The Blind Griffin [Historical] [Otome] [NaNoRenO 2015]

[tilly]

what a fun, awesome game! the art is so lovely and i love the general aesthetic you managed to achieve!! ) congrats on finishing all of this in such a short period of time!

[yoshibb]

I wanted to do all the routes before commenting. I think this is my favorite game you've ever done. I was interested in the setting from the start and the concept of a speakeasy bar with magic. The backgrounds were all gorgeous along with the Character art (I loved the MC's flapper dress). The characters were all fun and I loved getting to know them all. It felt like they were a family as time went on. Giovanni was still my favorite, I liked the layers on his character and I really wanted to find out what was plaguing him above everyone else. That's not to say I didn't also enjoy the other routes too. I ended up liking Alexei a lot more than I was expecting (his strict teacher routine was starting to give me middle school flashbacks) and Emilio is adorable. I would've loved to learn more about Marie, too, it seems like her story would be really interesting.

Had so much fun (except during the bad endings, those were brutal). You guys did a great job!

[TuttyTheFruity]

Really solid stuff, I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was situated very well in the time era (and I liked the glossary, very charming). Lots of small little details went into the craft that I liked and appreciated, and

switching perspectives

was a welcome surprise. Excellent art too.

Great job with this!

[imnotsmart]

This game was the best! I named my MC "Sugar" (Keyser Soze-d her off the candy shop) and can I just say, BEST decision ever!! Imagining all the different characters callin' her sugar was PERF

[Magician_Of_Illusion]

I'm not much of a visual novel player, having only ever played one other Visual novel (Katawa Shoujo) and even then I only played one route before stopping.

But, when I saw this forum and the images of beautiful sprites and art, I wanted to give it a try! I hadn't even noticed the summary until I started downloading; but that was definitely an extra push for me to play. (As you can see though, I'm not much of a "What's this about?" and more of a "It looks beautiful I must see this!")

To be honest, I expected I'd just play one route like KS, but I ended up pulling a serious all-nighter going through all the paths, as I got sucked into the story. (And boy, I must be some lucky schmuck since I managed to get all the endings in each go. Glad I decided to save at every choice!) Actually, I haven't slept for a full day since it was already 8am and I didn't want to blow my sleeping schedule even further out of the water.

The game really exceeded my expectations though. The characters were a fantastic bunch and I loved the ethnic diversity. The art was gorgeous and you really stayed true to the time period. (The slang was great too! I'd love to find a dictionary with such amusing definitions as those in the game)

I was seriously blown away to learn after that you guys put this together in a single month. My sleep-deprived mind short-circuited.
I truly wish I could donate some money to you guys, I feel like I'm stealing from you, good grief! I hope leaving a comment will lessen the debt a tiny bit.

So, fantastic job you guys. I can really see you've put an immense amount of effort into your work. That was time well spent and I'll definitely be looking for your names in other projects in the future!

Cheers,
MoI

[Pixelen]

This was lovely! Just completed it and got all the endings. The art style and characters were great and I loved the UI as well, the navy and gold was really pretty. Congratulations on getting all this done in a month, that's really an amazing achievement! I'm assuming that

the POV change happens after you've completed a characters route the first time?

One small thing as well, I'm not sure if it's just my monitor, but the black text on the blue background was very difficult to read in the menu, especially in the glossary, it took me a while to figure out how to get out of it! If I could make a small suggestion, in the main title screen the text is a dark gold then becomes lighter when you hover over it, maybe the black text should be changed to this colour?

[Carrogath]

I kept meaning to comment on this and I just... kept getting distracted by other things. First things first: love the setting, love the diversity (You're playing as a Chinese girl in '20s San Francisco! What more could you ask for? also Marie ofc), love the group dynamic. The GUI is gorgeous as usual and the ATL is great; that explosion scene looks like it took a while to code. :'D The protagonist is great--hard-working, no-nonsense, just trying to scrape by. The guys' subplots all mesh well with the era, too, especially Emilio's. The Roaring Twenties were such a fascinating time and I'm so happy you set a VN in this time period.

I would've said the the script could've benefited from some more editing (esp. when it came to the guys' conflicts), but you hardly had any time... Given the constraints, I understand why the story kind of skimmed along the surface when it came to exploring everyone's individual troubles. Emilio and Vivienne and Gio and Alexei had interesting relationships of their own, and it was nice to see them play out. Marie felt underused; I wanted to see a bit more of her. It was a very ambitious game and it looks like everyone had a lot of fun (and frustration) making it!

