[WIP?] Starlit Dreams (B/GxB/G)

[Aleema]

?? Throwing the player headfirst into the story is an awesome thing. You can reveal backstory as you go ... If you think about it, unsure people who download your game are likely to just quit it in the first five minutes. So do something awesome in the first five minutes, or jump right into the gameplay mechanic and then pull out so they can then learn about the story, once they know they want to play the beef of your game. Your Memoirs game does this, and I think it works well.

[broken_angel]

What I meant was more along the "doing something awesome in the first five minutes."
I feel like my current intro, which is only about five minutes long as it is, is boring and a little too "convenient."

It is set up so that you start actual gameplay sooner, as in you have to meet most of the characters on your own and unlock locations as you go, which I think is good. But still...^^;;

Meh...I'm probably just worrying over nothing, as usual.
This is why I never set up a WIP thread for Memoirs. xD

[broken_angel]

I'm posting to say that I am making progress.

First, I sent the script for all the main introductions to a beta reader who said they weren't too bad. C:

Second, I've started working on the characters' sayings. Each character has around 75 random sayings (this is a total that includes different sayings based on your appearance, the season and/or weather, and their heart level), and times that by 12 characters...
Yeah, that bit will take some time. ^^;; I'll probably only do the first two heart level sayings for each character, plus the seasonal and appearance ones, for the demo.

Third, I've gotten the Digi (PDA) stuff done (or at least set up so I can add to it later). That means I've gotten all the technical programming for the demo done. Yay!
I added a screenshot to the first page of the Status screen. The "Personal Stats" area will also eventually list your traits, but I don't think I'm going to include traits in the demo, so...
I know, it doesn't look very PDA-ish, but that's okay. I don't really care at this point. xD

Anyway, this is taking a bit longer than I thought, so I apologize for the "few weeks" turning into several. Thanksgiving break is coming up, though, which should help speed things along, and then Winter Break is a few weeks after that. If nothing else, I'll definitely finish up the demo then.

[chensterrain]

*Forgot she hadn't actually commented on this thing*

I'm so looking forward to this game! It's sounding really amazing so far, and I'm loving the level of depth and customisation you've got going I can definitely empathise with how long randomised sayings take to write, though, so good luck with them. :/

(Oh, and the art is lovely, hoho :B) Good luck!

[broken_angel]

I'm glad you're looking forward to it. C:

Heh...I'm probably going way overboard in terms of customizations, to be honest. xD
Not as far as the character, but as far as establishing your company...if I have my way, you'll be able to design your own products (well...mostly customizing pre-defined products by choosing parts with different advantages and disadvantages and customizing how they look), and you'll be able to name your business, name your products, price your products, come up with your own vision statement, etc.
Most of this will be available in the demo...though I'm not so sure about the designing, because my mini-game artist bailed on me so I would need to find an artist. Pair that with my dwindling funds and lack of a job...that part will probably have to wait until the full release, whenever that manages to happen.

...Now I know why these sim games are almost always commercial: there's just a ridiculous amount of work (and money...) involved. Then again, I suppose that's also just my own ambition coming through.

[Aleema]

Lots of work, lots of writing, lots of money, and lots of love. We at least have that last one, right? :3
We can do it! I'd donate/help if I wasn't already spread thin as it is. You also have all my skills covered, hehe.

[broken_angel]

Haha, yes, this is definitely a labor of love.
It's fun getting excited about all the features I plan to add, and then it's even more fun when I actually add them. xD

And no worries. C:
I'll come up with something as far as the art is concerned, even if it means a begging the relatives for Christmas money. xP

[broken_angel]

Update!...ish

After working on it for most of the break, I'm really, really close to being able to release the demo...as in, if I get my way, I'll be done with it by the end of the week.
How exciting~ ^o^

Question:
The current demo size is just under 200MB, but 90% of that is music. Practically all of the music that will be used in the game is included with that, as well as all of the backgrounds and sprites, even if they aren't accessible during the length of the demo. That means that the final game won't actually be much bigger than that.

If I lower the quality of the music, I can decrease that size significantly, which may be better for people who have slow Internet connections...

So, my question is, would you rather have the high-quality sound of the original but spend forever downloading it, or would you rather sacrifice the sound quality for the sake of a faster download time?
If there's a demand for the latter, then I'll probably upload both a high-quality version (the original) and a lower-quality version with edited music (and probably no voice clips, just to keep the size small).

Speaking of which, I'm still looking for male voice actors. *hint hint* >.>


By the way, I added some WIPs of the backgrounds I'm having drawn for the game to the first post.
It'll be nice to finally have appropriate backgrounds for James' office and the gym. xD

[broken_angel]

The demo has been posted!

