Our Hearts, Your Days (BxG, School VN) [1st Demo Released!]

[Shadios]

Congratulations on pushing this out, Shadios. Editing your first post to add the link to the demo is a good idea, it will make it easier for people interested in playing it to find it.

I'm super busy right now, but I'll keep it safely in my disk and I promise I'll check it out in a couple of weeks.

Thanks and that's been done, I hope you enjoy it

[Shadios]

Just wondering if anyone's gotten around to having a look at it.

If you have, I wouldn't mind if you could give me some things about it.

[Neolem]

Yes, I have just played it
Looks fine and liked the story so far, but I think the date thing can be much smaller.
It even block the whole face here
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/842/aaaajw.jpg/

And I cannot get to the 3rd day, because spoiler (

after saving Terilo and getting back to the class

) I get this.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/42/errorubm.jpg/

[Samu-kun]

I played the demo hoping for a good experience. Unfortunately, upon returning, I have mostly problems with it.

The first and the most important problem is that you locked the text speed. Pytom has provided us with a fine engine that gives us user friendly options, such as the ability to set the text speed, so there is absolutely no reason to hard lock the text speed. It wouldn't have been so bad if the text speed was reasonably fast, but it was literally crawling at not even half my read speed. I am not going to play a game that does not let me set the text speed, just like I am not going to read a book that doesn't let me turn the page until a set amount of time has passed. This alone pretty much killed the demo for me.

But I carried on, hoping there would be a good story behind the technical problems. But then I realized there wasn't any such thing awaiting me.

First, the characters are not believable.
The protagonist running out of class to the aid of a girl who he met for a total of 10 seconds the day before, and then having a random Q&A session in the infirmary is astoundingly improbable. Why would he run out of class because he saw through the window a girl he met the day before for 10 seconds being picked on by a gym teacher? Why would anyone do that? The entire notion is implausible at best and offensively paternalistic at worst. Moe is about defending cute girls, but this is way beyond satire and approaches farce.
The protagonist goes through really abrupt changes in character. The man jumps class the very first day of school, and then suddenly becomes interested in studying the second day for no apparent reason. I'm finding the guy's motivations difficult to follow.
Mio's behavior is further unbelievable. If I were the captain of an archery club, and I saw two delinquents skipping class and messing around with dangerous bows and arrows, my first thought would be to chase them away. And yet, Cool Captain of the Archery Club randomly gives the protagonist an archery lesson. Trespassing on club property would be a violation of the rules, and yet Cool Captain of the Archery Club immediately affirms the protagonist's negative behavior. I am willing to grant that the characters are supposed to fall for the protagonist, but this just too extreme.

Second, the setting is not believable.
This is not the Japan that exists in real life. This is not even the Japan that exists in animes. This is a fantasyland which the creator allegedly calls Japan, made from picking out the most noticeable tropes of anime and manga and pasting them in a background of assumptions.
The setting was left ambiguous the whole time. There's no mention of what it's like to be in a Catholic school in Japan, which in of itself would be a pretty unique experience. Everything about the archery club is like is left vague. And most sadly of all, the only experience of living in Japan described in any detail at all was the otaku anime club, which sadly is probably what the writer knows best about Japan. It's an amorphous setting, left vague and empty for a dearth of knowledge.
Most tragically of all, there is no mention of sakura blossoms, which would be in full bloom at that time of year. They are everywhere and you simply cannot go outside, much less go near a high school, without being caught in a flurry of blossoms.

[Shadios]

Yes, I have just played it
Looks fine and liked the story so far, but I think the date thing can be much smaller.
It even block the whole face here
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/842/aaaajw.jpg/

And I cannot get to the 3rd day, because spoiler (

after saving Terilo and getting back to the class

) I get this.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/42/errorubm.jpg/

FUUUUUUU---- I'll get onto fixing that error ASAP and the date will be fixed in the second demo

I played the demo hoping for a good experience. Unfortunately, upon returning, I have mostly problems with it.

The first and the most important problem is that you locked the text speed. Pytom has provided us with a fine engine that gives us user friendly options, such as the ability to set the text speed, so there is absolutely no reason to hard lock the text speed. It wouldn't have been so bad if the text speed was reasonably fast, but it was literally crawling at not even half my read speed. I am not going to play a game that does not let me set the text speed, just like I am not going to read a book that doesn't let me turn the page until a set amount of time has passed. This alone pretty much killed the demo for me.

But I carried on, hoping there would be a good story behind the technical problems. But then I realized there wasn't any such thing awaiting me.