On a side note, Emilio's bad end was just... awful awful awful. Perfectly timed tragedy that makes you hurt. I liked the historical overtones in Alexei's route--I mean, Russian nobility, how cool is that--and I think Gio's addiction would've had more of an impact if it hadn't been magic-related, but I liked Emilio's route the most, I think. It was familiar, but not too predictable, and given the limitations of the game I think it worked well. Gio's and Alexei's needed more time to develop to really give it that extra punch.

[Godline]

I finally got some time to sit down and play this - and whew! It took some time! Loved all the little details like Gio's arm tattoo and the CGs for bad endings.

I loved the POV changes too, they were really unique and added something to the game, especially developing the romance which was hard to do given the word count/time frame.
Went for Emilio first but ended up playing through all the routes. I wish I could comment more, but it was all very enjoyable.
And the fanservice scene. Haha. I'm sure everyone thanks you for that.

Good job! Two thumbs up! (I am well aware this is not a rating system but yes...)

[effenelle]

Whoo! I've unlocked everything! Haha. Thank you for the game. I enjoyed it, the GUI & art are professional, the ATLs rock, the writing and all the slangs, languages, new vocabs...I even named the heroine 'Zotzed' on my 2nd playthrough! Lol we should really use more of this word.

The character I like most...is of course Alexei. Because he's so strict and stuffy I love meself a good challenge. Haha. Pretty much down the road I fall for his white skin and clear blue eyes and Russian accent (oh just imagine if this game got a VA for Alexei...with sexy Russian accent! <3 <3 )

The first ending I got for the game is Alexei bad ending. From there I could guess that pretty much the other bad endings are going to end up with

people dying.

The biggest shocker of the game is Emilio's bad ending...I intentionally go for his bad ending first rather than his other two endings, just to see

how is he getting himself zotzed

I've prepared myself for that...but still I'm honestly surprised. I...feel bad. I feel sorry for him. He didn't deserve that.

So that's that. Credits to you guys for making that tragic ending! Just a quick question though, what makes you decide to name the game/the speakeasy as 'Blind Griffin'? Is there any significance in it?

[Camille]

Thanks for all the commentary! ;w; It's really useful feedback. I know that NaNoRenO doesn't give me a lot of space/time to develop storylines and characters as deeply as I would like to normally, so I tried something a little different this time with the time skips and all that. It's been interesting reading people's response to that.

Just a quick question though, what makes you decide to name the game/the speakeasy as 'Blind Griffin'? Is there any significance in it?

Historically, speakeasies were also called blind pigs or blind tigers but those were generally used for lower class establishments. Hence Blind Griffin because it’s a bit fancier and also griffins are pretty magical.

There's some more meta/world-building stuff here and here at my ask.fm for anyone interested!

[ririruetoo]

So I finished the Alexei route, and while I enjoyed the characterization and the plot I felt the epilogue was super random and didn't really fit.

Like, they live in a base at the bottom of the ocean...okaaaay. 0_o

If it was explained more in the story that that was even a possibility or a likelihood then I may have liked it better, but without the explanation it kind of left a weird damper on what was until then a excellent game.

I was expecting something like they live in Russia or stay in San Francisco, not the bottom of the ocean

I really love the visual novel you guys have made, and would really enjoy another game set in the world (maybe continue with period setting? I love the usage of different eras in story telling, and I think it could be super fascinating).

[Camille]

So I finished the Alexei route, and while I enjoyed the characterization and the plot I felt the epilogue was super random and didn't really fit.

Like, they live in a base at the bottom of the ocean...okaaaay. 0_o

If it was explained more in the story that that was even a possibility or a likelihood then I may have liked it better, but without the explanation it kind of left a weird damper on what was until then a excellent game.

I was expecting something like they live in Russia or stay in San Francisco, not the bottom of the ocean

I really love the visual novel you guys have made, and would really enjoy another game set in the world (maybe continue with period setting? I love the usage of different eras in story telling, and I think it could be super fascinating).

They still live in San Francisco! :3 They were just working in a lab at the bottom of San Francisco Bay because they were researching underwater travel and submarine warfare. The heroine mentions this. You sort of have to be underwater to run those kinds of experiments, haha. At the end of the scene, the heroine also reminds Alexei that they have to eat dinner with everyone else later. I'm sorry if the in-game explanation was too vague.

[ririruetoo]

Oh, okay. Maybe I was just blown away by the the oddness of it I didn't read as carefully as I should. I'll go back over it again and hopefully it will make more sense.

[Ladyalexia]

I loved this game so far. I love the art. I picked Emilio right and now I wanted to play the others.

[Akitsuki]

Probably one of the Nanoreno games I've been anticipated! Kinda late, but I'm downloading now!
Great work, everyone! \(^o^)/