Lemma Soft Forums

The Alumnus

Story Script Demo

DISCLAIMER: This VN has crude language, mild sexual suggestion, exaggerated stereotyping (for satire), in the future may contain sensitive topics involving high school drama set in America. I would rate this T for people age 13 and over to read

Hoping to get an idea if this VN is a flop to the public or something worth putting extra time into, any writing critique welcomed.
Screenshot







What the story is about

For many of us high-school is when our lives begins. We make friends, we fall in love, and grades actually counts for college.

Still, high-school wasn't all fun and cheers for everybody. People have regretted of the choices they've made during high-school. According to a survey conducted by Classmates.com around 60% of adults regretted not studying harder or getting into college for a better job.

This story is about a guy who is twenty-something name Zack. Zack had a hard life where he got fired from his blue collar job, and will soon be evicted from his apartment. While he was asleep, his soul got thrown back in time by a spunky teenage-looking girl named “M”. He wakes up to find himself in his sixteen year-old body in the past. Yes, Zack is a high-school student again!

As a payment for rewinding his life, Zack will have to resolve people's past regret. The targets, known as the chosen ones, are unique students from different social groups in high-school. Zack's mission is to get close to them and resolve their regrets. As a reward he can redo his life and try to become an elite in society. How will Zack redo his life and what kind of regrets can high-school teenagers have?

What are label cards?



Label cards are given to M, by her unnamed boss, as a way to find the chosen ones through time and dimensions. Chosen ones are people who have regrets which caught the fancy of the “boss”. The chosen one's regrets can vary in size and severity, but they all interest the "boss". Other than M, all the other eight characters are chosen ones and have a label card linked to them.

As the word "label" cards indicates, they are tarot-like cards with a image of the chosen one and how they are labeled by others. The label card allows M to determine if Zack is coming close to resolving the chosen one's regret.

Meet the characters


1st Draft, will spend a month trying to redrawing them better

M - Female

Despite looking and sometimes behaving like a immature teenage girl. It becomes clear that M is not what she seems.
Pretending to be Zack's legal guardian, M and Zack goes on a mission to resolve regrets from highschool student chosen by label cards.
M will not hesitate to make Zack jump through hoops as long it's amusing to her, but she does care for Zack's overall welfare.

Zack - Male
Label Card “The Loner”

The main character and a twenty-something year old guy trap in his sixteen year old body.
In his past high school life, Zack was a loner who isolated himself from school actives.
Now matured, Zack wants to redo highschool as part of his “become an elite in society and get rich” scheme.
Although a chosen one himself, Zack works with M to resolve regrets from his high school peers as part of their deal to let him redo his life.

Garret - Male
Label Card “The Jock”

One of the star athlete in the highschool varsity basketball team.
Garret is tall, gruff, and a little too competitive when he gets fired up, as a result girls tend to be intimated by him.
Garret prefers to hang out with other jocks in school.

Ernie - Male
Label Card “The Geek”

Overweight and obsessed with the RPG fantasy card game “Fighters and Mages”.
Ernie has been, and still is, a easy choice for bullies to pick on.
Even then, Ernie is a genuine nice guy with a goofy personality.

Leo - Male
Label Card “The Gay”

Being the only fashion-trendy gay, who also happens to be an eye-candy, Leo has a special place among the high-school girls.
Often, if not always, Leo is seen accompanied by the popular girls in school.
While not flamboyant, Leo does bares a haughty demeanor to those he sees as uncultured.

Tessa - Female
Label Card “The Bimbo”

Voted as one of the hottest girl in school by the guys, Tessa is not afraid to use her allure on people.
Rumor has it that she dated and dump over twenty guys during her freshman year.
Seen as a hussy, Tessa acts the part while hides her true nature.

Quinn - Female
Label Card “The Social Butterfly”

As the head of the yearbook committee, Quinn always has a camera with her to capture every event.
She is also knows every gossip in school and hangs out with many diverse groups.
Armed with a outgoing personality and perky attitude, Quinn's goal is to make as many friends as possible.

Iris - Female
Label Card “The Prep”

An honor student in highschool who skipped two grade four grade when she was in elementary school.
She comes from a prestigious background and is expected to excel academically.
After school Iris tutors people for money for college funds.

Cela - Female
Label Card “The Goth”

Cela is a book-loving goth who spends her free time reading in the library.
Due to her dark attire people have a hard time getting past her appearance.
Not effected by people's opinion of her, Cela buries herself in the world of literature and mythology.











