Lemma Soft Forums

Posted: **Sat Aug 11, 2007 1:34 pm**

papillon >> I understand now... I relied on the typical thing that they

give you tests from the subjects that are being discussed

- even though this isn't necessarily *always* the case... Oh well, there is always something. Lesson learned.

Ignosco >> I don't know, really. I didn't specifically want to say this is for children, or just for children, or for adults or anyone specific - frankly I didn't know what kind of people would enjoy this - children's adventure means more like "it's an adventure and there are children" kind of thing. Even now, I wouldn't know what audience to show this to, that's why I was a bit nervous about the reception. I just couldn't tell.

Posted: **Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:13 am**

1. Remove bandage
2. Draw using remaining fingers
3. (Insert sounds associated with extreme pain and agony indicating having difficulty in drawing)
4. ????????
5. After 6 hours, post fanart.

Oh man, I did get stuck on one of the minigames for almost 20 minutes..

...Princess of Fire

Umm... Before I played, I am aware of the fact that this game is meant to be a childrens story (...maybe it's just me) but something tells me that the intended target audience might have difficulty grasping the story.

Anyway, this game made me stay up late but it sure is worth it.

"POOF" (Dissapears... for now)

Posted: **Sun Aug 12, 2007 9:16 am**

You are a complete diehard, mugen!

Thanks for playing and for the fanart! I really had to laugh in disbelief when I saw this, I recognized your style - so I thought what in the world can bring you from drawing, and I thought, obviously nothing - you'd probably find a way of moving the pencil with your thoughts, if you had to.

Well, I can't imagine how it must have hurt you, but that makes it even more amazing. I have no words. Thanks!!

mugenjohncel wrote:
...Princess of Fire

Heh, indeed... plus there is also

The Sash Of Hikari mentioned.

mugenjohncel wrote:
Umm... Before I played, I am aware of the fact that this game is meant to be a childrens story (...maybe it's just me) but something tells me that the intended target audience might have difficulty grasping the story.

Hmmm, like I said above, there is no real target audience. I've frankly not tested this with 10-year olds, or 13-year-olds for that matter. This is also why I don't want to present it as something specific to an audience. As far as complexity goes, I hope that if some people don't understand it fully, that they at least enjoy the atmosphere or style or I don't know... I remember, more or less also as a 10-year-old boy, watching The Neverending Story, and I didn't understand the ending and I think a lot of other things - but I still liked it, because I was a little boy and wanted to fly on a fluffy dragon-dog ^_^. There is no deeper message in TsT though, I specifically wanted to avoid this. It's an adventure, in its essence.

If you remember the trailer, lordcloudx put in there one of the thoughts of how to understand (approach) it, that there is no need for logic, that maybe from time to time it's nice to just imagine and not think about the details.

---

Anyway, I forgot to post the thread/picture that directly moved me to write lordcloudx and start this... It's here.

Posted: **Sun Aug 12, 2007 11:58 am**

mugenjohncel: your technique hasn't degraded one bit as far as I can tell.

mikey wrote: If you remember the trailer, lordcloudx put in there one of the thoughts of how to understand (approach) it, that there is no need for logic, that maybe from time to time it's nice to just imagine and not think about the details.

And I might add that I just paraphrased an e-mail from mikey to make the lines used in that trailer. Coz I found them very... profound (very same words I used in the reply to that e-mail)

I dunno... I think it's ok as a children's story. I remember understanding all the mumbo jumbo about dimension x and parallel universes in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tv series back when I was about 10 and the Time's Tear concept is kinda similar.

Here's a response to that particular line in the game.

edit: mugen, I just noticed your Alicia is a very well-endowed 10-year old...

hehe

Posted: **Sun Aug 12, 2007 5:45 pm**

Wow... just wow.

mikey wrote:my fear was that no one wants this sort of game, given the types of games normally seen here,

Please, make more of this kind of game, it won't mean that there will be less renai, I mean come on...

everyone gets married.

But wait a second...

Alicia said that there will be nothing to worry about, since she can marry Kazuhiko to save him. But did they actually get married in the end, or is it just assumed?

Sorry if that was a silly question, I'm still high right now.

The Macguyver-like applications used throughout the game was a nice touch, really innovative. And the action sequences were the most effective I have seen in a VN -- now that's really a feat, considering this is a nonviolent story starring young children. In fact, if you could say I was on the edge of my seat, that would be about right

The only thing that bugged me was the

Repetitive 7th bell decision whether to go and do the mission now or wait some more.

I felt it was just overkill -- 2 or 3 loopbacks would have sufficed.

I liked the innovative CG, sprite, and BG gallery, sure would like code to execute that kind of gallery in addition to the standard one.

What does CYOI mean? What exactly is its purpose other than playing around with the graphical assetts?

All in all, an excellent piece which I enjoyed muchly. And all the threads were tied in the end -- sometimes forced, but still charming like others said.

Posted: **Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:49 pm**

DaFool wrote:
Alicia said that there will be nothing to worry about, since she can marry Kazuhiko to save him. But did they actually get married in the end, or is it just assumed?

