Mnemosyne [GxB][Danmaku/VN; Sci-Fi, Romance]

[Goddess Viridi]

It's only for windows eh?

Yes. I'm sorry... I'm still learning to port GML games to Mac and Linux systems but I know it's possible.

[Goddess Viridi]

I think the voice acting was definitelyuseful, since its hard to read while trying to avoid the bullets.
I did choose to play on easy mode, but even then, I was a bit confused - I was able to put Mneme in a certain position on the screen and hold down the Z key without moving her at all, because in that position, all of the bullets went around her. You may want to check that - even on easy mode it still shouldn't be possible to cheat the game like that, should it?
When I played the game properly I died in about 30 seconds /fail
But... there was no signification that I was losing lives, and the game just simply ended before I noticed I had 0 lives left. Maybe make some kind of alert that you've lost a life or something?
I was hoping you would put a demo of the VN part of the game also. Were you planning to make a demo of that too?

Thank you so much for the feedback! I'll defiantly be taking all of this into consideration when I begin working on the shooting levels again. I'm working on the visual novel part at the moment and I hope I can get a demo of that by the end of next month or early June. From this point on, I'll be putting most of my effort to the visual novel before completing any more shooting levels... I want to become more experienced in GML so I can make a better game ^^

Hi Viridi! I've been stalking your thread but haven't posted till now.... @u@;;; So! I played your demo (I'm sorry I didn't get to finish it though ;___; The hearts keep killing me), but I'll give you my initial thoughts anyway:

- Voicing acting was very good and helpful! It's hard to read sometimes when you're trying not to die, but it's also helpful that the hitbox is super tiny (it's just the dark dot right?)
- There seems to be "safe spots" where you can just hover and not worry about dying. Good for parts when story is happening, boring for parts where nothing is being said.
- Easy mode is as easy as it says. In fact I got bored of it and quit to replay in Normal mode xD (But don't worry about this! I love challenging bullet hell/danmaku is all :3) Probably good for people who are new to danmaku though.
- Normal mode is nice :3 But I don't have to patience right now to persevere and defeat the hearts OTL (Someday!!) I really like the bouncing bullets. THEY ARE SO FUN.
- I feel that the amount of bombs and lives is reasonable.
- There were a few inconsistencies in the volume of the voices. Towards the part right before the hearts start raining down on you, I think Mneme's voice is too quiet compared to the volume of her voice in the beginning :0
- Overall, great progress! I just wish the bullet swirl pattern wasn't so easy to dodge. Consider a Hard mode?

But... there was no signification that I was losing lives, and the game just simply ended before I noticed I had 0 lives left. Maybe make some kind of alert that you've lost a life or something?

Actually, Mneme's little sprite will darken a bit when you lose a life, but the game would probably still benefit if a sound was played whenever you lost a life or if Mneme flashed or something, just to make it more obvious.

Thank you for the feedback! I'll try to improve everything for the final game although that's going to be far into the future ^^' I hope to release another demo late next month that includes an improved version of this demo as well as the first chapter of the visual novel. I'll be taking all of your suggestions into consideration (meaning that I'll probably use everything you suggested :p) to make it a better experience ~

[CheeryMoya]

[deleted]

[Goddess Viridi]

I was finally able to find 10 minutes to spare and sit down to play this. This is my first time playing danmaku The bullet patterns were easy to find, and it was more a battle of endurance and concentration to get through the whole thing without the option to pause the game to take short breaks. The controls felt natural to me, though I expected Mneme to be able to move faster in the case there was a tight spot to squeeze through. Then again, the bullets can pass over her head and not hurt her D:

I got nothing else to suggest for the mechanics themselves; as for fancier effects, it'd look better if Mneme and whatever shooting target had several frames of animation on the danmaku area. This is so they don't look so static, and it kinda stuck out as strange that Mneme didn't move despite going all over the field. On the sides of the danmaku section, I'm expecting that you'll have her and whatever other sprite up there change emotions depending on text and perhaps even health (like others suggested, have a hurt image for when Mneme loses a life). If you're feeling super-extra-fancy, maybe have them blink too!

Dolly's music was a good fit here, and it's great to see more Sci-Fi where her tracks are just perfect :3 Next demo you'll definitely have to fix the code which plays the menu music she composed though D:

The bits of writing that was voiced was great, and I got no qualms with the VAs so far. It was mildly entertaining at some parts too.

The part where Mneme said that the score was going to appear on the screen for the player to see; 4th wall broken much?!?! lololol

And... that's all I gotta say! Keep up the pretty art *v*

Thank you for your feedback! ^^

A pause screen is something I really need to work out... I encountered many bugs with my original pause screen and decided to take it out but now that I read more into the issue I think I have a solution. I haven't tested it yet but I need to get a pause screen in for the next demo.

