Detective Butler EP1 [Murder Mystery] [KN] (Completed)

[WickedRaccoon]

woo-hoo!!!can't wait for this games release!!!

[Kinjo]

Updated the game with a new patch, fixing various typos, graphical bugs, and a small bug in the minigame.
I also applied these changes to the main downloadable zip file, as I felt the changes by now were numerous enough for reuploading.

And I'm working on making this compatible with macs, so that should be uploaded soon as well.

[azureXtwilight]

The initial reaction when I played this game is ; UMINEKO! I get a lot of umineko reference from this game, and I really like how you build the athmosphere around.
I enjoyed the unique art, and the lovely textbox and GUI. Having played renpy lots of times, I feel refreshed by the use of onScripter. I wish we're able to rollback, though.
The music is very nice, not generic like the usual boring music mainly used in VNs and for once I actually listen to them.
Hmm, Cecilia reminds me of Shannon...um, bosom.. AAAH BRAIN STOP! There is probably a mistake when Cecillia's name appears before she even introduced her name at the beginning. Although I don't know if you fixed this in the latest version yet XD

I love the game, keep it up! I'll be waiting for completion!

[Kinjo]

The initial reaction when I played this game is ; UMINEKO! I get a lot of umineko reference from this game, and I really like how you build the athmosphere around.
I enjoyed the unique art, and the lovely textbox and GUI. Having played renpy lots of times, I feel refreshed by the use of onScripter. I wish we're able to rollback, though.
The music is very nice, not generic like the usual boring music mainly used in VNs and for once I actually listen to them.
Hmm, Cecilia reminds me of Shannon...um, bosom.. AAAH BRAIN STOP! There is probably a mistake when Cecillia's name appears before she even introduced her name at the beginning. Although I don't know if you fixed this in the latest version yet XD

I love the game, keep it up! I'll be waiting for completion!

No rollback? I remember you downloaded the beta demo, in which that wasn't possible, but the extended demo should have that working.

Heh, everyone keeps comparing it to Umineko, although I probably shouldn't be surprised...

Oh, and yes, the latest patch does fix that name bug. Thanks for pointing it out, though.

[Kinjo]

Updated to add Mac-compatible version, finally.

Please let me know if it it doesn't work. I believe it should.

Also, expect more frequent updates from now on.

[Kinjo]

Yes, more frequent updates meaning once per month!

Well, I mainly decided it'd be bad to spoil things after the demo. That, and I was busy until winter break.

Enjoy the updated demo. Fixed bugs and new graphics, courtesy of Shadilyn and Card-Queen.

[WickedRaccoon]

Happy New Years!!!
The new sprites are amazing!!! Seriously,they look like they popped out of a cartoon show. I wanna say to the artist,you are just awesome!
Will check the new demo (when le wild free-time appears Orz) and share my thoughts!
Cheers!

[Arowana]

Cool, can't wait to check out the new art! Any idea on when the full game will be out?

[Kinjo]

Happy New Years!!!
The new sprites are amazing!!! Seriously,they look like they popped out of a cartoon show. I wanna say to the artist,you are just awesome!
Will check the new demo (when le wild free-time appears Orz) and share my thoughts!
Cheers!

Thanks! The artist will be glad to hear that!

Cool, can't wait to check out the new art! Any idea on when the full game will be out?

Nope . I can definitely say that development is coming closer to an end. It's just how crazy I want to get with programming interactive stuff, since most of the linear story is done already. I also still need a few CGs, and go through the usual bug-testing hell...

[Arowana]

Finally got a chance to sit down and try the new demo! I think the last version I tried was the beta, so I enjoyed seeing the new prologue and addition of Chapter 3. It’s really getting into the meat of the story now, and the developments in the last chapter (plus that cruel cliffhanger) are making me super excited for the full game!

Cue the wild mass guessing! I’m interested in seeing how the key switch trick was pulled off. It seems to me it would be easiest to find some way to keep the room door from locking automatically so you could slip back in later, but I need to go back and read more carefully to see if there’s a way around that. And there’s always the keys that Cecila seems to be misplacing…

And alas poor Galvano! He seemed like a funny guy, and I never really understood all the resentment he was getting from Gilligan. Once he went missing, I had the most awful feeling for him. I’m a bit surprised at Gilligan’s change of heart, though, since it didn’t seem to take much for Howard to sway his mind. Hmm, I don’t know – maybe if he’d felt guiltier about fighting with his dad before, or if Howard had emphasized the sacrifices Galvano made for Gilligan? Then again, I guess once Galvano died, Gilligan would probably realize how petty he was in any case.

The new sprite art looks nice and clean, and I thought the head tilt animations were a nice touch (and how you have the option to turn sprite animations on/off). My favorite expression is Butler’s shocked face – I couldn’t help but crack up during his disbelieving “you’re a casual?!” bit to Gilligan and his comment about “hipsters” hahaha. The expanded soundtrack is also great – I think the tracks match the scenes very well now, and I especially like the song in the very last scene. Sets the mood perfectly!

The casino minigame was pretty cool! I really sucked at it, though, ahaha.

Does it matter what score you get, or do you get the information anyway?

