Amiralo wrote:.....I am stuck on what to do after i am killed by clara. i did what the game file told me to do, but no difference.
..Help a technologically challenged visual novel player out?
There should be a button near the bottom of the error message in the game, saying "Bypass."
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paradigmshifty wrote:Art and music was great. The art on things like the poster, tarot cards (who made those!?), and then the animations (rocking horse, etc.) all added together to give the game a lot of charm and polish I think. Sprites and BGs were great too.
I'll post a more detailed art credits list here for you. I can't thank all the artists enough for their work. (Unmarked game spoilers below.)
Art Credits:
Rebecca's Sprite: YuukiPudding (@10_salt)
Adrian Defeating the Ghost CG, Tarot Card CGs, Basement BG: Jaye (@fakemagicjaye)
Hana's Sprite, Rough lineart for Kaemon and Sen's Sprites: Kyuu (On Lemma Soft Forums); (Kaemon and Sen's colouring done by Katy133)
Magic Act Poster CG: Naomi Norbez (@NaomiNorbez); (Lineart by Katy133)
High School BG Asset: Uncle Mugen (@oelvn); (It was originally a 3D model render; I painted over it)
Textbox UI Assets: Nuxill (
http://www.nuxill.tumblr.com)
RPG UI Assets: Ravenmore (
http://www.dycha.net)
(The rest of the artwork was done by me.)
paradigmshifty wrote:When you say there are multiple endings... is that a joke about it having all the meta stuff? Or are there literally different endings!? hehe. I thought that the story was pretty linear and the ending I got was the way it had to go! But I am now very curious about the other choices you can make in the first chapter of the game. Are the other endings all deaths?? Hehe.
There's three different endings.
Some are much shorter than others, but each ending gives you at least some extra information.
Also, thank you for pointing out the typos. I'm going to remove them in the next game update.
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Ah! Thank you so much for making this! I really enjoyed listening to your talk! C:
I'm gonna put some responses/answers to your thoughts here: (Unmarked game spoilers below.)
- On the beginning bit were you talk about what I did with Ren'Py: I was actually inspired by a VN game called
Save the Date, which I recommend playing. That VN basically introduced me to the concept of Ren'Py using what's called "persistent data": Information that you can program the game to keep, even if the player quits, reloads the game, or starts the game over. This information is usually used by VN devs to build a "CG Gallery" (that "unlocks" CGs as the player progresses the game), but learned that persistent data could also be used to unlock stuff in-game too.
Save the Date's use of it really fascinates me, partly because programming is still something I feel I don't know a lot about, but also because of how the use of it affects and develops
Save the Date's story.
- On Headcanons: I can confirm your headcanon that there were indeed previous play testers before Adrian. I guess Adrian being like the 144th tester was the straw that broke the camel's back for Clara: She must've gone through the motions of living the same life 144 times in a row.
- On The Truman Show: When you mentioned that the town The Truman Show was filmed in actually exists, I immediately remembered "The Village" from
The Prisoner, which is also a place that (creepily) exists in Wales.
The Prisoner is an interesting British 1967s series about an ex-agent who wakes up trapped in a tiny village on an island run by a "Big Brother Is Watching You"-type operation (we're talking
The Truman Show-levels of
cameras everywhere!). The ex-agent is told that he's only allowed to leave if he tells The Village why he quit his job as an agent. Refusing to tell anyone why he quit, the ex-agent tries various ways to escape. There's a pretty interesting/amusing ongoing video series discussing
The Prisoner here.
- On whether Hana and Adrian's relationship is a friendship or romance by the end: The ending is meant to be ambiguous and up to the player's interpretation. If you want them to be friends, then they ended up as friends, and vice-versa.
I actually took a lot of inspiration for that scene from the ending of
12 Angry Men (the 1957 black-and-white film adaptation of the stage play). The film ends with the main character finally exiting the claustrophobic room, and walks down the courthouse steps. He spots one of the twelve other jury members: The elderly man who 1) Was the first person who showed faith in the protagonist, and, 2) Was revealed during the story that he felt lonely and ignored due to his age. The protagonist asks him what his name is (which is quite shocking to the audience: It makes us realise we've gone through the entire film
without knowing anyone's name). The man tells him, and they part ways, possibly implying that they end up meeting each other again and becoming friends from the experience. (Also,
12 Angry Men is a film that I find really intelligently-written and highly recommend seeing, but that's worth a whole other discussion.)
- On who the voice is: Simon is the voice in the game's promo description ("I need you to stop her...").
- On Hana's age: I don't really have an answer to this (which is perhaps for the best--As you said, that's a whole can of worms there). I will however say that the ambiguity of Hana's age can be used by the reader to think about the following: 1) How young characters are often played by actors a lot older than the character. And, 2) How in video games, you often put yourself into a role where you're a considerably older/younger person.
- On The Journey of Ignorance: I'm not sure if doing a talk on TJoI will provide a lot, because I didn't write The Journey of Ignorance, I only drew, programed, and gave the writer the loose premise for the story. Also, I made the game using Visual Novelty, which turns out to be a very buggy VN-maker. Quitting the game (unless you quit using the method described in the ReadMe file) causes the game to crash, along with any other programs you have open (Notepad for taking notes, etc.).
- On the end of your talk: I'm glad that the jokes in the VN made you laugh.
Saying that I've improved; saying that the game's writing is able to switch well from drama to comedy (something that I admire in other people's work); saying that you want to write fanfiction; being able to talk about my work for so long. That is such a huge, amazing, wonderful compliment to me. *hugs* I'm really flattered, and I'm glad that you ultimately enjoyed playing it.
You've inspired me to make a "Behind the Scenes" post for the game later. I'm gonna go work on that as soon as I can.