Since you're not against critique, I'm going to strongly say that the decision to not include who is talking when they're talking is a huge mistake. For a free game, I would let you do your thing since you obviously prefer this method of dialogue. However, since you are encouraging people other than yourself and your developers to read your work (and to pay for it), it is really and truly the quickest thing you could do to discourage players. Just look at Mirage -- didn't finish the demo. I admit I skipped more than I should have, which results in losing focus on who's talking completely. Not everything people say will color themselves so independently from everyone else that it would be easy to tell who is talking merely from any one statement. In fact, color is a good suggestion to help you differentiate characters. Make Esta's text red, Michel's blue, etc. I'm not an expert in NVL-themed novels (which is what you have), but having the ability to show large blocks of text at once is so that you can be more descriptive. If you're just showing lines upon lines of dialogue ... you've chosen a poor delivery system. Either read your story like a novel ("Blah blah blah," said Dagger.) or read it like script (Dagger: Blah blah blah.), or some other creative way outside of just letting text stand for it itself. The character's sprite's mouth doesn't even open or move when they talk. There is literally no other clues to who is talking outside of
concentrating really damn hard. It shouldn't be a chore to follow your story. =\ Knowing who was saying what was really, really hit and miss for me in the demo, so I only got the partial effect of your story. I found I read most all of the narration (what Esta was saying in her head) because I knew 100% who was saying it.
It will get better once we know their personalities, you said? We won't get to that point if it's too confusing to be fun. =\ Novels
do have this delivery method of dialogue, just one after the other, but I can't remember reading one without ever second guessing who was talking, and I have to reread the whole thing because I skipped one line or whatever and read everything in someone else's voice. =P And they have ALWAYS have been just for TWO people talking. Point is, even when those patches of dialogue are short and you know the characters intimately, you can get confused. Throw in more people talking at the same time and you're doing us a huge disservice. Of course, you probably won't be convinced this is a problem until several more people say the same thing, but I would avoid the amount of work this would entail doing until I was absolutely sure it was necessary, too. Perhaps use this time to think of ways to solve this that's best for you.
39mb is not a large file. xD That's actually pretty awesomely compact. The problem was Mediafire's slow download rate if anything.
Played your new demo, and I like it a LOT better. The characters are actually the ones advertised, there's intrigue, it's actually the premise you wrote to get us to play. I'd play more with this intro (though that glimpse into the future that is the older demo was still a drag -_-). I noticed a few typos, "The guy behing me" and some others I forgot to catch, sorry (and wtf is "face-bagged"!?). Also, everyone is wearing blue ... is that symbolism you're going for, or you just really like blue? If it's symbolism, I haven't got it yet, since the game's logo is red/yellow. Is it because Esta is red? lol. I like colors, so the same color over and over is something I'd expect in a 2 hour artsy movie. 9 hours might be weird, but hey, totally an artistic decision on your part. xD Also, Michel and Matt share the same first letter, and in a game that's already super confusing (to a point where I thought "Michey" was a third character), similar names doesn't help. But, again, you're within your right to name them however. Not a fan of NVL mode, since your game doesn't need it. Like, at all. Seems like you were just going for a convention that you thought was visual novels? You don't have so much darn text I need to see blocks of it at once. It just covers up the pretty art you guys made and gets distracting when it has to flicker on and off for a simple emotion change. I loved the effects in the game. Very well done, I think. Makes the gameplay interesting.
I looked at the hotkeys in the menu (a for auto read, v to show the CG) and pressing the button on my keyboard did nothing ... Not sure why, but the hotkeys didn't work for me. OR, oh, wait, are those only when you're already hover on he menu item? Are they not supposed to work in game? The music track, I forget "relax and something" is actually disturbing for the tone it's going for. It's the bass line, that's really ... demonic and foreboding. Saving/Loading takes a long time to open the screen. I was able to load the last demo's saves without character sprites. Is your entire script in here? *snickers maliciously* Last thing,
I swear ... the margin between the left side of the text box and the text is really small the edges almost touch the text, while there is as healthy margin on the right side, so my inner typographer is unsettled by this.
Okay, I'll reiterate that I like this demo a lot more. Matt kinda scared me after the scene where he thought I was being perverted. He shoved Esta and slams the door in her face! Very suspicious behavior for it just being a shirtless guy ... And scary that he'd physically put her someplace at the slightest provocation. I love Michel AND Esta's personality. The curly haired guy, the "rich retard" (don't even know his name), looks really interesting but can't say anything about him or Isun yet.
Thumbs up, I wish you luck, all that jazz. It looks like an amazing story and experience, and building your own game engine is to be commended (though everyone here will likely recommend Ren'Py
), and a 9 hour game is certainly a remarkable feat. Thanks for making a strong female protagonist game. <3
. 
. Thanks for reporting the bug too, it's probably a mistake in our program to run videos, we'll look into it.
