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Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:01 am
by monele
Mr. E wrote:monele: I'm glad the extras were worth the while then. I already took out the unnecessary stuff (sorry!) But the final size is 10MB not 8... (Or is there a way to make it even more compact?)
I meant 8mb compressed. Maybe 8.5... I don't remember exactly and I don't have the file right now ^^;. I'll have to check that.

Btw, about the ending :
Was the Nemesis one in the beta? I only got two endings, the "love and let lie" and the "tell her the truth" one... I don't think there was anything else except from changing Victoria's behavior. Is Nemesis a sort of bad ending?

Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 7:49 am
by Keitsu Han'ei
exactly what monele mentioned.

i got similar endings ^^;

Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 8:51 am
by dizzcity
Typing as I play through for the first time.
- Loved the opening page. The simple figure of the statue on black and the music loudly proclaimed to me that this was going to be good. Immediate impression: This is going to be an "artsy" piece. The blue roundrect theme seemed a little jarring, though. Perhaps you should consider changing the colour scheme to better fit the artistic style.

- Interesting use of transparent layers to show Andrew and the statue at the same time. The black background also focuses the images very nicely, and suggests internal monologue.

- Salesman: Excellent. I'll just but it in a box for you.

- Salesman: Hmm... Looks like someone carved it in the base of the statue. (Suggest "into" instead of "in". Sounds slightly better.)

- I like the verbal play between Andrew and the Salesman.

- Naming the statue: Niiiiice. :) I called her Eliza.

- Fadeout-to-black would have been better AFTER the last sentence of Andrew from that scene. (Andrew: Yeah thanks, I'll need it)

- I liked how you used a change in music and fadeout-and-in to indicate passage of time. Much better than "..." Suggest pausing a little longer at black to give a more definite impression of change, though.

- When Andrew talks about his problems after the six months, I feel a bit as though you're telling rather than showing the story at this point.

- Music is a bit glitchy. Also, it abruptly stops and starts again. A minor point, but perhaps you might want to think about how to smoothen the music in the second scene.

- Andrew is smiling when he talks about his disappointment and lost dreams of becoming a top mangaka like Yukito Kishiro or Hiromu Arakawa. Is this a resigned smile? It seemed a little strange, especially when there was a frowning sprite once the statue starts talking.

- Andrew:... and I could make him anyway I want. "Anyway" should be two words.

- Chose "shy and quiet".

- Do something about the section beginning with "She seem to be the kind of person that when concentrates on something, forgets everything else." A little too long (so it breaks the standard box area), doesn't read well grammatically.

- Chose "arrogance". This is interesting, actually. I naturally assumed that "arrogance" would be more suited to the "loud and exuberant" personality, so I deliberately chose this instead of "envy" to see how you would deal with what appeared to be naturally-opposing personality traits.

- The third choice appears to be a choice about whether Victoria is conventional or not. Chose "root for the monsters"

- "Galatea". Ha! Gave me a good chuckle. However, you might want to consider renaming your save name points so that there are no spoilers as to the name. People are likely to save at the decision points, so they would already know the character is going to be called Victoria... whether they wish it or not. (And why does "Victoria" roll off the tongue more easily than Galatea? :P)

- "apish" = "ape-ish", or "ape-like"

- I like the picture of Andrew holding the letter. I don't know why. I just do. Maybe it's his posture or expression or something.

- Ooh, a Victoria-otaku! :D

- Check the spelling of "Comicket". If I'm not mistaken, the second "c" isn't there. In any case, I found the change of backgrounds from pale pastel to bright and colourful a little jarring, but oh well.

- "on the newspaper or television" = "in the newspaper or on television"

- Higgins! :D Brilliant!

- "says a nice commentary" sounds weird. Perhaps "gives a nice commentary" or "says a nice comment"

- "walking on a land that does not exist" = "walking in a land that does not exist"

- "How did I manage to find the courage to say that is a wonder to me even now" has a grammar issue. Suggest changing to "How I managed to find...."

- "from screaming to world how happy I was" = missing a "the"

- I liked the effect when you faded out to black and the statue said "I see..." It gave me the impression of the statue having quiet doubts. Don't know whether that was intentional, or whether it was just a coincidence that you wanted a change of scene there.

- "curiousness" = "curiosity"

- I like your sense of humour. (And those of your assistants, and editor, and parents, and the door-to-door salesman)

- I love that one part where Andrew closes his eyes and says "No". VERY good technique there. The timing is perfect, and the mood comes through clearly.

- "Even after nine months you can't trust her this one detail in your life." Missing a "with".

- "Her eyes alighted when she heard that." Should be "lighted", or "lit".

- "To make her different form Liza"

- Oh, I get the Venus Warriors reference now! I forgot about that.

- This statue is very sensible. Its opinion has a lot in common with my own views about the responsibility of creators to think about the effects their works have on their readers/society.

- Hubris and Nemesis just revealed themselves. Maybe I should have called the statue Pandora, instead.

- I like the moral dilemma Hubris and Nemesis present to the reader here. It's the first one I've seen in a ren'ai game that is portrayed so well and has such potential for conflicting opinions. I chose to destroy Victoria.

- "No you're too important to waste you time on some insignificant creature such as I..."

