Lemma Soft Forums

Update 4: Progress, I Guess

Look, ma, I have a beta out! You can download it now!

I'm having a bit of an issue with Desura. The e-mail is correct (I have checked it multiple times using multiple methods), but Desura will not send me a confirmation. I don't know what to do about it. Does anyone have suggestions?

Woot, downloading now and I look forward to playing tomorrow! I did a quick google search on the Desura issue, and unfortunately it looks like it's not just you... https://www.reddit.com/r/Desura/comment ... readnext_5

It looks like Desura has filed for bankruptcy and folks who sold their games there may not be getting their money.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/06 ... uju-games/
http://www.desura.com/news/in-response- ... bankruptcy

Maybe try itch.io instead?

https://itch.io/

Hi, I just played the beta. I understand there are still parts in progress, so I will just give some of my thoughts. So far it's good and it seems to have a promising story.

I don't think you need a two color division in the textbox. It looks better without it. The text for save, load, etc is too light. For the textbox that takes up the screen, I prefer the one you have shown in the thread earlier, try making the white text brighter. Or you can, if possible, have someone make a CG scene and just have the regular textbox. Or just find some copyright free images and maybe edit them if permitted. Whatever works for you.

I think the new sprite does looks better, Esther looks more mature (if that's what you are going for) and it fits the story.

I had an error screen at one part, I ignored it and it continue on fine. Also for a split second, the game at another part, transition into the large textbox but quickly switch to the regular textbox with the date. There are a few spelling mistakes but it wasn't bad really. I could list the ones I got?

So far I like Esther and some of her thoughts are amusing to read. It's also fun to read her interaction with Ferris. Overall, I'm curious about the characters and their interactions. I have questions about them so I can't wait to read more.

I like the last decision you could make in this beta because it hints at surfacing problems that I want to see happen. I chose both options to see what were the results. As for what was my first choice, .

That's pretty much what I wanted to say about the game. But I have to add that when I downloaded the game, my computer blocked it because it thought it might have a virus. I unblocked it and I don't have any problems. Hope more people will get to play it. Now I must go, I hope this helps you in any way.

Alright, I finished the beta!

First the GUI-- I like the textbox, for some reason having that first line of text match up perfectly with the dark/light purple division makes me happy. It just looks good together. I think the white text on the purple/lavender background looks good-- I think you should use this same white text for novel mode, too.

Right now, novel mode uses the old text, which looks like nearly the same shade as the background but with a drop shadow. The plain white would help it stand out more, especially for folks who are color blind or have other visual impairments. Also, like the above poster, I noticed that novel mode flashed between chapters. (Specifically, I noticed this between Jan. 27 and Jan. 30th, and every chapter after that.)

Assets next-- I really like the music and background art you picked out, it fits the story to a T. I'm a huge fan of oranges and browns. One thing I noticed is that the background art has holes for the windows, and because of this when you go through the dialogue they "flash" between black and the checkered pattern for "empty". This can be a bit distracting, so it would be nice to add some kind of scenery to the windows. On Jan. 30th (I think) "Farris surprise" shows up as an empty sprite, looking like a pig-tailed girl. Maybe a typo in the "show sprite" code?

Writing-- I really, really like the writing style, and use of older lingo. It fits really well! I feel like I get a sense of all the characters, but at the same time it's kind of hidden underneath the culture and etiquette. This seems to fit the themes for the story well, as all of the characters have had to change themselves in reaction to the world they live in, they want to have the things they want but are afraid to open up too much to others in fear that the other is more attached to cultural mores than they are. (And that this will have destructive consequences on their dreams.)

I've kept spoilers out of this section, so here are some notes of mine relating directly to the dialogue/story. This is a little less formal, as it's just my thoughts while playing through.
Overall, I am very curious to learn about these characters! I'm especially looking forward to hearing more about Esther and her motivations behind getting married. I'd like to see more interaction between her and Virgil, and see Farris open up to her a bit more.

On a last note

Responses to beta critique:

Thank you, Pick_One and daikiraikimi for testing my game. Your input is extremely helpful.

Pick_One wrote:... For the textbox that takes up the screen, I prefer the one you have shown in the thread earlier, try making the white text brighter. Or you can, if possible, have someone make a CG scene and just have the regular textbox. Or just find some copyright free images and maybe edit them if permitted. Whatever works for you.

Lightening the text in the NVL text box could work. There are CGs, but they will come in later in the story.

Pick_One wrote:I had an error screen at one part, I ignored it and it continue on fine. Also for a split second, the game at another part, transition into the large textbox but quickly switch to the regular textbox with the date. There are a few spelling mistakes but it wasn't bad really. I could list the ones I got?

