Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

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Laniessa
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Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

#1 Post by Laniessa »

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Get it on itch.io here!

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Amorina is known as the "city on the tide." Waves lap at its shoreline to the sounds of gulls, and deep canals run through the streets. It has been nearly two years since Cello Aufiero and her mother moved to Amorina, yet despite the city's charm, Cello has yet to begin to feel at home. Like a tourist, it seems there is no place for her, and it's hard to make friends when you are only passing through.

One day, her teacher assigns the class a project, based on one simple question: "What is the true spirit of Amorina?" It's a simple question, but it feels impossible for an eternal tourist like Cello. Luckily, a pair of classmates comes to her rescue. Through this simple assignment, can she find true companionship? Or better yet, her true home?

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Cello is a cheerful but shy seventh grader. She lives with her mother, Celeste, in a small home on Via Girasole. In her spare time, she enjoys helping Celeste in her glassblowing workshop, and reading about science facts. Coco* is a little stray dog who Cello encounters on her way home from school one afternoon. She is wary of Cello at first, but a bit of quick thinking wins her over.

(*Name changeable.)

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Pippa is a girl in Cello's class, who is never seen without her sketchbook. While she seems friendly, she appears to hold an unknown grudge against Cello. Armand is a friend of Pippa's, nicknamed 'Uncle' by his classmates because of his 'advanced' age of 13. His tough exterior seems to hide a certain kindness.

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We are Pink Pomeranian Parade, or PPP for short! PPP consists of YuukiCrossPudding/Tenshio (character art/CGs), Laniessa (BGs/GUI), Laiska (writing), and Ultra_HR (code). We got together to make Cerulean for the Summer Novel Festival (SuNoFes), with the aim of making a short VN with a light and summer-y feel. The music is being composed by Sebastian Woodland While this game is complete, we hope to update it later on and add some polish!

Cerulean has an estimated playtime of 1-2 hours! We hope you enjoy.
Last edited by Laniessa on Sat May 28, 2016 6:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

#2 Post by AsHLeX »

Looks good! I'll dl and try it later :)
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Re: Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

#3 Post by Quelcezot »

I've started playing, it's very nicely presented. The writing is well done and draws you in and the humor is quaint but effective. The art is stylized in a pleasing way, and both the music and writing along with the gui come together perfectly.

One small and specific thing that bothered me is how early on a noisy bell sounds, but it just plays straight through the music. It was such an alarming sound that it felt strange that it didn't interrupt the flow of the narration, or create a pause in the music. It drew me out a bit.

Information is released at a good pace that keeps me interested and I never feel lost in the town due to the good backgrounds. The same can be said for time, it progresses nicely and I feel immersed enough that I can feel the weight of passing days.

The character art is expressive, and I feel like the art is well used to project tone.

The whole experience is overall positive, although sometimes sickly sweet - but I think that's what you were going for.

Inevitably there are a few typos, but that's to be expected and not very exciting one way or the other. Congrats on getting it finished, so far it seems like an interesting VN.

You all did well in its production.
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Re: Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

#4 Post by Feral Phoenix »

You had my attention already with the main character's name being Cello (laughs), but the style of this game looks really cute and the story looks like it'll be fun too! Downloaded; will come back with my thoughts when I've had a chance to play. :>
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Re: Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

#5 Post by Laiska »

Quelcezot wrote:-snip-
Thanks for playing! As to the bell sound, do you know if it was the school bell or the shop bell?

And yes, I agree it's a little on the saccharine side at points, but our goal was to make a game that was completely light-hearted, so I'm glad we achieved that. :)

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Re: Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

#6 Post by neuropsy »

What a sweet story!

I love the aesthetics of this game. Pixel art is underrated these days, but there's a nostalgic charm to it. Coco is absolutely adorable, and the kids are both cute and look their age (something a lot of games/anime fail to do). I always looked forward to seeing the CGs, especially the photographs. The animated GUI was a nice touch, too.

The writing was crisp and clean, beautifully detailed but far from oversaturated. It was simple, yet emanated cadence. Like the art, there was a nostalgic feeling to it, probably because the characters are beginning their adolescence. The characterizations were consistent and realistic, and Cello's internal emotions were captured well. For example, her constant reference to her old home as her home, since she feels distanced from Amorina.

The music was professionally done, pleasant to listen to and fit the theme of the game well.

I have no idea why I didn't realize this until the end of the game, but Cello's situation reminded me a lot about my own. I moved several states away from my best friends before 8th grade, and while I made friends here...I wasn't nearly as close. I'd refer to Florida as my true home, and I wanted to return there as soon as I was able. I'm painfully shy (despite generally being cheerful), so making friends was tough for me, but over the course of university, I'd forged meaningful bonds. Soon enough, I began to see this state as my home, and now as senior, I'm afraid to move away for medical school.

