Starlight - Now Avalible!

[Vatina]

Also the ship's designation is only a character off of Star Trek's Enterprise, and the Station Commander looks terribly familiar... I'm sure there was something else that stood out, but I forget. Anyway, it seems likely that if there's a coincidence, it's intentional...

Yeah I liked the part with the commander xD very fun detail.

[Counter Arts]

Yay

Hmm... I would say that this is a nice intro.

I caught on how to get the best ending instinctively although I was very tempted to do otherwise. The characters were okay. I really love the tension though.

The CG could have been less blockly for my tastes but... yeah... I did do pre-rendered CG professionally for awhile so that is not exactly fair.

It all does go really well together though. I just felt like I wanted to jump-in and help with the CG part though.

[Blue Lemma]

Wow, that's some great stuff! I played to all 3 endings + epilogue, but the 3rd sure took me a lot of tries. I was kind of expecting more fanservice as a reward The 3D backgrounds work very well for the sci-fi theme. It makes everything look futuristic and sterile. The writing was very good, too. It's hard to think of ways to improve it, but here is my little constructive criticism list ^^

* The choice along the lines of "Let's see if she's up to the challenge" or "I wonder how she'd like to face the consequences" confused me. I didn't really get what the latter meant.
* Ending 3 was waaay too hard to get @_@ Hints/more leeway would have been good
* It was just begging for a bad blow-up-the-station ending

Some little things I noticed:

* The women's outfits match their names
* Scenario KM... Hmm, Star Trek Kobayashi Maru reference?

Thoughts on characters:

Jade: She seems a little cold at first, but oh so cute in that event scene ^o^
Rose: Wow, those are some "adorable rockets"
Violet: Yep, airlock! Airlock! But she does provide some nice attitude to balance things out.

*claps for rocket*

[Jake]

It has come to my attention that zero-G is the best kind of G.


Also that it's really hard to try and give totally-floaty stuff any kind of depth. Oh well - just like real space!

[rocket]

So I played your game and here's my review.
The background story is well thought, it's a bit vague, but I don't know, maybe it's going to be some kind of great adventure.

Thanks for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed it! The background is fairly well developed and it is intended to be a great adventure. I have consciously structured it so that it is consistent and enjoable no matter how far I get into the process of producing Starlight. If ep0 is all that is made, then it's enough. If the pilot gets made, you'll learn more. If I get through any given story arc (4 eps each) then you should have learned just enough to be satisfied with your understanding of the world.

The ship's design resembles another one... Where a denominated Picard was onboard if I remember well...

Hmmmm... I don't know that one! ^_^;;

As others have noticed Starlight is full of references - however the design of the Command Center was one item that I tried to do in full seriousness without being derivative. I think you only get a slight sense of it from the scenes in ep0, but there is an elevated "Bridge" portion running the center of the room, where the command staff can stand. The front half of the room and its stations are dedicated to ship operations and the Bridge portion there includes a holographic display of the ship. The back half of the room is intended to to function as a Combat Direction Center, and the Bridge portion includes a tactical table display and the only two seats on the elevated area. I'm pretty pleased with it striking the right balance of cinematic efficiency of having both functions be in one room, with groggish technical accuracy... *^_^*

The characters are cute. I'm pleased you kept the lil' girl concept you drew the other time on the other thread
On the other hand, I preferred the last one you only saw through the intercom :p

Thanks! Yes, the Station Commander is quite popular. I can't imagine quite yet how she might return to the series but you never know! ^_^

It is original you placed the military ranks on their sleeves. That's the only issue I'd discuss about. Why on the sleeves only ? It might have been more obvious if you put some kind of mark, or anything on the shoulder or the breast. Military prefers fast readings, you look at the face, then any area close to it to define the rank. The sleeves are just too far ^^;
But still, it's an original idea.

Honestly, I did it purely for aesthetic reasons. It just looked tidier. The original designs had marking on the shoulder, and breast in addition to the cuffs and it was just too busy for the 'retro-future' look of Ep0's uniforms. That being said, one of my major projects for Ep1 is to seriously redesign the uniforms to be just as cute and sleek, but less derivative, so I may address that.

Overall, the game's main asset is its story. It's touching, not enough to move me to tears yet ... What made me smile was the event scene...

One of the things I was most anxious about was my quirky mix of humor, service, pathos and adventure. Did my cocktail appeal to anyone but myself? I'm glad its seems tasty to others!

[rocket]

The girls got me totally mad and I just wanted to beat them DX;

LOL!

Anyway! I quite liked the idea and It made me want to see more =P (so I can get a beat-up/punishment scene in the future ...j/k! xD) I want to see how much the relationships with the characters develop in the future =3

You know, it sounds really funny when you say it like this, but this touches on one of the reasons I wanted to make Starlight about command and leadership in the first place. Frankly there are so many harem anime (and eroge) where the girls just drive me crazy! Either simpering incompetents or insufferable brats - I can't stand them. Yet there's a fine line between the intolerable and the moetic (and one of my primary motivations was to understand moe).

