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Re: Aloners [GxB] (a post-apocalyptic romance)

Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 9:56 am
by azureXtwilight
Finally finished with the best outcome I think so far~

I love this game a lot, the story is very interesting and I'm glad that you actually bring out the most of the post-apocalypstic setting. Trash' character is very interesting and I actually prefer picking the options that makes him more playful~ The romance between the two flows quite naturally too, something I really appreciate from this kind of games, and t doesn't just focus on the "will they won't they" but also their relationship as a couple.

Two thumbs up for this!

Re: Aloners [GxB] (a post-apocalyptic romance)

Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 11:04 am
by sonnet009
Ghost #9:

Wow, what an amazingly detailed piece of feedback! Thank you! And I greatly appreciate you letting me know about those errors. I've started compiling a list and, once it's long enough, I'll be updating the game. So that's very helpful to me. Cheers!

With a cringe, I have to agree with your opinion on
the bar background
and, really, my only excuse is the limited resources. I searched long and hard for something better, but I must've been looking in the wrong places.

Honestly, the computerized voice is news to me! Must be a Ren'Py thing. Or a your-computer thing. Weirdness!

In regards to
where the bandits got the army supplies: The real army that inhabited the base already had that huge stockpile. But when the bandits took over the base, they "inherited" everything. They actually killed the remaining army force that was at the base -- but that wasn't particularly strong anymore, since a lot of the soldiers got sick and died because of the cloud. Then Alpha decided the bandits would do better to re-brand themselves as a military force.
Some of this is mentioned or alluded to in-game. Some of the details never made it in.

That's a good point about needing a fast-forward option on the menu. Sorry that made things more difficult for you. For future reference, you can hold down ctrl to skip through the dialogue. (And pg up to rewind.)

Josie:

Thank you! I hope it was worth the wait.

LittleAngel:

Thanks! I'm glad you liked my last game, and I hope this one doesn't disappoint.

Lesleigh63:

Thank you. :-) I hope you enjoy!

Sunao:

Haha! Please, enjoy!

Otomegirlxx:

Thanks for playing the demo. I hope you like the final product. :-)

KittyKatStar:

Thanks very much!

Re: Aloners [GxB] (a post-apocalyptic romance)

Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 11:17 am
by sonnet009
ludeshka:

Thank you for the feedback. I'm glad that the characters worked for you. Also, haha! It was a toss-up whether or not I put in
Trash's real name
or just kept it a secret. I guess it's good that I decided to put it in, eh? ;-)

bluebell:

Wow. That's... that's kind of great. Thank you!

MinttyMint:

Woo! \o/ Enjoy!

Otomegirlxx:

Oops. I should've scrolled down before replying to your first comment. I'm super glad you enjoyed Aloners, and thank you for letting me know how you felt about it. :-)

VocaloidsRCool:

Happy Birthday! And thank you for saying such lovely things. I wanted to make the game that I would like to play -- meaning lots of character depth and personal choices -- so it's nice to know that I didn't completely miss the mark on that one.

Rainbow Colors:

Fiiiiinally, right? ;-)

azureXtwilight:

Thank you very much! I think I like playful Trash the best, too. And a big part of what I wanted to achieve was focusing on the depth of Trash and MC's relationship, not just hovering on the "oooh, are they gonna get together?" thing. Which, when you're the last two people left in the world, would probably be answered pretty quickly!

Re: Aloners [GxB] (a post-apocalyptic romance)

Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 1:37 pm
by ColaCat
I downloaded and played this as soon as I saw it uploaded here (26th), I just refrained from posting because there is little I can say to you other than what's already been said. The game was wonderfully written (almost shockingly so) and I loved how all the different choices were believable, often in VN's you can tell which answer will get you where - but in this one I had no idea. Usually I don't much like the photo-type of backgrounds, but I didn't seem to mind it at all in this VN (maybe because my mind was so distracted with the story?).
A quick question, how many different endings are there? I've only got the one where
Trash and MC kill everyone at the base and live there themselves. I unlocked all the CG's so I just assumed that I had got the "true" ending.
Also,
About how they killed the scientists - I got a bit confused. Did they kill them, deliberately, so that they couldn't wake up the other people in the Easter Project? I just didn't see why they would do that. Also, why, if no one knew the code to wake up the people, did MC wake up?
All in all a great game! I hope you make many more!

Re: Aloners [GxB] (a post-apocalyptic romance)

Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 5:29 pm
by pocoscon
Hey, just got done playing this game. And here our my thoughts

Story-I loved the story. I can see you put a lot of time in fleshing it out and making it something great. I'd also like to say I'm glad the muties are not zombies. Too many post-apocalyptic games have zombies as the main bad guys and it can get annoying at times. I'll admit though that some plot points didn't make too much sense, or maybe I didn't catch something. Like, why did Alpha take in so many muties if they weren't trying to help them? Now I likely missed the reason because I played the last few chapters when I was tired. Besides that, story was great. Really did enjoy it =).