So, in summary, very well done. Everyone's efforts resulted in a wonderful, nostalgic little game that caused me to reflect upon my own life. :)
It hurt me to think it was possible to unknowingly take poor little Mari away from Gloria... I'm so glad they can visit whenever though in what I consider the best ending.
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Re: Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

#7 Post by paradigmshifty »

The game was really cute!

I loved the world-building, relaxed feel, art (bgs and sprites were equally delightful), music and
the scene at the well!
oh and the GUI animated stuff was amazing, a very professional feel all round. <3


I made my first ever fan art - it's hot dad (maybe a bit younger version) in a north face jacket...

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And boring bits: I did one play through - probably took me 2 hours. I did spot a few typos along the way, just pm me if you want them!
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Re: Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

#8 Post by AsHLeX »

So I finished it yesterday, great story, good art.
A rather relatable kind of plot. I really like the backgrounds, the GUI, the characters. They were so nicely drawn. The plot flowed nicely along too. Great job ^^
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Re: Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

#9 Post by infel »

Hey, guys. Just got done playing your game. And I must say I did enjoy it. The art was nice and colorful with the music being calm and not too loud. The writing for the game was also pretty good and I really enjoyed Pippa. What I liked most about this game was just how relaxing it is and how it made me calm. I like it when visual novels are able to do that. Anyway, good job with your SuNoFes game. It was a pretty fun read and I hope to see more from you =).
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Re: Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

#10 Post by ebi-hime »

Aw this was such a cute VN! Everything about it was really nice - the writing, the music, the art, the animated menus - and it looks like a lot of work went into it. I liked how even relatively minor characters, like Armand's dad and that old man, had sprites. It made the story feel more... alive, I guess? Idk it's nice to have sprite art to look at for each speaking character.

I think my fav character was either Armand's dad, despite his short screen time (doesn't he look kind of like Kariya from F/Z, minus the worms? Haha XD) or Pippa. Pippa was really cute, I liked her talk about romance stories and her love of myths and legends.

All the characters were really consistent and well-written, and their relationship with Cello was adorable. There were lots of really nice little character traits (Pippa's love of romance, the Mother calling Cello 'Cellina', Armand's unwanted status as 'the Uncle'), and I felt like Cello really did develop and grow to love her hometown. It was nice she was able to make friends, it was such a cute story. You all did a really good job!
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Re: Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

#11 Post by Feral Phoenix »

I played it!!!! I loved it!!!!!!!!!!

Mega props for the pixel-style backgrounds, they're so atmospheric and beautiful! The characters are all really cute too and I'm planning on going back and trying out different combinations of places-to-visit scenes sometime later on... I like the exploration of what places can mean to different people and the emphasis on all the different friendships, this game was really meditative and nice...

I'm really glad I played this because I had some friends who've been complaining over the lack of just this kind of game! Now I get to go rec this in all their faces!! >:3

Thank you for such a nice story!
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Re: Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

#12 Post by Laniessa »

Eek, late reply! All the schoolwork I pushed off to make this game caught up, and then I've been busy with the Yuri Game Jam, ahah.

Thank you all for playing! And I'm glad you enjoyed our game! <3

@neuropsy: Hee, thanks! Ultra did a lovely job on the UI animations, as did Tenshio with the sprites!

Thank you for sharing your story ;o; I had a similar experience in middle school, which is what inspired the premise of the story. I'm glad that you could relate to the game!

@paradigmshifty: oh my god fanart can we put it into the gallery

Thank you! I'm glad you liked the backgrounds. We released the game in a bit of a rush, so we couldn't comb for typos ;o; We found some since, but if you have it in a handy text format, it would be nice if you could PM it over!

@AsHLeX: Thank you very much! ^o^

@infel: Hehe, it's good to know it was relaxing! I'm glad you enjoyed the game c:

@ebi-hime: our team sans ultra is dad-loving trash

Ahem! Thanks!!! Tenshio worked very hard on them, and we're all happy with how they turned out <3

Pippa was a total cutie, and I'm glad you picked up on her love for romance!

@Feral Phoenix: I'm glad!!!!!

Ehehe, thank you! ^3^ I hope your friends enjoy it too!

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Re: Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

#13 Post by Rosstin »

Artstyle is very unique! Very cute.
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Re: Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

#14 Post by ChillTaco »

aww a pixel art game? Slick man. Next time you make wan invite me to the party.

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Re: Cerulean [SuNoFes] [Friendship]

#15 Post by Laniessa »

Hello everyone! Just posting to say that we've uploaded the new version onto itch.io - it features a typo-sniped version of the game, retention of pixelly goodness on the fullscreen, and a couple of art edits. We'll probably patch it up in the distant future again, to make more art fixes/add extras menus and some content. We hope you enjoy!

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