The Morane Crisis

Finished games are posted here, once they've been tested and are ready for wide release.
Forum rules
Adult content should not be posted in this forum.
Message
Author
User avatar
mikey
Lemma-Class Veteran
Posts: 3249
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2004 6:03 am
itch: atpprojects
Contact:

Re: The Morane Crisis

#16 Post by mikey »

First, thanks to everyone who has played MC, I'm really happy you found the time.
Wintermoon wrote:The latest in a long line of technically competent mikey games that do nothing for me. Not sure what to say about this.
To be honest, I actually like this reaction (not just to MC, but as you said, generally) - in a way I wanted Angus MacPhearson's career to feel like this. He is passionate about what he is doing, but everything about how he does it seems to generate no real emotional response from the audience (the Series Prime viewers and fans). This doesn't mean I don't believe that there is a time and place when MC is relevant and can be fully appreciated, it's just to say I'm not completely shocked that the general response is neutral.

MC is also a very important work for me for the future, along with Secretary Of Death, Transfer Teacher and Embraced By Green. Morane Crisis was the final piece to move me forward in this especially with regards to the future works.
grim_reaper wrote:But, isn't it a little bit confusing - I mean, the story - for some people who don't like or know nothing about racing?
The setting is really just a setting - this situation can occur in pretty much any environment. In sports, or entertainment, in a fantasy setting, in a futuristic place... It doesn't really matter as far as the point is concerned.

The point is that Angus is looking for a purpose (defined as something final and ultimate rather than a process), but the thing he loves to do (racing) cannot give it to him (because there is nothing ultimate that can be accomplished - records, championships etc everything can be surpassed by someone else). It's to say it's entirely possible for a person to live and die without ever really feeling they have found their purpose - not just because it's difficult to do, but because it's a lot of mental effort and there is no guarantee. In Angus' case, his happy marriage to Marie will most likely lead to Angus' attention being on more immediate things and he will not have the time to truly seek and find purpose. And in the end, that's fine, because it doesn't matter - a relative purpose will always be given to him by Marie (the person who loves him), because she gives him that ultimate element by being unconditionally biased towards him.

Ayato Vu
Regular
Posts: 41
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2006 12:59 am
Contact:

Re: The Morane Crisis

#17 Post by Ayato Vu »

Hm... I haven't gotten around to finish this yet, but considering the amount of criticism that MC has gotten, I would assume you are going to slowly transition your style to a different direction.

Is there still another project that this is meant for? :P

Also, does your brother have a website, or have any of his music on itunes?

User avatar
mikey
Lemma-Class Veteran
Posts: 3249
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2004 6:03 am
itch: atpprojects
Contact:

Re: The Morane Crisis

#18 Post by mikey »

evo has pretty much quit making music, and there is no site from him, sorry.
Ayato Vu wrote:Hm... I haven't gotten around to finish this yet, but considering the amount of criticism that MC has gotten, I would assume you are going to slowly transition your style to a different direction.
Well, there is just one page of comments, and I don't feel there is any huge criticism there. Although I only know of this one forum thread. :?

Anyway, as for a different style, I'll leave that up to other people to judge. I will move into the direction which feels best and then let's see which people will turn out to be its audience.

Lucifiel
Regular
Posts: 49
Joined: Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:12 pm
Contact:

Re: The Morane Crisis

#19 Post by Lucifiel »

Played a bit so far.

Interesting and cool style of music.

Very pretty visuals too. The style is kinda cool and I really like the choice of fonts too. I particularly like the "painted' backgrounds.

I hope I don't come across as ignorant/hypocritical since my English isn't always at my best. I often lose coherency in my thoughts and writing. But I found many of the sentence structures kinda confusing like having too many "because" and "but" in 1 sentence, confusion of past and present tenses, poorly structured sentences and so on. On the plus side, you managed to at least convey some of the characters' intended feelings, thoughts and situations. And as another plus, being able to convey the characters' emotions = good 'cos there're too many games, novels, etc. where the "world" is rich and full of details but the characters are really wooden and 2-dimensional.

On the off side, I think the script really needs a certain amount of proofreading and editing. See, the sentences are kind of confusing so the characters' voices don't always come through properly. :)

Plus, I don't really know what is the point of mixing sentences about: different types of thoughts, things that happened in the past and which are happening right now... all without any italics or some sort of sentence decoration or plot technique to help the readers distinguish the various parts. This made parts of the plot actually kinda confusing.