First, the characters are not believable.
The protagonist running out of class to the aid of a girl who he met for a total of 10 seconds the day before, and then having a random Q&A session in the infirmary is astoundingly improbable. Why would he run out of class because he saw through the window a girl he met the day before for 10 seconds being picked on by a gym teacher? Why would anyone do that? The entire notion is implausible at best and offensively paternalistic at worst. Moe is about defending cute girls, but this is way beyond satire and approaches farce.
The protagonist goes through really abrupt changes in character. The man jumps class the very first day of school, and then suddenly becomes interested in studying the second day for no apparent reason. I'm finding the guy's motivations difficult to follow.
Mio's behavior is further unbelievable. If I were the captain of an archery club, and I saw two delinquents skipping class and messing around with dangerous bows and arrows, my first thought would be to chase them away. And yet, Cool Captain of the Archery Club randomly gives the protagonist an archery lesson. Trespassing on club property would be a violation of the rules, and yet Cool Captain of the Archery Club immediately affirms the protagonist's negative behavior. I am willing to grant that the characters are supposed to fall for the protagonist, but this just too extreme.

Second, the setting is not believable.
This is not the Japan that exists in real life. This is not even the Japan that exists in animes. This is a fantasyland which the creator allegedly calls Japan, made from picking out the most noticeable tropes of anime and manga and pasting them in a background of assumptions.
The setting was left ambiguous the whole time. There's no mention of what it's like to be in a Catholic school in Japan, which in of itself would be a pretty unique experience. Everything about the archery club is like is left vague. And most sadly of all, the only experience of living in Japan described in any detail at all was the otaku anime club, which sadly is probably what the writer knows best about Japan. It's an amorphous setting, left vague and empty for a dearth of knowledge.
Most tragically of all, there is no mention of sakura blossoms, which would be in full bloom at that time of year. They are everywhere and you simply cannot go outside, much less go near a high school, without being caught in a flurry of blossoms.

Okay, thanks for being brutally honest with your constructive critisism, I'm actually kinda glad YOU of all people were to say all that.

But I'll try to explain myself with most of the problems;

1st: I guess it makes more sense as to why that happens if you did the Terilo choice on the first day, I'll rectify that for the second demo so that only is triggered if you performed that option (And before you ask, the scene between them at lunch was more or less longer than it was in the text but I felt like if I wrote a full 15 to 20 minute lunch scene between those two it would drag on too much.) Also, I do realise that some of the things that happen in this are satrical at best and even borderlining ridiculous and I apologise, but believe me when I say this, I'm planning to make it better in the next demo (Terilo's full route)

I guess I didn't really explain Vlad's decision to go with Renshi on the first day all that well, I'm thinking more bits should be added in order to make it so that his actions are not so sudden and hard to follow to the reader.

The first encounter with Mio I guess could be re-written to ensure that happens at first, but with much convincing the outcome could be the same.

2nd: I guess I kinda did write off the whole setting as a huge trope of the Japanese setting in general, keep in mind most of this was written while I was still a huge daily anime watching freak so Japanese setting tropes were embedded into my brain as a mental default, I apologise for making that stupid choice for the setting, but I think if I started to re-write the setting now, It'd take me back a fair bit, confliction thy name is stereotyping.

Believe me when I say this, most of the stuff that's not explained will most likely be explained further as I push the routes out, three days is not enough to flesh out and establish everything all at once, that'd be rushing it along too much in my honest opinion. Depth and everything else will be added in soon enough, don't worry

Finally, I honestly cannot believe with everything written in there so far, I never once mentioned cherry blossoms, you may proceed to nuke me with a thousand bombs for this (In all seriousness, I'll try and implement them into the setting in the next demo)

[sciencewarrior]

I finally found some time to go through the demo, and I'm glad to see you taking Sumu-kun's "tough love" critique to heart. Be careful with explaining things later; if your players feel they can't ignore something, they may end up stopping playing before they reach the explanation.

As someone who is writing a game in a similar setting, let me say that I know how surprisingly hard it is. Anime represents actual Japanese high-school life as Wizards of the Waverly Place does for America. So don't be afraid of rewriting. I was supposed to be pushing out a demo by now, but I threw away twenty-two-thousand-word script (and I'm a slow writer), and I think it was the best thing I could have done for the project.

[Celestine]

There's a scene where you can see Vlad. When Renshi introduces himself to Vlad. Vlad behind Renshi in this scene. Can see bit of his head and hair. And I think you did March 6 Tue twice by mistake.

I like Vlad surprise look & Terilo smile it's really nice.
Gosh I love these expressions. But that sound of them running up and down the stairs, I thought something was going to fall down the stairs everytime I hear it. Then realized their running on stairs.
Do you think you'd be able to change that sound of them running? To something different. Just wondering.

Hey is that really true for shooting arrows? Must been doing it wrong then when I was a kid.

