Lemma Soft Forums

THE STORY

Dr. Bernard Hooper is a marine biologist. Matt Lee is a hobbyist fisherman who owns a bait n' tackle shop.

The two know each other--and have a past history together--but can't stand each other.

But then a faithful fishing trip introduces them to a new, underwater friend...

The story is set in Sauble Beach, a Canadian beach overlooking great Lake Huron.

THE BACKSTORY

Must Love Jaws is for the Summer Novel Festival (July 01 - August 16) and 2015's A Game By Its Cover (June 20 - August 16), a game jam where you are meant to create a game based on another's fake cover art (or, in my case, a fake trailer)...
Must Love Jaws is based off this trailer.

"Stephen Spielberg’s classic horror becomes a family movie similar to Free Willy. The title is a parody of the romantic comedy Must Love Dogs."
THE TEAM
Art & Writing...................Katy133
Writing Assistance.....TuttyTheFruity

FEATURES

- Multiple endings: FIVE different endings!

PROGRESS

Writing: 100% done
Sprites: 100% done
BGs: 100% done
CGs: 100% done
GUI: 100% done
Programing: 100% done
Audio: 100% done

QUESTIONS

1. First impressions in general? (On story, game type etc.?)
2. Any characters that you're already interested in? Or characters you're already skeptical about?
3. What's you current opinion of sharks?

This looks very interesting so far, both story & character wise! The concept of people who hate each other bonding has been done before, but I have faith that you'll do it well. I hope thing will line up for me & Haze to record this in Two Twins Talk!
Oh yeah, forgot to mention: I like sharks! Though they are a bit scary . . .
(Also entering A Game By Its Cover, btw, with a little game called Colmeircia. Did not know about the Summer Novel Festival, though. I may look into it! ;D)

1. First impressions in general? (On story, game type etc.?)

Haha, sounds fantastic :].

2. Any characters that you're already interested in? Or characters you're already skeptical about?

The 'jaws' they must love is something I'm interested in C:.

3. What's you current opinion of sharks?

I like sharks.

Hahaha, oh my gosh, what a trailer! It made me chuckle, especially the end.

Also, forgive me for pointing this out, but in your poster art, wouldn't it just be "lots" instead of "lot's"?

1. I'm really looking forward to it!! I'm interested to see how the fisherman & biologist bond over sharks, and also hoping maybe to learn a thing or two about sharks/the ocean in general

2. Hmm, not yet? I think I'd need more info about them first!

3. I'm a mixture of fascinated and terrified. I love watching Shark Week and any shark related documentary, I think they're very cool.
At the same time, my parents live in Florida, and a couple of years ago my brother and I swam out alone to a sandbar. As we swam out there, we swam through water that was pretty deep - your feet couldn't even touch bottom.

Sharks love sandbars. Sandbars are like playgrounds for sharks. We didn't know that at the time. We saw a small tiger shark and proceeded to swim back to shore as fast as we could.

It is generally a bad idea to panic and swim if you see a shark, since they can out-swim you and your thrashing is worse than calmly swimming away. xD

But yeah, it's a damn shame what with all the media hyping up shark attacks They are not bloodthirsty animals out to get humans, just terrifyingly large fish that are apex predators.

sasquatchii wrote:Hahaha, oh my gosh, what a trailer! It made me chuckle, especially the end.

Also, forgive me for pointing this out, but in your poster art, wouldn't it just be "lots" instead of "lot's"?

Oh dear! You're right about that; sorry about the punctuation mistake. Luckily, this is concept art and won't make it into the final game (though it still annoys me). I'll be sure to fix that if I use that tagline in the VN. Thank you for pointing it out, I hadn't realised before.

In (flimsy) my defense, I had a cold when I drew that, and I guess wasn't firing on all cylinders. "Lot's" was also used in the video description, which tricked me. Aw, I wish I'd double-checked.

sasquatchii wrote:1. I'm really looking forward to it!! I'm interested to see how the fisherman & biologist bond over sharks, and also hoping maybe to learn a thing or two about sharks/the ocean in general

Oh yes! I'll be trying to make this visual novel educational.

Oooh! Definitely will play this when it's finished!

1. First impressions in general? (On story, game type etc.?)
Loving what I saw so far, the story seems interesting and I think the character interactions will be funny to read

2. Any characters that you're already interested in? Or characters you're already skeptical about?
Hm... I can't say since there's not much information about the characters yet, but will there be a shark as a character? 8D
I saw a pink shark fin on the art, probably I'm speculating too much but it'll be nice to have cute sharks as characters!
or this will be featuring a realistic shark, in that case it's great! It'll be nice to see VN that have information about shark

3. What's you current opinion of sharks?
Sharks are cool, I like to watch NG and they've been featuring lot of sharks recently, and surprisingly a lot of people make sweet story based on sharks, so I'm not that scared of them anymore (unless I met them when I swam in the sea or smth)
I even bought cute shark keychain!

