RIVER TRAP [released]

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Jerails
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#46 Post by Jerails »

And perhaps the scene transitions should also be automatic. When the screen blacks out, I found myself just waiting for like...ten minutes before frustration made me click the mouse on accident. Whenever the screen does that "fade-to-black" thing, it should be set so the next scene doesn't need to be clicked in...Just a thought, incase anyone else made the same mistake I did...
It's been a while, folks!

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#47 Post by Sai »

Hehe, yeah I forgot about that... I agree ^^;;
In fact at the very beginning of the game I was confused. It started off with a black screen with music playing. I waited for awhile thinking this was some kind of atmospheric thing. Besides it made an error sound telling me I couldn't click yet when I tried O_o I thought maybe my game was bugged but eventually the credits came up one way or another. If they need to be clicked to go from one credit to the next, then it's probably better that they're automatic.

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mikey
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#48 Post by mikey »

Taleweaver>> - now imagine how I cursed when I had to test it over and over again - my fingers were numb, I know the text by heart now, along with the passwords :lol: . Seriously, we are absolutely aware of this, (no keyboard, no skip) and we'll work on it.

Jerails, Sai>> The transitions - the flashes are the only thing done by scripting - It's the same thing. Should there be other projects like this, we will try to add automatic transitions (*** highlights the above in his LONG checklist ***)

Sai>> Thanks for the feedback (oops, there'll be not really that much new on the other paths, but hopefully some scenes will make more sense...). There are only 2 ways to get ending 4, together with ending 8 it is the most rare one. Nice going! The problem with the clicking was probably due to the fact, that you did not click into the 600*420 game screen area, which is centered (you can't see it when the screen and the border are both black, of course)

BTW everyone, what is your first and favorite ending? For me, it was the best time of work on RT, writing the endings.
First ending = 4 (hypothetically)
Favorite ending = 3

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Taleweaver
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#49 Post by Taleweaver »

First ending: 7 (Yukiyama)
Fav ending: 2 (Movies - the only true AKEMI ending)
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#50 Post by Sai »

So far I've got 7 of the 8 endings:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8
Missing 7

I like the variety in your endings and the different possibiltiies.

Still haven't figured out the Super Password. Wish I could see those Extras =\

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#51 Post by Grey »

A very interesting storyline indeed. I'm most impressed by all the number and quality of background graphics, and the music as well (trap and base particually stuck in my head after the 1st playthrough). The character art was nice as well, some of the pics differed in quality a bit, but as there were quite a lot of them that's fine by me :)

I've played through 3 times since it was released, got Ending 4 first, then 7 then 1. As has already been said the linearity was really evident. Less than in Black Pencil.

Some of the story doesn't seem amazingly clear to me, but then I've only got 3 of the 8 endings, so I guess those might explain a little more.

The save points were odd as well, the one that stood out most was getting to the 3rd one after the first 2 had come in in fairly quick succession.

Yeah, I was caught on the click screen shifting as well Jeralis. Keyboard support would have been very handy, and as you evidently felt the same then why didn't you get the programmer to implement it?

So there you have it, most of it rather second hand due to already being mentioned :roll:

Overall a good VN, and I salute you and your team, (but maybe not the programmer quite as much as the rest) but in the future surely adding some alternative text for different parts can't be that hard?

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#52 Post by chronoluminaire »

Just on the keyboard support point: there's a very common standard among commercial ren'ai games which I'm sticking to in Elven Relations* and I'd really urge other programmers to follow too unless you have a good reason not to: that Space and Enter both advance one step of text, and that holding down Ctrl will skip quickly through text until the Ctrl key is released. I really noticed the absence of keyboard support as I have RSI and clicking the mouse button hurts :?

Very cool and atmospheric game. I've seen two endings so far - can't remember much about the first except it wasn't very nice; the second was the Aeroplane Ending. The music is magnificent 8) It's a pity the interface let it down so much. The way that clicks outside of the central window don't advance - or with text on screen they have to be in the tiny text window - really grates.

* : if I ever get it released...

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#53 Post by BlackSpider »

Well, I've also played the game now. Only one ending so far (ending 5 of 8 - race ending) but I'll try to get other endings as well. IMO the first ending we all get is the most important because it reveals our true character, how we would react to the situation shown in the game (I'm not sure if everybody knows what I mean here). It even permits the author of the game to know us (the players) better. Then it's just simple testing to get all the other endings.

Since I played the game I'll make a few comments. I won't talk about clicking the mouse too often and keyboard support because it was already done more than once.

First, the story. It's really good. But the way it was written is very confusing. I mean at some point events that take or took place are so messed up that I wasn't sure whether I'm in the past or in the future. There was just too many jumps in time. After all we play those games to relax and have fun.

Second, I like to play games in fullscreen mode. That's why I needed to switch the desktop to 640x480 resolution. IMO the game should have an option to play in true windowed mode or in fullscreen mode. Saving the game state at any time would also be very appreciated.

Third, I really didn't like that blue&black filter you used to convert photographs to backgrounds. Of course, there are some parts in the game where it would fit well. But honesly, I think that for most scenes real photos would look much better. Of course you'd need to color the characters accordingly.

Fourth, the sound. It's actually quite good. Let me guess. Most samples come from the old eJaySE. A few months ago I made three songs (out of fifteen) that start almost the same as yours mikey, but after a few seconds it's a completely different and faster music :).

Anyway, very good job. Especially the story. I can only wish that you use a better VN engine for your next game project.

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#54 Post by mikey »

Whew, another bunch of responses, THANKYOU!!!

