Project Cancelled

[Hax Ed The Lion]

Project is no longer active.

[Morhighan]

This has promse. When I have a better internet connection I'll be sure to try to help out. Good luck!

[kinougames]

I'd be extremely interested in helping out as a proofreader. Editing is one of my specialties, as far as plot, characterization, game logic, and the basics of spelling and grammar.

The cover is quite beautiful!

[Suzumiyaandy]

I would also be interested in proof reading.

[Hax Ed The Lion]

Thank you for the initial interest. Replying just for the sake of bumping the thread a bit.

[Mr.L]

So...there's no plot? Just a picture?

[Hax Ed The Lion]

So...there's no plot? Just a picture?

Look at the website. The very first entry is a plot synopsis. I also believe I put a general summary in there, somewhere.

[Hax Ed The Lion]

Bumping.

[Hax Ed The Lion]

Additional Bump.

[pondrthis]

I like the sprites and the music. Is that a placeholder soundtrack, or are those the final tracks? Based on the demo, it needs serious editing though, and not just proofreading--true editing. The dialog doesn't really set a tone for any of the characters, barring maybe Shirley. Also, why NScripter T.T?

[mysterialize]

I actually rather liked the writing style of this. There were certainly some issues, but it personally struck me as kind of interesting, especially at the beginning. The art, while a bit rough, also at least had an interesting tone to it.

The hard boiled detective perspective is a little overdone, but something about it being used here seemed a bit charming, in a way. I don't see much of a reason to bring it up as a negative point. Honestly, I may be leaning on liking it, even if it's common.

I do have to agree that you should probably get a proofreader, though. There were never any serious problems, but you did seem to have the occasional problem with run-on sentences, and a few other minor things. I was also a bit put off by the incorrect ellipses. You should never, ever have more than three dots in an ellipsis. The only reason you see them like that in most professional VNs is because they're translated from Japanese, in which that's acceptable, and a bit would be lost in translation if they were fixed.

It's a little hard to judge the quality of the mystery on what I've seen so far, especially since I don't have much personal experience with the genre. From what I am able to gather, though, it at least seems decent. Closed room situation are a bit common, but by the sound of it, you may be putting a bit of a twist on it. Again, it's hard to say, since it's incomplete.

I do have to confess that it started to feel a bit boring after a while, though. The weird thing though, is that I couldn't quite seem to pinpoint why. It just failed to draw me in, somehow. Perhaps it just didn't do enough to make me care about the characters yet? I found it rather hard to sympathize with the main character, despite liking the tone of his writing, possibly because I never got a chance to see anything about his personal life, or anything about him outside of his work. When you're writing something in first person, a completely mysterious main character tends to work against you.

You may also want to consider injecting a bit more humor into it. While the somber mood worked in general, eventually the whole thing started to feel a little dry. There's no harm in having a character crack a joke every now and then, even in something serious like this. You just need to know where to put it. Shirley getting drunk at the bar is the only case of humor being used at all in the demo, that I can remember.

As for the visuals, the sprites looked decent, as I said earlier, but I found myself disliking the filter used on the backgrounds. It's far too rough, and got to be a bit hard on the eyes. Instead of the dissolve-like effect you used here, I suggest using something to make it look a bit more smooth and drawn. There are several tutorials around here for getting that kind of effect on photos.

I'm assuming you've noticed some of the minor programming flaws, already, such as the music stopping at strange places, and sprites appearing under other sprites. If not, I can try to help you pick out where they are, so you can fix them.

Also, is this going to be a KN in the final version? Giving the player choices, especially considering that it's a mystery game, will probably help with immersion, and will generally help it feel less dull. If that goes completely against your plan, though, there's no point in completely switching over, I guess.

All and all, the demo seemed to be the start of a decent mystery story, with a nice tone, and mostly good writing. You just need to spice and clean it up a bit, and you'll have something quite nice. Good luck.

[Hax Ed The Lion]

Wow, I'd started to give up hope on anyone showing interest.

We've got a new artist for episode 2, by the way.

Shoot me a forum message and we can talk about it, okay?