Starlight - Now Avalible!

[rocket]

Hey there! I played through the game and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It had great quality, so I feel the need to leave a great quality review:

I felt overall, the game served its purpose: a playful ecchi space romantic comedy. I saw the Protaganist as the classic Romantic Comedy/Harem anime hero, despite his serious demeanor. When put into a compromising situation, he reverted to Keitaro-mode. "Ahh---uhh...".

Thanks! I was hoping to strike the balance of heroic epic, yet accessible, highschool-awkward, romance.

The characters were...hmm...I dunno, a little lacking, to tell the truth. Jade was the one I liked the most, and even she got on my nerves slightly. Rose was quirky and strange, which was definitely a change from the serious Jade, but at the same time, she was slightly annoying in her ditziness. XD Violet was just too bitchy for me, but hey, tsunderes are a must.

By the end I was so close to them that I find them endearing, but their genesis reflective of some of the chara types that bug the heck out of me in other anime. Unlike the typical static anime chara they are supposed to have quite a bit of room to develop and grow - they are not in any way ideal or even necessarily healthy at the beginning - and I'm hoping to have them change and mature. Well, I hope you'll try the next episode as it should show quite a bit more character to the girls (and the Captain).

As for the designs, I like all of their hair and faces, but the uniforms were...err... To tell the truth, as a woman, I was a little offended by their attire. (Not seriously of course!! More of a "Hmmm..." than a "OMG HOW COULD YOU?!") I mean, these women are supposed to be serious military personnel, Jade especially (is she supposed to be the First Officer?) and they're wearing these little mini-skirts. I appreciated that they wore tights, but the skirts were just too short. I agree that perhaps having an arm-band or maybe a couple badges on the shirts would have made them look more professional. The outfits looked a bit casual at first. ... Now, I realize that this game has a bit of ecchi in it, so the short skirts appeal to the intended audience, but it takes away from the reality of the situation.

(*^^*) Sorry, but skirts are a must! I can't possibly have decent light fan service without panty shots, and I don't want to go more explicit...

That said one of the things I'm working on for the renewal work on Ep 1 is new uniform designs. This is mostly motivate by a desire to look less TOS-ish, but I do want to address the rank and utility issue. Arm bands are an awesome idea actually! I don't want to do sexy ultra-prim 40's uniform styles, not because I don't like it, but because I'm saving that look for Tactical Kissing, so for Starlight I'm looking at kind of a idealized, unreasonably sleek and 60's mod look.

[rocket]

As for the characters, I liked Rose the most out of them. Violet was too loli for me (tsunderes appeal to me, and some lolis do, but these things combined usually don't) and Jade felt too basic. Besides, Rose looked the best. I liked her ecchi-CG the most too~...

*SHOCK* What?! I thought (Tsun-loli=WIN) was one of the basic axioms of anime-fandom... (^_-)

Ah, well Rose does have her ... er... charms. (*^^*)

Thanks for the kind words and I hope you'll try Ep1 and give the girls a chance to develop more!

[rocket]

I don't know what to say, other than that my general impression was quite positive~

HOOOOORAY FOR FAN-ART!

So awesome, I never expected to get fan art! Thank you!

I will be opening a call for artists next year to help, please look for an announcement in the Starlight development thread.

[rocket]

Anyway, for the game, it was great. Easy slice of captain's life and stuff like that, it was cool.
Jade is my top though, violet is second and megane is third. Only one thing was sad, and that is game length. But apart from that, big success!

Yay! Great success! (^_^) Thanks!

[rocket]

I'm in random thoughts mode so here we go XD
It would have been nice if the space station commander had more than one expression since she actually goes from angry to confused. But hey, if we're only going to see her in this episode, I'd say it's okay ^^.

Yeah, I drew three for her, but I ended up not inking or coloring them to get the release out. Very long sot maybe they'll show up in Ep 0 1.1.

Very cool emergency ship departure ^^... Impressive what one can do with moving pictures

Thanks! I really wanted to do more special effects scenes, but again it added up to too much work for a single person for one time events.. ^_^;;;

The epilogue was a bit too texty, especially since there were no pictures at all to support it. I like what it foreshadows, though ^^... Space combat... alien meeting... planet exploration? Whoo

(^_^) All great tastes that go great together.

On the game system : I might change my mind the next day but hm... I think having many interaction "nodes" yet not have each them affect the story too much is nice, both for the player and the author. It *is* a bit sad to see that choices only give you one or two new sentences for the most part, except of course for the endings... but I understand the need to simplify production . It might already be the case but I suggest only needing 80% of the "good answers" to account for differences between your views and the player's. And if you can, in the next episodes, have at least *some* branching. Not one per choice, but one per 10 choices or something like that. Having the game react to your choices is still important, especially for replays ^^.

So actually there's quite a bit of leeway from getting the full points to getting ending 3.. more like 75% correct now that I've adjusted the difficulty down again.