My original plan was her to move slower ^^' I tweaked it last minute to make her go faster but I wouldn't mind tweaking it again if I get anymore complaints about it. A feature that I was testing a while back was the ability to slow down or speed up her movements by pressing a key but I decided to drop it. Maybe that would be more useful?

I never considered animation before but I'd really love to look into it now! I know GML can support animated sprites and, maybe if some miracle happens and I get good at it, animated movements during the battles or just in general would be awesome. I've played a few visual novels where the characters blink and move around a bit and always envied them ^^'

I'm not too confident in my writing so it makes me happy that you liked it! ^^' lol, She does that a few times in the entire game's script and I wasn't sure to keep it or not.

Thanks again!

[Rikka]

I enjoy Touhou (not that I am any good) and I enjoy visual novels (not that I am any good without a walkthrough), so I'm glad to see sort of a hybrid of the two! Echoing what others have said, I'm glad lines are voiced, because it'd be near impossible for me to read the dialogue and concentrate on not getting hit at the same time.

I assume this can be remedied in the future release by there being an option to turn the BGM volume down, but at some points, the music was so loud that it made a couple of Jilly Bean's (I can't remember the character's name, so I'll refer to the VA) lines difficult to hear. (I pretty much always turn the BGM down to at least 50% on every single game I play; but this is just my personal preference.)

Suggestion! When Mneme gets hit, I think it'd be helpful if there was a sound effect that goes along with the sprite darkening. It wasn't immediately obvious that I lost a life at first.

I have a crap monitor that can't run high resolutions anyway, so the game's window resolution was perfect for me. I didn't notice any lag and the game ran smoothly for me. I'm really looking forward to seeing more of this!

[Lumen_Astrum]

I'm a fan of Touhou (gosh, they really call it "easy"... XD), and considering how I loved watching the preview reel, I know I'll enjoy playing this. My speakers are down at the moment so I can't hear those wonderful voices all of you are hearing, so I'm suffering here in the dark

Good luck and I hope for a full release

[Goddess Viridi]

I took down the demo for team reasons. The same demo will be added again soon.

I enjoy Touhou (not that I am any good) and I enjoy visual novels (not that I am any good without a walkthrough), so I'm glad to see sort of a hybrid of the two! Echoing what others have said, I'm glad lines are voiced, because it'd be near impossible for me to read the dialogue and concentrate on not getting hit at the same time.

I assume this can be remedied in the future release by there being an option to turn the BGM volume down, but at some points, the music was so loud that it made a couple of Jilly Bean's (I can't remember the character's name, so I'll refer to the VA) lines difficult to hear. (I pretty much always turn the BGM down to at least 50% on every single game I play; but this is just my personal preference.)

Suggestion! When Mneme gets hit, I think it'd be helpful if there was a sound effect that goes along with the sprite darkening. It wasn't immediately obvious that I lost a life at first.

I have a crap monitor that can't run high resolutions anyway, so the game's window resolution was perfect for me. I didn't notice any lag and the game ran smoothly for me. I'm really looking forward to seeing more of this!

Thank you so much for your feedback! I've already included an option to tone down the volume in the next demo I'm releasing sometime in July! I'm almost the complete opposite of you... I actually turn the voice overs down and turn the music up when I play games... especially when the music is done by Koji Kondo or Zun :p I'll be contacting the voice actresses in the next week or so to get the lines done for the new demo and I'll keep that in mind! Would have have any suggestions on what type of sound effect to use? A few users have recommend a sound like she's in pain and and a sprite to go with that.

It's nice to know there wasn't any lag and the screen resolution works! I'm actually working on getting a full screen version with better quality sprites to go along with the new demo... I'm redrawing everything ^^ I can't wait until I have actual screenshots of the visual novel part... I'm really excited to get the GUI finished so hopefully I'll have something to show for it later this month!

Thank you so much!

I'm a fan of Touhou (gosh, they really call it "easy"... XD), and considering how I loved watching the preview reel, I know I'll enjoy playing this. My speakers are down at the moment so I can't hear those wonderful voices all of you are hearing, so I'm suffering here in the dark

Good luck and I hope for a full release

Thank you! I've decided to extend the new demo to include two chapters (about 150,000 words?) so it'll have both the introduction and the dating part of it ^^ I'm not sure when I'll have the full version released... hopefully at the end of next year? It looks like I'll be doing the music myself so it might take a bit longer... But I don't plan to give up on this any time soon! I've put so much effort into the story that it's like a child to me... a child with lots of robots and bullets and cute guys but you get the picture ^^' I've been a little slow because of school and another project I'm working on but I hope to get some screenshots of the otome portion sometime in the next week or so. I hate to flaunt but I think I've become a lot more proficient in GML and C++ in the last month and I'm excited to start working on the shooting levels again because the visual novel framework is so easy ^^'

Thanks for the feedback!

