Coo. I salute you, because you managed to write a story that, after I'd read the first bit of and then had to leave...
got inside my head. As a result, I've spent a sizeable chunk of today playing and re-playing the game. (Many OELVNs I'll play once or twice, get an ending or two, and then leave.) Talia is a compelling character, and I found myself really wanting to see the different ways her story could pan out. So many congratulations.
You were a bit hasty in posting the character sketches (and particularly in claiming that nobody's trying to find the references). I only got a chance to look at most of the rest of the script today; and a lot of regulars don't necessarily check the forum every day. On the other hand, WOW those character sketches are AWESOME
At first I wasn't that fussed about seeing Ethan's route(s), but he looks really cool (in a geeky way) in his sketch, and having that mental image of him makes me want to see more of his story. Also Talia and Tim are indeed awesomely cute
So, some thoughts from my playthroughs. I found a number more typos, which I've sent to you in a PM as there's no need for them to be in this post.
Something I wasn't sure whether was deliberate or not was the inconsistency on the names of Lisa/Liz vs Lucy/Luce, and "ordering Tai". The dice-rolling had inconsistent capitalisation of "*roll*" / "*Roll*". And also, far too many critical hits, unless the dice are loaded
You probably want to end after the endings with "$ renpy.full_restart()", rather than just looping through the game again and again. Not that I minded, mind you, since looping through the game again and again was what I wanted to do
I like Izzy quite a bit. She doesn't strike me as a tsunderekko at all. Just sassy, sarky, and ecchi in just the right way.
Spoilers for the list of endings I've got so far, as well as what seems like a script inconsistency.
In order, the endings I got were:
Timothy and Isabel
I Am Talia (About 5 times!)
Lisa and Isabel (which feels like the true ending, somehow, despite Talia not hooking up in it)
I Am Talia (4 more times)
Talia and Isabel (which I really hadn't been expecting, but was surprisingly cool)
Several more repeats of endings I've already got
Talia and Ethan (just as I was starting to think there was no way to an Ethan ending!)
2 more repeat endings (in which I discovered you can get "Talia and Isabel" having given Isabel no encouragement at all, somewhat oddly: "want him so badly", "give Ethan something to talk about", "I have a chance", "can't deal with this right now", "spell it out for him". That can't be right, surely? It jumps straight from going to a different table from Ethan into a scene where Talia claims to have hurt Izzy, despite that not being on this path.)
TsundereLightning wrote:How's this for an explanation of a Dungeon Master's duties?
Yeah, anything like that would be fine.
TsundereLightning wrote:Mystik does seem to have the same problem identifying who's who... what with all the plays, roleplaying, and the Arty-Farty flip flops between calling her Talia or Timothy.
...and the flops aren't arbitrary at all. ...why is this spoilered?
It took me quite some time to realise that those flops weren't arbitrary. Some of the time it's obviously deliberate, but when it changes back and forth in mid-conversation, it's not too clear.
Basically, she speaks as Talia when she's being confident or working towards coming out, right? And as Timothy when she's depressed, hiding, or whatever?
TsundereLightning wrote:Is there any easy way to append another part of the name? As in "Izzy as Tokho:"" or "Lisa as Megan:" ...?
TBH, the simplest way would be to just define another character for those occasions. Use the same colours but a different character object name. (You could do the same for Timothy, in fact.) There is probably a complicated way to do it using advanced character objects, but just defining a few more characters seems simple enough.
TsundereLightning wrote:I should really ease off on the references, except where they make sense.
Which means that Alex's magnum opus is probably going to stay. And they do explain the Iris and Megan allusion ('Meganekko' = Japanese for 'Girl in Glasses,' from 'Megane' = Japanese for 'Spectacles.' Anyone that gets the reference will understand why Talia tells Alex how groan-worthy that is)
thing in character.
Ohhhh. Does that mean
the "big reveal" is that Iris and Megan are the same character? There wasn't enough detail there about the play for me to figure out what the play's basic plot was.
I couldn't figure out the reason for the name "Iris" at all.
TsundereLightning wrote:Can you give me some specific examples of fanspeak and WikiTropes gone overboard?
Hmm. Perhaps things like: mentioning "Crowning Moment of Awesome in 5... 4..." is OK, since it's fairly clear what that means. But inverting it to the Awesome Moment of Crowning I think wouldn't make sense unless you'd actually seen CMoA as a concept before. Another example would be Hanlon's Razor: quoting it is fine, but you don't need to give it its name. Just having Greg quoting it as a saying works even if you don't know what it is; having Greg explain that it's a reference isn't necessary.
OTOH, I did love the "GLBTI-OMG-WTF-BBQ-LOL-STFU-KTHX-BAI center", particularly with the subtler "Oh really?" / "Yeah really." afterwards.
TsundereLightning wrote:chronoluminare wrote: I'm delighted at the ethics of the in-game choice. That's a spicy way to let the player direct the protagonist's emotions and ethics. Very nice: I hope there's more of them.
Spicy, you say?
...probably not what you meant. Elaborate?
Heh. I guess that's an example of a reference not making sense - just so you know how it feels from the other side
I was just expressing approval of the concept where you have the protagonist
playing another character in-game (in D&D, in this case), and making a choice for how the character they're
playing acts, based on the protagonist's OOC motivations. It's a delicious mechanic the first time you see it, and also a rather tough choice. When I said "spicy", I just meant it was fascinating, compelling, generally good VN writing, and also the kind of mechanic that could certainly be used again.
Having played through the rest of the game, I guess it makes sense that there aren't any more choices like that in Transformation Sequence, since there aren't any more D&D sessions shown (which is probably sensible for the sake of readers who aren't familiar with roleplaying). But it'd be a fascinating idea for another game, that the protagonist's out-of-roleplay mindset and destiny is decided by their in-roleplay choices, which the player gets to direct.
Any clearer?
TsundereLightning wrote:Are you going to try for Talia and Ethan? All that requires is Talia not fully realizing how much of an idiot she was.
Also, the True Ending is full of more Talia and Ethan squee than is recommended for human consumption... and, conversely, that requires Talia to grow the fuck up. She needs to take responsibility for hurting both Ethan AND Isabel, and resolve the love triangle so that there's no hypotenuse to be rejected.
What that means exactly is left as an exercise for the reader.
Ahh, interesting. I'll take that and run with it a bit. I'd certainly like to see more
Talia and Ethan squee
.
TsundereLightning wrote:Lisa's intro is a little
anvilicious, yes. This is a Show Not Tell problem, and I will need to think of various ways to show it rather than say it. Honestly, her struggling with the rules might be enough, but suggestions on how to turn this from
"HEY GUYS! LISA PLAYING THE GAME IS A MAJOR PLOT POINT!!! SHE'S MOONING OVER ISABEL, GUYS!!"
...into foreshadowing would be nice.
Well, FWIW I thought it was obvious she was doing it for romantic reasons, but (to use TV Tropes-speak) you subverted it because
I thought it was Talia rather than Izzy she was after
.
Right, off to go look for another couple of endings...
(Or go to bed. One or the other.)