MorningStar Zwei (NaNo 2009 late release) v1.2

[chunderbunny]

Building on the phenomenal success of the hit 2007 NaNoRenO game MorningStar, Studio MAB is proud to present MorningStar Zwei.



Fans of the original MorningStar will be glad to know that the the hybrid RPG/Dating Sim system is back, but now with an improved battle system which has been shown to be up to 190% more fun!

You play the role of Kagome, an infiltrator into the headquarters of the nefarious Section 22 (Formerly known as the Venus Academy) whose mission is to assassinate the leader of the school council, Natsuki. Kagome isn't strong enough to beat Natsuki on her own, so in order to win she must use any means available to persuade one of the students to join her for the final confrontation.

Can Kagome bring down this mysterious government organisation? Will she find her one true partner? How important is a skimpy uniform, anyway?

Find out in MorningStar Zwei!

Windows users: You will need version 3.5 of Microsoft's .net framework installed in order to play (if you have Windows XP SP3 or higher it installation should automatically occur when you run install the game).
Windows version

Mac users: You will Need Mono version 2.4 installed in order to play.
OSX Version

Linux users: I have managed to play the latest version in Ubuntu 9.04, but it is a very fiddly process. I will probably do some more testing and make a separate post on how to play in Linux.

Quick control guide: Arrow keys and enter to navigate text, or use the mouse. In Battles escape cancels the current action. In VN sections escape brings up the menu. You can quick save with 's' and quick load with 'l'.

Writing and Programming: Ficedula
Artwork: Jake
Battle system: chunderbunny

P.S. Sorry this game is a little late, we intended to release on April 1st, but we weren't completely happy with it so we decided to delay by a week. To make up for that Fice wrote an entire extra story arc and Jake has kindly supplied more artwork. Thanks guys!

[Wintermoon]

Under Windows:

Crashes when I try to run it directly. No useful error message. My installed version of .NET may be out of date, but the error message doesn't say so.

Crashes when I try to run it under Mono 2.4. "System.DllNotFoundException: SDL.dll".
After adding SDL.dll to the directory, still crashes. "System.DllNotFoundException: SDL_image.dll".
After adding SDL_image.dll to the directory, still crashes with the same error message.

[ficedula]

D'oh - totally my fault for doing a release at midnight after too long on the road :/

I've updated the Windows download to contain the necessary SDL libraries (and report a slightly friendlier error message if your version of .NET is out of date, although I suspect the crash was due to SDL being missing). I've verified that the new version runs on a clean XP/SP2 machine with no requirements other than .NET 3.5 so hopefully that should all be fine now ... If you'd rather not redownload the whole thing, grab the SDL.NET libraries from here and that may fix things.

Under OSX, it may be a case of installing SDL.NET from the download link above.

If you're running Linux, we haven't done any testing at all on that yet although we plan to.

[Wintermoon]

New error message for Windows/Mono:
Unhandled Exception: System.TypeInitializationException: An exception was thrown by the type initializer for Tao.OpenGl.Gl ---> System.DllNotFoundException: libGL.so.1

Error message when running the Windows version under OSX/Mono:
Unhandled Exception: System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Argument is out of range.
Parameter name: Attempt to set the position to a negative value
at System.IO.FileStream.set_Position (Int64 value) [0x00000]
at Sylph.Archive.GetData (Int32 offset, Int32 size, Boolean decompress, Boolean decrypt) [0x00000]
at Sylph.Archive..ctor (System.IO.Stream source) [0x00000]
at Sylph.MechMain.Init (Boolean first) [0x00000]
at Sylph.MechMain.Run (System.String[] args) [0x00000]
at Sylph.MechMain.Main (System.String[] args) [0x00000]

Error message when running the Mac version under OSX/Mono: same as when running the Windows version under OSX/Mono.

I may try the Linux version if I'm really bored, but I don't have much hope. I may install .NET 3.5 if I'm really bored, pigs fly, and hell freezes over.

[chunderbunny]

You really shouldn't be using Mono in windows (we don't test it and it isn't supported), just get the latest .Net from Microsoft.

[Wintermoon]

What about OS X/Mono? *points to error messages in previous post*

[Victorita]

i am also having a problem. Every time there is a battle sequence there is an error and i have to leave the game whenever i do an attack.

[chunderbunny]

i am also having a problem. Every time there is a battle sequence there is an error and i have to leave the game whenever i do an attack.

Yeah, sorry about that. We have uploaded a new version which fixes this issue, please download again.

For anyone playing on OSX, I think you need the following things installed:

http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_net/ ... -1.2.7.dmg
http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_imag ... -1.2.7.dmg
http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixe ... -1.2.8.dmg

As well as Mono 2.4, which I linked to above.

On Windows you only need the .net framework version 3.5 from Microsoft, which I also linked to above.

I have managed to get the game running in OpenSuSE 11.1, since this is the only Linux distro I could find which had a package for Mono 2.4 available. I followed the instructions on the Mono downlod page. You will also need to install SDL_Image and SDL_Mixer using Yast in order to play.

[mugenjohncel]

- CONTENT NO LONGER RELEVANT -

[ficedula]

isn't it possible to include NET 3.5 in your package for convenience.

Maybe. The full redistributable is a whacking great download and I really don't want to include it when people might not need it (on the other hand, I put it on the CDs for MorningStar, because it's a CD, we have space to spare!).

I would like to make a proper installer that at least starts the .NET installer for you (which will then go off and download anything that's missing). Hopefully the next game we release, the engine will be finished and stable and awesome and do that. Consider it On The TODO List...

(EDIT: I've uploaded another tweak that corrects some scripting errors. OSX download link is still the same for the moment, Windows download link for the newer version is http://www.studiomab.co.uk/AssetData.as ... wei102.zip -- I will get chunderbunny to remove the old link from his post.)

(And since I realised I forgot to post it earlier, some stats on the game;

Word count: 48,060
Ellipsis count: 810
Script files: 150. )

[Counter Arts]

It's not working on vista.

[Jake]

It's not working on vista.

It's working on Vista here. It's probably you.

[Aashtarsrain]

Well, I'd really like to play this game on my xp but for the moment everything I tried didn't work, I have problems with installing what is necessary, which surprises me... But I might not have been doing what I should have , 'cause I'm used to simple and easy downloads these days But I won't surrender !

[Ramidel]

Minor issue right away: the text scrolls -far- too slowly. Far too slowly.

Is there some way to speed it up?

Worse issue:

apparently, I'm getting dialogs out of order. I haven't even -met- Akane, and already the moment I move up to the council house she asks me to be her partner. First day. Whaa?

[Taleweaver]

I also have a load of issues not unlike the ones mentioned above that take away a large chunk of the fun I could be having with MorningStar Zwei. Version 1.1, please.