Characters-The best part of the story were the characters. Freya, which is what I named the main girl, was a good strong character. I tried to choose choices that made her kind yet strong, so I got a log mix between those two personalities. Trash is who really made this story come alive though. I loved him :oops: . He was tough, but had his soft spot, and took care of Freya as she did him. The romance between them was also well done. The flow was perfect, and I won't lie that I smiled when Trash said he loved her :) . I'm not too thrilled with the other characters though. Alpha was a jerk and Gemma was weak willed, but I'm guessing that's what you wanted to go for.

Music-The music for the game was fine with me. I didn't turn of the sounds at all. I think the theme I liked the most was the simple one since it made me sway back and forth XD.

Art-Love the art. Trash was very handsome, especially in the CG's =). Only thing is some of Trash's expressions seemed a bit off. I think the one that had his eyes almost closed was off because his right eye looked a tad slanted. Besides that, everything was well draw.

Writing-It took me a while to get use to the third person pov. As I got to chapter three though, I got used to it. Overall the writing was well done and kept me reading on :) .

Re: Aloners [GxB] (a post-apocalyptic romance)

Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 9:07 pm
by Mistik
I'm on chapter 2 now I think. Love the high quality Character art, writing is cool so far, but I'm not far enough to truly comment on it.
I choose whatever answer most resembles shrugging, and shrug whenever I can. I wonder how long I will stay alive like this.
One thing I would have liked is ambiance when there is no music playing. For an atmosphere filled game like this I found it would help immerse the player. Music is nice when it is playing. Makes me feel happy even though the world is meh, which so far compliments the writing in that vein.

Re: Aloners [GxB] (a post-apocalyptic romance)

Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 10:05 pm
by MinttyMint
Now that Ive played through it, I gotta say I loved it and so did my sister who oddly sat through the whole thing with me. I played the MC as "Silver", a tough, no nonsense kind of girl, bit of an asshole but then so was Trash at times... They were perfect together really, at first it was very love/hate but as they softened each other out it was more "love you, hate everyone else". I genuinely started crying at
Hope
and any game that makes me cry is a good game, there really aren't many that manage to do so. Worth the wait and my first real posts. :roll:

Re: Aloners [GxB] (a post-apocalyptic romance)

Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2014 9:38 am
by 15385bic
I was so glad to see the full version out, I hit the ddl button with no hesitation. Screw time and all the other things I'm suppose to be doing because I was set on enjoying myself.
I came in with expectations (hell - i loved the demo ok?)
and you guys delivered ~
I really enjoyed the story, love Trash's art sprite
and loved the fact that i could be either demure or totally kickass.
Hope you make more games (i also enjoyed Rei)
although i guess its a good thing that trash is such a gentleman and the rating on this aint higher, coz with post apocalyptic, everyone else dead sorta setting she could've been worst off...i kept getting chills down my spine when at the army camp coz in my mind - it was all too real what "could've" happened. What's his name- head bandit guy's threat >=[
well i'm glad the worst never happened and i'm glad you guys never (hopefully - i've only played one route so far) went there.

Re: Aloners [GxB] (a post-apocalyptic romance)

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 1:31 am
by anon2045
I really loved this VN. The writing was wonderful, the chemistry was well-written, the romance and story strangely heart-warming. I loved the protagonist, it really did feel like her personality was shaped by my choices and I liked Trash, for all that he could be infuriatingly smug and bossy at times. The backgrounds, art, gui, and music went really well together as well. One of the things I wished is that we knew more about the protagonist's past, like
why she woke up from stasis so early and how exactly she ended up in Trash's home (and why she was naked. I keep wondering if all the corpses were naked as well or if their remains made it impossible to tell).
But overall, this was so good. I'm keeping an eye out for any VNs you decide to make in the future.

Re: Aloners [GxB] (a post-apocalyptic romance)

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 10:34 am
by Flowers from Nowhere
Yes! I've been waiting for this since the demo!

Edit after completion:

It was awesome!

Ok, specific things. 1) I think my favorite part of this game is how you just kept ramping up the tension. The stakes just got higher the further the story progressed. By the end I wasn't sure I could make it. 2) Trash is a great character. He starts off as such a mystery and becomes more human the more you learn about him. 3) I was also particularly impressed with your music selection, it really helped to convey the atmosphere. 4) And as has been stated before I loved the wide array of choices.