Well, this is a tough one - generally yes, the 4 pairings are meant to be together - but only A+M and H+S are married (and H+S's marriage would only be valid in Calleighmore). The girl and Mr. Furuhashi do get together, and A+K are in fact the least "sure" couple. The complete poem indicates that Sophie and Alicia are the boys' loves of the future, so sooner or later they'd fall in love (if they haven't already). But technically speaking, at least two of the marriages (Furu+servantgirl and A+K) are not explicitly mentioned - still, I'd definitely want them to live happily ever after. So for me, they got married and were happy.

I'm glad you liked the action!! Indeed I wanted this to be action and it was one of the reasons why I depended so much on CGs... And apart from that one screen shake, I generally wanted to do this the very conventional way - no pans, no zooms, no special effects, no animations. When I began work, I had a list of effects that I wanted, which gradually got reduced to nothing - much like all of the violent things went away.

About the seventh bell... it was a decision, and actually, as everything, also a relic...

from the times when I wanted a real-time bell sounding 7 times, regardless of whether the player clicked the text or not. Then, within a certain time after the seventh bell sounded, he would need to press a button to leave the ball - but this was not only relatively complicated, but also impractical and in the end, gimmicky.

Whee, someone commented on CG and CYOI!

DaFool wrote:What does CYOI mean?

It means Choose Your Own Image. The name was made by PyTom.

DaFool wrote:What exactly is its purpose other than playing around with the graphical assetts?

Well... none, really. You just browse and choose and then you make a screenshot and... well, you have a picture.

The story is that often games only have a CG gallery - but often I liked the backgrounds and sprites as well, often a clean BG is a great wallpaper for your desktop. The CYOI Mode was actually meant to be in O3 first, but for various reasons it did not make it into the game, and then EbG or WN were not suitable for this either (too small). So it was done here

Thanks very much for playing this through!

Posted: **Sun Aug 12, 2007 10:59 pm**

I got a crash trying to open the menu very early on, just after meeting the princess, when she starts to explain about the artifact. Here's the traceback; I assume the problem is something rather simple.

Code: Select all

I'm sorry, but an exception occured while executing your Ren'Py
script.

UnboundLocalError: local variable 'extra_info' referenced before assignment

While running game code:
 - script at line 1040 of E:\Data_forAccess\_mikey\_Projects\_games\TimesTear\__FINAL_DISTRIBUTIONS\TimesTear_FINAL_DISTRIBUTION\TimesTear/game/script.rpy
 - python at line 201 of renpy-6.3.1/common/00library.rpy.
 - script at line 667 of renpy-6.3.1/common/00gamemenu.rpy
 - python at line 667 of renpy-6.3.1/common/00gamemenu.rpy.
 - python at line 350 of renpy-6.3.1/common/00gamemenu.rpy.

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

  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\bootstrap.py", line 204, in bootstrap
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\main.py", line 303, in main
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\main.py", line 98, in run
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\execution.py", line 194, in run
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\ast.py", line 290, in execute
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\exports.py", line 465, in say
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\character.py", line 598, in __call__
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\character.py", line 362, in display_say
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\ui.py", line 66, in interact
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\display\core.py", line 1237, in interact
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\display\core.py", line 1670, in interact_core
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\display\layout.py", line 562, in event
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\display\behavior.py", line 171, in event
  File "renpy-6.3.1/common/00library.rpy", line 201, in invoke_game_menu
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\game.py", line 268, in call_in_new_context
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\execution.py", line 194, in run
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\ast.py", line 491, in execute
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\python.py", line 860, in py_exec_bytecode
  File "renpy-6.3.1/common/00gamemenu.rpy", line 667, in <module>
  File "renpy-6.3.1/common/00gamemenu.rpy", line 350, in _file_picker
  File "S:\Times Tear\TimesTear\renpy\loadsave.py", line 226, in list_saved_games
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'extra_info' referenced before assignment

While running game code:

Ren'Py Version: Ren'Py 6.3.1b

Edited with full full traceback.

Posted: **Sun Aug 12, 2007 11:43 pm**

Can you give me the full traceback?

Posted: **Mon Aug 13, 2007 12:05 am**

There you go. I edited my last post with it.

Posted: **Mon Aug 13, 2007 12:14 am**

Hm... looks like a save file got corrupted somehow. I'd remove them from the game/saves directory, and then add them back in one at a time. (Or just add in the one you want.)

Posted: **Mon Aug 13, 2007 2:00 am**

traceback wrote:E:\Data_forAccess\_mikey\_Projects\_games\TimesTear\
__FINAL_DISTRIBUTIONS\TimesTear_FINAL_DISTRIBUTION\TimesTear/game/script.rpy

How does the info about the directories get into the distributions, btw? It's no problem for me (gulp, except now people know how paranoid I was when building a distribution, to have the latest-latest LATEST version ^_^), but some people have it in their personal Windows folders (with their RL names, often, you know, Documents And Settings), so this is one information they don't necessarily want to share. I've seen this a few times already...

Posted: **Mon Aug 13, 2007 4:33 am**

Some idiot who just can't stop drawing no matter what apparently wrote.

