Mikey: I won't argue with you. Your argument is logical and well said. It's just been my personal experience that the best artists that I've worked with not just inquire but demand deadlines, but I guess enforcing it straight up isn't the best way of going about finding new artists. *shrug*
mikey wrote:
I don't want this to sound mean or anything. In fact, I'd really like to know what the status of the project is, whether there's a new team and so on... it's usually the scepticism that comes with a huge project, but I can never really push away the enthusiasm and buzz whenever someone uncovers an ambitious plan, especially if it's the mother of all fan-made dating-sims. :P
Oh, we've got plenty of skepticism in the past. That's kinda why I don't talk about the internal development of the game like, at all. The less hype the better, I always say. In attempt to escape your inquiry and return back to my development hovel, I'll just say "it'll be done when it's done." We're like the Duke Nukem Forever of dating sims... or maybe Daikatana. You'll just have to wait and see. :P
P.S. Congrats on the legendary '1337' post count.
Listening to: The Strokes, continuously playing in my head Reading:Transport Processes and Separation Process Principles. Ohhhh snap!
If you want a confession, when I saw your site in 2003, I thought you would reject me flat out if I applied to be writer. I had long before kind of envied Muto for his ability to make whatever he wants, and LoveRevo was a really promising idea and project. At that time it was really unreachable for me, as I just had ideas and no real skills, nothing to show, with just bad experiences to bring with me. LoveRevo seemed too advanced and "pro" if you like, so I didn't think you'd even bother with me - applying for a designer position was out of the question as well, as I figured it's taken anyway.
Things may be different now, and I may have my opinions, but I do respect all the efforts. And of course, I'd love to see and play LR. One day. Good luck with it.
The funny thing was that back in 2003-4, I felt that I wasn't good enough for the project either, but I won't go much into that. Hype is a bad thing often enough. Thanks for the well wishes.
Listening to: The Strokes, continuously playing in my head Reading:Transport Processes and Separation Process Principles. Ohhhh snap!
I have discovered that if a game has a lot of hype, the hype exceeds what the game is capable of, and therefore a lot of people are disappointed when the game comes out. This has been true of ALL games, even the ones that were still successful, at least all the ones I'm aware of. By trying to keep a low profile on it, you let the gamer's imagination run more and when they see that it's like THIS they aren't too disappointed.
Good luck on Love Revolution, and if you need playtesters, let me know.
A friend is one that walks in when the world walks out.
The forum has been removed (too much spambots, I assume)
I wonder what's next for the project. It's the longest-running ren'ai game in dev ever, I even think I saw a post from before the year 2000 on the old forum.
Completed: Metropolitan Blues, The Loyal Kinsman, Daemonophilia, The Dreaming, The Thirteenth Year, Adrift, Bionic Heart 2, Secrets of the Wolf, The Photographer
Projects: The Pilgrim's Path, Elspeth's Garden, Secret Adventure Game!
Though I hate to be so blunt, I must credit a lack of leadership for the failure that was Love Revolution. We basically had everything: a ground-breaking idea for the actual relationship engine in the center of the game, individual love plots for most of the datable girls, generic reaction sequences to bring the girls to life, a few ending scenes, most essential character art, a programmer willing to spend some time on bringing it all together and even enough writers to fill in the blanks, including me.
What we didn't have was someone to tell us all what to do.
Tralu started this project WAYYYYY back with a neat idea about an English language dating sim along the lines of TokiMemo. He designed the first characters, he wrote the first pieces of plot, he composed the first parts of the engine. Then we had our first big recruitment session, got loads of new ideas, got the (now probably gone) big central "umi no hi" event that was supposed to give the player an idea whose girl's path he could probably score well at, got a big list of actual movies to go to, got all Japanese holidays together (for leisure activity planning) and basically started writing dialogue. At around the same time, LoveRevo For Girl popped up, and eclipse/Rio took the lead of that project.
Then nothing happened for around a year.
When things started picking up pace again, we had lost two writers, our programmer and our initial artist. There were replacements, but somehow, things weren't the same. Tralu rarely showed up, other people (again, including me) tried to coordinate things a little and failed. Without the original visionary behind LoveRevo, nothing much happened and the project fell back into a sleep again.
When Tralu reappeared last year, that was the last time the project could have been saved. We had a short part of the umi no hi sequence Ren'Pyed to give potential co-workers a motivation, and we almost got back to work. Almost. Because that's when Tralu disappeared again and spambots started to clog the forum that no one was moderating any longer.
I think it's now safe to say that LoveRevo is dead and gone. Anything from now on would be an entirely new project. I'd be really glad to see the work we all put in somehow brought to life again, but I know that that's not going to happen. Love Revolution really had a shot at being something great. It could have worked out. Lack of leadership is what brought it down, and it now serves as a lesson to all potential gamemakers: Always remain passionate about your game, always keep working, even if it's only baby steps you're taking. If nothing happens for too long, your project will die.
mikey wrote:
And it brings me to another point - outside artists have typically much less connection with the project. Some projects want the artists to impress them, but I think the opposite - the project should impress the outside artist. Simply because you're asking them to make something for you. So you better have a good bargaining chip.
Good point. It reminds me of those projects with tons of beautiful conceptual art floating around but barely anything holding them together. The big difference is when something becomes 'production art'. I mean, it's fun conceptualizing your characters, but then try drawing the same stuff for many poses multiple times, and it isn't so fun anymore.
Taleweaver, I feel for you and your team for the efforts that were in vain. I'm starting to think...
1.) Make my project open-source at a certain point in time. So that in case I disappear from the forums, enough materials will be left for it to be picked up by anyone who wants to.
2.) (And I try to be diligent about this)...make regular progress report posts. By treating the work-in-progress as a blog, one realizes that a blog is alive only when it is constantly being updated. And to update a progress report compels you to actually make progress to write about.
It sounds like from this and from my own experience, game projects are like relationships: If you find yourself needing to "take a break", it's pretty much over.
I just found a site with really good documentation of the now-dead Love Revolution project. There is a lot of background information that wasn't available on the main site or on the forums, literally the whole design. I just found it now, but I think it was up in July last year already.
It's really an interesting read - again, I'm not bringing this up to discuss the chances of a big project (or to drag Love Revo into the spotlight), but I'd say these are valuable comments and findings - lots of ideas for structuring, documentation and work coordination. Many times unsuccessful projects disappear, but actually they are always very interesting to re-visit, and you can always feel the vision, ambition and struggles of the developers.
Cool! *gets*
I see on the website that there were Adrift mini games too? But the page is gone ._. ... Were these ever made? Still available somewhere? ^^;
Well, might as well ask Taleweaver ^_^.
I have always been able to get Namiki's Day (I can upload it if you want), but the other one, Akari's story I could never download. They were Adrift text adventures, requiring the Adrift runner to work.
(too much spambots, I assume)
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