That said, branching is something I'm still very torn on. My first plan for Ep1 was to have a shared beginning, three paths for the middle episode (depending on which girl you focus on), and a common climax which could fail based on prior choices. However... I still am not sure about the middle bit. I'm not sure what the replay value would be, so maybe it would just be a customizing element, but it also feels like triple the work for something that most people won't experience... Maybe you choose 2 of 3 or something... :-/

My characters top would be : Rose, and hm... arh... Violet/Jade on the same level for now ^^;... I might have missed it but I wish Jade would have a quirk on the same level as Rose and Violet maybe... But she's still on the same level as Violet because that brat might get on my nerves in the future . In this episode she was rather funny instead ^^. Love how unconcerned she looks when she salutes XD. As for Rose, well... I *have* to fall for the geek with glasses! XD

Hee. Well if Violet is not your nerves yet I think you're definitely a candidate for tsun-fetish! (^_^)

Oh, btw, how old is the protagonist? I'd give him 30... since he's supposed to be a veteran from another war, but uh... I didn't find anything confirming or infirming this ^^;

Yes the Captain is a veteran of the previous war. He was comissioned right after graduating from the academy and the war started shortly after. The war lasted no less than 3 years but likely less than a decade. Around three years have passed since the armistice. So doing the math that leaves him anywhere from his mid/late-twenties to thirties. I've left the time flexible to give myself room in the official chronology and also to allow some player interpretation.
Mostly its flexible enough to allow the girls to be conceivably date-able... ^_^;;

Oh and uh... Is Rose's ecchi CG the uh... cleavage one?

Hai! One of my regrets is not having more of Rose... though to be fair there i quote a lot of her as it is. (^_^)

[rocket]

I was totally not expecting loli fanservice on my second go. In fact, the girls don't seem to mind at all about showing what they do. I guess this is what they call fanservice.

I'm actually surprised how well you did in the art department despite the limited number from pictures. As for sound, you might want to listen and compare all of them. The volumes don't seem too balanced: some are too quite compared to others. For example, I could barely even hear the bridge mp3 in comparisson with the intro song.

Oh yeah, for the main project, will you do a bit more world building?

Thanks!

Actually if the girls didn't have any sense of decency it wouldn't really be service... but the implausible frequency by which you stumble upon such things is a key component!

Sound balance is a problem that I hope to address in 1.1... but I intentionally left the bridge sounds low because after a while even a long loop can get quite annoying.

Yes! There will be quite a bit more revealed about the world of Starlight in the real series, so please stick around!

[rocket]

Hey, congratulations on finishing your first game. Acutally it's more like the first episode of your game, but since you're aiming so high ( in both quality and length ) the idea of chapters sounds like a good idea. Anyways.... About the game
As many have already said, great artwork and effects ( especially in ending 3 ) and quite nice music as well. Special praise for the choral piece at the dramatic moments.
This is really only an introduction, so I can't talk too much about the story. But the beginning looks promising. It looks like you've got your universe pretty much figured out, always a good idea in scenarios like sci-fi or fantasy, and I think most of the characters has room for development. You can't expect to see a dynamic and ultra-realistic character in just 20-30 minutes of game ( ok, you can. But it's VERY difficult. ) It all depends much on how you develop them, although I think I already saw tips of more complex personalities surfacing in the first episode.
One advice I'd like to give ( instead of a nitpick, since this isn't a finished project ) is to be careful not to let all this go too far.<snip> just advising caution on how to use them, ok?

Thanks!
I hope I can live up to expectations! I do have the characters planned out quite a bit, both in terms of the history that made them the way they are and how they will develop under the tutaledge of the player. Though they are quite typical chara-types I hope I have a good idea of why they are this way and how they can grow without losing their distinct personalities.

As for the world and story, it is quite a challenge. I have currently planned 3 major arcs of 4 eps each and I know the big events that need to happen in each so I think that should help to keep me on the tracks. If I ever lose steam I can always pull a Gunbuster and skip non essential episodes and imply events that were missed. (^_^);;

[rocket]

Neat! Got ending two, but I'm not much of an ending-chaser so I guess I'll have to live without the epilogue. Most has been said already, so I'd only give two humble bits of advice:
- Encode the sound effects to ogg. Currently it's 16 MB of uncompressed wav files.
- Don't split the intro text into single sentences. IMHO it was a bit tedious getting through all of it. The text itself was interesting, just the clicking was getting annoying.
But everything else was great - art, story, music, effects. Way to go, I'm looking forward to the next one!

Thanks! I'm trying to compress stuff for the 1.1 release (already shaved off 20 MBs), I'll try the wavs as ogg next (cause I tried compressing the music as ogg and it didn't help at all... )

[monele]

it also feels like triple the work for something that most people won't experience...

