Painted Walls Amphoterik Collaboration
Writing & Bonus Content By: Gueve Elliot
Illustrations, Coding, & Music By: Lin West
Recommended for ages 13+. Three different endings, and unlockable bonus content once you play through each ending. Estimated reading time per path: Around 15 minutes.
Red Walls is a stylistic visual novel with a dark atmosphere. The story is narrated by the voice of a little girl who is mentally disturbed. She has a very close attachment to the walls, and the choices she makes threaten what little stability there is around in her in different ways.
This experimental project has been on the backburner for over a year. Initially we were planing to do the game in flash but we really didn't have too much coding no how and so we ended up never finishing it. Lucky some time later I was doing some digging on visual novels and found Ren'py. So, here we are with our first finished project.
Major thanks to Aleema for saving my butt and walking me through the finishing steps. I couldn't have finished this without your help. <3
The atmosphere was really intense and outright creepy.
You wrote the story like a kid, how interesting... I really felt like I was inside of the child's head.
I got the blue walls ending, it was so sad ,
I was so afraid that she would cut her eyes and she...did
xD . The illustrations fit the story very well, I loved them.
It was a nice reading, please keep making more visual novels !!
Last edited by Abeiramar on Wed Aug 25, 2010 7:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
I played the entire games, included bonuses. Stop reading to avoid spoilers.
Music - An ambient piano is a good choice, but this specific track was too short and repetitive. After the second time I turned the music off.
Art - Exquisite. Sets the Atmosphere, and kept me interested.
There are many minor anatomical mistakes you should have fixed before painting, but they weren't too distracting. Looking at some of your other work, I believe you should take a proper anatomy course, since getting it right will get you very close to a professional level.
In more than one case you used black lines inside the arms/legs to mark the bones - this doesn't work, probably because the lines are too thick.
The perspective is off at times, which I didn't like, though it fits with the "wacky house" theme.
The bunny cup piece was lovely, though you should fix the baby/spaghetti boy.
Technical Writing - Awful.
Quatation marks - yes, we get it, this is ART. Now please return them, it's very uncomfortable to read this way, and the story fails to justify this choice.
Lack of commas - yeah, I get it, stream of consciousness is cool. Now please give me back my commas; in nearly all cases there wasn't a good reason to omit them.
Repeated information - she talks to the walls, And she paints on them. I would also like to remind you that she talks to the walls, And she paints on them.
Many bits of information are repeated throughout the story. It's not a very complicated or complex piece, so don't do it.
COOL TALK - "STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT! STOOOPPP!!!!"
"YOU ARE NOT MY FRIENDS THEY WON’T LEAVE ME ALONE THEY KEEP SAYING THINGS MAKE IT STOP"
Ease down on the caps, it looses its effect, and becomes annoying.
Gameplay - it was *click* quite *click* annoying. Too much clicking to read. Eventually I clicked 10 times, and then went back to read.
Another problem is how little time each art piece is given. Every piece could have got 2-3 more pages of text, without overuse, which means a waste of effort on the artist's side.
The menus also felt a bit bland. They came down to "pick a for crazy, pick b for sane." This isn't an interesting choice. It's too simple, and doesn't involve any thinking on my part.
Also, telling mommy was an out of character option on both menus.
Story - The weakest link. It wasn't interesting. She's crazy, blue means this, red means that, so what? Why should I care? The characters have zero depth, which makes the events seem quite meaningless.
Example - MC kills her baby bother.
Did his mother love him, did he play with his sister? did anyone care about him? It wasn't shocking, since you could have easily replace baby with "ant". They both have the same personality.
Mother - she's not a real characters. All she does in the story is take things and yell. Is she concerned about her daughter? what kind of parent she is, has she even considered her educational methods?
Even if that's the daughter's interpretation of the mother, it makes for a shallow and boring character. The reader has no reason to care for her.
Daugter - She's crazy, and doesn't care about people. All she wants is to draw, and that's it.
That's the main character. This isn't enough.
Walls - Since they're the only one who talk to MC, their conversations with her could have been used to elaborate on her character. Alas, they don't have much personality as well.
As a result of all the above, the endings had no impact. Why should I care if bad things happen to people I don't know?
If I were to take out the menus, and pick the best written path, it wouldn't be a good story.
I would love to see another version, but as it stands, it's quite a mediocre VN. It's a shame, because it has a lot of potential.
, 
!!