1. First impressions in general? (On story, game type etc.?)

Very positive. I love the Youtube video and mostly clicked here because the title looked familiar. Actually, I'm kind of jealous I didn't get the idea to do a fake-trailer based game myself. Comedy, friendship, sharks -- I'm in!


2. Any characters that you're already interested in? Or characters you're already skeptical about?

To be honest, the main post (at the time this was written) doesn't give much of an impression either way about the characters... but I don't think that's necessarily a problem. It still sells the concept pretty well, and I, at least, am interested based on what's already been posted.

I'll add that it's cool to hear that character will be a focus of the story. Sometimes even awesome concepts can't stand up on their own without solid characters. *cough* Snakes on a Plane *cough*


3. What's your current opinion of sharks?

They scary.

I mean, yes, they are majestic creatures and super-cool living dinosaurs that are ridiculously over-harvested and which probably need to be protected in some way so they don't disappear from the earth forever.

But they scary.

1. This sounds great!

2. I can't say I'm interested in one character more than another at this point, but I'm hoping to see some real marine biology knowledge from Bernard.

3. I really admire sharks. They don't deserve the rap they have. Peter Benchley, the author of Jaws, dedicated himself to conservation efforts, etc. later in life. More needs to be done to protect them, though---their plight is symptomatic of larger problems plaguing the oceans. Sharks won't be the only casualty if we don't pay attention.

Update: Character Line up added!

I like the designs of the characters! The only thing is that perhaps there should be some solid lineart around them, because the lack of it could cause them to blend with the game's BGs or part of the BGs.

Alright, now for the questions!

Katy133 wrote:1. First impressions in general? (On story, game type etc.?)
2. Any characters that you're already interested in? Or characters you're already skeptical about?
3. What's you current opinion of sharks?

1. The title doesn't seem to fit with the theme of friendship, though I can understand keeping the title as used in the original trailer, it's a bit odd. Although, if there ends up being a separate romance subplot, or something like that, then the title will probably be fine. Don't add a romance subplot just for that, though!
2. Bernard! Out of the 2 main characters, something about him drew me in when I first saw the Must Love Jaws concept art. Also, I like his cap!
3. I...don't really have one? It's not something I've really thought about, so...I guess we'll see?

Since the visual novel is ready, I've now created a new thread where it can be downloaded.

I bet this would get Greenlit in a second.

Bryy wrote:I bet this would get Greenlit in a second.

I recently discovered that someone had posted Must Love Jaws onto Steam Greenlight, without my permission.

It was quickly removed after my discovery.

Personally, although visual novels appearing on Steam is becoming more and more common, I won't put Must Love Jaws on Steam Greenlight. I made the game for a month-long game jam, and if I were to ever submit something to Greenlight, I would want to make sure it was a super-polished game and not one I made within only a month.

And anyway, according to Steam Tools, Must Love Jaws apparently had a Greenlight Upvote/Downvote ratio of 40Up/41Down. Pretty neck-and-neck. So I guess Must Love Jaws would not be popular on Steam. Either that, or (judging from the comments section), the individual who plagiarised my game had already developed a "negative reputation" among the Steam community, causing downvotes.

But I'd like to take a moment to advise EVN devs to, once in a while, do a quick Google search of your games to make sure that people aren't trying to plagiarise your game without your permission, as it's now becoming a growing thing on Steam due to its lack of verification.

Katy133 wrote:

Bryy wrote:I bet this would get Greenlit in a second.

I recently discovered that someone had posted Must Love Jaws onto Steam Greenlight, without my permission.

It was quickly removed after my discovery.

That's screwed up.

Personally, although visual novels appearing on Steam is becoming more and more common, I won't put Must Love Jaws on Steam Greenlight. I made the game for a month-long game jam, and if I were to ever submit something to Greenlight, I would want to make sure it was a super-polished game and not one I made within only a month.

Why not? I mean, it's your prerogative, but a lot of games made in a month are on Greenlight. The DLC to my game was made in a month. I think, priced fairly enough, it could do well.

And anyway, according to Steam Tools, Must Love Jaws apparently had a Greenlight Upvote/Downvote ratio of 40Up/41Down. Pretty neck-and-neck. So I guess Must Love Jaws would not be popular on Steam. Either that, or (judging from the comments section), the individual who plagiarised my game had already developed a "negative reputation" among the Steam community, causing downvotes.

No Votes don't mean anything on GL. Army had No Votes up the wazoo and we still got on, two years later.