In anycase a setting where you get to influence these characters and, if not change them, at least help them learn how to work better together appealed to me a lot!

The art was pretty nice too =D And I wiish i could make 3d Bgs to use as base for my backgrounds T_T... those were a nice touch =3

Thanks that means a lot Deji-sempai! I certain would not have been able to complete it on time or on quality without your teachings!

P.S. The 3D was actually really easy. I used Second Life as my modeling tool, and though I had to build most stuff myself (in a quick ramshackle way) one ifts advantages s that you can easily buy so much high quality 3D stuff.

[rocket]

I liked the atmosphere in the game, and the flashy presentation of it. The characters were fun too.

Although I *did* feel like throwing Violet Winkler out the airlock
And.... captain Thrace? Was that an intentional hint at something else? (Maybe these were all over the place, and just didn't notice it). I found it funny either way

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it! IMHO the 'best' ending also has the most 'service' but prolly the least titillation. ^_^;;

In anycase, yes promoting Kara is one of the many (many) little references I threw in there. I figured she'd be the perfect candidate for blowing herself up in a brilliant but desperate gamble. ^_^

[Nafai]

Well took Starlight for a spin: Here are my impressions. I'll mark them all in spoiler just to be safe.

(+)
- Liked the backgrounds, and the change from blue stars to red-tinted BGs
- The status display screen. Nice ^^
- The 'closing her legs' shot with Jade ^^
- Rose and the 'twister' portion. Quite funny ^^
- The well played choice between ship, mission and crew
- The Station Commander pop-up

(-)
- text scrolling would have been better if it were slower, more 'typed out' for that epic feeling
- Sometimes the game neglects to put the "Me" indicator that shows the player is speaking aloud (i.e. the part where he tells Jade to be at ease)

In the end I got Good Ending Number 2 ^^ The game was really had a good, clean presentation, with attractive visuals, good use of effects, distinct characters, and well-placed humor.

Well done. Looking forward to the next episodes!

[rocket]

You generally have choices between building a girl up, or tearing her down/doing it yourself. You want to do the former, and then trust in them.

To some extent, I worry that the game is too hard, because it doesn't say much about this in game.

See, that's what I'd figured. And what I tried. Perhaps I have different opinions to Rocket as to what constitutes this in at least one of those situations. :/
[EDIT: After getting bored enough to go back and check some of the ones I was less sure about, it seems this was probably the case.

Yeah, this is one of the parts of Starlight that is clearly least satisfactory... :-/
1) It seems still too hard to get all endings - well I can lower the point cliff easily for 1.1
2) I didn't want to write a CYOA with zillions of branches (that's be completely not scalable in writing) and I didn't want a system where you just make a few obvious choices, because then I might as well just let you choose the ending you want at the beginning of the game. However the resulting point system is subtle enough now that it makes it frustrating to play to completion. Maybe a grey system like this one should not reward 100% completion so much, but instead offer the epilogue after two endings are exposed, or provide hints after one ending is complete.
2) The most important bits of development you do with Jade occur way before the critical branch, which magnifies the time you have to replay to try an get a different ending. I saw this as a problem, but just didn't want to handle the total re-structuring of the plot that fixing it would entail...

I guess one thing I struggle with is how important is the plot influencing interaction to players? I think that given the setting there is an expectation that your actions will influence the outcome of events, but they could just as easily be limited to the outcomes of relationships instead of the main plot.

[Nafai]

I guess one thing I struggle with is how important is the plot influencing interaction to players? I think that given the setting there is an expectation that your actions will influence the outcome of events, but they could just as easily be limited to the outcomes of relationships instead of the main plot.

I think what most players want at minimum is not necessarily the ability to affect the main plot drastically, but instead that they be able to influence it believably, given their characters knowledge/abilities/situation/position.

If an out-of-left-field betrayal is in the plot, and it leads to the destruction of a colony no matter what the player does - well, that's acceptable. If however, the player character had earlier unearthed evidence of this traitor, and was in a position to take steps to expose him, then it is disheartening, in my opinion, if the colony destruction/betrayal event is unavoidable.

[rocket]

Amazing. The boldy-colored (and dare I say it... moe) hand-drawn sprites look nice on top of the crisp vibrant 3DCG backgrounds.

Thanks! Aesthetically I'd still like to have more integration... some kind of filter I can run my 3D through to give it a slightly softer look, but I'm glad it worked and was not too jarring!

The dialogue was very nice and engaging, though you have to be a Star Trek fan to understand the technical lingo.

Hey! i made up all my own techno-babble thankyouverymuch! (^_-)

I actually hadn't expected this to be a full-out space opera (I should have read the initial description in the WIP thread more thoroughly)...

Hehehe... actually that was part of my devious plan. When I started I wasn't sure how well received a Ren-Ai sci-fi mashup might be, so I didn't want to turn people off with pre-conceived notions.

The setting reminded me more of Crest of the Stars (which I absolutely loved) and the opening almost made me cry (when listening to it in surround).

