Unwoven (beta-version 1.1 released)

[Watercolorheart]

I made a brief picture to determine the look of the game, but since I'm not 100% sure if I should just do high-quality grayscale images yet (sketches) because I am afraid that I might eliminate the graphics-seeking crowd from my game, so used to seeing high-quality CG from me.

I asked my fiance on the matter and he demurred, saying that he preferred my complete CG work. And so, being as cheap as I am, I colored the sketch "flattened" in Photoshop and applied a basic gradient. The result is not as pleasing as images that I work on for 10+ hour each, but is not unwieldy to the eye either. My difficulty is that in larger scenes, even with the aid of a tablet, and 20 layers, coloring becomes unwieldy on very large, expansive backgrounds.

But the game, though I have written it myself and play it through very rapidly because of this, I estimate that the hour that it takes me to play it would take someone else two or three, especially to catch all the nuances if a character references something in the past and they find themselves backing up just to verify it or (more likely) catch something that they likely missed at the time, a subtle turn of words.

As for the story, I'm at over 100,000 words (just from a text dump, not including programming ...) and not finished with the first arc yet.

The thought of making graphics for it is ... staggering, considering all the possible situations and places the game covers, and I shudder to think of doing it as anything but sketches. I have no artist (or writer) of my level that I can work with, and I am no Fate-Stay Night artist, cannot make 100+ beautiful CG images by myself without going completely insane.

However, I was wondering if people were willing to beta-test the "incomplete" version with the first path with about 8 endings tacked onto it, but if an option has nothing written for it yet then it will simply flip you back to the original menu you started from, leaving you to select the other choice instead.

That is,

Code: Select all

"Yes."
"No."

And you select no, which has not been written for, and are given the choice to make over again.

Even on the forums and in the games released, I have not seen one approaching the level of the writing ... it starts out blandly enough, with no little bit of mystery, but the world broadens abruptly when your visitor starts telling you his story.

[Watercolorheart]

So I don't completely lose people, I included a selection from the game itself (if you don't want to spoil the first bit of the game, for whatever reason, just scroll quickly down until you hit another block of bold text:
















"The phone rings directly beside you, causing you to start up out of a sound sleep."

"The room is bright, making you wince."

"You fumble for the receiver. Your hand eventually feels the smooth curve of the back of it, and you knock it off the hook. You reach down to grab the phone that is dangling and spinning beside your bed."

""Hello?""

""Hello, old friend," greets a warm voice."

"You breathe out in disbelief, as memories come rushing back to you in waves."

""Get up, and come answer the door. You have slept right through my knocking," he admonishes you gently."

"You groan loudly, and slam the headset down on the receiver. It slides and falls off the nightstand. You shuffle through the house, and arrive at the door."

"Although you know it isn't necessary, you look through the peephole. An enormous eye meets your vision, and you stumble backwards in momentary terror before barking out an involuntary laugh."

"You open the door slowly. He grins at you, and flips shut his cell phone. "I was afraid that I was going to have to call you again." He pauses, looking you over from bottom to top. "I guess you really were sleeping soundly - you are not exactly dressed for company.""

"You mumble something in response ("Siddown'n relax, ut'll beuhminute ...")\ and retreat back into the safety of your bedroom. He laughs lightly from the other room. After choosing an outfit somewhere between casual and formal and brushing your hair quickly, you reemerge."

"Your visitor is already in your kitchen, inserting a filter into the receptacle and pouring a coffee into it."

"He turns your coffeemaker on. It burbles happily, and you perk up slightly. He turns around. You suddenly notice something sitting on the edge of the counter."

"He and you both look down at it at the same time. You stare at it for a long time, as if contemplating an old and puzzling work of art. When you meet his eyes again, he watches you appraisingly, awaiting a response. The silence is flush with hope, yet laced with dread."

""No," you breathe softly. "How did you get that?""

"He smoothly picks up the object and slides it back into his pocket. "Do you remember when you once made me promise to tell you everything, and I told you to wait until the right time?""

"Remember?"

"How could you ever forget?"

