Gakuen Redux

[Xarbia]

Well, mikey, thank you for completely ruining my plans for the past day. There I was, starting to play this 'game', expecting at most a few hours of play. It took me almost twenty. Of course, this is not a bad thing, on the contrary, it's just that if I had known beforehand I might have planned a break somewhere.

Obviously, the length of the story is related to the absence of any choices. I must say that, generally, this did not bother me too much, probably because most stories I read don't provide me with choices either. On the other hand, I was a little disappointed about the end when I finally reached it. I just can't seem to accept a realationship between myself in a much younger body and a woman of my true age as a happy end. But then again, I can't say I did not expect it, haven played your previous games and read some of your articles.

The setting of the story is probably what gripped me most. The idea of being a child again while keeping the experience of later years is most thrilling, and I can easily relate to that. I think this story is a pretty good study of the good and bad aspects of such a thing, even if it was primarily looking at its effects on love. Of course, the problem with putting a nonrealistic element like this into a realistic world and studying its effects is that you can hardly avoid the question of why, how it is possible, and it did seem a bit strange to me that the protagonist hardly tried to find an answer to that. But then again, that is not what the story is about and of course there could be no answer to that question, because the world the story takes place in is not real. Still, there were times when this felt a bit odd, like when the protagonist is convinced he can never tell Ione the truth because she would never believe him. Nevertheless, I am impressed with the depth in which you studied the subject, which is of course also possible because of the length of the story.

As for the other aspects of the game, I think the graphics were very nice and atmospheric, with an impressive amount of character portraits. The music rather bothered me at the beginning, with the heavy percussion while the opening scene is about someone slowly waking up, it didn't really seem to fit, but that what only for the first scene, throughout the most of the game I must say the music fit the mood well. Also, nice tough with the graphics and sound indicating in which branch of time the story currently is.

About the text, I have covered the story, but at a smaller scale there were the strange grammar and spelling that have been mentioned by others. I did get used to it after a while though. About the translation thing, I don't really know whether the mood I experienced was the same as you tried to create, but I can say it was good enough. I have often felt that when I read the same text in my mother language (Dutch) and in English, they had a different feel to them, a bit like you are describing with Slovak and English too. However, I think the reason they feel different is not so much that they are written in different languages, but more the relation I have to those languages. I relate Dutch to everything in my direct environment, it is the language I speak with my family and friends. English, on the otherhand, is the language I hear in most films, on the internet, and in University. Therefore, Dutch text has a more plain, personal feel to me, while English feels more... exotic, wild. Consequently, if I would translate a Dutch text, like a letter from a friend or whatever, to English, it would seem strange to me. However, I expect a native English speaker would experience it as just as plain as I experienced the original Dutch letter. Something like this might also be the case with your story, although I must admit I'm not sure about that since I know no more Slovak than the "ozm gliep" I had to order when I was there some years ago. Anyway, I just thought I'd add these thoughts to the matter.

Although this post is already becoming rather long and I rather tired, there is one thing I'd like to add... The screens between the different 'chapters', where there would first be a screen with some cryptical code and then one with the chapter title, they flashed through my screen so fast I could not read them. Which is a pity, because knowing you, I am sure there is a very intriguing meaning to the cryptical messages... And the year numbers... hmm...

Anyway, another nice story, thank you very much for it.

-- Xarbia

[mikey]

Thanks for the comments!

Hmmm, I must say this is something I aimed for, something general, giving people something to think about. I hoped the game would somehow have a general effect and not be remembered by its elements, so hopefully that worked.

I think that except Kaori, all my previous stories somehow had one non-realistic element and somehow I never explained it (at least not the "why") in any of them. It was just a means to express something for me. The answers as to why the redux happened... it doesn't mean he didn't try to find out and it doesn't mean his thoughts weren't running in many more directions, but well, the setting had much potential and I had to concentrate on one aspect so that it wouldn't get too long - and I made it ren'ai, naturally.

Actually, Azasuke will tell Ione, the SK version ends with his determination to do so one day and that he feels she'll understand.

As for the feel of the text, it's as you say, but I am happy that even in English it seems to work nevertheless. You can probably understand it wasn't incredibly easy especially with that amount of text to translate it back, but ever since 2005 this community has made me feel so at home, that I took the challenge. It really was an exhausting thing to do - the initial version was in English, then the real full version in Slovak and then back one more time, it was really hard to motivate oneself. And it left me with no power for a SK version, since it has several scenes changed, removed, and it would take a whole new Ren'Py scripting process. You can sometimes feel slight references to scenes in there that have taken place, but are not in the game. OTOH the English version has some scenes added.