Well...the HQ demo, anyway. I'll have a LQ one up once my friend finds the time to lower the framerate on the .mp3s for me.

If anyone has trouble, either with downloading or playing the game, let me know and I'll try to help.


Annnddd...now to go to bed because it's almost 6am and I have to wake up in a couple hours. >.>;

[Aleema]

DIBS ON FIRST TO DOWNLOAD.

Okay, here is my stream of consciousness while playing. Sorry for all the caps.

- Clicking "extras" crashes the game. Might add a dummy placeholder for now?
- Consider making the opening happen only once with persistent data
- When customizing you character, have the buttons indicate what is currently selected
- Blinking is cool. Would be coolER if the MC did it, too!
- Transitions between menus in your custom screens can get annoying real quick, hitting X as the only way to close it is annoying, too. The natural things to me is to exit like I do the menus: right click or ESC button. The fact that you can't get there from those things, too, is also troublesome. My advice: integrate these things with the main navigation.
- No rollback? YOU INSANE, WOMAN?
- Says the bar isn't open because it's not (hours open) ... but the time is not displayed, so I assumed it didn't matter before clicking things? How will I know the time? Etc. In short: show the time on the location picking screen.
- The placement of the sprites' bodies shift when their arms go up. Surely you can make it so their bodies stay in the same place when transitioning? Even if their bodies shift somehow, they still look like they're jump-cutting from those expressions and back.
- WTF is clickable on these screens? Make hotspots more recognizable. Highlight them when your mouse rolls over them or something. >_<
- Couldn't find anything to do the first day, just went to sleep saying "I guess, I don't f**king know." I'm a little cranky because I have a sore throat, you see.
- I like that the tutorial arrow bounces
- Okay. These buttons? Talk, Ask, Book, Other book ... I would love to see them somewhere else. =\ Shoot me if you must, but clicking once just to show them, and then focusing my little mouse on their little icons, I could see becoming a pain. Like, a chore, you know? I would LOVE to see them sitting on the edge of the dialogue box instead. That way I can quickly try them out on whim, if they truly are that important. And if it's collapsed, then I'm going to miss a lot of options to interact with my environment because I didn't want to have to click the down arrow constantly.
- Clicking the Star in the corner opened the status all right, clicked it again to close and the dialogue box went away. Clicked it again to fix it and the PDA status came up! AHH! AHHHH! I brought up the menu and clicked "return" and it took me back to the PDA so I clicked the "x" and it brought to my BEDROOM! AAAHHHH! *starts game over*
- Attached an error for when I went to the main menu.
- config.developer is set to True. I know this because I was able to fast skip. But I'm not complaining because I got to FAST SKIP WOOT. Oh, I fast skipped twice and the game crashed. Only do it once, peeps. Takes you to James' first menu choice. (Shift+>)
- When changing clothes, the sprite kept the same reaction that was last in the conversation. It was kinda funny, though, because she was all scared looking, like she was horrified I was giving her a haircut.
- Does studying never fail?
- Okay. After learning HOW to raise stats, and now after doing it ... it is very tedious with how you have your buttons. Please, please, please don't make it two clicks away and very small.
- Retried the tutorial dialogue with Bridget, this time NOT clicking the star or anything, but that panel overlaps the dialogue box, and she doesn't disable for me until a few lines away.
- Music restarts on the living room screen. And while we're on the topic, make the living room do something. Make the door the question to sleep, and have the studying happen there. Right now it's just one more goddamned click I have to make.
- This is just me being really weird, but the buttons in the options drop down thing -- you know THE buttons -- their idle state has a glow around then, but rolling over it disappears. This seems backwards to me, but it's the stupidest thing to comment on, so ignore me
- Why doesn't the sidebar status panel thing list how good you are at biology/mechanics, whatever?
- Okay. After you fix the button icons stuff, can you make a separate book for biology and one for mechanics? This three-clicks-to-do-shit isn't making this fun. At least, maybe she doessomething different for the two skills? Or are book going to be the ONLY way to raise skills? That doesn't sound very interesting. =\ Maybe you can enroll in courses or fix microwaves in your spare time or something -- just anything but the same imagery of reading a book forever and ever. Okay, scratch that, looks like you can do more
- Not sure how this happened, but I checked my stats after entering the workshop for the first time, and the date/time disappear, but the overlay BG was still there. Hmm ... Oh, and the little down arrow went away for good, even though the time came back. So I could do actions anymore. Had to go back to my room and sleep to get it back. Personally, I say f**k that arrow and put the buttons out in the open where they belong. Okay, after playing this a while, the times it disappears is seemingly random. Went from the supermarket to the electronics shop, and it was gone.
- Okay. I was given the task to build a prototype. Wandering around trying to find where in the flying f I do that has frustrated me because the drop down arrow is hit and miss, forcing me to go back to my bedroom to get it back. Annoying.
- Calendar doesn't highlight what day your on, and the date isn't even shown on the screen. Your faith in people's memory is sweet, but I'm an idiot. Trust me.
- No BG pic for the game menu is actually more annoying than cool. Seeing the mess under it is very confusing and distracting. >_<
- She said "it's finally the weekend!" on a Sunday
- ... what does stress do? End the day? Why can't time itself just end the day?
- OMG JAMES JUST BRANDISHED A GUN. I think that's a felony, but I guess this is the future where that's okay. xD If I were Seiko, and I am, I'd avoid getting mixed up with a guy that pulls out a gun and threatens me, in a library. Do not want scary gun guy.
- The amount of times people snuck up on me in these game is hilarious. I turn around and the tech guy is replaced with Bridget. I poke in to see my boss and Caine is standing right behind me. AHH! YOU LITTLE BUGGER! Working out -- AHH ANI HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN THERE? NO I'M NOT HERE TO CHECK OUT THE GIRLS TOO YOU PERVERT.
- This game is becoming a hunt to find people. Is this the bulk of the game, or just the intro events? It's kinda annoying if people aren't sure to be somewhere. Sometimes they're not where they're "supposed" to be, and then I go home and sleep. I'm not even trying to raise stats anymore because they're meaningless at this point. So I'm just burning daylight, hopping from one location to the next, praying to the Mall God that who I want to see is shopping at that moment.
- Oh god more people finding quests please kill me, Angel.
- FINANCIAL ANALYIS! So many numbers. Just ... why? Well, I'm sure it will be important when the ACTUAL game comes around. Probably.
- People finding quests. No. Angel. Stop it. No more.
- On the money-raising quest, I was jaw-dropped to find that the "investors" were like 3 people. Two gave me pocket change, and I only earn $50 a day. I had $300 to go. Y U NO LIKE ME, ANGEL?
- lol at the demo over. No, it doesn't take me to the main menu. The resulting screen is pretty trippy, though.
- It is now 8am. Took me an hour!