"It never did become the "right time" ... ultimately, that was what drove the two of you apart so long ago, when he simply refused to continue on the subject every time you reminded him. He visits you about once a year, but this is the first time that he has ever started this line of questioning."

"You nod slowly, unable to quite meet his eyes. Your stomach flutters with anticipation, but not pleasantly."

"He sighs deeply. "Take a seat, my friend. This will take some time, and the coffee will not be ready for several more minutes.""

"Bemused, you sit down hard on the sofa in the living room, bouncing slightly."

"On his way out of your kitchen, he picks up a solid oak chair from the dining room by its back, lifting it easily with one hand as he follows you."

"He sets it down across from the sofa, sits down on it, and looks at you intently. You glance briefly towards the loveseat nearby, your thoughts written on your face."

""I would prefer to face you directly," he explains."

"You think that perhaps he could have carried that loveseat with only slightly less ease than the large wooden chair out of the dining room, but choose not to voice your suspicions yet."

""Why now?" you ask slowly."

""Well, I did not expect to hear you say that," he remarks dryly. Your gaze hardens as you narrow your eyes at him."

"He clears his throat, swallows, and sits back a bit, as if honestly afraid that you would come to blows with him already. "Peace, my friend. I will get to that.""

"You make a circular gesture with your hand, nodding quickly, as if to say go on, go on. Your visitor settles back into your chair more comfortably, takes a deep breath, and begins."

"You reflect later that it was around this time that your life began to become neatly unwoven."

""Outside the school, the raindrops pattered dolefully, slipping in sprays off leaves bowing gently beneath their weight. The school - as you might remember - was that slightly decrepit old mansion, donated to our county in the will of some dead minister that had claimed the place as his hometown.""

"It was then later converted to a private school, which we both attended. That night, a boy waited outside, oblivious to the storm. Students ran from the entrance, eager to get on their way home, backs bowed by the rain. Some clutched umbrellas as though it was their last living possession."

"The wind howled with a fury, and the occasional shutter would bang open with a dull thud."

"He sat on a bench with his head down, his dark blonde hair covering his face when another student came over and sat down next to him. She pulled a towel out of her bag and draped it over his shoulders, much to his surprise."

"Another student was with her, standing nearby and trying to angle the umbrella so that it still covered both him and her."

"The boy looked up, rearranging the towel to cover his head and said, "Thank you.""

"A peal of thunder broke the drone of the rain on the grass and rooftop."

"The girl pushed the dark brown hair blowing in her face out of the way and asked, "What are you doing out here, in this weather?""

"The student next to her added: "You'll catch your death of cold.""

""When you said everything, you really meant it.""

"You smile at him slightly, the old memory suddenly becoming fresh again as he describes it to you once more. He nods in agreement, obviously eager to continue."

""But you're referring to yourself in the third person?" you ask suddenly."

"He looks pained. "Please do not interrupt ... I have my reasons. This is very hard for me and ... I might leave if it becomes too difficult.""

"You shut your mouth sharply, chastened. He starts again."

"He took a good look at them. The boy with the umbrella was whip-thin, with a sunken chest. His cheeks were emaciated, which served to accentuate a darkly burning gaze while the girl was tanned, her face lean and feline, dominated by flashing jade-green eyes below a high, wide forehead."

"You almost begin to protest the description, but his preemptive glare stops you dead."

"The boy replied, "I was here waiting for my ride, but they have not come yet.""

"The girl made a mewl of sympathy. "How long have you been out here waiting? Why didn't you just go inside?""

""They wouldn't be able to see him from the car, if he went inside," the student beside her explained."

""It would be the next place to look," she scoffed."

""That is not why I did not go inside.""

"They both turned to look at him. "Then why?""

"He smiled, and turned his head upwards toward the sky. The rain was already beginning to soften, and the sun was shining even as it continued to rain."

""Because the rain has never bothered me, and I love the sound of thunder and the lightning. It makes me think of fireworks.""

"There was a thoughtful pause."

""You're weird," the girl said, shaking her head."

""Where do you live? Perhaps we could take you home," the other boy offered. The girl looked at him sharply."

