Nanairo [SuNoFes 2017] [Short] [Free] [Gen]

[timepatches]

Nanairo is a short, whimsical game about a unicorn who goes on a journey.

It’s a kinetic novel with multiple dialogue choices & one ending, and should take less than half an hour to play. It features seven unique BGs, two CGs, and sprites, all done by yours truly.
This game is my first VN and it’s been entirely solo dev, so I’d love some feedback!
SuNoFes 2017 has been an absolute blast and I can’t wait to get cracking on some bigger projects ;w;


SuNoFes logo by poutato











Nanairo’s OST song ‘Dreamtide’ is by the wonderful Freen in Green, please give them a visit! ;w;

While we’re here, I also wanted to say a little thankyou to Lemmasoft at large, because there’s absolutely no way I would have ever thought I could make a VN, let alone finish one, without this forum. Even though I don’t post here a lot I’m always lurking, and it’s an inspiration every day.


And finally, some questions!

Did you enjoy the story or was it a little too simplistic / naff / narm-y? Was there enough mystery in the story to pull you through or did you get bored?
Was the second-person narration jarring for you, or did you find it interesting?
Was the ending too abrupt, or was there enough payoff that it was satisfying?
Are there any glaring newbie dev mistakes I’ve made?

Code: Select all

[b]Did you enjoy the story or was it a little too simplistic / naff / narm-y? Was there enough mystery in the story to pull you through or did you get bored?[/b]
[b]Was the second-person narration jarring for you, or did you find it interesting?[/b]
[b]Was the ending too abrupt, or was there enough payoff that it was satisfying?[/b]
[b]Are there any glaring newbie dev mistakes I’ve made?[/b]

Thank you for reading, and for playing! ♥

[dragondatingsim]

Since I had a chance to play this, I'll make a short comment here.

I liked the sprite art, but the background/ui art clashed with it a bit.

Did you enjoy the story or was it a little too simplistic / naff / narm-y? Was there enough mystery in the story to pull you through or did you get bored?
Was the second-person narration jarring for you, or did you find it interesting?
Was the ending too abrupt, or was there enough payoff that it was satisfying?
Are there any glaring newbie dev mistakes I’ve made?

1. The concept is sound for a short story, but I probably would have liked some more context, especially at the beginning. This may just be personal preference, though (and probably wouldn't have been easy to do here, since it's all based on mystery).

2. It worked for the most part, but the narration seemed to focus more on Nana than the player's actions, so in places it reads more like it's a story about Nana being told in third person.

3. For a short VN, it worked well enough.

4. Transitions! They are easy to implement, but improve the experience of playing a lot.

[timepatches]

Since I had a chance to play this, I'll make a short comment here.

I liked the sprite art, but the background/ui art clashed with it a bit.
[/snip]

1. The concept is sound for a short story, but I probably would have liked some more context, especially at the beginning. This may just be personal preference, though (and probably wouldn't have been easy to do here, since it's all based on mystery).

2. It worked for the most part, but the narration seemed to focus more on Nana than the player's actions, so in places it reads more like it's a story about Nana being told in third person.

3. For a short VN, it worked well enough.

4. Transitions! They are easy to implement, but improve the experience of playing a lot.

Hi!
Thank you so much for the comment! I really appreciate you playing the game and stopping by to give me some feedback c:
(And you're totally right about transitions! Can't believe I forgot them, I might add them in a patch later on cx )

[dragondatingsim]

Another small thing I forgot to mention:

+ on the prose. Especially the small descriptive actions of Nana throughout really worked well to make the character come alive.

[Zelan]

Hey there timepatches is this game still around? The download links aren't working for me.

[timepatches]

Hi Zelan!!
I'll be honest, Nanairo was my first foray into VNs, and I wasn't super proud of the story in hindsight ^^' so I removed it from public view on itch.io now that I've made some other things!
But in the interest of history, here's a link to the distribution copy for you (and anyone else who wants to grab it) ;w;

[Zelan]

Thanks for the link! I really appreciate you sharing it, I totally get being less proud of older projects in hindsight and that makes them a lot harder to share. I want to update my first game with translations but every time I re-read it I'm like "ew this is bad" so I haven't really committed to working on them. :')

Anyway, I just played through it! I thought it was a really cute journey! (: Second person narration can be pretty hit-or-miss for me, because if I'm told how I feel and it's incongruous with how I actually feel it turns me off from it. Nanairo was one of the rare occasions where I felt it actually enhanced the experience and made me feel closer to Nana as a character. I enjoyed guiding him through his self-discovery (the sarcastic options were pretty funny but I always went with the more nurturing ones because I have trouble being mean in video games lmao) and I really felt proud of him by the end. I was surprised how bittersweet it felt to say goodbye to him after such a short time!

I think maybe a part of the reason why it felt so personal to me is because putting words to my own emotions is something that I can have trouble with and have been working on; I can identify "negative" but often have trouble getting more specific ("happy," "sad," "angry") or identifying causes. Even besides the theme being relevant to me, though, the way you wrote him was really endearing and I liked him a lot.

I also thought their names were really cute :3 Iro tells him he "found his colors" and her name means colors!! so cute!!

I guess my final word here will be that I totally get why this game isn't up to your current standards (When Aster Falls and DemiDato look great!) I also think that it was a really cute and heartfelt story and you should be proud of what you were able to accomplish given your knowledge and experience at the time ^_^ and again I enjoyed this a lot! Thank you for sharing it!

[timepatches]

Thanks for the link! I really appreciate you sharing it, I totally get being less proud of older projects in hindsight and that makes them a lot harder to share. I want to update my first game with translations but every time I re-read it I'm like "ew this is bad" so I haven't really committed to working on them. :')

Anyway, I just played through it! I thought it was a really cute journey! (: Second person narration can be pretty hit-or-miss for me, because if I'm told how I feel and it's incongruous with how I actually feel it turns me off from it. Nanairo was one of the rare occasions where I felt it actually enhanced the experience and made me feel closer to Nana as a character. I enjoyed guiding him through his self-discovery (the sarcastic options were pretty funny but I always went with the more nurturing ones because I have trouble being mean in video games lmao) and I really felt proud of him by the end. I was surprised how bittersweet it felt to say goodbye to him after such a short time!

I think maybe a part of the reason why it felt so personal to me is because putting words to my own emotions is something that I can have trouble with and have been working on; I can identify "negative" but often have trouble getting more specific ("happy," "sad," "angry") or identifying causes. Even besides the theme being relevant to me, though, the way you wrote him was really endearing and I liked him a lot.

I also thought their names were really cute :3 Iro tells him he "found his colors" and her name means colors!! so cute!!

I guess my final word here will be that I totally get why this game isn't up to your current standards (When Aster Falls and DemiDato look great!) I also think that it was a really cute and heartfelt story and you should be proud of what you were able to accomplish given your knowledge and experience at the time ^_^ and again I enjoyed this a lot! Thank you for sharing it!

I'm entirely overwhelmed by how lovely this post is!!
I'm so glad that Nana's journey resonated with you, and I'm glad you encouraged me to share the game again! Thank you for being so kind I'm honestly lost for words T-T