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[mokenju1]

Hi,

I uploaded this game to the completed games forum some time ago and now that I've the time to work on it again I'd be glad if someone could help me with grammar, grafics and other issues. Thanks.

[DaFool]

I'll be glad to help out.

Maybe it's the Universe conspiring, but the flood of new games inspires others to finally finish their own games.

(DaFool does the World Domination dance)

EDIT:

- Something I'm not quite sure how to fix...the Preferences menu, the option buttons are cut off on the right

- Grammar, I can make a pass at it (since it's my first time reading this so its still fresh and I'm least likely to be jaded)

- Graphics...it's simple, but the style fits nicely with the trace-bitmapped backgrounds. I don't really recommend changing.

- Presentation...how about have Cara positioned towards the left, and Moe positioned towards the right, and move their "headboxes" a bit upward so they're not straddling their own dialogue boxes? Then having their heads appear when they talk and then disappear will give the conversational feeling more. Incidental characters can stay in the center. If you want I'll illustrate it in the script itself when I find time to sit down and edit.

[mikey]

It's good to see this project moving on (and welcome back mokenju! ^_^). Looking forward to an improved version. Good luck!

[mokenju1]

Thanks to mickey for the welcome and to Dafool for his help.

I' ve changed the presentation like you sugested and corrected some typos. But problems with grammar are still there . I'm still working at the Preferences menu.

It's hard to work in a project when you really want to start the next, isn't it? . But I wouldn't like to left the first project unfinished so... I'll keep working till it's done! .

[DaFool]

Wow that was fast...

Are you sure you can't find music?:
http://www.incompetech.com/

It's also a good time for you to pick some color schemes absinthe made:
http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1621
(If you don't want to add the code in yourself, just name the color theme you want and it shall be done!)

I'll take this most current script and grammar check it. I think I might have a solution also for the options menu...looks like a slow evening, I'll post the result in a few hours.

[mokenju1]

Thanks Dafool!

I'm doubting between lemon pie and summer sky... something fresh . Working in the music right now .

[DaFool]

Grammar-checked script attached...

Some things ambiguous I left as is...since it's the charm of your writing style!

Didn't thoroughly test the script in playback...I swear all I changed were conversation statements

Still couldn't figure out the misplaced Preferences buttons... (I don't use roundrect and I didn't find any code that seems to affect the button positioning without affecting the in-game items as well)

edit: I noticed I had mistakenly removed the quotes from

Code: Select all

m " 'Cara's disgraced love life'"

you can put them back. The rest should be ok.

[mokenju1]

I've corrected the grammar and added the music, but now I have problems with the size of the file (100MB). I've tried to compress the file with winzip but isn't working.

[Alessio]

Winzip won't compress music nor already-compressed graphic files (jpg, png). Why don't you look at the files and tell us which ones are too big, then we can propose some solutions. I doubt you really need 100 MB.

[mokenju1]

Hi Alessio,

I think the problem is I added too many songs. I've converted them to ogg and now only one or two sound well, the others... . Now the file is near the 50MB. Maybe the best option is to left only 5 or 6 MP3 songs .

[Alessio]

When encoding from WAV, in my opinion OGG has a better quality/size ratio than MP3. So I'd always recommed OGG. Only use MP3 if you don't have the original WAVs, because converting from one compressed format to another (e.g. MP3 -> OGG) is usually a bad idea quality-wise.

50 MB of MP3 even at average compression would be already some 50 minutes of music. If compressed to levels still acceptable for Computer games (96 kbps), you fit even some 80-90 minutes of music into 50 MB. Do you really need that much music? Is the story that long?

[mokenju1]

The problem is that it's a "multipath" game, so one path is very short but If you play all the paths one after another it's a pretty "long" game (easily 10-15 minutes each path). So a song that is not used in a path is used in another. Maybe I'll have to choose shorter songs because renpy is going to loop them anyway... but it wouldn't be the same feeling .

[Alessio]

Okay, if the music is so much part of the story... could you post a list of the songs here with their length, file size, and their original file format (wav?), then we can calculate a bit from there and see how much it's theoretically possible to squeeze them.

(Of course it's also the challenge of game design and composing to create a good soundtrack that does not need to be as long as the story itself. But that's a different topic.)

[DaFool]

mokenju1, I know having all these songs to choose from is exciting and all, but its better not to go overboard and just pick a few. For a path that's approximately 20 minutes, 4-5 songs for the whole game will do. Just pick one song for all the branches at a particular 'stage' in the game.

(Of course it's also the challenge of game design and composing to create a good soundtrack that does not need to be as long as the story itself. But that's a different topic.)

Yes, I was even thinking of how to create the longest experience for the fewest megabytes. If one can get over an hour of gameplay for less than 20mb, that is one efficient game! And its surprisingly doable.

[mokenju1]

It's true that adding music is exciting . If you aren't careful you end with a song for almost each scene of the game .

Edit: I'll try to cut 2-3 songs more. I still have to make an icon, correct the direct access and "clean" the script that is a bit messed because of changing the songs.