TRAP! [ModernFantasy][VN] PG-16!

[AntiquedFae]

I adore you. Just in case I forgot to tell you.
-- ♥ smooch!♥

You didn't. And I adore you too. ^.^ <3

[Flowers from Nowhere]

I love your fog effect! How did you do that?

[Jinxci]

Oh! I love the mist effect. The game was a fun, quick read. My favorite part was the scene with the bathtub, especially the ice slush. Ha-ha!

[OokamiKasumi]

I love your fog effect! How did you do that?

Thank you!
-- It was a simple Pan effect with a very wide semi-transparent texture that was seamless.
Hopefully, you like more of the game than just the fog?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh! I love the mist effect. The game was a fun, quick read. My favorite part was the scene with the bathtub, especially the ice slush. Ha-ha!

Thank you!
-- The mist effect is proving rather popular. LOL!
I freely admit that I simply could not resist playing in the bathroom. "Toilet humor," so to speak. I'm really glad you enjoyed the game.

[Flowers from Nowhere]

Aw, I always love your stuff OokamiKasumi. You have such great pacing. I never feel like I'm being herded along or expositioned at, events just unfold naturally.

I noticed the fog in particular because I've been trying to work out how to do that same thing in my current project.

[silverpikachu99]

This was actually was so cute.

I honestly didn't think Rowan was going to be a girl! I was kinda disappointed lol but I thought her character was uber cool and manly? I don't know what it was about her but she was just super awesome~!

*runs off*

[OokamiKasumi]

Aw, I always love your stuff OokamiKasumi. You have such great pacing. I never feel like I'm being herded along or expositioned at, events just unfold naturally.

Thank you!
-- I don't believe in info-dumps, (exposition.) They're way too boring to write. However, I have been known to rail-road on occasion. *wince*

I noticed the fog in particular because I've been trying to work out how to do that same thing in my current project.

The technique I used is 'pan', it's an old bit of code and a pain in the butt. You're much better off getting someone to build an ATL transformation for you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was actually was so cute.

I honestly didn't think Rowan was going to be a girl! I was kinda disappointed lol but I thought her character was uber cool and manly? I don't know what it was about her but she was just super awesome~!

*runs off*

Actually, Rowan Changes Gender depending on your selections. Male, female or both.

[DarkClaymore]

I got an error while playing (attached an image).
In case it helps you to figure out the issue, I chose the female heroine and I use Windows.

Hope you can get it fixed soon, I feel like I was just getting to the interesting part

[OokamiKasumi]

I got an error while playing (attached an image).
In case it helps you to figure out the issue, I chose the female heroine and I use Windows.

Hope you can get it fixed soon, I feel like I was just getting to the interesting part

I found the problem. It was a misspelled flag.
-- Uploading version 1.6 right now.

In the meantime, just click 'ignore' and it will bypass it.

[DarkClaymore]

"Ignore" actually worked well, surprisingly. Didn't encounter any further errors since then. Though I must mention that the error reoccurred with diligence, both when I replayed the game as a male and when I made different choices.

Anyway, I finished it and got both endings, so all that is behind me

The story is nice, I especially liked how many bits of information are thrown in the background and are left for your own imagination (Ex: Suggestion that some sort of scary monsters are roaming the woods, yet they aren't shown). It was a tad short overall, and left me thirty for more exploration of the setting. But I guess it can't be helped if it was planned as a short story from the get-go.

The music choice was good, in its own way. I can't really recall how many tracks were used in the game, but I believe there were very few, probably not more than three. The BGM was clearly there, yet at times you could forget about it as you are immersed in the conversation with Rowan. It was properly adding to the atmosphere, without distracting from the dialog.


The game had tons of choices for such a short work, I'd say it's subjective whatever that's good or not. It does allow the player to insert more personality into the protagonist, but at the same time, that the "overthinking" type of player might be needlessly stressed by some many options, especially when for many of them - you can't quite predict consequences. However, being the carefree type for most VNs, I just chose what I felt like without thinking too much

I'd like to throw a quick praise regarding staying true to the choices. There are many of them and they don't alter the big picture for the most part, yet they do affect the conversation and options the way they should. Curiosity led me to do some small "testing", to see whatever the developers really thought things through. I was delighted to find out that Rowan really "learns" what is a cellphone in case you get to talk about it early in the woods, or how inquiring about the location of the shower allows you to use it at night. Small things, but they had a positive effect for me.

On the same subject:

I read that you mentioned Rowan "changing gender" based on choices, which I'd assume is along the lines of illusion and "how you see him". The thing that still eludes me, is the formula used to choose the gender. Was it somehow trying to deduce "what the player wishes Rowan to be"?

