New Year's Date

[BureaucraticModel1-3]

Okay, here's my first attempt at making a visual novel.

It is in response to that 'make a video game in a month' thread. I needed some direction, and that thread provided some useful suggestions. In the name of open disclosure, I was going to make a video game in a day, and on New Year's Day at that, but at about 5AM January 2nd my eyes were burning out of my head, the world was swimming, and I just couldn't do it... I was about half way through the finished game, or three fourths of the way through the game as I saw it then. Looking back everything I did that day was just the first draft. There were a lot of things I had to learn by personal experience, and even then I knew I could only learn through doing.

It was a good experience.

Play it if you want, it uses the Tsunia sprites, so don't be disappointed, and if you play all the way through to the credits it'll take you about half an hour. There is only one path, but there are a lot of pitfalls and a detour to look out for. Also, as per the stipulations in the original thread, it has four scenes that could be considered endings, but only one 'real' ending, which you will recognize easily. Also it's the only scene followed by the credits.

See You Again.

[BureaucraticModel1-3]

Has anybody beaten it yet? I know the plot's cliche, thought I didn't realize how much until I put it up. Previous to putting it up I was entirely occupied with getting it done before February, so sorry about that.

Also I know there are parts where the script is weaker than others. It really got to the point where I really just wanted to finish it or throw up my arms in disgust. If it were a real project then I would have put it off for a while, maybe, so that it could be at least a little fresh when I returned, see with eyes a little less jaded to the whole project. If it were something I was actually going to get paid for, or to do, then I would have forced myself to do it right and on time, but luckily it wasn't that kind of a situation.

I can't believe I forgot to delete that stupid piracy screen, but I'm not going to bother with it now.

Anything else?

[mysterialize]

Glah!

That is quite possibly the weirdest expression of shock I've ever seen.

Now, when I saw that this was going to be just a dating game, that it had almost no posts in it's topic, and that the character sprite used was something unoriginal, my expectations were quite low. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised with what I really saw.

I'll admit, I wouldn't call anything in this impressive, however, I did find it unexpectedly entertaining. For a quick, first project, the result is far from bad. Interestingly, most of this was because of the hilariously quirky choices that were given. It started out pretty normal: You find a way to ask this difficult to please girl out on a date, and entertain her. As time goes on though, the choices you can make in response to her snarking get increasingly bizarre and out there, leading to some rather funny dialogue.

The writing itself, putting aside the crazy dialogue options, was actually pretty decent. It wasn't without it's flaws, grammatically, but nothing stood out as a glaring error. You did make some pretty weird word choices here and there though. Most notably: "Glah!" and the almost excessive use of the word "Reckon" (Which, I may note, is a phrase I never thought I would say.). It wasn't really problematic, but the odd word choices did cause me to raise my eyebrows a good few times.

There were two other things that struck me as a bit odd. The first one being the background choices. It's common to see photos used as backgrounds in these games, and there's nothing wrong with it, but why did you make those choices specifically? The main character's room looked completely abandoned and incomplete, while the shoe store looked like it was under some serious disrepair. The one with the books looked rather neat though. Disrepair works when books are involved, for some reason. Secondly, the piracy screen. On first it had me worried about copyright laws, but, once I thought about it, I realized that there's no reason for it to be a concern. As long as you credit the sprite maker, you should be fine. Plus, why would you put it there? It seemed almost sarcastic too. I'm so confused.

Anyways, I wish you luck on any future projects. Maybe you can go on to take on something larger than this.

Geez, that review was long. Sorry about that.

[LVUER]

I've played it and it's quite good. I especially like the comedy. It's sooo funny ^_^ A good laugh...

BTW, how many endings are there? And what is the "best" ending possible? Since the last (and longest) ending I got is :

a good night kiss ending

which ends quite abruptly...

[dott.Piergiorgio]

Well, after a month past this programming frenzy, is possible to have an -all or -linux & -mac version of this little work ?

Best regards from Italy,
Dott. Piergiorgio.