***
Some technical issues I had:
For some reason, I had this annoying bug where new text would overlap with text that was already in the box. This started happening after I checked the first Hint in the Journal and occurred multiple times during Chapter 3. The only way I could read anything is if I skipped forward and used rollback. I’m not sure if I did something weird to trigger this problem?

glitch1.png (35.82 KiB) Viewed 2175 times

When I checked the Hints in the Journal, not only did I get the text overlap problem, but I would also get a pop error message midway through (“parseStr: string alias cannot start with a digit”) and the game would close itself. This happened for both of the Hints I tried.

I’m glad there’s a rollback option now! Would it be possible for names to rollback as well? I get a bit confused when all the past dialogue is under the present name. ^^ Also, the CTC indicator seems to glitch once I exit rollback mode (I’m getting both the midline arrow and the end of screen notebook icon appearing – see example below).

ctcglitch.png (28.61 KiB) Viewed 2175 times

Also at some points, I can’t exit rollback mode going forward unless I hit the right arrow key (clicking or hitting Enter don’t seem to work).

I’ve noticed the textbox background disappearing at certain times, leaving just the text behind. I’m not sure if this is intentional, but figured I’d point it out just in case. Points where I’ve noted this include during the captain’s intro, when Gilligan is watching his father with the chef, and one point where he is searching for Galvano.

***
Other nitpicky things:
Whenever Journal updates are announced, would it be possible to indicate which section was updated, or what new item was added? Also, are you planning to add pictures for the Locations/Inventory sections?

Also for the journal, I’m not sure if I like the grainy white outlines on the hovered text. Perhaps make it just plain grey, similar to the main Journal menu? I also think the font used for Gilligan’s comments could be more “handwriting-like,” if you want to give the impression that it’s his handwritten notes?

The variety of photos is great, though I personally think the filter is a bit strong and gets grainy with the black specks on the edges. Perhaps a more subtle filter would be nice?

It’s cool there are multiple variants of the textbox, but they all look pretty similar save for color. Perhaps you might consider adding back the notebook textbox (I actually quite liked that one haha), or have a partially-transparent option? (Cecila’s sprite, for instance, has some lower detail that could potentially benefit from a partially-transparent textbox.)

***
All-in-all, I think it’s looking great and can’t wait to see the full game! Good luck with everything!

[Kinjo]

Finally got a chance to sit down and try the new demo! I think the last version I tried was the beta, so I enjoyed seeing the new prologue and addition of Chapter 3. It’s really getting into the meat of the story now, and the developments in the last chapter (plus that cruel cliffhanger) are making me super excited for the full game!

Cue the wild mass guessing! I’m interested in seeing how the key switch trick was pulled off. It seems to me it would be easiest to find some way to keep the room door from locking automatically so you could slip back in later, but I need to go back and read more carefully to see if there’s a way around that. And there’s always the keys that Cecila seems to be misplacing…

And alas poor Galvano! He seemed like a funny guy, and I never really understood all the resentment he was getting from Gilligan. Once he went missing, I had the most awful feeling for him. I’m a bit surprised at Gilligan’s change of heart, though, since it didn’t seem to take much for Howard to sway his mind. Hmm, I don’t know – maybe if he’d felt guiltier about fighting with his dad before, or if Howard had emphasized the sacrifices Galvano made for Gilligan? Then again, I guess once Galvano died, Gilligan would probably realize how petty he was in any case.

The new sprite art looks nice and clean, and I thought the head tilt animations were a nice touch (and how you have the option to turn sprite animations on/off). My favorite expression is Butler’s shocked face – I couldn’t help but crack up during his disbelieving “you’re a casual?!” bit to Gilligan and his comment about “hipsters” hahaha. The expanded soundtrack is also great – I think the tracks match the scenes very well now, and I especially like the song in the very last scene. Sets the mood perfectly!

The casino minigame was pretty cool! I really sucked at it, though, ahaha.

Does it matter what score you get, or do you get the information anyway?

Thanks for playing it!

The latter half of the game is dedicated almost entirely to solving the mystery, so your theories will be slowly confirmed or denied as you continue reading. The two you mentioned seem to be popular choices; I've included pieces of evidence to tell you later on whether or not any theories are right. Although that isn't to say there weren't clues earlier in the story; they were just clues supporting the truth rather than addressing readers' theories, which I like to do.

Yeah, Gilligan did have a pretty abrupt change of heart. The characters (not just Galvano and Gilligan) will be given far more development in the latter half once things begin to go under investigation; I think that should clear things up. Oh, and no, the amount you win in the casino minigame makes no difference; in fact if you get too much the game automatically stops you and moves onto the next part.

***
Some technical issues I had:
For some reason, I had this annoying bug where new text would overlap with text that was already in the box. This started happening after I checked the first Hint in the Journal and occurred multiple times during Chapter 3. The only way I could read anything is if I skipped forward and used rollback. I’m not sure if I did something weird to trigger this problem?
When I checked the Hints in the Journal, not only did I get the text overlap problem, but I would also get a pop error message midway through (“parseStr: string alias cannot start with a digit”) and the game would close itself. This happened for both of the Hints I tried.

