear cut faces"?

@Morgana: IT HAPPENED!!! HURRAY!! Glad you liked it. XD

@Cerebral: Lol! XD THanks for putting in the effort to comment! Sorry about the swelling. o.o I send in the anti-swelling team.

@SilentWolfie: Thanks for responding! I'm not sure what you mean by your writing comments. XD Does TCAST make you think... good things about your writing? You can always PM me if you want to talk writing.
Also, thanks for mentioning the adult scenes because I wanted to get a good sense of where everyone was at on adult scenes in the potential-sequel. Is everyone pro? Against? Indifferent?

@OtomeWeekend: DON'T BASH YOUR HEAD IN!! o.o THERE ARE STILL MANY EPIC GAMES TO BE PLAYED AND MADE!

[OtomeWeekend]

I wrote a really long post to everyone's awesome comments... so long that my browser timed out... X( I had that browser sixth sense where I knew it was going to time out and I tried to copy everything and it was epic fail. Saved none of it.

Also, if you have an Android phone and feel like playing TCAST again, you can be a beta-tester for the android version!
http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 38&t=10642

Yipee~ Glad to have a smartphone X)) *glad not to have iphone >_>*
Haha I'll get it definitely(its free right?)

@OtomeWeekend: DON'T BASH YOUR HEAD IN!! o.o THERE ARE STILL MANY EPIC GAMES TO BE PLAYED AND MADE!

Noo... I wanna bash my head to lose all my memories of this game cause its filling up my whole mind like a virus entering a computer....XDD

[SilentWolfie]

Generally I wrote the script down for my game, but I get butterlies in my stomach when I read other games storylines. Like, uhoh, maybe my dialogues between characters aren't natural, stuff like that... Plus I'm pretty sure my script is pretty... unique compared to the majority of the games released. And because of that, I'm not sure what kind of feedback I will receive. A little apprehensive really. I can get you as beta tester/reader maybe a month later.

[carosene]

@OtomeWeekend:
Of course it'll be free! If it's not free... XD I'm not sure who's getting the money.
I'll tell PyTom you'd be interested in testing.

Well, viruses are usually bad but as long as they're happy viruses like in "<3" I guess that's ok. XD

@SilentWolfie:
The great writer John Green who I quote whenever I feel like quoting writers says that usually when writers are writing they alternately feel two things: 1. That their work is horrible and no one will like it. 2. That their work is pretty much the best thing ever.
So that's kind of normal. XD And if you think your work has flaws than that's a good thing because that means you're self-aware. And I think being unique is a positive thing, though maybe you should get a second opinion on your game as to whether it's uniqueness is positive or not. XD Sure, I'll beta-test your game.

[applegirl]

This had a really amazing ending~ I have to say that I was really impressed by the story that was both original and touching. Very nice, it was a really refreshing VN that completely defied my expectations.

[azureXtwilight]

I... I don't know what to say.

It's just... Just awesome,

Jude and autumn, you poor, poor thing TT_TT

Sorry this sounds like a lazy post, but I replayed it over and over again and still feel sad. It's normal right? *sniff*

The only time I felt like this is when Shinjiro from Persona died and when Ion from TOA died...

I wanna see Elly and Jude once again... Sequel pwease? D:

[Corylea]

I just played this, and it was very good. Interesting and unusual premise for a story. I thought it was a bit unrealistic that Jude fell in love with Autumn practically instantly, but aside from that, the story was quite touching. Bravo!

[carosene]

@Applegirl: Thanks for your compliments. I'm very glad to hear the word "original," that's high praise to me. ^-^

@azureXtwilight: Really?! You played it three times?! Thank you so much for putting all that time into it. XD (*cough* My goal is that the cumulative play time of everyone who played it is greater than the amount of time I worked on it. Of course I have no idea how to calculate either of those numbers, but hey, I'm glad to hear it's worth playing more than once. XD)
I am continuing to remain coy on whether there will be a sequel or not. ^-^;; Not sure. But thanks for letting me know that you're interested! :3

@Corylea: Thanks for your thoughts, comments, and criticism. I need me some of that. ^-^;;

My excuse for Jude's quick fall in love with Autumn is that he doesn't fall in love with her for any of the usual human reasons: Physical attraction, signs of affection, common interests and/or beliefs, time spent together, etc. He's programmed to be commited to her because she bought him. However, with Autumn, commitment=love. In other words, he pretty much "loved" her the instant he was programmed to commit to her.
Though of course, that's my view that I didn't think of during the game explain very well. Your criticism is legitimate, and I thank you for sharing it with me.

[Elethia]

Amazing! ^-^ The characters were written really well, great artwork, a story line that really makes you think...
I would like a sequal! and I don't mind if it comes out in 2020 because what you have produced is work that can't be rushed!

[papillon]

It's always hard to make sequels without diluting the effect of the original, but I would be interested in seeing

Autumn exploring the potential responsibility for destructive love that she can unleash.

We see the actions of the authorities as bad things (taking Elly away, denying Autumn the chance for connection by preventing her from having another robot with personality) but it's also clear that Elly IS dangerous. Had anyone slightly threatened Autumn while they were out and about, there could have been disaster. Autumn didn't seem to realise that or worry about it at all.

Now, by clearly expressing her desire for Elly not to kill people unless absolutely necessary, she could potentially replace the programmatic restrictions with moral restrictions. Which also connects to the differences and similarities between humans and robots. There are many actions we don't take because we understand that other people / society in general will be upset.

Any robot that Autumn connects with, she will need to carefully craft a moral framework for.

Of course, if others discover what a danger she is, they might have their own ideas of how to deal with her...

[KimiYoriBaka]

well, you seem to have plenty of supporters, so let me be the bad guy and say why I didn't really like your story. please do not be discouraged by it though.

artwise, I didn't like that the colors were clearly different between the sprites and the backgrounds, and I felt the backgrounds tended to be rather empty. I also think the sprites should have been closer to the viewer. on that note, is autumn supposed to be short? cause the positions of the other characters made it seem that way.

about the story, it didn't seem very believable to me.

to be more specific, the entire ordeal that caused elly to be taken away doesn't feel right. why would a child in a heated argument grab a baseball bat? going out of one's way to grab a weapon out of anger is a very unusual thing to do, and is a sign of a very sadistic person. this is especially true with the weapon in question as a baseball bat is more lethal than most hand-held weapons. it makes even less sense for a child to do so, as children tend not to think things through and more rely on their emotions for judgment, meaning even more likelihood of throwing a fist instead. in addition, it doesn't make sense for elly to override her programming for such a philosophically unclear purpose, unless she was programmed to act in a way entirely dependent on the situation, as otherwise she wouldn't have anything in her programming that would suggest the possibility. essentially you have a robot coming up with an idea out of nowhere, and an unquantifiable one at that. lastly, how did autumn get a hold of elly's mini-disk if the robots keep those inside them?

oh, and another thing, if the robots have multiple cameras they should be able to tell that movies aren't real due to the fact that they have no depth.

[Taleweaver]

oh, and another thing, if the robots have multiple cameras they should be able to tell that movies aren't real due to the fact that they have no depth.

You just don't have any imagination:

Who says movies in the future aren't 3D?