Where did you encounter the error screen? Could you list the spelling errors you found?

Pick_One wrote: I like the last decision you could make in this beta because it hints at surfacing problems that I want to see happen. I chose both options to see what were the results. As for what was my first choice,

I chose to tell Ferris

.

That's pretty much what I wanted to say about the game. But I have to add that when I downloaded the game, my computer blocked it because it thought it might have a virus. I unblocked it and I don't have any problems. Hope more people will get to play it. Now I must go, I hope this helps you in any way.

Where did you encounter the error screen? Could you list the spelling errors you found?

The false positive you found is unfortunately a problem with Ren'py itself. I got the same false positive once. Unfortunately, the only person who knows if that will be fixed is Py'Tom, creator of Ren'py.

daikiraikimi wrote:...
Right now, novel mode uses the old text, which looks like nearly the same shade as the background but with a drop shadow. The plain white would help it stand out more, especially for folks who are color blind or have other visual impairments. Also, like the above poster, I noticed that novel mode flashed between chapters. (Specifically, I noticed this between Jan. 27 and Jan. 30th, and every chapter after that.)

What do you mean by "old text"?

daikiraikimi wrote: Assets next-- I really like the music and background art you picked out, it fits the story to a T. I'm a huge fan of oranges and browns. One thing I noticed is that the background art has holes for the windows, and because of this when you go through the dialogue they "flash" between black and the checkered pattern for "empty". This can be a bit distracting, so it would be nice to add some kind of scenery to the windows. On Jan. 30th (I think) "Farris surprise" shows up as an empty sprite, looking like a pig-tailed girl. Maybe a typo in the "show sprite" code?

"game/script.rpy:470 The image named 'farris surprise' was not declared." That would be the typo.
The checkered pattern is something I was already aware of, so I'm fixing it now.

daikiraikimi wrote:

Esther says she fell for Farris, but then told him she's not interested in him that way. So is she in love, but not sexually interested? Or was she just lying... Hmm.

Who is Marcus?

...

Hm, is Farris saying that wearing a bathrobe is gay? Or does he mean he wouldn't be wearing it because he wouldn't have had sex?

The confusion about whether or not Esther is sexually interested in Farris will be clarified otherwise in later scenes. I can e-mail you about that if you want.
You get to draw him in one of the CGs.

Looks like the part about the bathrobe will change because of the way we made the bathrobe sprite (which is not a problem). Because you were wondering,

daikiraikimi wrote: Was Farris about to call the wife in the adultery case a hussy?

That depends... is the use of the word "hussy" a problem?

daikiraikimi wrote:

Why does Virgil ask if Esther married a deserter?

This line had been changed for clarification.

daikiraikimi wrote: On a last note

I think maybe my game terminated earlier than it was supposed to? Pick_One mentioned a last choice, where Esther chooses to tell Farris something? I only got through three choices, so my game terminates after having a conversation with Farris about the adultery article in my magazine.

Glad that the input is helpful. I decided to speed run through the game again with a few parts skipped over.

I somehow didn't notice before, but I kept using Ferris and not Farris as it's shown in the game, sorry about that. ^_^; I think it's a good idea to change the names on the profiles from your first post or change the ones in the game, so people probably won't be confuse? (Or it could just be me) Plus it makes the game look more polish to play. (The profile also has Esther as Ester.)

Where did you encounter the error screen? Could you list the spelling errors you found?

The false positive you found is unfortunately a problem with Ren'py itself. I got the same false positive once. Unfortunately, the only person who knows if that will be fixed is Py'Tom, creator of Ren'py.

The error occurred As for spelling errors:

ajust ---> adjust
truely---> truly
early grey---> earl grey

That's unfortunate, I think this will discourage some people to try the game. I haven't download other Ren'Py games for some time but I think for almost all of them, I didn't encounter any block from my computer. If it's something that can't be fix for now, maybe you can let other people know that it's a false positive?

----------------

I agree with daikiraikimi that the background fits the story. The music as well and the scenes where it appears in. Like the music for Just to let you know, the spoiler tag for Marcus isn't properly set in your last post. I could see it without having to highlight it.

As a fun random side note,

Thanks for clarifying my questions!

verysunshine wrote: What do you mean by "old text"?

I just looked back to check the screenshots, I mis-remembered. Somehow, I thought that style of text was used in the textbox originally.

verysunshine wrote:The confusion about whether or not Esther is sexually interested in Farris will be clarified otherwise in later scenes. I can e-mail you about that if you want.

I would love to hear more about it!

verysunshine wrote:

Marcus is Esther's brother.

You get to draw him in one of the CGs.

Oh, interesting. I'm looking forward to it.

verysunshine wrote:That depends... is the use of the word "hussy" a problem?

