Fourty minutes to eternity

[Aoyama Ryuu]

A pleasant scent rises from the cup of steaming tea I hold just under my nose. A moment of serenity, allowed to me, even though I don’t deserve it; a moment I should be thankful of.

I drink some of the tea, feeling its bitter taste; it’s not that I particularly like it bitter, but just this once, I’ve left it without sugar.

The snow falls relentlessly around me, yet I stand defiant, with only my tea to warm me up. I stand here alone now, just like she was back then.

The story of a knight that dared to fall in love.

Hello! This is my first attempt at writing a script; it's a (very) short kinetic novel, at about 1000 words. Both the script and the drawings are made by me.

I'm interested in critique concerning my writing; the drawings are there so it doesn't feel so empty. I'm not really any good at drawing, but since it's such a short story, I didn't want to ask anyone to do it, so I just used my limited skill to come up with something.

[Agent-J]

Just played through the script. Definitely love the story itself.
Only minor issues really with the script.
The last scene with Celeste has to be the best scripted out part of the whole thing. The pacing's smooth, but not so slow you lose interest. Quite a few of the other scenes- particularly when she's introduced- seem rather choppy in comparison. The beginning doesn't quite give a full feeling of the narrator. When he starts mentioning his father's issues with the marriage I had to pause to go 'oh, so that's the kind of background he comes from'. Fleshing that out earlier on, rather than simply once it becomes important would make the later revelations more comfortable to read.
Overall, the way it comes full circle's probably my favourite part. It makes it seem rather thought out and worth a re-read, which is good for a shorter story.

[Phosis]

I liked it. The story is interesting.

Stylistically, I found that font very difficult to read, however. Your pictures were excellent, and I can't wait to see full color versions of them down the road.

Overall I think it was pretty decent, made me want to see more.

[Esphirisa]

Hmm... although the font made the text a little hard to decipher, I thought that it represented the distorted feelings of Caden somehow. (I love their names, by the way...<3) Well, I liked how you started everything. It made me wonder what happened, what on earth was he doing there, and the repetition of his actions set a melancholic mood. Erm, at least for me.

Hmm... I didn't expect that he'd do that to ALL his family members, so I suppose it was a good turn of events, and the ending hit me. Not very hard, but it did puncture a hole in my heart. The forty-minutes thing really got to me. I love the storyline. I suppose it could be longer; you could have added more scenes with Caden and Celeste together.

[gundestiny]

Short and sweet, with tragedy. It was a bit of an emotion jerker when Celeste was dieing in Caden's arms. Even though you don't know know too much about the characters, you know enough to sympathise and have that 'tinge' of a connection to..
As stated before, you could probably make the text a little more friendly but overall
I quite enjoyed it ^^ It was a nice quick read, well done!

[DragoonHP]

One words come to my mind, as I remember my time playiong the game... Lovely.

The story was short and cute with all the materials to make it a heart warming exoperience. The way your main character behaves seems almost real because that would have been any person's first reaction.

Though I would have liked a longer story, the shorter one isn't bad, it's fantabulous. Hope to see osme more stories and Visual Novel from you soon.

[Aoyama Ryuu]

Wow, thanks for the replies, I'm really glad you enjoyed it. It was a very valuable experience for me; it was a lot more... time consuming than I thought. Thanks for pointing out those mistakes, they seem pretty obvious now that you've mentioned them, but I couldn't see them before

[ebi brain]

I liked it!
I didn't really have any problems with the font. Somehow it matched the... comment dire*... I'm going to say it wrong because I can't think of the right word but.. I think it matched the simplicity/sketchiness (which I really liked) of the drawings and the contents of the story itself.

Though, even though from the words you can tell he loves her dearly, some more scenes on his and Celeste's relationship would have made her death even more heart wrenching, I think.

( Then again I'm a complete beginner, so you'd probably want to take my opinions etc. with a grain of salt^_-)

But overall, I liked it! So keep it up!


* (= "how to say", pardon my french lol, I'm not even from a french speaking country)

[Seigetsu]

First of all, thanks for your interesting game. Although it was short, it was enjoyable.

As for suggestions, I think the first part was a little choppy. It might've been better to go with a little more description of how Caden and Celeste met, as well as Caden's situation (his noble status). I was also rather confused about the setting of this story. At first I thought it was modern, but it turned out to be somewhat archaic. I guess maybe some description or background images would've helped.

I quite liked the part where Celeste died in Caden's arms. It was pretty powerful despite the limited information we know about the two. However, I found Caden killing the entire family to be a little...surreal? How did he manage the feat?

The last bit about Caden drinking the poisoned tea was nice, bringing the story to a full close and linking it back to the beginning at the same time.

Overall, a good piece, indeed. Wished it was a little longer though...but I guess that's because your story was so enjoyable.

[Kanari]

Bravo. <3