Okie, let's get down to business...

Adding Alternative Text>> said before, but in fact this would mean completely rebuilding the scene - I have told this in the BP thread - the app used to make RT is basically a CD menu builder program - this in fact means, that every frame you click is genuine (we can recycle some of the BGs, etc, but at our current state are unable to do scripting and all. We have to find many ways around. So if I changed the text, we would probably have to change whole scenes - except I could fit in an alternative text, synchronized with music and character appearance etc. YES, of course we could have done it (surprise, we actually CAN do keyboard advancing, now that it's too late), and I am not trying to protect the others working on the project - but it would just take more time, and we didn't want that.

I am really glad, we could improve since BP and I promise should there be another game, I'll build on the comments to RT.

Fullscreen>> we had the option. RT could be 640*480 fullscreen, but I just didn't want it. Guess that was a wrong choice, I first thought about it when Sai wrote she couldn't get past a black screen - that would not happen in fullscreen. :( Oh well,... (*** notes down - fullscreen***)

Music>> oh, the troubles we had with musicians - luckily we found the right guy almost near the deadline, I needed quick results, so I suggested eJay (I got that fom this forum), and voila, two days and I had the soundtrack - well, I understand eJay is probably mainly for fast music, but when it works... :D Seriously, I was so happy about the music, the game would have been delayed for another two weeks if we wouldn't do it in time.

All in all, I think the best way to play is the Blackspider way (whow, a rhyme...) - I like to play a multipath game only once - in a VN, you have one ending and just click the text. But in a game, your choice matters. This is the basic idea of RT - I just wanted for people to play it "for real", to get the ending they want, but not miss out on the full story - that's why the story is basically linear. The endings - I tried to put as much variation in them as possible, so that every player would get what he played for.

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#55 Post by Sai »

Would there be a reduction in image quality when making it full-screen? Would the artwork be auto-stretched to fit the computers resolution? Not sure how it works, just curious.

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#56 Post by rioka »

re Sai: If something starts out small and is stretched more than its original size it will become pixelated. I guess the same effect will apply in games.

...Okay, time for my thoughts on the game. Before I do, I don't really mind if it's at max screen or not. Just as long as I can read the text legibly, I'm fine.

Speaking of text, I'm surprised no one mentioned it or maybe it's just me and my computer... Anywhooo, there were some points were it was hard to read the text. Particularly when it was the dark blue text box, with black font, and dark/black background. Also, there were points in the story where the text went over a character (who was wearing a dark color - on the bottom half at least) so I could hardly read the text. It was quite irksome at times. >.<

Otherwise, I followed the story very well. I didn't mind all the flashbacks although that one section was a bit long - you know which one.

All in all, a vast improvement on the first game.. and it wasn't depressing! Yay! I got the airplane ending the first time 'round, btw. :D

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#57 Post by mikey »

Sai, eclipse>> actually, no, that's the sad thing about my (now I'm really starting to regret it) decision - the program just changes the resolution of the screen, and basically there's no pixellation of any sort, it's the same as playing a commercial bishoujo game fullscreen or windowed. The program window is admittedly 600x400, but the display will just center it, so no stretched drawings would appear.

eclipse>> thank you, and YES, I was also sitting here quietly wondering what the problem with me was, because no one commented on the text being hard to read sometimes. So thanks for noticing. I was just e-mailing a friend today, also about RT and told him it is on one hand a little hard to read the comments now, that we can't do anything about it and naturally, one always can make things better so I end up regretting this and that, but on the other hand, I am really happy about every comment that tells us the game is better than Black Pencil, in the way that we were able to advance.

I was thinking about the people that were not able to figure out the password - as I said before, it's the thankyou for those who were able to endure the game's linearity... so do you think I should tell people who e-mail me asking for it?

Not-really-a-hint: By now it is clear, that you don't need to see all the endings to figure out the pw, and vice versa, even if you saw all the endings, you still could have trouble with it.

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#58 Post by Sai »

Well I had thought about asking but (a) I wouldn't want to ruin your effort into making it something one would have to *think* about and (b) I figured it'd be troubling for you, put you in a position where you're not sure whether to tell or not heh. I figure I'll get a friend to play and see if they can figure it out but they're pretty busy so >_<
Besides it would be cheating =\ ... hmm... I wouldn't mind more hints though =p
I might figure it out. Haven't got all the endings yet and I've a feeling I have an idea about one part of it... but can't think at all how the rest would be filled......... Is it supposed to spell a sentence? >_>
It's probably something easy and I'll feel silly for not getting it immediately, like when I got stuck about how to get up some stairs in one computer game and it turned out to be really simple! One of those "doh" moments x_o

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#59 Post by mikey »

Sai>> Well, give it a few more tries, and if it won't work out, e-mail me. Sometimes this happens to me as well, I get stuck in a game, then I try and try, but when I see I can't do it, I find a walkthrough and help myself through that section. I once was too subborn and got really stuck, and then it was too long, and I just lost contact with the game, when I then found out how to get past that point, all the atmosphere was gone.

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#60 Post by rioka »

lol Maybe Mikey's game needs a full-fledge FAQ walkthrough text file! ;D

*EDIT* Omg, I just figured out the password a moment ago - wow, mikey. Here I was thinking it was all complicated! I tried unscrambling the words like those Jumbles game in the newspaper. That didn't work so I pondered over your and Taleweavers words/hints - lol It's the oldest password trick in the world! I can see why Taleweaver's opinion of the game raised. Luv the Making of RT, btw. XD

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