- Ah, I got the Nemesis Ending. I liked it, though.
Overall, I enjoyed this piece a lot. I'm too exhausted to play through it a second time after all the commenting I did, but I really like your literary style and views. I have yet to see how the other paths are different from the one I chose and how that would change my opinion of the work as a whole, but this is a very excellent beginning first project! Hope to see more of your work in the future!

Now, off to try and get the other endings.

-Dizzy-

P.S. Proofread your original Pygmalion story extra. Spotted a typo or two.

Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 10:26 am
by Keitsu Han'ei
i suggest 'onto' instead of 'into'.

Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 11:27 am
by PyTom
I'd be interested in seeing error messages, but I probably won't be able to do anything about them until I get back.

Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 12:13 pm
by mikey
Well, the game didn't produce any erroprs with me, in fact it was quite similar to the freezing problem we had with the mp3 a while ago. But it's kind of only for this game, not the Ren'Py demos or others.

So yes, I also had this problem. :(

Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 2:43 pm
by monele
*nods at what mikey says*. Looks similar. Just a crash, no message... And so random it's difficult to see what might have caused it :/

Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 8:49 pm
by lordcloudx
Ok downloaded and the game crashed with an error message something about module ddhelp.exe causing an exception.

I'm using windows 98se

Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 10:14 pm
by dizzcity
Played through both Hubris endings. My opinion has not changed. This is still a brilliant piece of work, and reading the extras has only impressed me further with how much thought you've put into this piece. (I'm also eager to see your next work, from the preview given!) I think there's at least one typo in each extra section, though. Just being nitpicky.

I liked your strong characterization of Victoria throughout the piece, and how you managed to convey the meaningful impact of each choice the user makes. Of course, naturally as author you can control the types of choices they make, but nevertheless, being able to show the choice-and-consequence model so clearly is an art in itself.

I got an error message the first time I quit the game, but haven't been able to reproduce it since. Windows XP here.

-Dizzy-

Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 10:50 pm
by Mr. E
Oooh! More posts! Sorry everybody if I keep answering so quickly... :roll:

Alessio: Glad you liked the expressions. Don't worry though because my next works will have better art (ie. by someone else) Actually my bad art skills are one reason that there are so few characters in the game. I guess that I also wanted it to be short and have some meaningful character.

monele:
Sorry... I think my explanations about the endings were a bit lacking...
There are two endings: Hubris, in which you preserve Victoria/Liza. And Nemesis, in which you tell Liza the truth. BUT since you can change Victoria's personality in a very meaningful way (The first choice is quite important) the Hubris ending can vary, hence Hubris A and B. There's not actually a bad ending in this game... :D
Keitsu Han'ei: Onto. Ok then.

dizzcity: WOOOW! Giant review *Glows eyes* First of all, big thanks for spending so much time in such a thoughtful review. I see I'll soon have to release a 1.3 version... My english is probably more rusty then I tought. (Gomen everybody) So I'll remember to proofread it more next time and ask for assistance (Puts down in the HUGE list of things to remember for the next game) . I will correct everything in the next version, but I'm going to wait to see if there is some way to fix that bug... Anyways, Glad you liked it!

PyTom: Don't worry. Enjoy your stay in Nice (lucky fellow...) There's plenty of time to deal with it later (but of course, I'm not one of the players and my game doesn't crash, so I can't say anything...) Anyone with suggestions or error messages? I will gladly take them!

mikey: "It is a comfort in wretchedness to have companions in woe." Of course when Faustus said this he was referring to hell but it equally applies to computer bugs! ( :shock: ?) Anyway, it's nice to now I'm not the only one to scramble the game in unknown ways. Hopefully it will be fixed in due time.

lordcloudx: Argh! I am powerless to help! Sorry... My windows is XP so I don't have the faintest idea what to do...

Posted: Wed Jan 17, 2007 3:58 am
by Ignosco
I only got the error message upon exiting the game when I played version 1.0 on the 15th (running windows XP). I've just tried 1.0 again and 1.1 and I can't reproduce the error message on either version :?

The in game crash only happened once as well, on the first time I was playing (version 1.0), just before the final choice, I don't think an error message came up for it.

Edit: When I loaded a savegame from two days ago on the 1.0 version and exited the game I got this error message

One other small comment, The hair colour used for Andrew comes off a bit strangely to my eyes, mainly because of the black areas which are still present in the grey hair (I'm guessing this came from the art) - it sort of gives him a late middle aged appearance because with the black patches (which were probably unintentional) it looks too close in colour to normal hair.

Ignosco

Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 4:46 am
by mugenjohncel
- CONTENT NO LONGER RELEVANT -

Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 7:41 am
by DaFool
Can someone who has it crashing port the game folder to older Ren'Py versions? And does it crash then?

It works fine for me -- always had, so I don't know.

Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 6:08 pm
by PyTom
Okay, can people characterize the crashing you're seeing for me? Does it only occur during the end of the game, or does it also occur during the game?

I have an idea of what's causing it, but I really do want some more feedback.

Also, if people could try out the latest Ren'Py and see if the problem is there, I'd appreciate it.

I think it may be some sort of sound problem, and I think I know how to work around it.

Also, if your system contains a user.dmp file, and you can send it to me, I'd appreciate it. You need to search for it (as it's somewhere on your computer), and you should send it to pytom@bishoujo.us, as it may contain some personal information (which I promise not to disclose).

Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2007 9:55 am
by Keitsu Han'ei
during, right after i made a choice.

((finally came on since the forum refuse to log me in =o=))