[Goddess Viridi]

Haha ^^' It's been a little while since an update. I've decided to change the artwork of the game completely... I wasn't pressured into doing it by anyone except myself. I wanted a fresh start away from some... "complications" that encouraged me to work alone again. The change concerning Mneme's design was done to make more sense with Pandom's route.

It seems kind of pointless to want to want a human body if you already have a body that looks like a human's >,<

The new design is also more expressive... I found it difficult to portray many emotions with the old design which fit in perfectly with the first chapter of the game but wouldn't work with the last two.

I hope the change isn't too bad >,> I'm really sorry if you don't like it. Maybe it's a good thing that I haven't shown the character portraits for the guys yet? Oh! I also want to update weekly from now on... I honestly don't have much to show for except a bunch of sprites and backgrounds that need to be redrawn to fit the new style. By the end of this week I would like to have the GUI finished. I'm hoping for a demo release of the first two chapters (without the shooting levels and no voice acting) by the end of June.

I also have a little surprise concerning those shooting levels as I've learned to incorporate 3D elements in Gamemaker but I'll leave this until I have a little more to show for it ^^'

Good night!

[Dollywitch]

If I'm honest, I don't think the change is very good, though that's largely down to the colouring. The other problem is that it lacks the "hollow" feel the original has, which actually looks more like some kind of artificial construct. The new one just looks more like generic Genki anime girl. I Don't even see the rationale behind the change. It feels like a change made for the sake of it rather than one that suits the direction of the game.

Regardless of whether you're making a change due to external pressure(or you believe you are, two different things) you should always second guess design decisions, especially if you're so committed to working alone.

[Goddess Viridi]

If I'm honest, I don't think the change is very good, though that's largely down to the colouring. The other problem is that it lacks the "hollow" feel the original has, which actually looks more like some kind of artificial construct. The new one just looks more like generic Genki anime girl. I Don't even see the rationale behind the change. It feels like a change made for the sake of it rather than one that suits the direction of the game.

Regardless of whether you're making a change due to external pressure(or you believe you are, two different things) you should always second guess design decisions, especially if you're so committed to working alone.

Finally! Some constructive criticism! Thank you so much! Haha, you have no idea how happy I am to finally get some sort of response! Gah! Thank you so much! This is really, really cool >,> I wasn't expecting this at all ^^' It makes me feel a little bit noticed >,< That sounds selfish... Gah...

Perhaps this makes it a little better? Before I was trying to show her emotions in the second part of the game. The sprite below is from the first part. There's a really sharp distinction in behavior from the first part to the second... and even to the third if you chose to continue with her as... her other personality instead of reverting back into Mneme. The main reason for the change in her design was to give her a more robotic appearance and make it easier to show her as a completely different person in the second part. I think I've already told you the entire storyline so you should know what I'm talking about ^^'

I don't think I was pressured at all into making the change... I thought it suited the game better and I haven't had many honest responses until you posted yours. That's why I'm so grateful that you did this! I actually thought the new design would mark my going into working alone and would have never seen it from a different perspective if you would have never posted.

Thank you so much for your honest opinion again ^^' I really can't thank you enough and I hope you continue to follow the project regardless of the new design! If I get enough negitive feedback, I wouldn't mind going back to the other one although I'm fairly comfortable with this design at the moment...

[Sapphi]

I like the new design, but I miss the soft watercolors. Also, it's weird, but the eyes in the newer one look too close together, even though I think they are technically more in proportion. It's probably because I'm just used to the old art.

Also, I noticed something creepy... Mneme's new face looks a lot like the face of a robot character (who may or may not ever be featured in a VN) of mine I designed back in high school. We must have had the same influences or something. ^_^; Anyway, that's partially why I like the new design, because it seems like something I would draw... I am such a narcissist... but that's a compliment, okay? A compliment! XD

[teacup]

I like the new look. She didn't look very robot-like before but she certainly does now.
I just wish you had kept the watercolor style of coloring though, as that's one of my favorite things about your art!

[CheeryMoya]

[deleted]

[Dollywitch]

I think you should go with the original design, but add the outfit and pigtails of the newer one. And the same colouring style.

I kind of liked the wide eyes on the older art. It just looked spacier and suited the voice somehow.

[Goddess Viridi]

I honestly have no idea what to do now... ^^'

I feel like my newer stuff is inferior to my older work... Not that it's necessarily a bad thing. The main reason for her redesign wasn't to be more anatomically correct... I just wanted her to appear colder and more distinct from the humans in the game who shared a similar style. I wanted to make it clear that even in the second part of the game when she acts like a human and thinks that she is a human, she's a robot and will always be that way.

I wonder if I can try to incorporate the watercolors with the new design somehow?

I'm sorry ^^' I really want to respond to everyone individually but I think I'm going to bed now >,<