Re: Aloners [GxB] (a post-apocalyptic romance)

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 1:03 pm
by sonnet009
ColaCat:

Thank you so much for such lovely feedback!
There are 2 endings. You got the "good" one. There is also a bad ending (without CG), plus the good ending has some variations depending on the state of your relationship with Trash.
And about the scientists: the bandits killed them when they overtook the base, because at that point they didn't know about the government projects. Gamma, to save his own life, was the one who told them about the people in stasis so that they wouldn't kill him. Except, by that point, all of the other scientists were dead. Or maybe there were even a few left, but they were killed anyway, since the bandits had Gamma, who they thought would be enough. MC waking up was pure luck on her part. Perhaps the machinery she was hooked into had an error. No one alive out there is savvy enough to know, so neither do we. ;-)
pocoscon:

Hey, thanks for sharing your thoughts, and in such detail!
Alpha took in the muties because he saw potential to turn them into weapons of a sort, using their aggressiveness to his advantage. He mentions it briefly in the scene when MC is eavesdropping on their meeting, but it's very fleeting.
Mistik:

I think that's a fair point on the ambient sounds. That's definitely something I'll look into for my next project. Thanks!

MinttyMint:

*fistpump* I always thought if I could just get one person to cry... LOL I love hearing about the characters people play -- Silver sounds like a good match for Trash. He needs someone to kick him back into line sometimes! Thanks so much for commenting.

15385bic:

Aw, I'm glad you enjoyed!
I know what you mean about how things could've been a lot worse. Luckily, Trash is (sort of) a gentleman and MC is pretty good at taking care of herself.
anon2045:

Thanks for playing and sharing your feedback!
There's always going to be a lot of mystery around MC's circumstances because there's no one in that world who can answer those questions, so I kinda like that we can't know either. But there's a good chance that MC got lucky because of a technical fault with her machinery or something like that. She was naked for stasis, as was everyone else. She just didn't comment on them because the being dead thing had more of an impact on her.
Flowers from Nowhere:

\o/ Fiiiiinally!

Re: Aloners [GxB] (a post-apocalyptic romance)

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 1:13 pm
by ColaCat
Ah! Thanks for the explanations. I'll have to try to get the bad ending now. :)
Are you planning on making any other games soon? Your work is amazing.

Re: Aloners [GxB] (a post-apocalyptic romance)

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 2:54 pm
by sasquatchii
Not sure if this got answered or not, but someone mentioned the self voicing feature earlier, and was asking about whether or not this was intentional. All Ren'py games have it built in which is pretty nice in my opinion :)

That being said, I loved this game!! I played it over the thanksgiving break and I'm really glad I did. I had so much fun with it.
I adored how it felt like we had the freedom to choose how the story went in a lot of ways. I'm so curious as to how else things could have unfolded, I will definitely be playing this again soon to find out!!

I also loved that this was set in a post apocalyptic world. I have been toying with the idea of creating a post apocalyptic vn of my own, and its refreshing to see something so different.

One extremely nitpicky thing: I disliked how Gamma and Alpha didn't have sprites, just black gaping silhouettes. I totally understand why you'd do this with budget/time/art constraints, but to me it felt a little incomplete. There are a ton of free sprites out there that you could use, although free sprites may not work because your story's setting/characters are very specific.

If you'd like I'd be happy to try to help you create sprites for Gamma and Alpha. Just PM me & let me know! :)

Re: Aloners [GxB] (a post-apocalyptic romance)

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 10:13 pm
by Decadenttia
I must confess something. I've found games in this forum that made me enjoy a lot but is yours, the game that made me decide to create an account here to write this for you:
I LOVE THIS GAME.
I simply couldn't let it untold. I downloaded it today and I played it today. I still have one or 2 branchs unexplored but I can say i played the whole story basically.
Step by step I've been diving in the plot and could not stop reading until the very end. The most remarcable thing in this game for me is the credible evolution in the relationship between the lady (in my case, Victoria) and Trash (and I'm talking about feelings and behaviours, not only the more physical options). I know some people told you about the naturally going on that.. but it really is. And also is funny and touching.
I felt confortable at how the story was doing, getting my whole atention since the starting and the first small scenes that filled me more than a very long ones. The just amount of happenings in the right moment, no more no less.

No matter I played it, i will replay again. I will choose again basically the same options and I will enjoy them again.
I'm sure it has been a lot of working, hours, and some trouble in the development, so I must end in congratulating you.
Really awesome.
THANK YOU for the great time I had with this incredible game.
I threw that can on Trash's head for interrumpting my shower and I would do it again.
P.D.- Cabin fever made me laugh a lot.

Re: Aloners [GxB] (a post-apocalyptic romance)

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 10:19 pm
by pocoscon
Ah, that's what I thought =). I remember that part, but it was really late when I was reading it XD. Thanks for clearing it up :) . Hope to see more games from you soon :mrgreen: