Left of Center [Comedy, Friendship, BxB/BxG, NaNo13]

[Haze]

I've played some of this, and I like it so far, but I got one line into day 5:


I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.

While running game code:
File "game/script.rpy", line 1897, in script
File "game/script.rpy", line 1897, in python
NameError: name 'midight_dissolve' is not defined

-- Full Traceback ------------------------------------------------------------

Full traceback:
File "C:\Users\Elibro\Downloads\Extracted(if needs to be) VNs or KNs\Left of Center-0.9-all\renpy\execution.py", line 288, in run
node.execute()
File "C:\Users\Elibro\Downloads\Extracted(if needs to be) VNs or KNs\Left of Center-0.9-all\renpy\ast.py", line 955, in execute
show_imspec(self.imspec, atl=getattr(self, "atl", None))
File "C:\Users\Elibro\Downloads\Extracted(if needs to be) VNs or KNs\Left of Center-0.9-all\renpy\ast.py", line 920, in show_imspec
at_list = [ renpy.python.py_eval(i) for i in at_list ]
File "C:\Users\Elibro\Downloads\Extracted(if needs to be) VNs or KNs\Left of Center-0.9-all\renpy\python.py", line 1292, in py_eval
return eval(py_compile(source, 'eval'), globals, locals)
File "game/script.rpy", line 1897, in <module>
NameError: name 'midight_dissolve' is not defined

Windows-7-6.1.7601-SP1
Ren'Py 6.15.1.275
Left of Center 0.9


It looks like "midnight" was just misspelled, but I could be wrong.

[Neena]

This game was a lot of fun, the art style was wonderful and made the feel of the game just that bit more bouncy feeling. The music and background both set the feeling of the school really well, I really loved everything from the music to the art.

I loved the characters and they're quirky personalities, I did get that overlapping character glitch but It looks like you're already on it! Other then that just one grammar mistake where the word "much" is spelt wrong near the end and two or three bits of the text skipping over without pressing anything also near the end.

You're going to add more!? I'm so happy to hear this, It was so much fun to play I look forward to your update. I only mucked about with Pollyanna but when you update It again I look forward to doing all the routes, even though I'm not a fan of BxB and I'd never play anything BxB. I really love Santa's and Jazz hand's personalities! I look forward to doing they're routes too! Loved the songs but if you add more of them then that'd be wonderful too.

[leon]

Congrats on the release!

@AkaMika & Snow Blossom:

What trollface? There is no trollface. *whistles innocently*

It looks like "midnight" was just misspelled, but I could be wrong.

Yes, if you click ignore the game will continue normally (well, except Klaus and Pia will be standing a little too close in the next scene ). Update that will fix this and a few other small glithes will be released shortly.

[SakanaTonic]

This was a lot of a fun! It was actually really neat how little details in a scene would change depending on what you chose before, although the scene would otherwise remain mostly the same. The GUl is really great??? and the extras were a nice touch. It's a shame it was so short and that there were only two endings, but it's pretty amazing considered that it was done in a month!

In short, I'm now in love with this game and Santa

Not sure if this is was on purpose, but the character sprites are matched up with the wrong names in the character gallery? There are also a few errors with displaying a few of Santa's sprites, one I can remember being in event 4. There were a couple other minor errors, but I can't remember them at the moment.

The update (whatever number it'll be) should have:

• Jazz Route???
• More randomized events
• Better writing orz
• Character Epilogues (totally looking forward to... 16 Endings??? why this)
• Japanese AU
• Harem Ending
• More???

!!!!!

I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for the update then!
jazz!!! 16 endings!!! japanese auuuu

[clua]

Oh god Rita...Character designs are very lovely! The game looks very polished itself.
Congratulations to everyone on the team, I'm downloading it now and will edit this
post with my thoughts.