About me and goal of this project

If I was a RPG character my stats would probably be.

Research Skill 9/10
Story Writing 7/10
Editing Skill 5/10
Programing Skill 2/10 4/10 - +2 I can now customize a bit!
Art Skill 4/10
Music Skill 1/10

I'm mainly creating a VNG so I can improve on all skill aspects, including my pathetic art/program skills (Music I've given up on). Eventually I want to use this project as a portfolio, and like everyone else I hope somebody out there will be interested in it.

To do this I wish to get as much feedback and critique from you guys.

The game has taboo/sensitive topics about high-school and teenagers, so it's going to be a rated T for 13+ . I usual work around stereotypes and commonly known concept, then twist it so it a wonderful mixture of truth and bull-crap.

My progress may be slow, but I'll work hard on this!

The premise looks interesting, seems like the "dimension" concept could be expanded greatly, deceiving fate, huh? Tarot cards remembers me of Persona 3, god I love that game.

Ahahaha. Do you want my stats?
So far, the one I'm the most interested is the 'Goth'. She seems somewhat similar to me. =)

Anyway, it seems interesting. You're planning on doing this alone?

You have an interesting idea, James. I like the concept that the main character is required to resolve other people's problems.

You may wish to read "Gakuen Redux," a relatively similar story which Mikey wrote around 2005. Also, you may wish to play "Shira Oka," which has a free demo, and which has a full release on PC/Mac.

Outside of visual novels and romance games, there's plenty of stories/movies about time travel and age regression. I'm sure other people can name quite a few.

@Kael - Yeah, when the word "dimension" is added the story can work in too many directions. I may edit the dimension part out since I don't want the game to be too big.

@Megumi - You can say I'm a nut case with data collecting, I like to try and interpret things even though I might be wrong off the track.

Example
Your stat says the you're most comfortable at writing. You chose 7.5 which is exactly right in the middle of 5-10 instead of picking a solid number like 7 or an 8. It could be that you're use to the "poor, fair, average, good, best" 5 choice rating scale, so 7.5 would be the 4th choice good. Or it could mean you're trying to be modest but want to emphasize that you are above average and proud of it!

As for your other question, it's my first VNG so I'd like to try and dabble with everything at least once before splitting the work with another.

@gekiganwing - thanks for showing me those game, I didn't know these existed. I"ll be sure and play them once and see what element seemed good.

XD That makes me feel terribly scared. I was going to put 8 then, .5 then I realized I was being overly positive so I wanted to put 7 and forgot to erase the .5 XD and then I was too lazy to erase. But that was kinda true haha. ^^" I think I can't pretend for a really high score on writing though. I'm not confident enough and comfortable enough with different genres. XD

Truthfully, I'm much interested in how exactly the characters will be. Because they are much typical in my point of view but typical character does not equal to typical story, background and thoughts.(Make the Goth awesome for me) But that's not the hardest part, I believe.

The hardship of the game will also the way you are going to make this work. Time traveling is quite good, this is a good plot and have lots of promises. However, it's a REALLY dangerous thing.

But I believe you know that. :3 I reallllly want to have a chance playing it, so make it good. *nudges, nudges* You don't want to keep a girl waiting, do you? XD

And yeah, I believe you're right. Just try not to overwhelm yourself. Sharing is caring.

I find this concept very interesting and original.

But that's all I can really say, until you're finished anyways. Good luck.

First rough draft for all 9 characters are up in skill forum. If you have a good feel in art please tell me how I can make my characters more distinct in that forum!

Thanks

Very excited for Original Visual Novel Festival Hopefully I can get sprites and CG done in next month so I can submit it.

Update since 02-11-11

1 month progress

~Posted screen shot of the novel
~Finished 1 hour worth of story for Novel Festival
~Gathered rendered all BG
~Customized Menu and dialog box
~Learned how to do some stuff like VNL, CTC.

4-11-11 monthly update

~Slow lazy month, finished 3 sprites with one pose each getting a lot of pointers from nice people.

The story script was done last month but I think I should release the story early just to see if the storyline is a flop.

So script demo is available for chapter 1-4. Meaning it has no sprites and 2 of the back ground is missing in the beginning (you'll have to use a lot of imaginations). I'm hoping to get some feed back on what part of the story flow was confusing so I have time to fix it before due date for VN festival.