Thoughts:
Great start! You have the shell of an awesome game, stuffed with grinding chores. Make the goals before getting your business less a drag. I think these people-finding quests are stupid now and I hate them. I lament playing this part of the game again unless you make people reliably somewhere so it doesn't take 2-3 days of searching for people I'm not even sure who I'm looking for. "Find someone who likes art" Not knowing anything about anyone, or because I'm an idiot, I asked around town to everyone, assumed I needed to talk to Bridget, since she was the only one left, but finding her is impossible. At work, I was like, Noo, come back! Arrrt! But it turns out I needed to find the little boy. Which is just huh, but okay. Wasted three days, but there we go. The money quest was the worst. I slept through weekends and and woke up-worked-slept on weekdays. There was no reason to do anything else. Conversations with the people are non-existent, but I assume that's a future feature? Or no? I dunno. The purpose of raising stats was nothing after the first quest. So there was really nothing to do. At least with the people finding quests, I was running around like an idiot over town screaming Bridget's name.

I would recommend a tutorial/guide/help thing that doesn't require chasing people down. It's cute, but at the expense of our first playthrough. I had no idea about the game, but just "asking around" was a chore. These people are never where you want them to be. Your boss was, by far, the most reliably anchored but she did nothing. If I can't go into the bar until it's open, why can I go to the school or the PI office when no one is there? Is breaking and entering not a felony in the future, too? =P Right. Tutorials. I'm not sure I like the "play around and see what happens" approach to this. What you have isn't intuitive. I had to have Bridget tell me that important actions were hidden until I hit a down arrow. Until then, I was wandering around wondering WTF to do. And that wasn't the last time. When the game says "build a prototype", don't make it a damn mystery where to do that, especially if the entire game is just FINDING that person even if you know who they are. I didn't even know that was a people-finding question. I kept trying the workshop at different times. -_-

Sorry, getting worked up again. I love the art, of course. The MC was beautiful, so were all the other characters. There's currently a lack of depth to some of them, but their basic personalities were pretty obvious. I like Bridget's "secret" personality, but Ani had no depth really. You meet him once and it's like "I'm a womanizer, my brother is crazy hah time to go pick up chicks" and that's basically the extent of every conversation with him. And I use "conversation" loosely.