[borisoda]

Wow I can't believe this was done in only a month!
The GUI looks so professional and the character art was so vibrant and cute ><

Characters were lovable and the story was so cute

played through only santa's route so far

I can't wait for an extended version

Looking forward to your future works!

[saguaro]

Man, this thing is polished. Great job for a 30-day release! I'm generally not interested in stories about high school students that revolve around school life, but I enjoyed this.

The music selection is nicely done and the tracks fit the mood of the game really well. I actually would like to steal the idea of having a mechanism where the player can change the music.

Good to see total menu customization, and the main menu hover is a nice touch. On the extra galleries, I wish there was a way to go back to the extras menu rather than having to return to the main menu first.

As for the writing, Klaus' route was my favorite. I laughed a lot playing through it, he's a great character. IIRC there was some of the obligatory, "We had class, nothing happened," passage-of-time type stuff, but you also had some pretty funny descriptions of the absurdity of the various classes/teachers.

I agreed to go to the other school once, just to see what would happen, and was disappointed that I didn't get an epilogue explaining how that turned out. But it sounds like you're gonna work that in later.

Hopefully the same for Pia's heckler situation? I wanted to know what that guy's problem was, not sure if I missed it or if it isn't addressed. Of the three kids, I felt like Klaus got the best development and Rita and Pia had issues that felt unresolved.

[FatUnicornGames]

I'm super stoked to play this, but I think I am going to wait for the updated version so that I can play the most complete version of the game I can. I LOVE what I am seeing though, the character sprites are so much fun and just different enough.

[CheeryMoya]

@Dangertyde: omg this made it into someone's favorite VN list I'm-
You can take 42 as symbolic if you want but it was just a dumb reference :'D And sure mang, we'd love it if you could point out the typos/bugs. I'm a grammar nazi too but when you've been staring at something for 30 days, your eyes grow numb to it all. We're collecting error reports on our forum thread starting here, so check if there's any other things you've caught besides the ones already listed there. The last 3 words of the tagline in order to register for the forum are Wins the Race.

@Haze: I meant to write "midright_dissolve" but somehow I left out the r and... yeah. We've already fixed that but for now, just hit ignore and carry on (Klaus why must you do that).

@Neena: I'll admit that I'm not much into yaoi/BL because of some of the cliches (seme-uke relationships, the two main characters conveniently discovering they're gay, etc.) I ran into years back when I first got into the genre. I don't mind BxB but when it's more about having boys kissing than an actual human relationship, I can't take it seriously. Same for any romantic relationship, really.

Klaus is totally fine if you just wanna be bros, he just freaks out because he really rushed that confession since Garrett could potentially leave the next day.

And oh gosh more songs. We'll... add some more but not that much orz

@SakanaTonic: Your first post here, welcome to LSF :3 I wanna say it's on the short side because of the time frame it takes place in, and that the wordcount is distributed among 3 characters so an individual playthrough won't be so long. The Sprite Gallery error among those other ones were already spotted and we think we know what caused it to scramble up, but if you caught any other bugs go up to that link I posted for Dangertyde. The fix patch will probably get the Japanese AU in.

The keyword is Bouken

@saguaro: I saw your liveblog :'D Once we make sure there aren't any bugs left we'll release some of the source code, though I can probably PM you the Music Player code if you want it right now. As for that Extras menu thing, you actually have to click Extras again and not Return. I'll see if leon can fix that up.
Yeah, sorry for all the parts where it skimmed over the finer details, I wanted to put in more stuff there but they're like that mainly because I wanted to get to the next essential parts of the story. I'll probably add in some more antics and chances for points.

I was really scared that I couldn't write Pia and Rita as solid compared to Klaus, I fumbled with their routes so much during pre-NaNo planning. Originally, Rita was gonna be the fun-loving drummer girl and Pia was an entirely different character altogether. Klaus's character stayed the most generally consistent (from total badass delinquent to energetic but well-meaning keet) throughout all of the planning so I "knew" him better.
I also wanted to write a story where you didn't get all the details (at least immediately/until after the fact), because let's face it: in real life, you aren't going to be involved in every single person's problems, especially if you only get to know them for a week. There is nothing Garrett can do for Rita to help her situation much besides sit and watch; Garrett only knows that someone's causing shit for Pia and she's too nice to admit what's wrong. These things were going to be wrapped up in the epilogues but time constraints and all OTL Hopefully they'll satisfy.

