Fare Thee Well [Kinetic] [Drama, Historical] [NaNoRenO 2016]

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Electromancer
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Fare Thee Well [Kinetic] [Drama, Historical] [NaNoRenO 2016]

#1 Post by Electromancer »

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Fare Thee Well — The story of a lonely man.
A wanderer, a wayfarer, a stranger,
And the sleepy town he found in the snow
One winter night.
Watercress is proud to present our entry into NaNoRenO 2016.

Download


This short, free kinetic novel is available for download on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux on our itch.io store at:



We would like to personally extend heartfelt thanks to every single reader of the Lemmasoft Forum who checked this project out while it was in development, showed interest in it, and looked forward to its release. Thank you kindly for your support, and we hope you enjoy the game!

Overview


A short, kinetic visual novel set on the Canadian border during the years 1967, 1987, and 2002. Heavily inspired by traditional folk music, each act of the plot is named after and dedicated to a beloved folk song. The character-heavy story will focus on the theme of the beauty and tragedy of the passage of time.

Synopsis


In the winter of 1967, a young man enters out of the snowy night into a bar in the sleepy town of Cedar on the northern frontier of Maine. He takes off his gloves and rubs his hands together. He slips out a golden pocket watch from inside his coat, checks the time, and gently places it back. Closing his tired eyes, he stops to think.

He is a wanderer cursed with eternal youth, sent out by fate forever to roam the world, never to find a home.

The bartender approaches him when he takes a seat and he pays for a drink so he can stay. The liquid in the glass shines slick like oil under the dim lights of the bar. Warmth fills the wanderer as he downs it in one gulp. After that he sits awhile to rest but knows he can't stay. Just as he gets up to leave, he notices something happening in the corner of the room.

A girl in a green dress is about to sing.

Concept Art

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Screenshots

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Contact Us


Watercress is a non-profit studio of over thirty volunteers located all around the world consisting of writers, artists, musicians, and programmers that have all united in our soulful desire to create art through the form of the visual novel. Since our formation in the summer of 2014, we have worked tirelessly day and night to make the stories we dream come true.

To learn more about us and our work, please feel free to contact us at our website (http://watercressstudios.com/), our Twitter (https://twitter.com/TeamWatercress), or my own Twitter listed in my profile to the side.

Remember, please feel free to provide any thoughts, comments, or suggestions you have about the game in the comments of this thread. Fanart, reviews, and favorite-character-discussions would all be incredibly appreciated!

Thank you all, and please enjoy Fare Thee Well!
Student activist. Son of immigrants. Published poet, author. Young but experienced freelance writer at $0.05/word, DM for portfolio. Buddhist. BLM.

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Re: Fare Thee Well [Kinetic] [Drama, Historical] [NaNoRenO 2

#2 Post by doktorcrimson »

Just finished the game. The nostalgic atmosphere...I have to say it's very well-crafted and for some reason it reminds of Lolita (in a good way), especially the part where you see
Emmeline getting married and having children.
Very nice little story about a wayfarer's life in 40 years. I hope our protagonist will find true happiness in his eternal life, even though that may be something different than what we might expect as mortals.

The only thing I didn't really like is a small thing about Emmeline and Rosa's sprite. At least for me, I find it a bit difficult to focus on the story when the sprites are not looking at the player when having a conversation with them, especially for a kinetic novel it kinda distracts me a bit. I attached a image with my edits to explain what I meant (I only used a mouse). I don't know if that was intended or not but I thought I'd let you guys know. I'm not sure about other players, but I think the artwork is great and it was a good read! Congrats on finishing NaNo'16~
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Re: Fare Thee Well [Kinetic] [Drama, Historical] [NaNoRenO 2

#3 Post by ebi-hime »

I liked the writing style for this VN a lot - it felt very prose-like, and there were some nice descriptions...
You handled the feeling of time passing by, and the sadness this causes the MC, very well. I was impressed to learn there was more than one writer, because the whole thing felt very smooth; I couldn't tell it was written by a group of people.
There's this very warm, nostalgic feeling to it... I liked the general atmosphere a lot.

The sprite art for the characters - especially Emmy - was also really cute. I loved Emmy's design, she's so adorable u///u
So I was a little sad
the MC and Emmy don't spend more time together. Or, rather - I'm glad they don't spend much time together, because that's important for plot-related reasons, but I think their conversation could have been expanded upon a bit, and more of their dialogue shown, because it would give a greater sense of their relationship. If their conversation scene as they watch the sun rise was given a bit more detail, that would be a nice touch.
Also, I noticed some of the sprite art is a little odd. The art itself is fine, but the sprites are different sizes, which is a bit jarring. The sprite for the bartender is far smaller than Emmeline's, so it makes him look like some kind of gnome.
Actually, I think all of the sprites are a bit too small. Since you used a widescreen resolution, if you made the sprites bigger, they would fill up more of the screen, and make it feel less empty.