Setsuna made me laugh she reminded me of Melvin and that egg-eating-alien obsessed chick from To Heart 2, I forgot her name. Lol.

Nice backgrounds I really like the one on the outside field looking towards the school building. That building is so in detail. Whoever drew objects really good. Like the vcr.

physique honesty competition just in case you missed them.

I enjoyed the demo. It was really entertaining. It reminds me of watching anime. I like how you added so much characteristics into the characters and even in the multiple Q's. The answers weren't what I expect. I might just play them again just to see all the different responses there are. But I was going to save it for the full game itself.
But why is Vlad such an a** towards Renshi when he's showing him around the school. I think that was a bit aggravating
But otherwise I loved the demo. Hope you'll add some more music during the game once in awhile when you do the next one if you can.

[Shadios]

There's a scene where you can see Vlad. When Renshi introduces himself to Vlad. Vlad behind Renshi in this scene. Can see bit of his head and hair. And I think you did March 6 Tue twice by mistake.

I like Vlad surprise look & Terilo smile it's really nice.
Gosh I love these expressions. But that sound of them running up and down the stairs, I thought something was going to fall down the stairs everytime I hear it. Then realized their running on stairs.
Do you think you'd be able to change that sound of them running? To something different. Just wondering.

First off, the idea is that, unlike most visual novels, you actually get to see what the protagonist looks like outside of CG's, it's presented visually in a third person view, but the dialogue is all first person.

Thanks, to give credit where credit is due you should really be thanking the awesome person who did these sprites his/herself, I will credit him/her when the time comes but I can't be the one to take credi for the awesome design of the sprites

And also everything in this is currently a placeholder for the real deal, all the backgrounds and sound effects are placeholders for the final product.

Hey is that really true for shooting arrows? Must been doing it wrong then when I was a kid.

Not sure, it's just what I remember from when I took lessons as a kid.

Setsuna made me laugh she reminded me of Melvin and that egg-eating-alien obsessed chick from To Heart 2, I forgot her name. Lol.

Yup, Setsuna's ment to be crazy, it's part of her personality (Which has nothing to do with her being an otaku)

Nice backgrounds I really like the one on the outside field looking towards the school building. That building is so in detail. Whoever drew objects really good. Like the vcr.

I may or may not leave those in, I'll see when it gets close to the completion.

physique honesty competition just in case you missed them.

Huh? Are you pointing out typo's for me?

I enjoyed the demo. It was really entertaining. It reminds me of watching anime. I like how you added so much characteristics into the characters and even in the multiple Q's. The answers weren't what I expect. I might just play them again just to see all the different responses there are. But I was going to save it for the full game itself.

That's kind of the feel I was attempting to get, something of a story you'd find in Anime or VN's...except done my own way.
And don't worry, you don't need to wait for the full game to do the different answers, it's gonna be a while for the next demo to come out.

But why is Vlad such an a** towards Renshi when he's showing him around the school. I think that was a bit aggravating

This is kind of a throwback to Sunohara and Tomoya's relationship in CLANNAD with Tomoya (Vlad) always stirring the hell out of Sunohara (Renshi).

But otherwise I loved the demo. Hope you'll add some more music during the game once in awhile when you do the next one if you can.

Don't worry, expect more music in the next demo, I just wanted to get it out without worrying about most of the music being in there.

[Celestine]

Thanks, to give credit where credit is due you should really be thanking the awesome person who did these sprites his/herself, I will credit him/her when the time comes but I can't be the one to take credi for the awesome design of the sprites

And also everything in this is currently a placeholder for the real deal, all the backgrounds and sound effects are placeholders for the final product.

Well I would say who by but I don't know who did your sprites.

physique honesty competition just in case you missed them.

Huh? Are you pointing out typo's for me?

Yeah sorry I saw them in the demo and thought I'd just point them out.

I enjoyed the demo. It was really entertaining. It reminds me of watching anime. I like how you added so much characteristics into the characters and even in the multiple Q's. The answers weren't what I expect. I might just play them again just to see all the different responses there are. But I was going to save it for the full game itself.

That's kind of the feel I was attempting to get, something of a story you'd find in Anime or VN's...except done my own way.
And don't worry, you don't need to wait for the full game to do the different answers, it's gonna be a while for the next demo to come out.

I'm glad. I don't think you always need realism as long it fits the way your meaning to express your creativity. Mentioning Clannad below is an example of it I think.

But why is Vlad such an a** towards Renshi when he's showing him around the school. I think that was a bit aggravating

This is kind of a throwback to Sunohara and Tomoya's relationship in CLANNAD with Tomoya (Vlad) always stirring the hell out of Sunohara (Renshi).

Oh I get it now.