""Downtown, on Fourth Avenue," he replied."

""Oy vey ... that is a bit out of the way from here, isn't it?" he amended."

""Yes.""

"The girl muttered something under her breath. "What was that?" the boy with the umbrella prompted her."

"She leaned toward him, and said it again in the same low whisper."

"He frowned slightly. "Don't worry. I'll handle it.""

"She looked at him doubtfully, but did not reply. The other boy looked up at the sky and noticed that the rain had lessened into a bare drizzle, hardly enough to moisten anybody."

"He shook his umbrella off, collapsed it, and tucked it into a pocket of his backpack."

""Hey, so what's your name, kid?" he asked, extending his hand to the boy on the bench. The boy stared at him for a moment, considering, and then took his hand. The other boy helped him to his feet and then let go."

""Noland.""

""I'm sorry?""

""My name is Noland," he repeated, a bit louder. The brunette did a double take, then moved her brown hair behind her ear."

""Ah ... oh ... so you're ... Well, that's an unusual name, isn't it?" the boy said hurriedly."

"Noland lowered his head slightly, breaking eye contact. "You were going to say something else," he said softly."

""Ah ... hrrmm," he cleared his throat noisily, "Well, my name is Koji. Pleasure to meet you.""

""Tanya. Tanya Miyazuki," the girl offered curtly, bowing stiffly at the waist."

"Noland inclined his head respectfully towards both of them then sat back down on the bench. Some of the wind was taken out of his sails now that he had been forced to admit a great deal of time had passed since when he had expected his ride to come."

""Noland!""

"He looked up."

""I'll take you home if you like," the other boy said, fingering his shirt absentmindedly. Tanya gave him an odd look and crossed her arms."

""And how do you figure that to work?" she asked in the slightly supercilious tone she always used when addressing Koji."

"Koji gave him the once-over. "He's not so big, probably doesn't weigh much more than I do ... I can handle it.""

"She shrugged. "Suit yourself. But I'm taking my umbrella back; you'll just have to get wet if it rains again.""

""I am already wet," Noland pointed out. She favored him with a dark look."

"Tanya put her hand on Koji's shoulder, spinning him around with a shove, and dug the umbrella out of a pocket in his backpack. He ducked his head sheepishly."

"The brunette turned on her heel, and stalked off toward the parking lot. Perhaps to compensate for her lack of height, she moved with long, loping strides. Noland almost imagined that he could see her hackles raised, her ears flat, and her tail puffed up with irritation."

""I'm sorry about her.""

""It is not your fault.""

""Come on," Koji said with a rueful laugh. "My bike is over there.""

""Your bike?" Noland asked, taken aback. He had half-expected Koji to carry him, based on the girl's reaction."

"Koji pointed helpfully at it."

"Together, they walked toward it. He spotted it chained to a metal rack. It was a sleek model, painted chrome green, and looked to be fairly expensive. The only thing that struck him as congruous was the feminine basket in the front, and a blue bell attached to the handlebar."

""Shit!" Koji cried. "She took my bike!""

""How?""

""She must have swapped the keys when I wasn't looking ..." Koji grumbled."

""Will you still be able to take me home?" Noland asked."

""Yeah," mumbled Koji, "But I'll look pretty silly doing it ... though I would have looked silly already ...""

""What? I didn't quite hear you.""

""Oh, nothing ...""

"Noland examined the bike more closely. "How are we both going to fit?""

"Koji grinned at him. "Well, you have two options: handlebars or behind the seat.""

"Noland grimaced."

After that, I think I'd take a little bit of the magic out of the story if I included the bicycle scene, as well as spoiling more of the first few chapters, so I just chose to leave off there.

[monele]

if an option has nothing written for it yet then it will simply flip you back to the original menu you started from, leaving you to select the other choice instead.

I thought about the same scheme, but would just add something else to the choices such as brackets or an italic format to help even more.

[mikey]

It's looking very good, hopefully you'll bring out the full game some time soon! Anyway, that sort of included my answer towards betatesting, it just looks too promising and too big to "spoil" that for myself by being involved. I'm really looking forward, as this really has the potential to be something very special and I just want the full experience.