The Epilogue was really nice... even though it was just a B&W conversation, it revealed more of the world and it is a very mature view of it too... it's not a B-movie sci-fi setting at all, it was an interesting worldview.

Thanks! I do hope the world of Starlight is both fun and serious enough to sustain a series. I personally am a huge geek for any of the Horatio Hornblower in space stuff, even as I am awed by its implausibility. I definitely enjoyed Crest of Stars - though in my mind I'll always think of it with fondness as "Nazi Space Elves". (^_-)

Now... what would you need help for in the future? Your art is great, your 3D is great, your writing is great, and you can pick music and program very competently. It seems you only have a few CGs so if you don't go overboard, you can keep churning out episodes at a moderate pace. Especially since most of the settings and interaction take place on the bridge.

Well, I'll be happy to expand more in my WIP thread, but basically I don't see myself able to continue doing all the roles. For the true Pilot I expect to write most (if not all) of the script, however the CG, the character sprites, even the coding to do the complex effects scenes are all things I'd like help on.... tempted? (^_^)

[Jake]

2) The most important bits of development you do with Jade occur way before the critical branch, which magnifies the time you have to replay to try an get a different ending. I saw this as a problem, but just didn't want to handle the total re-structuring of the plot that fixing it would entail...

As it goes, I think I'd got one of the Violet questions 'wrong'; I think I chose the same answers for Jade each time. But I did spend quite a bit of time holding 'Ctrl' down.

I guess one thing I struggle with is how important is the plot influencing interaction to players? I think that given the setting there is an expectation that your actions will influence the outcome of events, but they could just as easily be limited to the outcomes of relationships instead of the main plot.

Personally, I don't mind whether or not my actions influence the plot, so long as there is a plot. Typically I'll only play this kind of thing through once or twice anyway, so sometimes I won't even find out how much a thing branches. Although I'll go back more to stories which have serious totally-different branching (e.g. Fatal Hearts, which I think I got through about two thirds of the endings for) or things which really amuse me a lot (like, say, this. .
So I was initially happy enough with ending 2, which I got first... until the game told me that I had to complete two other endings before I got to see the epilogue. Calling it an 'epilogue' makes it sound more important and plot-relevant than an alternative branch would have been, so I was more inclined to play for it.


(Incidentally, I also noticed a few spelling/grammar things that I don't think I've seen mentioned here, wrote them down as I was playing, and then totally forgot to mention them the last couple of times I posted. I'll try and remember to send 'em along this evening.)

[DrakeNavarone]

I maybe have been lucky, but I didn't find the game so hard, I got all three endings in only three playthroughs, no repeats. In fact, I was actually under the impression that only the last choice mattered, so I was a bit surprised reading about everyone else having a hard time of it, but I did do different things during each try in the beginning too (I still thought it was of little consequence though...). Again, it's probably just luck on my part, since I usually do a bad job of these thing, ahaha.

Since I had no problem reaching any of the endings, I thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed playing this game, and I can't off the top of my head think of anything negative about it. Unlike everyone else, again, I actually liked Violet, and disliked Rose, but that just really amounts to tastes (I prefer the angry types, if done right... which Violet is a case of done right, so far...). I'm still on the fence about Jade, but I'm leaning towards a "mild like"...

[PrettySammy09]

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...".

The characters were...hmm...I dunno, a little lacking, to tell the truth. The game was very short, so I only got to see a very small bit of each character, but from what I could see, they were all relatively two-dimensional, and not exactly likable. Then again, I'm female, so maybe the fact that I wasn't attracted to any of the characters physically took away from the experience.

I mean, seeing a girl's panties doesn't really do it for me. XD

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. Perhaps the problem was that all the girls received very little screen-time, so they came off as two-dimensional.

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. As for the skirts -- women in the American military who wear skirts often wear tasteful pencil skirts or knee-length skirts often made of the same material of their uniform jacket. Either that or pants. 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. When I first saw Jade, I didn't believe she was a military officer wearing that outfit. XD But I believe there's a way to make a military uniform sexy without having it be silly looking.

The music was spectacular, as were the sound-affects. I wish I could say more -- they were just great -- I felt everything fit perfectly.

The quality of the art was stellar, and the backgrounds were a great change from the usual. Awesome job!

I have yet to get ending 3, but I'm working on it.

Overall, great job -- can't wait for the next installment!

[Hime]

I just played this through with all the endings (just like DrakeNavarone, three playthroughs and no repeats), and I have to agree what PrettySammy09 said about screen time and two-dimensional characters. But it was a short game, after all, so that's only to be expected. I thought it would be longer, though... ^^; The beginning had such an epic feel to it.

Nonetheless, the game seemed really well planned and the script was full of detail. The visual side was really well done as graphics were really cute and the music... Too good to describe. I think both of those suited the game smoothly. There was a lot of choices straight from the beginning, which can be both a good and a bad thing, as you gave the player a lot of interactivity and opinions, but it made me feel a bit uncomfortable on my first playthrough when the choices were in front of me all the time. Overall, it was fun to play this game and I'm looking forward to your future projects too.

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~...