I liked the topics about racing, even though I know nothing about it. Also, interesting occupation for the wife.

Also, this is probably a bit of a personal preference but I found that it kinda broke the mood a bit when I'd to scroll through the "text I already read". When reading a VN, I tend to look through the backlog a lot in order to "connect" and "put together" the overall ideas, sentiments, etc. the writer is trying to convey. See, the game goes from "music" to "no music" which sort of breaks the flow of the mood since you're using "music" to convey the atmosphere, right? Plus, wouldn't it have been better to let the players read the backlog text in 1 whole chunk instead of making them scroll through all the previous screens? After all, the game seems fairly texty and though, I do understand the need for visual presentation, it seems a little counter-intuitive.

User avatar
mikey
Lemma-Class Veteran
Posts: 3249
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2004 6:03 am
itch: atpprojects
Contact:

Re: The Morane Crisis

#20 Post by mikey »

Interesting and cool style of music.
Very pretty visuals too. The style is kinda cool and I really like the choice of fonts too. I particularly like the "painted' backgrounds.
Thank you - I am fond of the transparent overlay, and of course Hime has done a great job on the sprite. And I'll pass on the compliments to evo. I'm glad you liked it.
I hope I don't come across as ignorant/hypocritical since my English isn't always at my best. I often lose coherency in my thoughts and writing. But I found many of the sentence structures kinda confusing like having too many "because" and "but" in 1 sentence, confusion of past and present tenses, poorly structured sentences and so on.
On the plus side, you managed to at least convey some of the characters' intended feelings, thoughts and situations. And as another plus, being able to convey the characters' emotions = good 'cos there're too many games, novels, etc. where the "world" is rich and full of details but the characters are really wooden and 2-dimensional.
On the off side, I think the script really needs a certain amount of proofreading and editing. See, the sentences are kind of confusing so the characters' voices don't always come through properly. :)
The using of multiple "because" and "but" is intentional, to show thoughts as they occur, without paying too much attention to how they sound. You can think about it like when confessing something under stress, the sentences aren't really structured that well. I write in such a way in my native language as well (provided it's that kind of story). On the other hand I wouldn't deliberately want to confuse of past and present tense, so if that happened it was not intentional. I sometimes switch tenses during a narration so that it feels more immediate (like starting in the past tense and then switching to present for an intensive scene), but I don't really want it to be confusing. As for the speech, Marie is always indicated, and there isn't really anyone else, so their speech should be identifiable.
Plus, I don't really know what is the point of mixing sentences about: different types of thoughts, things that happened in the past and which are happening right now... all without any italics or some sort of sentence decoration or plot technique to help the readers distinguish the various parts. This made parts of the plot actually kinda confusing.
I think the level of indication is sufficient - things happening in the past have their own music and b/w style (though I think you're referring to the Monaco evening reception which was color on purpose), and I don't think visually or otherwise distinguishing between types of thoughts is necessary, because Angus' career is tied so closely to his life and relationship, that I feel it would in fact be a bit overstyling to categorize his thoughts like that, especially since the game isn't really that long.
Also, this is probably a bit of a personal preference but I found that it kinda broke the mood a bit when I'd to scroll through the "text I already read". When reading a VN, I tend to look through the backlog a lot in order to "connect" and "put together" the overall ideas, sentiments, etc. the writer is trying to convey. See, the game goes from "music" to "no music" which sort of breaks the flow of the mood since you're using "music" to convey the atmosphere, right? Plus, wouldn't it have been better to let the players read the backlog text in 1 whole chunk instead of making them scroll through all the previous screens? After all, the game seems fairly texty and though, I do understand the need for visual presentation, it seems a little counter-intuitive.
I assume you're talking about rollback (what the game has, where it "rewinds" in a way) vs. readback (just reading a "backlog" of the text). I'd say as you pointed out it's largely indeed a matter of personal preference - in long conversations the "backlog" is ok for me, and it may also work better with cover-the-whole-screen text boxes (games with a layout like Kana or Tsukihime), but as a general principle when making games I prefer the full rollback/rewind approach. I also prefer this kind of "rewind" as a player, since for me it's actually breaking immersion to have the text spread out like a .txt file that I have to scroll, which makes me aware of the computer-based nature of things. But I can understand when other people prefer a different method, it's just that I don't see myself using it anytime soon.

In any case though, thank you for the feedback, it really helps me to know, because in fact my future project is going to continue going in this direction. Thanks again!

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users