Damnit. Try again. PREETEE GRAPHICS. I like the twinkling lights on the main menu! The status screen (PDA one...) is awesome and I like it. I wish getting there was so much easier.

You say the game is set in the future, and buzzwords like "cyborg" I guess hint at that, but really, outside of the futuristic city BG, the mention of an "electronic book" was the only reference to future I could find. So the setting is confusing, because everything is so ... the same.

Maybe you should label this a tech demo or something, I dunno ... the bulk of your game isn't in there. I mean, it IS, but the actual gameplay is non-existent. How would running your business work, I mean, do you know?

I'm going to stop, I'll post more later if you survive this one. Just remember to breathe, take a nap, let it roll off your back ... releases like this can be hard, I know, so take everything in stride and only take what you want. You made a good game, and it's only going to get better.

[chensterrain]

I've just got to say, I really really love this game so far, and I'll post a more detailed critique later, but... I have no idea if it's just my computer or what, but I saved and quit the game after getting the prototype made and the screenshot on the save screen shows 'Day 9', but when I reload the save it takes me to the Digi menu, and when I quit out of that I'm back on Day 3 with all of my stats back at 5 and none of the map locations unlocked! It's probably just something I did wrong so I'll give it another go, but I'm pretty sure I saved the game...

(I really do think this is amazing so far, though - I love the characters, especially James and Mari, and the writing has a really snappy, Phoenix Wright-esque thing going on that I really love. I definitely agree with Aleema that some of the interface quirks might need to be tweaked a little - I expected the stats to be shown on the right panel too, as it was a lot of effort to click the drop-down menu, then click the PDA, then click the stats button just to see what they were; it also took me a while to realise that the little drop down button was even there, as by the time the tutorial plays, chances are the player's already used it. Though it would probably require moving the navigation buttons around a little, it might be better if the icons in the drop-down menu were always visible somewhere at the bottom of the screen? Maybe whenever the text box is hidden, a similar sized panel could appear with icons for the PDA, talking etc., just to make things a little more visible? I do like the drop-down menu, though, so maybe an easier solution would just be to have it always visible, so you don't have to click it every five minutes? I don't know... :B)

(Oh! And while I loved the fact that the characters seemed to have their own lives and schedules, it was slightly strange that they kept popping up in random places - at one point, I was having a conversation with the kid whose name I can't remember right now, and suddenly he turned into Leo (I think it was at the library)! Also, I had all of the 'writing the business proposal' conversations with James and Mari at the mall and in the supermarket, which I thought was pretty funny, especially when James claimed he was working on the document I'd asked him for and that he'd give it to me that evening, when he was blatantly having drinks with Ani at the bar. Hoho :B)

Huh, looks like I ended up critiquing after all, sorry! Really love the game though, I'll have to see if I can find out what happened to my save... :/

[broken_angel]

Hah...where to even start? xD;;

- Ah, yeah, I know. I forgot to mention not to click on that. >.>;
- How would I do that?
- Would changing the "selected" image file fix that, but still change when you click off of it? I guess I'll play around with it and see.
- I can do that. C:
- Integrate them how? Like...with the actual game menus?
- I didn't intentionally disable rollback, I swear. D: It rolled back fine when I tried it a while ago (well, at least within the space of scenes; once the event ended, it would screw up if you tried to rollback)...but somewhere in the middle, it somehow got disabled. I don't know what's up with it. -.-
- Good point. I'll fix that.
- Sometimes they stay in the same position (i.e. if they're shown at a defined position at the side), but if it's that much of an issue, I can fix it so that they stay put when centered, too...I think.