It didn't feel, at least to me, that the choices actually lead in that direction. While playing, I treated them as a nice touch that adds interactivity, without attaching any higher role to them. Normally, I'd expect the player to be told, or hinted in some way, regarding the potential effects of the game's choices. A missed point in my book.

Some small criticism, perhaps subjective in nature:

• Wasn't a fan of dialog window at the left side, in the few parts it appeared.
  • The change of style felt a tad off to me, especially since I saw no real reason to create such a difference for these specific scenes.
  • Most of these scenes also had a wall of text being shot instantly at one's face; it's disheartening to see a wall of text in front of you, when you are already used to reading short sentences one by one.
  • Finally, the align of the text in the dialog box appear to be "Justified", with the words trying very hard to catch the whole line. It makes the text harder to read, and in general I disdain that text aligning type. I'll apologize ahead of time in case I'm wrong, for I forgot to properly examine this, but I recall at least two instances where words "leaped" and distanced themselves more than they should from the rest, supposedly to fill up the line.
• The UI design is nice and fitting, yet on the brighter backgrounds (ex: table with candles, the room with hearth) part of the dialog window was a strain to read. Not unreadable per se, however I'd still like to mention that it required me to focus more tightly in order to ensure that I get things correctly; not fun.

[OokamiKasumi]

"Ignore" actually worked well, surprisingly. Didn't encounter any further errors since then. Though I must mention that the error reoccurred with diligence, both when I replayed the game as a male and when I made different choices.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to figure out what caused the error or how to fix it.

Anyway, I finished it and got both endings, so all that is behind me

Excellent!

The story is nice, I especially liked how many bits of information are thrown in the background and are left for your own imagination (Ex: Suggestion that some sort of scary monsters are roaming the woods, yet they aren't shown).

I'm glad you liked the story!
-- Someone familiar with Dartmoor and Wistman's Woods would know exactly what scary monsters I was referring to. That was an Easter Egg for those who knew the area.

It was a tad short overall, and left me thirsty for more exploration of the setting. But I guess it can't be helped if it was planned as a short story from the get-go.

It was planned as a short for two reasons:
> 1) It was a test to see if anyone found this sort of psychological game of interest.
> 2) Because of the character images. Technically they're Placeholder images. I'm still looking for a character artist that can make images that will actually work with these backgrounds -- someone with a realistic style rather than an anime style. However, I seriously doubt I'll find one any time soon.

The music choice was good, in its own way. I can't really recall how many tracks were used in the game, but I believe there were very few, probably not more than three. The BGM was clearly there, yet at times you could forget about it as you are immersed in the conversation with Rowan. It was properly adding to the atmosphere, without distracting from the dialog.

There were 7 different pieces of background music. If you try all the tunes in the music room, you'll realize that you've heard all of them play at least once. That you didn't notice the changes in the music meant that they accomplished their purpose exactly as you said, "adding to the atmosphere without distracting from the dialog."

The game had tons of choices for such a short work, I'd say it's subjective whatever that's good or not. It does allow the player to insert more personality into the protagonist, but at the same time, that the "over-thinking" type of player might be needlessly stressed by some many options, especially when for many of them - you can't quite predict consequences. However, being the carefree type for most VNs, I just chose what I felt like without thinking too much

I'm glad you enjoyed all the choices!
-- The options were designed on three separate personality types; Masculine, Feminine, and Child-like neutral. And just for the record, I adore confounding and 'stressing' the 'over-thinking' types.

I'd like to throw a quick praise regarding staying true to the choices. There are many of them and they don't alter the big picture for the most part, yet they do affect the conversation and options the way they should. Curiosity led me to do some small "testing", to see whatever the developers really thought things through. I was delighted to find out that Rowan really "learns" what is a cellphone in case you get to talk about it early in the woods, or how inquiring about the location of the shower allows you to use it at night. Small things, but they had a positive effect for me.

Thank you!
-- I despise plot-holes. If I put something in a story, no matter how small, there's a Reason for it to be there. I do Not believe in leaving dangling plot-threads, no matter how small. Oh, and there was only one developer: ME.

On the same subject:

I read that you mentioned Rowan "changing gender" based on choices, which I'd assume is along the lines of illusion and "how you see him". The thing that still eludes me, is the formula used to choose the gender.

It's Not an illusion, as I'm sure you discovered.

-- The formula is simple: How you react to Rowan --what type of choices you make-- affects how Rowan appears.

Was it somehow trying to deduce "what the player wishes Rowan to be"?

YES, and then give you the Opposite of what you expect. The real meaning behind the name: TRAP. *evil grin*

It didn't feel, at least to me, that the choices actually lead in that direction. While playing, I treated them as a nice touch that adds interactivity, without attaching any higher role to them. Normally, I'd expect the player to be told, or hinted in some way, regarding the potential effects of the game's choices. A missed point in my book.