@FatUnicornGames: That's cool by me, I honestly should take a break from the backend of Ren'Py for at least one full day before fixing everything, but I feel guilty leaving everyone with a buggy game D: I'll try to get as many of the extra things done over my spring break (which just had to be next week, eugh).

Once again, thank you to everyone who's downloaded/played the game, it means a lot to me ;A; The majority of the team on this and a few other NaNos are talking about joining PPHS Jam together, so yay? We're gonna be so braindead by Sunday who thought planning this game jam so close after NaNo was a good idea

[catonkikisbow]

[Deleted comment. Not due to the game (I don't remember much about it) but remembering parts of this comment made me cringe.]

[angelmoon78]

The download link doesn't work. Can you please fix it?

[CheeryMoya]

Late reply is late ;A; That PPHS Jam game is done btw, it's really good yo

The mention of a possible Jazz route has made my heart go dokidoki

Y-your comments made me d-doki *blushes wildly and jumps off a cliff*

the note it ended in for the "shred the papers" ending made me feel happy for Garrett too; similarly when Garrett decided to transfer--especially with Klaus asking if "it was all a game"--left me with a heavy, "what are you doing garrett i thought you were friends" heart. I quickly went back to shredding the papers again after trying that out.

Oh my god that line was a joke like every other line in this game I didn't think it'd be that emotional >_> I'M A GOOD WRITER YES

I'd have liked to see even deeper into the conflict points they face when it came down to their personal problems,

including Garret's migranes.

Ah yeah, I'd like to say it was the NaNo time constraints but I have to admit that I wasn't going to go into those as deeply as some people might like. 5 days, who's gonna spill out their life story in that time? Epilogues should go deeper while edits during the main story will give them more interactions, definitely. In Jazz's route I actually plan to make it focus more on Garrett (sorry to anyone who was expecting a student-teacher romance, Jazz is married! Taken! He has a kid!).
@Pia response:

Her route was about bullying, to put it bluntly. [personal]I had a um, mental breakdown 2 weeks before NaNo started and I wasn't fond of the word. Getting broken by all that shit piling up after all that time made me think that the term didn't really convey how terrible of an experience it is. Like seriously, bully? No, harassment is a more serious word for a serious thing (I'm not joking for once). I don't know if dancing around the word helped me in the long run but I dunno if I want to change a couple lines just because of a synonym.[/personal] Pia's way of handling stress and the bullying is by rationalizing that the guy didn't know what he was doing was wrong, that's it. Everyone is a good person of course! And yes, Outré does have a dork/delinquent problem of sorts. Klaus... wasn't exactly the cute kid we all know and love until Pia got to him. I've said too much, all shall be addressed in the epilogues!

@Rita response: In the original planning I had "Rita" as the cute and bubbly drummer girl while "Pia" was the cool and reserved upperclassman. Lots of changes later and they switched roles somehow. Rita's always gonna hang in the background most of the time. During which part did you run into Pia by the way? I can't be sure if that's an error with the points because there are multiple times where you should have gone with Pia.
@Klaus response: Ah yes Klaus *u* He and Garrett were probably destined to meet so that way they could be DORKS together.

Normally Klaus wouldn't blurt out things so much like "I HAVE ATHAZAGAPHOBIA PLEASE DON'T FORGET ME" or "I LIKE YOU" but you know, 5 days. He really did like Garrett as a friend if not lover for the rest of their lives

Errors were fixed in V0.95 but no new content so you don't need to download it again. Hopefully I'll be able to start working on LoC again, I've been spending the entire time doing NatH stuff.

