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To be honest, I actually favor the original UI a bit more.
Although, I do like the font you chose for this one.

The font for the main text, that is. I don't think the font used for the in-game menu and the numbers on the save screen quite fits.

Well, I've just read through the whole thread and played the demo. I completely agree with everyone else that this is a really impressive project (and your first, you said? *jaw drops*) I'm certainly looking forward to the release, but obviously life-stuff is important too.

I'm not sure how useful commenting on the demo is, since the game has had so much work since then, but I wished the early manga-styled part was click-to-proceed rather than just one animation, since I wanted to enjoy the layout more. I hope you're going to use manga layouts at other points in the game too (perhaps for non-interactive events triggered by stats?)


If you're still looking for event suggestions:
Hope they made you giggle even if they weren't any help!

PM

I'm not sure whether I like the new or old UI better.

From the old one, I like the colors. The brown/black definitely goes better with the game because the pink you've got now seems a bit out of place. I also like how you had your logo on the save and option menus, etc.
From the new one, I like how glossy it is. The curves (like where the character name in the dialogue box is, etc.) are a nice touch as well.
If I had to choose between the two, I would go with the older one. Maybe you should try changing the color for the newer one? I'd love to see the experiments you come up with for these sorts of things.

I've been silently watching the progress on this and I just wanted to chime in an say that I also prefer the old UI.

I understand why you felt you wanted to change it, though. As producers, we see waaay too much of our own games, and we get real bored of it and try to change what isn't broken. Let me tell you: your old UI wasn't broken, nor "fugly".

I've finally overhauled that fugly UI

I liked that UI. It looked sorta academic, in a way that vaguely reminded me of Bully. Which is always good. This one's good too, but the other one seemed more fitting. Maybe I was just used to it? Maybe it's because I was never really a fan of that sleek, Web 2.0 movement (although, I doubt it's called Web 2.0 here, as it's a game, not a website).

(In any case, don't worry about the UI too much for now. Think about that after you're done--you only need to be able to look at it for now. That's how I get stuck! I procrastinate by thinking about the UI instead of the actual content and story and gameplay, and I mess with it and mess with it and never get anything done!)

So it's doable. That whole "the character's name is in a second window/tab" thing. But what happens when the narrator's speaking? Do their lines start where the name's supposed to go as some sort of mistake that you just don't want to show us (probably not)? Or do you have to change the frame for every time the narrator talks? What's the secret?

Heh, oops Thanks for the feedback, guys! I hadn't realised the old UI was so popular, tbh! I'm still tweaking the new one, though - the main problem I had was that though I really liked the new textbox / buttons, hot pink was the only colour that really seemed to go with 'em, despite it admittedly not really being a barbie-pink sort of game. :B Admittedly I've pretty much just been dragging the colour sliders up and down in Photoshop rather than making new boxes from scratch, so I should probably just try harder, tbh! I only really meant to change the textbox and buttons on the main screen originally, as having them above the textbox made coding really fiddly (I had to keep showing and hiding the button menu every time I showed a CG or used a 'movein / out' command, which is every five minutes tbh), but then one thing lead to another, and... yeah. Made a new school crest-type logo, though, so hopefully I can slap that somewhere? Please keep th suggestions coming, though! I'm pretty clueless when it comes to this interface business, ick

pinkmouse wrote:I'm not sure how useful commenting on the demo is, since the game has had so much work since then, but I wished the early manga-styled part was click-to-proceed rather than just one animation, since I wanted to enjoy the layout more. I hope you're going to use manga layouts at other points in the game too (perhaps for non-interactive events triggered by stats?)

I don't actually know how to do that, but I'll give it a shot! Glad you liked the effect, anyway. I was thinking of maybe using the manga layouts for some of the endings, depending on how lazy I'm feeling when I finally get that far...

Thanks for the event suggestions, too!

Alphonse wrote:So it's doable. That whole "the character's name is in a second window/tab" thing. But what happens when the narrator's speaking? Do their lines start where the name's supposed to go as some sort of mistake that you just don't want to show us (probably not)? Or do you have to change the frame for every time the narrator talks? What's the secret?

Heh, nah, the narrator looks exactly the same as the rest of the text, just with the name box blank (though there's hardly any text in the game without a character speaking, so hey ). It's basically the same code I was using before, though.
Trial-and-error coding, woo~

Any news? Sorry to nag, but this game looks so good! Can't wait to see more!

Oops, totally missed that Thanks for the interest, though!
I figured I should probably start posting updates on the devblog rather than here, as the game's still a fair ways from completion, but I'm still lurking around here too...

*gets back to procrastinating*

Just getting on the bandwagon to <3 your art.

And will play ASAP.

I think I'm going to absolutely love this game =D
I have several questions if you don't mind: How big are you planning this game? Like 2-3 hours of playing (for one path or something), or even more? And how much "Endings" actually?
And I'd really love to know when do you think game could be released =D
Looking forward to it! =D

Sorry for the late reply again!

I'm actually not entirely sure how long the game will take in the end - as there's nothing to stop the player pursuing multiple boys at the same time, playthroughs could end up getting pretty long, I guess? Playing through Marius' (unfinished) route took me at least an hour, if I remember right, though, so hopefully it should take other people a bit longer?

As for endings, I'm aiming for two for the three 'main' boys and one each for the other two, but again, I'm not really sure. They'll probably just end up with one each, but I figure one fleshed out ending would be better than two cut down ones, right? We shall see...

And ah, I wish I had a clue when this damned thing'll be finished! Probably not anytime soon, to be honest - and this project was originally only meant to take about a month or so, hurhur :B The problem I'm having at the moment is that although they only take a couple of minutes to play through, pretty much every event in the game is several pages of branching text, most of which the player isn't going to see unless they play through multiple times (and choose some obviously dodgy responses, hur :3) - I'm somewhere around 50,000 words so far, and some of the guys only have one or two events written...

*wrist seizes up*

On the up side, though, slice of life is actually pretty fun to write now that I've started putting seasonal / regional crap in. *Finally finds a use for that royalty-free Christmas music *

Thanks for the interest, though! (And I'm sorry there've been so few updates! Progress is actually going pretty quickly, but I guess there won't be any surprises if I post everything here...)

Ah, that's really cute! Great backgrounds, too. Keep up the good work!

That fair one with the chibis is so damn cute.

I really like it =D It surely seem like a lot of work!
And I must say that I never seen anything like your artwork - I like the uniqueness of it.
Take as much time you need - Of course it will be better then!
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Looks awesome!
I love the art! I really like the little notebook profiles!
Definitely gonna try out the demo when I get the chance! I hope that the project doesn't stress you out too much!