If you couldn't tell that the choices were the key, then I did it RIGHT! After all, Misdirection and Deception were the ruling themes. The idea was that the player was Not supposed to be able to guess what was going on. This way the results would be True, at least the first time around.

Some small criticism, perhaps subjective in nature:

• Wasn't a fan of dialog window at the left side, in the few parts it appeared.

That's quite okay. My proofreader liked them, and in fact suggested that it added more background atmosphere.

• Most of these scenes also had a wall of text being shot instantly at one's face; it's disheartening to see a wall of text in front of you, when you are already used to reading short sentences one by one.

Posting a page of text all at once, rather than line by line for the big descriptive parts, was a suggestion by a different proofreader. He HATES hitting the spacebar to read every single line. He calls it: Spacebar Hell. (I keep telling him to use the AUTO setting, but he won't listen to me...) However, 'a full page of text at a time' is also a personal preference of mine. I actually prefer to get a page of text at a time rather than one line at a time because I read very, very fast. Reading it one line at a time actually slows me down -- considerably.

• Finally, the align of the text in the dialog box appear to be "Justified", with the words trying very hard to catch the whole line.

Sorry, but Justified Text, especially in the Novel Box, is a personal preference of mine. My apologies if it didn't work for you, but unjustified text looks Sloppy to me .

• The UI design is nice and fitting, yet on the brighter backgrounds (ex: table with candles, the room with hearth) part of the dialog window was a strain to read. Not unreadable per se, however I'd still like to mention that it required me to focus more tightly in order to ensure that I get things correctly; not fun.

This, I did notice, but I'm not really sure what to do about it. If I make the text box more opaque, it hides too much behind it. Truthfully speaking, I am not a fan of having the text at the bottom of the screen as it is. I think the text should go at the Top, where the characters Aren't.

Anyway!
-- I'm really glad you enjoyed the game overall. If I find a decent character artist I may indeed rework the game and actually throw in a longer, stronger story -- one with an Evil fairy and a wild hunt!

[JimG]

Quote : "Anyway!
-- I'm really glad you enjoyed the game overall. If I find a decent character artist I may indeed rework the game and actually throw in a longer, stronger story -- one with an Evil fairy and a wild hunt!" end quote

I for one, will be keeping my fingers crossed that you find a decent (indecent may work!!!) character artist. I loved this and really wanted the story to be longer.

Best Regards
Jim

[OokamiKasumi]

"Anyway!
-- I'm really glad you enjoyed the game overall. If I find a decent character artist I may indeed rework the game and actually throw in a longer, stronger story -- one with an Evil fairy and a wild hunt!"

I for one, will be keeping my fingers crossed that you find a decent (indecent may work!!!) character artist. I loved this and really wanted the story to be longer.

LOL! Was the world I created really that interesting?

Anyway!
-- The main hold-up is that making a realistic Trap character; one that is convincingly Male and Female in appearance, is Very difficult to do.

[Goblin Market]

Thanks for making Trap! It's one of the best examples I've found of good, short Ren'Py interactive storytelling.

I usually find sprites cheesy and distracting to the VN experience, but yours are magnificently done and seamless. I also liked the story's replay value. The safe choice was easy to make, but making it served as a strong enticement to play again to see what happens the other way. Together, both endings create an elegant wholeness of just the right length for even my short attention span. Your filtered-photo art technique is exquisite too and really makes the overall experience seem like something special. I don't think an illustrator could do any better.

I know Trap! has been out for a while now, but I think this thread could use a bump for the sake of other latecomers like me looking for examples of how to do everything right.

[OokamiKasumi]

Thanks for making Trap! It's one of the best examples I've found of good, short Ren'Py interactive storytelling.

Thank you so much! I'm really glad you liked the game.

I usually find sprites cheesy and distracting to the VN experience, but yours are magnificently done and seamless.

I'm glad you liked them. Realistic (photo) characters just seemed to fit better with the realistic backgrounds even though the story itself is pure fantasy.

I also liked the story's replay value. The safe choice was easy to make, but making it served as a strong enticement to play again to see what happens the other way. Together, both endings create an elegant wholeness of just the right length for even my short attention span.

Well, 'enticement' is the theme of this particular game.
-- I intended this to be just a small game so I didn't want to drag the story out longer than it really needed to be. Most faery tales are fairly short, after all.

Your filtered-photo art technique is exquisite too and really makes the overall experience seem like something special. I don't think an illustrator could do any better.

Thank you!
-- I spent years working out how to get this particular effect with Photoshop.

I know Trap! has been out for a while now, but I think this thread could use a bump for the sake of other latecomers like me looking for examples of how to do everything right.

I really appreciate your kind words and awesome review. Thank you. Seriously.