Mentioning this, I have to say this publicly, if it weren't for the child-like simplicity of Ren'Py, it's highly likely GR would not exist. Especially with this text, it's like working in your normal notepad and I was able to make changes simply by editing the text.

Oh, and one thing... the chapter names are not cryptic (this time), they are simply tributes to the Japanese anime industry's tendency to have automobile-related series names (Sailormoon R, S... Dragonball GT and naturally the Viper game series with GTS, CTR, M1 etc...). I used those instead of "Chapter ??", but other than dividing the game into the 3 parts and every letter representing something... it isn't THAT cryptic.

*gulp* and... 20 hours? Wow. I was sort of curious how long it would take people, I expected around 6 hours, but don't get me wrong, it's fantastic that it lasted for so long Thanks for playing!

[PyTom]

The answers as to why the redux happened... it doesn't mean he didn't try to find out and it doesn't mean his thoughts weren't running in many more directions,

Hm... By this, do you mean to imply that the redux was unintentional? I was always under the impression/illusion that the redux was something was something that he had chosen to have happen. Maybe it's the use of somewhat technical jargon in the first scene, and the fact that he seemed to have some idea of what was going on.

... Azasuke prematurely stepped into the Project Accelerator and vanished. He awoke to find himself in the past...

[mikey]

Hm... By this, do you mean to imply that the redux was unintentional? I was always under the impression/illusion that the redux was something was something that he had chosen to have happen.

That's right, it was a simple wish come true I guess.

[Kikered]

Where to start... Congratulations on getting another "game" out! Overall, it was an enjoyable experience that lasted for about... 20 hours. Moving on...


Interface/Layout:
Many good things were done here, and the layout of the menu items and chapter select reminded me of those for DVDs. There were also a lot of neat touches, like the changing pictures in the save menu, the loading screen, and the little portraits of the girls along the side.

However, it was kind of odd to see the text off-center before the first portrait appeared. Also, it took me a while to realize that the portraits only appeared for the girls... When Kumi's portrait first showed up while talking to the protagonist, I was thinking, "Neat! Something to indicate who is travelling with the main character!" Then Tomomi and Mori join him at once they reach Midori Grounds, and only one more portrait showed up.

Music:
The music, while good, wasn't something I would expect to hear from a game with this setting - it sounded like it would suit a more-futuristic setting. However, it worked with this game. Most effective were the distortions and echoes that come up whenever the protagonist got sick/was struck by horror/etc.

Graphics:
Hm... the background art's style looks kind of familiar. However, the BGs looked a lot cleaner than what I ended up with in MB.

The thing that struck me the most about everything seen is that it was kinda jagged or pixellated. In most cases, the art looked fine (like Miss Kamiyama sitting on the desk), but there were a few cases where it didn't look so good (like the light on Kotone's hair). If the jaggedness/pixelation was intentional, it may be kinda neat to have a pixelated font for the text.

Another noteworthy item are the clothes that the characters wear. The artist did an excellent job with them! The only complaint that I have is that some of Miyori's clothes (the ones worn while she appears at the dance practices) didn't look as good as the ones in the rest of the game.

Oh yeah! If you don't telling, what was the trick behind making the background image move around in circles when the protagonist was dazed and feeling sick? It was a very cool effect!

Story:
Oh man... the first part of the story (G-Type series) completely struck home with me. There was so much that I had in common with the protagonist at that part... even daydreaming of how I'd protect my "Miyori" if bad guys showed up. And much like the protagonist during the redux, I was too passive and missed my chances, leaving me wondering what could've been.

After swearing off girls of his age, I couldn't relate to the story as much, but I was still curious as to how it would go on. And it was good. Towards the later parts of the game, I found myself almost completely ignoring the images and focusing only on the words.

One thing that kind of confused me at times in the first half of the game was whether the protagonist was talking about things that happened before or during the redux. I guess I needed a visual cue of some sort to help indicate this. Either that or I've been reading through that part too fast.

Another thing that struck me as pretty odd was that there were no direct conversations throughout the entire story IIRC. Rather than having the females conversing with the protagonist directly, he summarizes and retells what they say to the audience. I'm kind of curious as to what inspired this decision.


Once again, good work and thanks for delivering another fine story to us. Time to hope for my redux...

[mikey]

Oh no, it's hard to say anything now. It's great that there are people for whom the game lasts this long. It's really unbelievable, I though 6 hours, maybe 8 for an easy-going reader, but this... Anyway, since I know there are people who can do this in 1/5th of that time... I'm just glad it's so diverse.

No dialogue:
Well, I didn't want to write anything TOO big. Adding conversations would inflate the game immensely and I wanted to focus on what Azasuke felt. Actually the first draft was without conversations because of this. Then I started to like the packed non-descriptive style and every effort to add conversation or description (other than some processes) felt like a handbrake. I was very curious how people would accept it in a KN, but I'm really glad it worked more or less.

The circled faces - it was a necessity, of course, because there were 23 (reduced to 21) characters. I could give Kathryn to make only a handful - and sort of just narrowed that down to the main ones - this way when Kotone showed up the player (hopefully) realized it was going to get serious. The pixellated (or zoomed) images, well they are Kathryn's style and I've accepted that, and tried to fit the general look with it, especially with GR - we had around 230 backgrounds, together with their "memory" counterparts - the smaller pictures. These were shown when Azasuke recalled things (that was the visual aid - I had a version with those pictures in photoframes, but it looked worse than it sounds now).

So we just had to make it b/w - a test showed that a good color picture (with the procedure I wanted) would effectively inflate them 7-10x. We did a lot of testing with various filters and procedures, and this "refined black pencil process" worked the best. It allowed us to even edit the images and remove/add objects so that most people won't notice.

Therefore in this game it was also about game size, and thanks to PyTom we were able to slim it down under 20 MB which is just fantastic. Plus, for GR I have requested some special effects, such as that blur (you can ask PyTom for the code, it's up to him ^_^, I have no problem with that) and of course the menus. As you said, I tried to keep that pixellated (or flat) look by strictly insisting on non-antialiased font, giving the programmer slight headaches I guess ^_^.

Forgive my once again big response, but there are many things this project has for me and it's been my longest-running project as well, so this kind of gets to you.

[Icekiss]

Ah, I just finished reading the story! If you look back at my first post in this thread, you will see it took me quite some time. Of course I didn't read the whole time (I did release a new version of my own project in the mean time, after all), but I'd say that I easily topped 20 hours...

Guess I have to blame it on mikey's advise to read it slowly.
But if the text is accompanied by pictures and sound, I guess it is just natural to read it slower, because there is just so much atmosphere to soak up. And I love long running stories, so that's no complaint, quite the opposite!

About the story...

Since the end is what stays in one's mind, I guess I will start there. It felt quite abrupt to me. Not that it was that short per se, but after more than 20 hours of reading, it felt kind of like "and they lived happily ever after" in the fairy tailes. Now I of course realize the story has to end somewhere, and so you just quickly summarize what happens afterwards. But if you look at were this summarizing starts, you will notice that it indeed is before the precarious situation is resolved. You cut of at the moment before the resolution, and instead offer us a summary...

Completely irregardless of what I actually think about the way the situation resolved, just the way I was told about it felt me left hanging and cheated. And since the ending is what you will remember the most about every book or movie, that's pretty unfortunate.

Because before the end of the novel comes, we get to peek into a lot of everyday situations, encounters, and decisions of the main character. And I really, really liked to watch the story unfold, see it swing around more then once, and paint a world that felt very real. Most of all, it felt real. And that's a quality I value very highly in a story. And especially in the second half of the story, many encounters had a beauty of their own, and it was a joy just to watch those two interact.

And of course, the presentation of the whole think as a KN, instead of, say, a book, made for a very unique experience, and one I wouldn't want to have missed for the world. As I said in my initial thoughts about Gakuen Redux, both music and art were beautifully done, and for me, added a lot to the immersion into the story, and to my enjoyment of it.

I'll admit that reading it wasn't easy throughout for me. In some of the phases the main character went through, I just found myself violently disagreeing with his opinions, even so far that I felt disgust towards him. When you read a story written in the first person, that makes for a somewhat difficult read...

But the art and music kept me going. I just wanted to see where something led that this much work and sweat had been invested in. And despite the small critisizms I have uttered, it was more than worth doing so.

Thanks a lot for completing and sharing such a great work!

[mikey]

I'm actually not surprised to see that people disagree with Azasuke. In some instances his thoughts are simply ridiculous , excused by the situation, maybe, but anyway.

I understand GR is sometimes hard on the player/reader. I wrote several parts (especially the middle) relatively uneventful (read: boring) not entirely without purpose. For one, although it is ren'ai, Azasuke has a lot to go through, he has to work on himself and the second thing is I needed to show the TIME that it took him to make that into the final scenes. I like to think the resolution wouldn't have been so emotional if the player hadn't gone through all those lengthy things with him.

And this brings me back to the ending. I just didn't want the player to take part in Ione and Azasuke's "happiness" simply by writing an epilogue. That came over a long period of time and I think showing a scene where they walk together, remembering and so on, I don't know. They DID live happily, but it wasn't easy, and all the things mentioned in the final chapter weren't even scratching the surface. I would feel cheap myself if I just wrote that one happy scene. Still, I'm sorry that the quick ending felt like being cheated on.

But I'm happy that generally you liked GR. It's great to see people complimenting the art that we had so much troubles deciding on, and the music that we chose. For the longest time I wanted to have a ren'ai title have a trancy/industrial soundtrack, because I was sure it could work. You might have noticed R-Type has a different set of songs and the idea was simply the same as in trance in general - the tracks are usually long, designed just to somehow be subconsciously registered. It goes well IMO with the general text-heavy nature of GR. I've written about the art before, but it's always a confirmation for both me and Kathryn that all that experimenting paid off in a way.

Thanks for playing.

[Dr. Kos]

Well, another great "game". Thanks Mikey
It also took me 20 hours to complete it, maybe even more. Great story! And Mikey, I do not think that it is possible to complete it in less than 8 hours and enjoy every part of it at the same time.
Absence of dialogues was a great idea for that story. This, how would I say it, helps to concentrate more on situations, to feel what he was going through, and understand him, why he made such choices and etc. All philosophical, social and every days problems he had to deal with.
As Kikered already said: "(G-Type series) completely struck home with me", well you are not the only one. And i think that this made GR even more interesting to read, at least for me. As it was already mentioned before: music and artwork are wonderful. Only screens between chapters flashes too fast, especially then they are long enough and reading speed is not fast (as recommended).
Thanks again for great time I spend reading GR. And sorry for my English.

[Taleweaver]

Finally finished Gakuen Redux too. Many things on my mind; I'll try to sort them a little.

First of all, it was a little peculiar how Azasuke reacted on his new/old surroundings. I couldn't help thinking that he is suffers from a rather severe case of manic-depressive disorder. Example:

Yay, I'm back in the past! I'm so happy - I can change everything for the better! This is going to be so great! But wait - will I REALLY change everything for the better? Maybe I'll hurt the others. Oh, I'm BOUND to hurt them - this is so sad. Man, I'm so depressed. If my life wasn't so lousy... But wait; I have the experience of all my years. I can easily avoid mistakes. Oh joy! I might even get the girls I couldn't get before! Lucky me! Let's see... I think I should choose... waitaminit! I'm lusting after schoolgirls? Oh crap! I'm a friggin pervert! How could I sink so low? Really, I'm the worst of the worst... waitaminit! I'm a schoolboy myself, so this isn't wrong after all! Oh joy! I can do wrong and it won't matter because I'm still a schoolboy! YAY! But wait... everyone is below me, mentally. I can never find true happyness as a schoolboy. This is so sad...

Etcetera etcetera.

Aside from this flip-flop mood, the plot of Gakuen Redux was surprisingly well thought out. It's the little things that matter in life; GR makes this absolutely clear. It's rather easy to relate to Azasuke most of the time (except for his mood swings), though identifying with him was difficult because of his over-analyzing each and every situation. The transition from memory to "second chance" was also handled very well; the contrast between old and new made clear how different everything became just because of Azasuke's small differences in behaviour.

Unfortunately, I think there were too few changes in the plot. The soccer game, for example, that ended with the open door to the girls' dressing room, should have never had the same outcome - did Azasuke REALLY play each and every ball like he did in his former life? With exactly the same amount of power, the same spin? An enormous feat considering that in the end, the open door situation was the result of someone else making a mistake and shooting the ball over the fence - a situation that could only have happened if everything before happened exactly like the first time. That scene in particular stretches believability, and there are a few more things which should have make the "second chance" and the memories differ the longer Azasuke lived his new life.

I'm actually very much in favor of not telling how the Redux itself came to be - it's a plot device that doesn't need to be explained. Kudos for refraining from the obvious choice of adding some sob story of him losing someone important to take that choice - I would have probably done it like this and fallen into the big hole of Sap Story Writing. Good job!

All in all, an impressive story, though suffering from a few plot holes and a character trait in the First-Person Narrator I find annoying. Aside from that, good work!

[mikey]

Dr. Kos>>

I have spent so much time trying to formulate an answer, but I can't write anything reasonable!

I'm simply very happy that GR had this response, that G-Type is so inspirational (it was also for me) and that you liked the presentation. Anyway, I'm happy that you wrote because I see around 40 downloads for GR and I always wonder about what people thought about it... So thanks for taking the time.


Taleweaver>>

Azasuke M-DD... ^_^ it sometimes does sound like that you know. In the second rewrite I even added some more of that ambivalence and overanalysis - I simply wanted him to be on ice - parts of G-Type and all of F-type was but a buildup for R-type. Well, I hope at least by then he sounded more himself. Nevertheless I tried to think through not really what a person would do (and by that also how time loops and the like work), but how he would feel - with the mere occurence of the redux there would not be (not for Azasuke) any point to hold on to.

Anyway, I'm happy you liked it! In this game as you noticed (and noted) there wasn't too much focus on a story. Essentially it's a series of events - many are not logical and nothing is explained. Nor on the characters for that matter - I like to think aside from Azasuke they are completely flat.

In most games people will look for those elements and I'm really happy that practically despite the absence of those GR was able to stir up some emotion. One idea I had when writing is that you could pick any spot in the story and (re)read without significant damage. That's why GR can often feel like a description of Azasuke's feelings, but in essence, it's just that.

[Cardcaptor RaaShaun]

I just finished reading/playing some of the different works from the renai.us website...and WOW! I guess I'll comment on this one first since it was the last one that I finished.

I really must say that I loved this work...I'm glad that I read the 'many hours' description though. I normally try to finish Kinetic Novels in one sitting. That would have been disatrous in this case. It took me about 10-12 hours or so to complete it.

It was really frightening however, how well I related with Azasuke. I'm only 20 so I've only been out of high school for about two-and-a half years now but with the exception of pining to return there (even though I know how he feels) I can understand his moods and even the 'Manic Depressive' mood-swings that he exibits. Some of those episodes made me want to reach through my screen and scream at the poor guy to just stop for a minute and calm down reguardless of how much (or little) good it would've done. I also seem to relate to the way he over-analyzes everything. In general, I was almost able to feel the way he felt. There was only one thing that I wasn't able to intuitively 'get' and that was his nervous breakdown over seeing the girls in the changing rooms. I too would have avoided romantic contact after making the 'OMG I'm 12 years older than these girls' realization but I'd like to think that I'd be able to understand and adapt quite a little bit more quickly than Azasuke was able to but I guess that is just the way he is. I know people who wouldn't care as long as the girls were of 'legal' age in their particular jurisdiction too so I guess that his personality type, after a bit of time to adjust, is probably the best type to send back into time if you want someone who will end up leaving well enough alone and just working on what he needs.

This is getting long so I just want to thank you mikey for creating this work. It really moved me and I'm looking forward to reading more of your work in the future ^_^

[mikey]

Thanks for playing! I'm glad you liked it. It seems people kind of think about that what-if scenario themselves when playing - which is really great for me, to see that it's also a bit inspiring and not only a story that ends with the final bit of plot revealed. Makes me happy!

I have actually asked all my testers whether it seemed to them that Azasuke was realizing his age difference too late to be realistic. It didn't bother anyone too much, so I decided to leave it, besides Azasuke had his dance classes that sort of took over. I had a similar experience when I attended a course with people visibly younger than me - and I hardly noticed. I suppose if a time shift like that would come into play and one would focus on that,... it could be realistic that he will realize later. Nevertheless, Azasuke mentiones one or two times a "strange" feeling about their conversations, but somehow either pushes it back or doesn't explore it. I wanted to say he noticed, but he didn't "realize" it until the main reason (Miyori, dance) is kind of over, and the excitement over the redux fades.

[ozurr]

I enjoyed this visual novel. I send my thanks to every one who worked on the project!

Considering the situation Azasuka was in and his character, his behavior was believable. Changing his view toward his classmates when confronted with the situation in the locker room is a perfectly normal human response. Having the locker room door open at the exact same moment seemd a bit of a stretch though. I liked the ending. I didn't feel cheated at all. It probably would have read better in book form but I doubt I would have enjoyed it as much without the images and music.

[mikey]

It probably would have read better in book form but I doubt I would have enjoyed it as much without the images and music

Actually, the project was planned from its very beginnings as a game, but the story that is now GR (the point of it and such) quickly took over, so then it was more like a bookish script. The thing is that in the script there are not too many descriptions of surroundings, that's why I think it works well with the pictures, you can sort of feel more "in", even though the images themselves are relatively simple.