Starlight - Now Avalible!

[uluuu]

I don't know what to say, other than that my general impression was quite positive~
I'm not usually a fan of space opera type things, but since this focuses on relationships and characters (...right?) I'm pretty sure that I'll stay interested. I've given up on the third ending for now, but I'll probably try again in a few hours.
I like the art. I can't explain, exactly. It seemed lively, probably because of all of the different positions each character took. And the 3d backgrounds worked really well~
Like others said, it seemed like there wasn't much to the characters, but that's probably because it was such a short game (and an intro at that) that there really wasn't time to do much development. Even so, I found them all pretty likable and cute in their own ways, and I am interested in getting to know them further. Hehehe.

[rocket]

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

Thanks! If you are seriously interested in helping with the CG, please drop me a line in the new year. After the holidays I will be making a greater call for submissions in the dev thread!

[rocket]

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

What? It does have the most fan-service!
...
Oh... you mean besides spaceship-p0rn! ^_^;;

* It was just begging for a bad blow-up-the-station ending

Hahahahaha! Yes well... we'll see just how badly I let folks mess up in the future! >_<

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

Another reference found! Good! Still not all by far tho'...

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.

^_^ I'm looking forward to getting to know them better!

[rocket]

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

What can I say... fan art makes my day! ^_^ Awesome job, and now of course I'll have to live up to the scene someday!

[Enerccio]

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.

Hmm, but I enjoyed outfits, really!

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!

[monele]

I'm in random thoughts mode so here we go XD

Cool music!
Loud alarm and expelling sound, ouch ^^;
Nifty characters.
Interesting story, making you want Episode 1 *right now*
The 3D backgrounds integrate *very* well. I think I only noticed they were actual 3D during my second playthrough ô_o;... By that, I mean they're 3D, but they still have a cartoony side to them.
The 2D graphics... are simple but oh so effective! I really like the main characters' looks ^_^

The in-story interfaces were nicely done ^_^. Similarly to the technical explanations, they were not fully understandable, but it felt "correct" and you could spot the main ideas necessary to follow what was going on ^^

While the interface is simple, it's very well done ^^. The additional buttons is something we don't see often in Ren'Py games but I think we should ^^ (I never used them, but uh... it's nice just to have them XD)

Oh, got the endings in reverse order ^^.

The ecchi prevented me from playing this at work but I can't say I hated it >.>... ('specially megane )

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 ^^.

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

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

I'm wondering wether the crew choice is the only one to appear based on points.

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 ^^.

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

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 ^^;

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

[Jake]

I liked the loud and surprising alarms, simply because real alarms are just like that and sound effects are supposed to make the experience more immersive, not less. But then, I put the loud and surprising screaming into MorningStar for the same reasons, and I seem to recall that meeting with a similar reaction.

(Not sure why some of this is 'spoiler', but hey, I can only go along...)

I'm wondering wether the crew choice is the only one to appear based on points.

Certainly when I played through looking for a 'bad' ending I got railroaded through that choice - the menu didn't appear. So I'd say probably not.

Having the game react to your choices is still important, especially for replays ^^.

I can't agree more on this - myself, I prefer the kind of conversations where the choices you make usually branch entirely for that one conversation, even if they don't branch the overall story, and big branches in the overall story will definitely get me coming back for more far more often than points-based alternate endings ever would.

I wish Jade would have a quirk on the same level as Rose and Violet maybe...

You know, I think that's why I liked her more than the other two; she's remotely normal, where neither of the other two really are...

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 ^^;

He mentioned he went straight out of the academy into battle, and I don't recall any real indication of how long the war was. Most of the wars we've had in the modern age have still been over in under a decade - World War 2, the most brutal war in human history, was 6 years long - and it seems reasonable to assume that as weapons increase in effectiveness and transport times become lower still most wars will be over in shorter and shorter timeframes. So I wouldn't like to draw any conclusions past a range somewhere like 20-40...

[monele]

Jake : You're probably right for Jade. I mean, I feel that way too... it's a good thing and a bad thing at the same time I'd say ^^;...

It's better that she stays the sanest, but then it would be nice if she was made cooler and unique through some other aspect. Like caring a lot, or being *really* good at commanding and such. But eh... maybe then she wouldn't be "normal" anymore?... *kills his own theory* XD

Not taking much risk with his age, uh?

[Jake]

being *really* good at commanding and such

Didn't the epilogue mention that she was a tactical genius?

[monele]

Erg... true ^^;...

But the two others are also geniuses in their fields it seems... so she's still behind in uniqueness for me ^^;

[klang]

In the beginning intro, "where ever" should be "wherever."

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?

[Mr. E]

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. I can see it's an epic, and that you're aiming quite high, but if you try to put too much on the game, and get the pace wrong it could have disastrous results. The game already has a possible war, possible contact with other life-forms, possible dangers of the planets themselves, the crew's relationships and accomplishments... You'd better balance all that carefully, ok? Or it could just become a confused jumble of sci-fi instead of an epic space opera. I'm not advising against putting many different questions/problems/story threads, just advising caution on how to use them, ok?
And now... All that remains is to decide what to do regarding your game and the RAA archives... It's clearly an episodic game, something forbidden in the archives, but it also stands by itself well enough... Well, I'll PM you later and we can discuss this.
Good luck and I hope that you finish this great project you've just undertaken.

EDIT: *sigh* I really need to check the RAA rules better before posting things... Episodic content is allowed, provided it stands alone as a story. Period. I'm adding your game and Fawke's as soon as I can. Sorry.

[Alessio]

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!

[rocket]

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

Thanks! I'm glad you liked the humor... I'm slowly fixing the minor typos as I go so I really appreciate it!

Getting pumped for 2008 and the real Episode 1!

[rocket]

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"...

Thanks! One of my greatest satisfactions on this project (beyond discovering that other folks appreciate cute girls and spaceships as much as I do) is seeing the variety reactions to my leading ladies! Between this release, my blog, and the playtesters I've had a number of responses. Each of the girls has been at least two people's favorite! To me this is super exciting because it demonstrates exactly why moétic harems in games and anime are so much a part o the moé revolution - there is someone for everybody! Its also personally gratifying because I've now done it myself - created a cast that has broad appeal via complementary specialized attributes!

(^_^) Ya-Ta!