[papillon]

As I regularly torment my own primary tester with a story that updates only tiny fragments at a time, I know the pain and suffering involved. I am willing to beta an unfinished project of this level, with two caveats:

1. I can be... flaky. I am involved in a lot of things, like working on my own games, and don't always manage to keep up voluntary commitments without nagging. Nagging me is perfectly fine and should get a response eventually, but I have had testers in the past who I know are much better about getting work in than I am. For this reason I do not make a good primary volunteer tester.

(If you would like me to give you the email address of someone who DID test Cute Knight quite diligently, I can do that. )

2. I am very picky and opinionated about language usage. I will complain about tiny things. Like:

"The brunette did a double take, then moved her brown hair behind her ear."

I would complain about the usage of BROWN hair so close to BRUNETTE being redundant.

[Watercolorheart]

As I regularly torment my own primary tester with a story that updates only tiny fragments at a time, I know the pain and suffering involved. I am willing to beta an unfinished project of this level, with two caveats:

1. I can be... flaky. I am involved in a lot of things, like working on my own games, and don't always manage to keep up voluntary commitments without nagging. Nagging me is perfectly fine and should get a response eventually, but I have had testers in the past who I know are much better about getting work in than I am. For this reason I do not make a good primary volunteer tester.


2. I am very picky and opinionated about language usage. I will complain about tiny things. Like:

"The brunette did a double take, then moved her brown hair behind her ear."

I would complain about the usage of BROWN hair so close to BRUNETTE being redundant.

Number 2 is perfectly fine. I have my own ... nitpicks that I fix every time I read the story and find one, one being that as Noland tells his part of the story he never is supposed to use a contraction. I don't know why he does it, but he just never uses a contraction unless he's really pissed, stressed, or otherwise distracted. One character comments eventually that it's strange that he speaks "almost perfect idiomatic Japanese" but it doesn't come up again until later.

Koji, being much more relaxed, (in the second-person, present-tense parts of the story) is a bit more subjective and does use contractions.

Number 1 sounds too much like me ... if you can stand huge gaping holes where a segment of story is just completely missing because I haven't written it yet.

I also regularly consult my fiance and another friend Megan Christianson who has a published novel called Aka Shinima ... so it takes a little while for ideas to form cohesively, and make it into a current beta version circulated between them.

[PyTom]

BTW, if you'd like, I can review your script for Ren'Py issues. While I don't have the time to give it a proper review, I can at the very least take a look and see if there's anything that can be made easier or more correct on the programming side of things.

If I had to guess from your excerpt, you seem to be using "\"foo\"" a bit, which is usually unnecessary. One can use the what_prefix and what_suffix arguments to Character to eliminate a need to type quotes on every line.

[Watercolorheart]

BTW, if you'd like, I can review your script for Ren'Py issues. While I don't have the time to give it a proper review, I can at the very least take a look and see if there's anything that can be made easier or more correct on the programming side of things.

If I had to guess from your excerpt, you seem to be using "\"foo\"" a bit, which is usually unnecessary. One can use the what_prefix and what_suffix arguments to Character to eliminate a need to type quotes on every line.

Okay, when I update my script again, I'll try to remember to leave the rapidshare link here.

Also, just as a caveat to beta-testers: Game is nowhere near complete, and has spoilers thrown in everywhere at the end, because the events that proceed it haven't been written yet.

[Watercolorheart]

I know where this passage fits in at, though I haven't stuck the whole sequence into the game yet. I'd thought I'd take it out of context and post it here just for kicks and giggles.

Noland was suddenly struck by a memory from his youth.

As a child, he lived in a one-bedroom apartment with his mother. She slept in the small bedroom while he stayed in the living room.

This might have seemed unfair at first, but he had the better part of the deal.

The old couch folded out into a bed, and there was a small television in the common room. His collection of toys, books, and rocks was stored in a flat cardboard box beneath the couch, tucked safely out of the way.