The download link doesn't work. Can you please fix it?

I couldn't reach the site either when you first posted this, but I think it should work now? If not, PM me your OS and I'll see what I can do.

[angelmoon78]

The download link doesn't work. Can you please fix it?

I couldn't reach the site either when you first posted this, but I think it should work now? If not, PM me your OS and I'll see what I can do.

Now it works! I don't know what the problem was, but it seems okay now. Thanks

[arachni42]

I finally got around to playing this... and I really enjoyed it! I really liked the sprites and the backgrounds (except the cafeteria -- it seemed less finished than the rest), and the writing was highly entertaining. I liked the UI a lot, too, except that the text box was on the hard-to-read side at times. It was also cool to have so many music tracks.

I played 0.9 and did the Klaus route, and wrote down a couple bugs and typos I ran into. The rest I played on 0.95. The bugs I noted have already been discussed here, except for an odd one I haven't been able to reproduce where Klaus' sprite showed up partly transparent at the gym... when I rolled back far enough and continued, it appeared normally. Text errors, I'm not sure what's been fixed in 0.95, but here's what I have noted:
"Before they can protest too mcuh"
(mcuh -> much)
"band; you're a popular here, aren't you?"
(omit "a")
"Are you sure you stil want to transfer?"
(stil -> still)
"only to be interogated again"
(interogated -> interrogated)
"this place is pretty cool despite it's... oddities"
(it's -> its)

Anyway, great job!

[Obscura]

Finally played this! Here we go...

BTW: please take my criticisms with a grain of salt. I'm totally looking at it in terms of any VN I'd pick up and play, and am totally ignoring the fact it was made in a month. So it's going to sound harsher than it needs to be. I could softshoe the criticism, but I want to be fair to you. I feel like I have at least a slight awareness of your capabilities, so I'm just going to be blunt.

Random thoughts during play...

Graphics:
- Really nice design and interface. Very polished, everything has a fun and colorful look to it. One of the most professional looking VNs I've seen, very impressive for a month of work.
- The textbox needs to be more opaque; I found the text quite difficult to read because of the transparency.
- Sprites were awesome, expressive, clean, fun.

Writing:

- OMG WOAH DISCUSSION IN LIBRARY JUST BECAME 18+
- Why is G-force running away from Santa? Because he was afraid of being tackled? This was a little odd in setup and execution.

Bug reports:
- Bug report: image Klaus Laugh not found when introduced to group of guys
- Bug Report: Midnight dissolve is not defined 1897 in script. During last day before Santa leaves.
- Bug Report: Image Klaus Surprise B can't take parameters Flip with dissolve (last day)

Overall...

This was awesome for something you put together in a month. It looks clean and crisp, and I liked the distinctiveness of the characters. Several quirky and amusing moments.

My biggest issue...

The story's major premise--that the MC is at the wrong school...I found it a bit underwhelming. It didn't feel like it was a big enough deal, and the stakes were too low for the MC.
The surrounding events also felt very random, i.e., this happened, that happened, like the concert and hashbrown discussions and taking a psychology test. I kept expecting some kind of payoff but I either missed it when I chose the Klaus route or maybe I'm just not the proper audience for slice-of-life games. I feel like you stirred a bunch of potentially interesting things in one big pot, and I kept waiting for the ingredients to come together.

Whenever I encounter something in a story, I expect it to either A) help move the plot along B) provide a laugh, a scare, or some other emotional payout, etc. A lot of times I got to the point of feeling, "well...here comes something interesting" but then having the feeling fizzle as that particular ingredient didn't go anywhere.

But again that might be my personal preference for how stories should flow in general; I realize it's certainly not a universal feeling. I might be the world's worst audience for a slice-of-life game.

In sum, a very well-put together, snazzy VN, even with the occasional bugs. Feel like the story fell somewhat short of the colorful characters and quirky dialogue.