I know the feeling all too well. Try to think of it like this : out of all the people who will play the game, chances are the sum of them will experience everything. It just takes 3 different people choosing one of the three paths (no replay!) to make all the content consumed. Sure... not forcefully by the same person, but is this such a big deal?
My best comparison is games such as Baldur's Gate : there's no way you could expect all player to play with every class, every gender, every alignment and replay I don't know how many times to see all the possible variations depending on these... AND those depending on actual choices made through dialogues and stuff. Still, they make such games... because obviously, the sum of people *will* see everything, so it's not really wasted. And as mikey once said : even if you don't see them, knowing the other paths *are* there makes the experience so much more personal ^.^

Well if Violet is not your nerves yet I think you're definitely a candidate for tsun-fetish!

I don't know... Comparison : Sarah from Love Hina totally gets on my nerves. I'm actually close to hating her. Isn't she a tsun?

Mostly its flexible enough to allow the girls to be conceivably date-able

Actually, that would be another question : how old are they? They look rather young to me (and the captain keeps saying they *are* very young... but is it just for being on a spaceship or ... dating-wise too? )

[rocket]

I know the feeling all too well. <snip> even if you don't see them, knowing the other paths *are* there makes the experience so much more personal ^.^

Well thats true. I also like to think that this way you don't have to spend time with girls that are not to your taste. So long as it is modular to the core plot I think it's okay, but I'm really not super happy with the way I had three endings in Ep0. Ep1 is much more of a win or fail type plot structure. So I may only have slightly tweaked endings depending on the girls plus a fail ending.

Well if Violet is not your nerves yet I think you're definitely a candidate for tsun-fetish!

I don't know... Comparison : Sarah from Love Hina totally gets on my nerves. I'm actually close to hating her. Isn't she a tsun?[/quote]
Dunno. I never had patience enough for Love Hina. She does look like a tsun-loli...

Mostly its flexible enough to allow the girls to be conceivably date-able

Actually, that would be another question : how old are they? They look rather young to me (and the captain keeps saying they *are* very young... but is it just for being on a spaceship or ... dating-wise too? )

Hehe.. a selected snip from my story bible will authoritatively answer this question:

Jade O'Brien - 19 years old
Commander and Executive Officer of the ship in drydock - Unrestricted Line Officer

Violet Winkler - 18 years old
Lt Commander and Chief Engineering Officer - Restricted Line Officer

Rose Murakami - 20 years old
Lt Commander and Chief Research Scientist - Staff Corps

Alexis Hayden - 18 years old
Lt Commander, Appointed Diplomatic Liaison

What... they don't look like it? Hmm... must stop watching Sky Girls. ^_^;; Well in any case there might actually be some surprises in that department for Ep1!

[monele]

Eheh, they definitely look younger to me (I'd give them 16 or 17 at most), but it's obvious the cutesy style is a big part of this ^^.

[Samu-kun]

Ooo... Can't wait for the next episode!!! ^_^^_^ *sits eagerly*

[mrsulu]

Finally got this to work---there may be some issue with Windows zip extractor and the way the game was packaged---a zero-length file folder name, perhaps? See:

http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 4&start=15

I had to use a different unzip program.

But, anyway, once I got going it was great. My handle is MrSulu, so you can imagine I grooved to the Trekness of it all. My wife really liked the music and how it matched the space theme. The art, the sound, the music, the plot---they're all excellent. I felt like this was a great step forward in English Renai games, and sci-fi games in particular. My only gripe is a familiar one---too hard to get the best ending for such a light game. I'm looking forward to episodes ahead, especially how these characters deal with a strong antagonist.

As for favorites, despite Rose's glasses and other charms, I've got to go with Jade. She's working hard, so serious, yet cute as a button and wearing a smashing uniform. I think Jade needs a sidearm with fins on it when she goes on the away team.

(Oh no! Rose is wearing a red uniform! WATCH OUT, ROSE!)

Victoria needs to go through puberty. No, seriously, the girl should get some hormone treatments before the next episode. I'm worried her thyroid doesn't work right.

Interesting sociological note on uniforms: I remember seeing in an interview with Majel Barrett (Nurse Chapel from the original Trek series) who said that, in the 60s, miniskirts were a deliberate sign of freedom. Before the 60s, even college cheerleaders wore ankle-length skirts. Wearing minis was revolutionary, part of the whole sexual revolution that was shaking up everything at that time. It was a foregone conclusion that a forward-looking TV show like "Trek" would dress the women in this stylish-yet-functional new way.

Now, 7-of-9, you can argue, is just fanservice. But miniskirts, at least at the time, were THE FUTURE! Thus, given Rocket's clear homage to 60s-era sci fi, the minis were exactly right.

[Jake]

I think Jade needs a sidearm with fins on it when she goes on the away team.

*seconds motion*

[Kenshiro]

It's my first post on this forum so welcome everyone 'Starlight' is also the first Visual Novel I have played and I must say I had a really good time. Girls are sweet (well, maybe not Violet, she reminds me of some of my students ), I love the intro. The game makes me work harder on my own VN as well