On the other hand, his mother's room was unbearably cramped. He said as much when he was first offered it. She had joked that she was a claustrophile and preferred small spaces, but he knew that she didn't enjoy it any more than he did.

Her bed was shoved up against the wall, and somehow a battered dresser, a wooden chair, a desk, and an organizer were coaxed to fit in the space left over.

There was hardly room to sit comfortably on the floor, but just enough room to sidle around the bed and slump into the chair, in front of a cluttered desk. This was what she did at the end of each day, staring forlornly at pay stubs and bills.

Meanwhile, he would be in the living room with most of the lights off, letting the gentle golden glow of the streetlamps pour into the room from the double windows. He kept them open at night, allowing the fresh air to blow over him.

At bedtime, his mother would shut the windows and the curtains against the night, and turn on his nightlight. Though he did not say anything about it, he would turn it off after she had retired to her own room.

Unlike most people, he loved the twilight and the comfort of the shadows around him. They did not inspire him with fear, but blanketed him with the unknowable, the unponderable infinity.

He used to imagine he could see into the depths of space by peering into that darkness.

He let the vague shapes of the moldings of the ceiling impress themselves upon him, imagining tiny stars and galaxies that were scattered like clumps of glitter glued to a piece of paper.

He would imagine a winking double star, orbitted by its invisible twin ... or the incredible miasma of the black hole, said to crush all matter and even trap light itself ... what could be found at the center, then, the singularity?

Would one find the same material one might find at the dawn of time, or would it just be a compacted little orb, billions and billions of atoms all shoved together to fuse into some kind of super-hard, white-hot essence?

Sometimes, he would bore of these expansive thoughts and crawl out of bed quietly. It would be impossible to tell what time it was by then, whether he had fallen asleep and risen again close to dawn or if an hour had crawled by without notice.

He would go to raise the blinds up and look outside through those double windows at the real night sky, the tiny twinkling lights of the city staining the horizon below.

Noland kept a small plastic cup on the window ledge for times like these.

During the evening, small moths and gnats would find their way into the common room through the cracked windows, by blind luck or by some sort of curiosity to explore a new territory, rich with smells invisible to him, sensed only by antennae.

No matter what reason, they would cluster helplessly at the only place that reminded them of the earlier sunshine of the day: the glass of the window that allowed in the scant light outside.

They would progress across it in a sort of hopping motion, flying around and then landing briefly.

He would take his transparent cup and try to trap an insect beneath it then carefully slide his hand over the opening.

If he was successful, he could then transfer it to the window ledge beneath the upside-down cup to examine it more closely. If he was unlucky, it would simply escape again through the crack beneath skin and plastic.

Of the moths, he would release them back into his bedroom to catch again another night, after memorizing its individual species and features in order to distinguish it.

They did not live long.

Moth corpses littered the corners of the living room, decomposing softly in the dust behind the couch and underneath the television.

Morbidly, he imagined that they would grow weaker and weaker and finally crawl into the dark spaces they feared so much, to die without struggling anymore.

Of the gnats, he caught them only because of their small size and the challenge they presented. He did not bother to observe them for long because they all looked the same to him. Who could distinguish one gnat from another?

When he was finished with them, he would lift the cup from the windowsill, covering it with his hand, and turn it right-side up.

Noland would wait until the gnat flew onto his palm, then cup it inside his hand swiftly. He was proud at the time to think that he had never let one escape from that position so far.

After that, he would crush it.

The simple malice of a child, grown bored with gnats and moths. One garnered a quick death, and the other a slow, agonizing one.

I've finally got some kind of assembly ready for release, clocking in at around 40 MB right now. I'm uploading it to rapidshare.de so that it will be freely available to everyone.

I've no doubt that the sound and music files are bloating the size so if anyone is having THAT much trouble getting it because of size, I'll rip the sounds out and distribute it again without them.

Over the weekend, I was stuck on dial-up so now I'm sensitive to the needs of those with lesser connection speeds.

Oh, and I know that the game is very ... gapped. I apologize in advance.