1. Remove bandage
2. Draw using remaining fingers
3. (Insert sounds associated with extreme pain and agony indicating having difficulty in drawing)
4. ????????
5. After 6 hours, post fanart.

Is this the reason why you dont wan't to be disturbed last sunday? And you did WHAT!? Remove the bandage!? (Ugh! I don't even want to think how excruciating it is to draw under your current condition).

I was amazed (and puzzled) on how the hell did you even managed to draw at all wih that current hand of yours, let alone color it. Oh by the way, YOUR DRAWING SUCKS BIGTIME! (Yeah, I know I'm harsh, get used to it).

Pre, I suggest you stop drawing right now, you were definitelly lucky your hands are still functioning (Well, not 100% but at least it's still there) but please don't push your luck. Let your wounds heal for now. You might not get another chance like this.

Posted: **Mon Aug 13, 2007 8:57 am**

mikey wrote:
traceback wrote:E:\Data_forAccess\_mikey\_Projects\_games\TimesTear\
__FINAL_DISTRIBUTIONS\TimesTear_FINAL_DISTRIBUTION\TimesTear/game/script.rpy
How does the info about the directories get into the distributions, btw? It's no problem for me (gulp, except now people know how paranoid I was when building a distribution, to have the latest-latest LATEST version ^_^), but some people have it in their personal Windows folders (with their RL names, often, you know, Documents And Settings), so this is one information they don't necessarily want to share. I've seen this a few times already...

It's stored in the compiled file, as part of the debugging information we keep around.

You can change this by setting the environment variable RENPY_PATH_ELIDE. For example, I would have set it so that it was:

RENPY_PATH_ELIDE=E:\Data_forAccess\_mikey\_Projects\_games\TimesTear\
__FINAL_DISTRIBUTIONS\TimesTear_FINAL_DISTRIBUTION\TimesTear:TimesTear

then delete all of the .rpyc files and run the game. It will come up with filenames like:

TimesTear/game/script.rpy

A problem is that some of the features (like shift+E editor support) rely on knowing the full real name of the files being used.

Posted: **Mon Aug 13, 2007 2:50 pm**

- CONTENT NO LONGER RELEVANT -

Posted: **Mon Aug 20, 2007 6:22 am**

It took some time to get to play this (vacation and all) but there, I found enough consecutive hours to play the whole thing in one go ^_^ (I really tend to do that with your games :p).

First, an overall feeling : great game. I have a few nitpicks but I'm overall enchanted by this ^_^.

What worked for me :

The magic. Or scientific anomaly if you want

. I totally didn't expect anything fantastic but a everyday kid life thing so it was surprising... but in a good way ^^. There was a lot of tension and cute moments well mixed. I'm strongly reminded of children books I've read years ago and it's a nice nostalgy trip ^.^. Plus, the fact you managed to make it all very non-violent is great. I can't say I noticed it during the story (which is a good thing!) but knowing that you made this effort and seeing how it worked so well makes me happy ^^.

The adventure. While I'm not absolutely certain I can call this a "game", especially with the lack of various endings/strong story variations, it does have a lot of game-ish parts. The object choices were fun. Not hard at all of course, but even if the choices were rather obvious, it made things interactive and forced you to get into the situation. And there were enough choices each time that you didn't feel totally safe and really had to think. It seems bad choices still led back to the same menu but it's not really a big deal... I do think it's even a very good thing if children get to play this at some point... it would be an educative game/story ô_o.

The customization. It's not much but the dress thing rocks ^^. I only realized it when I reached the CYOI part though ^^;;;... I don't know, I misinterpreted Kazuhiko's realization as in : "she didn't care about the color but cared about my opinion"... I didn't realize the dress was part of this. A reason for my misinterpretation is that I chose crimson and expected the red color instead of the purple. This might be me confusing english color names though ^^;...

The graphics. I'll admit I'm not a big fan of lordcloudx's art usually (eh, sorry ^^;...) but it seems it was meant for this game. It has the children crayon book style and makes things look right given the context and point of view.

What didn't work :

Not much really...
The way of speaking. It might be just me but I had a hard time thinking of the protagonist as a 10 years old. Maybe I'm underestimating kids but he seemed a bit too well spoken and too mature at times. I could actually consider reading this again with a 16 years old protagonist and not feel it's out of place (except graphics would need to change of course ^^). To be fair, though, Alicia did feel more like her age with all the exclamations. Maybe Kazuhiko is just really more mature given his familial situation? ^^

The adult chat at the end. It's really really minor but I'm so used to adults not believing things that I found it a bit "easy" when things went so smoothly at the end. Buuuut... there is a good justification for it so it's something I'm going to ignore ^^. And it's kinda sweet of course ^^

To conclude... when you told me about this project, I didn't imagine it like that at all but I really like what you did ^^. And maybe I'm too optimistic but in this experience I see a great opportunity for VNs to be something I never considered : a way to reconcile children who don't like to read that much with books and stories (the game part, customization and, of course, visualization adding a lot).

PS : oh yeah, CYOI ^.^... Neat idea actually

, though not something I'd really use in the end.

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