Eternal Forest [Fantasy] [Raising Sim]

[Godline]

Ooooh! They look so awesome! (I only wish the picture was bigger).

[Katta]

Haha, you are definitely not alone here, Anne said the same)) I'm linking the pic from my tumblr, that's why the size. But I plan to post characters separately too with more details and a bigger picture)

[lumia]

Reading through your synopsis, I can really sense the feel of development in your story; using a completely different dimension or world certainly is challenging, as you have to come up with the cities' and towns' lore and tradition, essentially. Hence, I look forward to that aspect once the entire game is released; I want to be able to place myself in the world you have crafted with your imagination. Though, I also realize that it is a stat-raising game, and I have never in my visual novel life read / played one, haha.

Now, I want to address the visuals. I know that from the synopsis and the information you provide with words, there is a diversity in races, but looking at the art is just incredible; it feels like I am truly seeing the essence and spirit of the world through the characters. Although, I don't think I would be able to keep track of them all since there are so many. Looking at the characters, there are definitely some that catch my attention as well, so if there is a story with them, I would definitely try to veer myself to them.

Just because it is a stat-raising game, I don't know if I will play it. If I do play this game, it would be the very first stat-raising game I have ever played (though I guess I should expand my interests as well). Hmm, what else......? Oh, have you played a game titled, Nusantara: Legend of the Winged Ones? That was what I called a very well-written visual novel for free, because all the characters were relatable in one way or another, and the bad endings especially struck me hard emotionally and stayed with me. Is it safe to assume that it will be the same with this game--striking enough to stay with me?

I would love to help you, but I have a feeling my writing style would not satisfy you, and coming up with a plot is a little on my weak side unless there is a character I am very passionate about. So, in conclusion, albeit not being much of help in the developmental stage, I wish you the best of luck on this game. I look forward to, well, everything this game has to offer!

Cheers! -Lumia Chai.

[Katta]

Thank you for the feedback!
Personally I'm not a big fan of extensive lore in encyclopaedias, for me the feeling of a completely original world comes from small details in narration and visuals and also from music - one example that really impressed me was Leviathan: The Last Day of the Decade (have yet to play it besides from the first free episode though) - but it requires a great amount of skills, I'm not sure I have.
But I still definitely plan to create an entertaining game for everyone to enjoy) I haven't played Nusantara, but I can see how stat-raising can break the immersion into the story itself as compared to a normal VN, on the other hand it gives much more freedom in what to do and that's what I like about stat-raising. So don't be afraid to try and see if it works for you! I can totally recommend Seven Kingdoms if you haven't seen this project already, it only has a demo and the full game won't be free but it's the best I've seen of the genre and it's also less stat-raising-heavy than my game will be, so a good place to start.

[Katta]

Vote 17 if you want more drinking bonding scenes with Olin.

[Katta]

Want to blow something up? - Vote 28!

[Katta]

The main (and only, for now) BxG love interest, if you want more BxG romances in the game, vote 5!

[Konoi]

Wow, this seems like a big and interesting project!
The art looks pretty nice, and the setting is cool too - I'll bookmark it so I can check the news from now on!

Only thing that bothers me is that it will be a stat raising system, and I tend to hate that. I'll give it a chance since I can find a few cases of stat raisers I liked, but unfortunately it often feels tedious to me and it breaks the immersion. Oh well, we'll see!

About the romances, do you plan to make all types of relationships possible? (GxB, BxG, GxG, BxB) or only straight ones?

Also, do you still need suggestions about the thing you asked? About breaking with someone.
If I was making the game, I would include the feature only if I did a huge amount of romanceable characters. Otherwise, it isn't really useful since the chances for you to want to end a relationship would be lower.
If the feature will be present in the game, I'd suggest to make romantic scenes possible with other characters even before breaking up. And for each bachelor(ette) I'd set a specific tolerance number. If you reach that number of romantic scenes outside of your relationship, an event would play where the character would tell MC that it doesn't seem they're taking their relationship seriously, and that they're thinking about ending it. And the player would have the choice to say sorry and stop flirting with other people, to say in this case let's break up now, or not to do anything definitive, in wich case the relationship could continue if you stop doing romantic scenes with other characters, but it would end if you don't stop. I think it would feel the most natural that way.
You could also add an "end relationship" button, but a little event would be nice where MC tells the other character they don't feel fulfilled with their relationship, and they want to break up. Sure it may seem random, but think about it - sometimes when a couple falls apart, one of the people may have serious reasons like "this isn't what I imagined it would be" or "I liked them as a friend, but now I notice I can't stand them as a romantic partner" and so on, while the other one may be clueless about what went wrong because they were happy. If a player wants to end a relationship with a character, they must have a reason they feel is good enough, so I think it would be only fair for the MC to be able to do so.
But again, I don't think that feature is needed if you only put a few romance options in the game.

Hope that helps. And good luck with the game!

[Katta]

Thank you for your thoughts!

Only thing that bothers me is that it will be a stat raising system, and I tend to hate that. I'll give it a chance since I can find a few cases of stat raisers I liked, but unfortunately it often feels tedious to me and it breaks the immersion. Oh well, we'll see!

