Phew~! Sorry for disappearing like that, everyone! The holidays kind of ate my soul, and a few things behind the scenes have sadly fallen apart.
But that's okay! Delays are an inevitable part of life, after all. I shall press on!
I answer questions/comments first and post the (small) progress report separately for ease of reading.
Have to say first off how excited I am for this game! Everything looks and sounds amazing
You have obviously put so much work into it that I think it's going to blow people away!
1. What do you think of the role-playing possibilities? Do you think the more dialogue options, the better? Or do you think too much could mean that replays would become cumbersome?
I always enjoy choice, so the more the better in my case!
2. what do you think of the 2nd person narrative? Too weird or worth giving a shot?
I've played a couple of VNs with 2nd person, and I think the medium suits it well.
3. Favorite character so far? More info on them can be found HERE, for those interested.
It was Noah, but I'm leaning towards Emry (Heavily leaning
)
4. The demo will lack a lot of pretty art assets like hand-drawn BGs and CGs. Will this effect your enjoyment?
Not for the demo. A demo is just a demo after all, just a way of getting to see more about what the story and gameplay will be like
5. Finally, any requests as far as Kickstarter goals?
More CGs always go down well!
Voice acting is never something that overly appealed to me, and I don't miss it when it's not there.
Yay! You're back! Thank you so much for the kind words, m'dear. And oh my, the virus that is Emry appears to be spreading quickly.
Just call me Patient Zero.
I feel reassured after reading your comments. CGs are something I ADORE in VNs, so a significant portion of the budget will be going towards that, and it's looking more and more like I can completely nix the idea of voice-acting. Good to know I can cut the fat somewhere.
I hope you don't mind my short comment, but I just wanted to stop in to say that I am following this happily! I'm extremely eager to get a chance to try the demo, since much of this game's appeal seems based on (at least for me) gameplay, and that's always something that you just need to experience to decide on. I've fallen in love with the incredibly specific 'historic politics with oodles of world building and definable protagonist written in second person narrative' games as of late, and I think this game is stepping towards filling that niche admirably.
Also, a small suggestion for your concerns about the blank protagonist not having enough choices of response, or perhaps too similar of choices: play-testing by a variety of people could do wonders for this, I think. It is nearly impossible for a writer, even the most skilled of storytellers, to write from a drastically varying collection of perspectives in one story. This is just natural and human; we write from our own experiences and from ourselves. I'd say, unless they are inordinately skilled at seeing and expressing things from a variety of different viewpoints, a writer hoping to accomplish this pretty much needs to work with others who can point out possible responses that would have been missed with just one person working on it. I'd really encourage you to get some volunteers for this purpose. I'm sure finding them would not be hard at all. (Like me. Cough.) A few perspectives on natural responses to a situation would definitely provide more variation than one, which would be super beneficial in a game with a blank MC.
I'm looking majorly forward to seeing more from this game because what is out so far looks fantastic!
All comments are welcome, short and long
And BOY is that a specific niche! I think that describes what I'm shooting for with QC to a perfect tee actually, so hopefully when you get a chance to give the demo a try, you'll be pleasantly satisfied.
Oh and careful where you put that incredibly sweet offer of help... Someone might be liable to take advantage of that, especially when the call for beta-testers comes out later
Haha... In all seriousness, thanks for the thoughtful comments!
I wonder how the MC will look in the game? I hope she' ll be shown in the game??
p.s. so far wonderful work!
Thanks for the interest, Erikka! The MC won't appear in the demo, but she will definitely be in the full version of the game. I left out any details because I want to have her fully customizable by the player. Hopefully we get enough money on Kickstarter to do that, but if not, she'll appear on this thread sometime after the demo is released.
1) Give me all the dialogue
It's usually my favorite part of vn-type games, since I love seeing how the responses change the story. Plus, if the MC is basically a blank slate defined by the players' choices, then we need a lot of choices to make in order for her to actually get fleshed out. I suppose it could make replays somewhat annoying if the responses didn't cause much variation in the story, but sometimes it's basically like getting a whole new story that way. Besides, as long as there's a feature to skip text you've already read, I don't see why having a lot of dialogue choices would be an issue.
2) What's wrong with second person? I actually love when people write stories that way. Very few people do (or at least, very few people use second person narration in anything of quality), so it's usually pretty memorable when it's done well. It's certainly worth using in a game like this.
3) I'm already prepared to be an Emry fangirl. In otomes, I always like the distant but brilliant types, so I already know I'll like his route. Plus, his design is gorgeous.
4) It depends how much of the story's been written out in the demo. If the 'novel's portion is well-developed enough to stand on its own, then I don't particularly care about having fancy visuals. Really, CGs and stuff are more of a nice bonus to me than anything; I care a lot more about the quality of the writing than about how it looks.
5) A customizeable MC would be awesome. (As a dress-up games enthusiast, I would probably get far too much enjoyment out of a feature like that for it to be healthy.) Voice acting is pretty low on my priorities list for any game, but original music is always a plus. As for the additional character route, it would depend on who the character was.
Hey, mysticichigo! Thank for your interest in the project!
1) You definitely make some good points here. With the responses and story, I'm shooting for something that closely mimics the way the Dragon Age games work. The overall plot is the same, except for two or three major points where your decisions can change things, and the rest of the dialogue choices lead to "seasoning." The other characters respond to you differently depending on your choice. Some options can end the conversation, some can lead to more detailed backstory, and almost all will lead to stat-changes that eventually lead to changes in the story... But they mostly lead to the same places plot-wise... eventually. Hope that makes sense.
I kind of confused myself there...
2) Agreed. The response to the second-person narrative has been pretty positive so far, and that's encouraging. We'll have to see if QC pulls it off, ne?
3) Haha... Emry is going to be getting a LOT of love, I can tell already. I hope you'll enjoy his route. Distance and Brilliance are very dear friends of his, as you'll see. He runs to them for comfort when things get tough, and his romance, as well as the other two, have points where they get VERY tough.
4) Excellent. Duly noted.
5) Yep, I'm in the same boat when it comes to dress-up sims. I'll put you down for a vote of 1 for customizable MC and 1 for music. The additional character route would be a gruff, cantankerous character of lowly birth who's actions speak more loudly than words. They might also be female, since I have yet to include a female love interest, but I'd be nervous about writing it. I might have to put that up for a vote later on if the character route gets funded on Kickstarter.
THANKS FOR YOUR COMMENTS EVERYONE! Keep 'em comin'!