Actually this was pointed out to me rather quickly, and I STILL can't figure out what's going wrong. I know that it happens whenever you decide to load a game (which actually happens when you finish reading a hint; you reload back to before you read it). Other than that I can't seem to figure out why it happens. It didn't occur before I changed the graphics, so maybe the new textbox has something to do with it.

As for the parseStr error, that's entirely my fault. To accomodate for the fancy tilting heads I needed to rewrite the way I loaded sprites onto the screen. I just so happened to miss two lines of code that I really needed to fix. I caught the error a couple weeks ago but I wanted to release a fixed version with the load game error fixed as well, but I still haven't found a solution for that.

I’m glad there’s a rollback option now! Would it be possible for names to rollback as well? I get a bit confused when all the past dialogue is under the present name. ^^ Also, the CTC indicator seems to glitch once I exit rollback mode (I’m getting both the midline arrow and the end of screen notebook icon appearing – see example below).
Also at some points, I can’t exit rollback mode going forward unless I hit the right arrow key (clicking or hitting Enter don’t seem to work).

I’ve noticed the textbox background disappearing at certain times, leaving just the text behind. I’m not sure if this is intentional, but figured I’d point it out just in case. Points where I’ve noted this include during the captain’s intro, when Gilligan is watching his father with the chef, and one point where he is searching for Galvano.

That glitch has been around since the beginning. It used to happen all the time whenever you exit the right-click menu but I guess I forgot to fix it in the rollback mode. I'll see if I can do anything about being unable to exit rollback, as I'm using the built-in one Onscripter provides.

The textbox shouldn't disappear; if it does then that's a glitch. Thanks for pointing those out.

***
Other nitpicky things:
Whenever Journal updates are announced, would it be possible to indicate which section was updated, or what new item was added? Also, are you planning to add pictures for the Locations/Inventory sections?

Also for the journal, I’m not sure if I like the grainy white outlines on the hovered text. Perhaps make it just plain grey, similar to the main Journal menu? I also think the font used for Gilligan’s comments could be more “handwriting-like,” if you want to give the impression that it’s his handwritten notes?

The variety of photos is great, though I personally think the filter is a bit strong and gets grainy with the black specks on the edges. Perhaps a more subtle filter would be nice?

It’s cool there are multiple variants of the textbox, but they all look pretty similar save for color. Perhaps you might consider adding back the notebook textbox (I actually quite liked that one haha), or have a partially-transparent option? (Cecila’s sprite, for instance, has some lower detail that could potentially benefit from a partially-transparent textbox.)

Yes, that's rather nitpicky. That's because I was rushing to get the graphics redone before the new year (you only played the beta demo, but in the previous release the Journal was colored differently). So that was laziness on my part which I'll fix for the final version, don't worry there.

I've also been told about the filter; and a few days ago I just got done re-filtering all of the photos. It looks that way the same reason you see grainy white specks -- rushed to get the game out sooner than later. I like the new filter a lot better and it's a lot less distracting.

Haha, so you think the old textbox should be an option? That actually makes sense rather than having random colors.

***
All-in-all, I think it’s looking great and can’t wait to see the full game! Good luck with everything!

Thank you for all the feedback, again! Glad you're enjoying the game, too. I'll fix everything mentioned and attempt to get the game out as soon as possible (something much harder to do than I thought it would be)!

[NastarHitam]

I love mystery games. Added this to my waiting list.

Btw, what does the "EP1" mean?
Are you going to resolve the case in EP1? or are you gonna split it into 2/more episodes?

[Kinjo]

I love mystery games. Added this to my waiting list.

Btw, what does the "EP1" mean?
Are you going to resolve the case in EP1? or are you gonna split it into 2/more episodes?

Each "episode" will have its own case to solve, with a different setting and cast of suspects, although there will be an overarching story as well. I also plan on making the later episodes more difficult as the series goes on~

[Arowana]

Good to hear you're on top of everything! Sorry for being so picky - I tend to obsess over little graphics details like that in my own work, too. ^^; The only thing that seriously bugged me was the text overlap, since that made large chunks of the story unreadable. Hopefully you can find a fix for that soon!

[Kinjo]

Good to hear you're on top of everything! Sorry for being so picky - I tend to obsess over little graphics details like that in my own work, too. ^^; The only thing that seriously bugged me was the text overlap, since that made large chunks of the story unreadable. Hopefully you can find a fix for that soon!

Nah, it's fine. The more criticism, the better the final game will be.

That said, I've just uploaded a patch to the downloads section which SHOULD fix the game-breaking bugs (two errors in the hints sections and the text-overwriting error). I fixed the text glitch by realizing that ONscripter does not like file directories to non-existent images for textboxes. I assumed that would just make the box transparent; instead the textbox ceases to exist. Had I put #FFFFFF (in other words, pure white) instead, the textbox would in fact be transparent and clear the text, too. The problem was that there must be a textbox in order to clear the text -- it only clears the text contained within the range of the box. The size and placement of it should also line up with the text, or else only part of the text will be cleared. I can see why it's set up this way, but as usual I could find zero documentation about it, so it was very confusing to figure out.