Hope you'l like the game) I wonder, what exactly you dislike in stat-raisers? I can understand how gameplay can break the immersion but isn't it like real life: you get a job, meet new people, get to know them better, then you decide to change the job or go to classes and there're new people to meet there - so this way the gameplay is a part of the story, your story
It's also kinda funny how the project despite it being a sim attracts more people who don't like sims than sim lovers like myself)

About the romances, do you plan to make all types of relationships possible? (GxB, BxG, GxG, BxB) or only straight ones?

There will definitely be GxB and BxG, since some of them are already written. As for gay romances as time goes they're less and less likely to be added. I tried to find some people to help me with gay romances specifically, but it led to nothing.

If I was making the game, I would include the feature only if I did a huge amount of romanceable characters. Otherwise, it isn't really useful since the chances for you to want to end a relationship would be lower.

Yes, that's what I decided as well. Besides the stories itself are long, one full story may take, say, 3 in-game years with the full length being 10 years, and most people would go exploring (at least on the 1st playthrough), so it'll be hard to get several characters to the romanceable level. And since break-ups would require a lot of additional scenes, I decided not to implement the option.

[Konoi]

Thank you for answering! I agree the no break-up option is for the best if you don't add a ton of romance options!

Why do raising sim elements break the immersion for me? Well, I play games for the story, usually. For example, even if I play a full fledged RPG, you'll often see me playing on normal or even easy mode - not because I can't play on harder, but because I don't think it's necessary and if I had to grind too much it would be tedious. And I'm a perfectionnist, so I want to defeat all the secret bosses and stuff, so it would take a crazy time to do.
Now, the way you compare raising sims to real life is interesting, but you know, what I dislike is that I'm here enjoying the story, but then I know I have to be careful to make some requisites in one stat or another in order to achieve something and... I think the problem is the actual fact that it IS a bit like real life. Since I play games in order to "escape" real life, so to say, when a game reminds me too much of reality or some aspects of it, it breaks my immersion in that world. This is also why I rarely play games in realistic settings.
Now, while I say all that stuff, I must admit my first experiences with raising sims were very bad - I can't remember the names of the games now since it was a long time ago, but basically the games I stumbled upon were very hard, mainly aiming for experienced raising sim players, and I got bad ending after bad ending because I wasn't able to properly deal with that. It left me with a very sour impression, and I have those bad memories coming back when I play a raising sim.

Now, I had some very pleasant experiences too, recently, like Heirs and Graces or Sheherazade at the Library of Pergamum. While these are not raising sims per se, they still include raising stats as key features and only ways to obtain the best endings. The stat raising was actually challenging in both, even when playing the easy mode, but I still enjoyed the game, and even the actual stat raising in Sheherazade.
This is why I know I CAN like a game with stat raising.

[Katta]

I see several options how a sim may be difficult:
1) Stat requirements are too high - I've seen that in "free" games and in Roommates, to sell stat boosts. I don't plan to sell anything so that won't be the case. On the other hand making them too low will make stat raising less meaningful - f.ex. in Dandelion stat requirements in most routes were pretty low so you got everything quickly and then had months of meaningless grinding ahead of you. The most interesting in my opinion is to have a strategical sim where you should count your points and decide what stats you need more, but I already see that I won't have that many stat checks for this option.
2) You don't know the stat requirements. On one hand the most obvious system of a sudious guy liking studious girls and them meeting in the library also makes the stat raising part meaningless, so I can understand why stat requirements are more complex but I don't like that you can get to know these reqirements only from a walkthrough. That's why I plan to make the checks visible, the same as in Long Live the Queen - of course you'd still have to reload the game if you don't have enough stat, but at least you know that something can happen here.
3) The same with story - you don't know where to go to continue with the story. I'm going the most obvious (boring) way here, so most stories will happen in the same location. Or you'll be told otherwise (f.ex. that the character is moving somewhere else). The only problem here are date-bound events like festivals. Normally I plan to have 1 story episode every 3-6 weeks, but if some story episode takes place at the festival and you got the episode before this several months ahead then you'll have to wait without knowing why you don't get next episodes. I'm trying to fix that by having a bit of a changeable order of episodes but that helps only to a small extent.

[Konoi]

Oh well, if you're planning to make stat requirements lower than in Roommates, then it should be totally fine with me - I've managed to beat that one with no troubles and even free time left.

I agree it's best when you know the stat requirements. Sheherazade was nice with that - when you selected a mission on the map, it showed you the stat that would be tested and the checks with mandatory success (though it didn't show you the values you needed).

Well, even if most of the events happen in the same location, this isn't necessarily boring, it depends of how the stories unfold.

[Katta]

If you're up for an age gap romance, vote 1!

[Amberbaum]

He looks really good and the age gap thing might be interesting. I guess he is a career military guy? Why not. I'm sure the MC and him can work out the age difference by sharing same values and having similar ambitions

[Konoi]

Aaah, age gap romances... I love that!
And he seems to be an interesting character AND looks gorgeous