Okay, running out of time so I'll just hit the key points...
- Point taken about the Options buttons needing to be easier to access. I was trying to be as minimal as possible as far as stuff covering up the screen. I guess I did that a little too well...xD;; The problem, though, is that there are various location buttons on all sides of the screen, so it's difficult to find a good place to put them along the sides where they won't clash with the location buttons, and I can't put them with the textbox itself because then it'll look silly when the textbox disappears (and I don't want it to stay up all the time).
- About the clicking the status button and then major glitch...that's why I said in the demo notes that if you click a button while someone's talking, it's going to glitch. xP I guess I need to make it so that the button disappears when someone's talking.
- James' gun thing...Actually, I had in there originally after the "Oh man...what have I gotten myself into? Threatening me with a gun like that... This guy is insane." But I figured it would be bad to turn the player off from him so soon. xP Perhaps I'll take out that pose, too, and save it for later. It is one of the "jokes" later, though, that he always whips out his gun at the worst times.
- Um...yes, that's entirely what it is: a hunt to find people. I tried to throw other things in there, like for designing the prototype, you'll eventually actually be able to choose parts for it and customize it, like the Character Creation screen. But...yeah.
The characters do have set schedules. That's why people "randomly sneak up behind you." They're in one location from this time to that time, then they're in another location from that time to another time. I realize the issue with Bridget, because most of the places where she can be found aren't unlocked at the beginning of the game.
- As for the money issue...if you become good enough friends with people, they'll give you more money. xD In fact, if you're good enough friends with James (I actually made this harder for the demo because I reached it so easily when I played, but perhaps I should make it easier again xD), he'll give you whatever money you don't have (in my case, that was about $800 or so) instead of just the $200 or whatever he normally gives you. Cadee and Mrs. Lacroeaux are the other two who will give you substantial investments if you're friends with them.

Is there anything in particular that you would suggest to make the tasks "less of a drag"?


chensterrain - Yes, the saving issue is a known bug (see the demo notes). >.o I'm not sure how to fix it, unfortunately. Sorry that you lost your save. ):
I think that if you save in one of the later slots that I didn't use for testing purposes - somewhere after the 5th slot, then it should save correctly, but I'm not sure.

[chensterrain]

Ah, I must have missed that somehow, sorry :B Still, I hadn't made it through the whole demo, so I'll give it another go at some point.

As for returning to the main menu at the end of the game,

Code: Select all

$ renpy.full_restart()

should do that for you (I don't know if the game goes back to the main menu or not, but I think that's a better way of doing it than 'return', anyway).

[broken_angel]

Okay, more comments now that I have some time.

Aleema:
- For the changing clothes bit and the weird expression...haha. It's because I used the same composite image, just with a different position, so it's based on whatever her last emotion was changed to. I'll fix that when I get home. xD
- Studying doesn't "fail" in the sense that you can perform the action while not gaining points, no. Eventually, there will be a mini-game there.
- I'll see if I can find a better way to separate the two actions, I guess.
- As for the sidebar...I wanted to keep it fairly simple and just give the basics (since you can check stats specifically with the Digi), but I can see how it would be handy to have stats listed in the sidebar, too. I'll change that.
- I'll see what I can do about the overlay screens disappearing...I thought I fixed it, but I guess not. )<
- To the "It's finally the weekend" bit...yeah, I meant to fix that. I just kept forgetting. xD;;
- The hunt to find people, as you discovered, lasts through the whole intro, up until you officially start your business. After that, though, the hunt ends and you'll be on your own. xD
- Continuing to raise your skills even after you've completed the task will be more important later on, since they'll affect how productive you are at work. But as of now...you're right, there's not much point in doing much with them after the initial bit.

- The money quest will be easier when I've got the part-time jobs up and running. That will also provide a means to pass the time, hopefully.

- Conversations as in...?
It's true that they don't have real conversations with you on a day-to-day basis. When you talk to them, they'll...well...talk, just a quick saying. Some are longer than others, and as you build your friendship level with them, those sayings will change into something a bit more than just "How are you?" "My brother's crazy" etc. Still, though, real conversations will mostly be limited to events. But there will be lots of them. C:

- As far as the locations and schedules...
As I said, people do have set schedules. You just have to figure out what they are. Eventually, you'll be able to hire James to give you information on the characters (including their schedules).

- As for the building a prototype bit, it's not a mystery! James explicitly says "You'll need to find people who know about engineering and artistic design." And if you talk to other characters, they'll tell you the same thing.

- As for Ani...he does have depth, I swear. .___. It's just not obvious yet. >.>

- For the setting...do you have any suggestions to make it more futuristic? The backgrounds will help once they're done, but I realize that in the story itself, it's mostly the same. I know that it's a classic example of Twenty Minutes Into the Future, but I'm also not sure how to fix that without making it so out there that it's unrelatable.


chensterrain:
Yay for a long post that's not all about what I did wrong.

I'll see what I can do to fix the randomly popping-up bit. I think I know how to fix it, so I'll do that when I get the chance.

I probably won't change the parts where you can do the business proposal stuff at the mall because, as Aleema pointed out, it's difficult enough to find them as it is. That would just make it even more frustrating. xP

And thanks! I'll try that code and hope that it works.

[nefferinthia]

Oh my god, demo~! I am downloading now and will edit once I finish. My reply probably won't be as elaborate as Aleema's though, I'm no good at giving advice OTL''