The textbox is also pretty small, and shoved in at the bottom of the screen. The font is also rather small - perhaps because of the small textbox. I think you could have made the textbox bigger, and the font; not just for readability issues, but because it would make the screen look fuller.

As it is, I think the story is well-written, the art is nice, and I like the characters (the music is nice, too), but more time could have been focused on polishing the visuals.

Even so, I enjoyed the story a lot, and I think you did a good job!
I have a lot of free & commercial VNs available on Steam and itchio.io if you want to check them out! ☆

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Re: Fare Thee Well [Kinetic] [Drama, Historical] [NaNoRenO 2

#4 Post by YuukiCrossPudding »

Congrats on finishing the VN! I'll definitely download this and come back later when I finished playing it!

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Re: Fare Thee Well [Kinetic] [Drama, Historical] [NaNoRenO 2

#5 Post by Electromancer »

Hey everyone! Thank you very kindly for your reviews so far. Your comments are welcomed and your critiques are appreciated.

Just wanted to drop by to help promote some playthroughs that various people have done of the game on YouTube so far. Anyone who wants to play the game but can't find the time could potentially put these on in the background. So far three people have played the VN on YouTube:

JoCoGaTV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaMuAL7ZLHE

Tony Onorific: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIjERelQKD4

EchoFrost (one of our own team members): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAAzSQgXvsk

I particularly enjoy Tony's reaction a particular plot development (spoilers): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD4oBNA ... .be&t=1413

Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to upload the game to YouTube, and thanks to everyone who's had a chance to play it so far.
Student activist. Son of immigrants. Published poet, author. Young but experienced freelance writer at $0.05/word, DM for portfolio. Buddhist. BLM.

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Re: Fare Thee Well [Kinetic] [Drama, Historical] [NaNoRenO 2

#6 Post by TheForeverLoneWolf »

TL;DR: Greenlight campaign for Fare Thee Well on Steam, heavily remastered, please vote on them, be it positive or negative!

Heya everyone! It's been awhile since many of you've seen us, the last time probably being either the VN;Conference in which Watercress gave a speech on team management, or in our last successful Greenlight campaign for the Palinurus Remastered Edition just a couple months ago. Well, it's that time of the year again, and my God have we been busy.

I'm here to announce our next Greenlight campaign! We would've liked to have more time to work on the campaigns themselves, but due to the looming threat of Steam Direct, we decided to hurry up the process (let's not spend potentially thousands of dollars on a free game before we have to). Anyways, I'm officially announcing Fare Thee Well (Remastered)!

It is receiving a similar treatment to that which Palinurus had under its own remaster, except this time around we are doing a helluva lot more.

Fare Thee Well (developed in two weeks for NaNoRenO2016), has/will have updated/replaced music, updated/replaced sprites, a cleaner UI, and most importantly - a nearly completely rewritten Act 2, given the feedback we had gotten on the part (trust us, we saw the issues as well and we worked really hard to make it flow faster than molasses, not to mention the script is no longer riddled with the typos you'd expect in a rushed NaNo game).

So, please be sure to vote on the game, be it a negative vote or a positive one! Be true to yourself and what you want to see on Steam, we wish to earn our spot on Steam like we did last time, so be honest! Thanks to everyone who's a part of our wonderful community. See you all soon!

Be sure to stop by and talk to us on our discord!
Feel free to check out some of Watercress' previous or current works. Here's a link to our itch.io, Steam, and our Discord!

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Re: Fare Thee Well [Kinetic] [Drama, Historical] [NaNoRenO 2

#7 Post by Zelan »

Psst, you forgot to link the Greenlight page. c:

Here it is, for anyone who wanted to vote.

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Re: Fare Thee Well [Kinetic] [Drama, Historical] [NaNoRenO 2

#8 Post by TheForeverLoneWolf »

Zelan wrote:Psst, you forgot to link the Greenlight page. c:

Here it is, for anyone who wanted to vote.
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Feel free to check out some of Watercress' previous or current works. Here's a link to our itch.io, Steam, and our Discord!

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Re: Fare Thee Well [Kinetic] [Drama, Historical] [NaNoRenO 2016]

#9 Post by philip »

@Electromancer-

Don't know how I missed this one; as I watch LSF rather closely. Glad I found it; everything about the story is attractive, although poignant and ultimately sad. Hey . . . I'm a grown-up and not supposed to get choked up over a little story . . . must be my allergies acting up . . . Right?

Seriously, this is a wonderful story, and I greatly enjoyed it (although I was secretly hoping that it would have a different ending).

philip
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Re: Fare Thee Well [Kinetic] [Drama, Historical] [NaNoRenO 2016]

#10 Post by ofjunetea »

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