[Watercolorheart]

Here's the link: http://rapidshare.de/files/13621391/Unwoven.zip.html

And here's the directions:

Scroll down until you see this:

Select your download: [PREMIUM] [FREE]

Click "Free."

Wait for your "download ticket" to come up (usually takes about 40 seconds on my LAN connection) then download the file.

Select your mirror.

Enter the letters you see in that little image in the box next to it. For example, I had to enter "SNJ"

Download the file.
Happy beta-testing!

[PyTom]

Okay, I grabbed the script, and looked over it for a bit. I don't see any major problems with the script itself. (Although you did ship the saves/persistent file with the game, which shouldn't be done in the final release.)

There's an issue with pronouns in the script:

"\"Where do you live? Perhaps we could take you home,\" the other boy offered. The girl looked at him sharply."

"\"Downtown, on Fourth Avenue,\" he replied."

"\"{i}Oy vey{/i} ... that is a bit out of the way from here, isn't it?\" he amended."

I'd suggest that this is somewhat ambiguous even when read as text here. When it's shown to you one screen at a time, it's that much harder to track who's saying what.

Traditional VNs solve this by usually having the character that is speaking indicated. If you don't want to do that, as it looks likeyou don't, you need to at least make it less ambiguous by using adjectives ("the redheaded boy") or names ("Jimmy") instead of pronouns. ("he")

Ditto the first menu: It has two choices ("Yes" and "No"), and seems to refer to something said before, although I'm still not sure what it is it refers to ("Are you dressed for company?", maybe, but that was a question asked a half-dozen screeens before.) In general, you want to indicate the precise question you're answering either in a menu, or at most at the screen before.

Anyway, I'm mostly going to stop here. I don't want to ruin a 100,000+ word game by reading it before it's done.

Oh, and upgrade your Ren'Py! I do occasionally make bug-fixes and the like.

[Watercolorheart]

Okay, I grabbed the script, and looked over it for a bit. I don't see any major problems with the script itself. (Although you did ship the saves/persistent file with the game, which shouldn't be done in the final release.)

There's an issue with pronouns in the script:

"\"Where do you live? Perhaps we could take you home,\" the other boy offered. The girl looked at him sharply."

"\"Downtown, on Fourth Avenue,\" he replied."

"\"{i}Oy vey{/i} ... that is a bit out of the way from here, isn't it?\" he amended."

I'd suggest that this is somewhat ambiguous even when read as text here. When it's shown to you one screen at a time, it's that much harder to track who's saying what.

Traditional VNs solve this by usually having the character that is speaking indicated. If you don't want to do that, as it looks likeyou don't, you need to at least make it less ambiguous by using adjectives ("the redheaded boy") or names ("Jimmy") instead of pronouns. ("he")

Ditto the first menu: It has two choices ("Yes" and "No"), and seems to refer to something said before, although I'm still not sure what it is it refers to ("Are you dressed for company?", maybe, but that was a question asked a half-dozen screeens before.) In general, you want to indicate the precise question you're answering either in a menu, or at most at the screen before.

Anyway, I'm mostly going to stop here. I don't want to ruin a 100,000+ word game by reading it before it's done.

Oh, and upgrade your Ren'Py! I do occasionally make bug-fixes and the like.

Yes or No is not a response to a given question, in fact, but a response by the character to an item Noland left on the counter. It's not even mentioned again until the latter half of the game.

As for the pronouns, I am not writing this in Visual Novel format but in novel format so though I can fix the part you're talking about by mentioning the character's names, I'm afraid you're just going to have to live with trying to muddle through.

[Watercolorheart]

(sigh)

Seeing as how both my beta-testers and the Ren'Py community as a whole has pretty much ignored me, I've just decided to turn the whole thing into an actual novel that I'll try to get published, deciding to use a combination of two main arcs for the text itself.

[Alessio]

It's not that anybody's ignoring you... we're just all busy fighting with the Death Clock... dear me, still two chapters to finish... ^_^;;;;;;

[rioka]

1) Concurs with Alessio (Bah, gotta get moving with them images... >.<)
2) I'd prefer not see a game until its fully complete, and
3) Generally busy at the moment.