Haha, no him using that word makes sense in cultural context, I think I just left that question in because I was speculating on my own. I also was curious, because with that word it gives the impression that he is not very okay with lying/cheating-- and that makes sense to me, despite their situation, because he was honest with Esther at the beginning of the story.

verysunshine wrote:This line had been changed for clarification.

Virgil was trying to test Esther's ethics, and was asking if she was a deserter.

That makes sense, thanks!

verysunshine wrote:

Did you choose to sympathize with Farris when talking about the court case? The two responses lead to different scenes.

Oh, that must have been it. I went back and chose the other choices, so I could see what they did, but didn't play through after each choice.

Update 5: Changes

I have good news and bad news. Good news: The new sprites are in and I fixed my stupid spelling errors.



The bad news is that I'm changing the release date to "Fall 2015". I wasn't very good with the planning aspects of the game, so there's still quite a bit left to do. Sorry. This is my first project.

The new sprite for Esther looks nice and fits the game's story. The blush and new hairstyle makes her give off an image of a sweet housewife, who just got married and wants to do her best to make an "ideal" marry life of that time period (or atleast try to give off that impression). Farris definitely looks more polish and like a lawyer. Virgil looks cheerful and innocent/childish at heart to me.

The bad news is that I'm changing the release date to "Fall 2015". I wasn't very good with the planning aspects of the game, so there's still quite a bit left to do. Sorry. This is my first project.

Well, I don't know if you feel bad or really stress out over trying to complete the game as soon as you can, but if you don't, you can ignore whatever I have to say below. ^^;

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I hope you don't feel bad or pressure about it, that now you feel like you got to rush it, and hope you don't feel obligated to have like a release date or anything like that. I seen many other projects push back release dates. Some of them even have to cut out some content, features, etc. I have seen the release date, for some commercial games, been push back before, even a few times. I think just setting aside whatever time you can free up for the game and making small consistent progress is already really good. I mean you could challenge yourself to finish at a certain date, but I feel that if you start to feel burn out and not enjoying making the game as much as before, then it might be better to not have a deadline? (Of course, everybody is different. ^^; Some people do better with precise tight deadlines.) You can make small chunks of deadline to complete whatever amount you feel capable and comfortable with completing. (But of course, you could already be doing this privately...)

Overall, just do the amount of work and pacing at a level that won't make you start to feel really stress out over the project, and still feel interested in making it. (Although I think it is easier said than done. :/ ) So if the release date is dampening your enjoyment in making the game, maybe just leave it indefinite or say release date somewhere before 2016? (Or like I said, leave out the release date) Plus it's your first project, so of course you need to still adjust to the workflow, how to make everything come together, and learn or understand some new things/concepts.

Anyways, sorry that turn into a bit of a rant. ^^; And I have to add that I don't have any experience in making games. But like I said, if you do feel bad for pushing back the release date, which makes you want to like rush to finish making the game, I don't think you should feel that way.
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Good luck on completing the game.

This looks interesting! I'll definitely check it out.

Update 6: New Year, New Art, New Script

How's the start of 2016 been for you all? It's been good for us. The art is almost entirely complete. We have a shiny new website and a slightly less shiny Facebook page, so if you'd like to look at them, we'd appreciate it.

Now I have some less fortunate news. The script is being rewritten. It just wasn't working, so we're rewriting quite a bit of it. When it returns, there will be a new visible character.

Thanks for supporting our development.

This is definitely in my watch-list. I was going to download the demo, but it seems like you're rewriting the script anyway so I'll just wait :'p

The new sprites look solid, though, and I genuinely can't wait to see it finished.

Good luck!

It turns out that "quite a bit" of the script means "basically all of it." I like the old script just as much as you guys, but it would work better as a play or a book. Interactivity just didn't fit. This new version is being completely remade with interactivity in mind.

The [new] game contains 155 dialogue blocks, containing 1,315 words and 6,819
characters, for an average of 8.5 words and 44 characters per block.

The game contains 0 menus, 8 images, and 15 screens.

I'm rewriting the game to fit a daily scheduling system. The new system works over 17 days. While the schedule has some bugs I'm trying to work out, I'm planning the events that will happen. There are now some new characters, and Mrs. Brown's character has been repurposed. Now, instead of being Esther's soundboard, she's a seamstress.

The new characters are Esther's mother, a shopkeeper, and Dr Hughes, Esther's employer.

The new goal of the game is to prepare for the wedding.

All of the game's core mechanics are functioning as intended. Right now, I'm figuring out what all of the events should be. Some of them will carry over from the old version of the game, while others are brand new.

Special thanks to Qerian for helping me with the scheduling system.