Cardinal Cross [COMPLETED][sci-fi][STEAM][Commercial]

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Rinmaru
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Cardinal Cross [COMPLETED][sci-fi][STEAM][Commercial]

#1 Post by Rinmaru »

Image


Synopsis
When Lana Brice, a small time Raider Scavenger meets her mysterious client, she realises her life just took a very wrong turn in the worst way possible.
Being forced to join a stranger's fight, can she discover her feelings towards injustice?
Will this careless adventure become the sparks of a Galactic disaster?
ScreenShots
Image
Image
Image
Image
Order and Chaos
Your choices will have a permanent effect on the Galaxy.
Will you choose to bring Order, or dance to the tune of Chaos?
ImageImage
Credits
Story, Programming & GUI design: Rinmaru
Main character artwork: Splatpixel
Secondary character artwork: Moonarc
CG artwork: Emilyena
CG artwork: J-witless
CG artwork: Mangamie
CG artwork: Linnéa Jalando-on
BG artwork: N8watcher
Soundtrack: Jeaniro
Extra Artwork: Sagasketchbook
Extra Artwork: PrinceOfRedroses
Engine: Ren'py
Last edited by Rinmaru on Tue Jul 10, 2018 2:57 am, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: Cardinal Cross [sci-fi][DEMO][Commercial]

#2 Post by Elmvine »

Oh lawd. I am so ready for this. Pretty much everything I want. Will have to play the demo on my next break!

^ First Impressions. Also... I suspect Kieran and Egon may be favs from those quotes alone. But that might say a lot about my type.

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Re: Cardinal Cross [sci-fi][DEMO][Commercial]

#3 Post by Zelan »

Holy shit, the art's beautiful. That's the first thing that stood out to me. I also like the idea of order vs. chaos. It's not new but it's always interesting to think about.

I'm not sure what your word count is going to be, but just looking at your art I would say you could probably sell this for 12, maybe even 15 dollars? I'm not an expert but I'd be willing to pay that much.

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Re: Cardinal Cross [sci-fi][DEMO][Commercial]

#4 Post by gekiganwing »

Rinmaru wrote:1- What are your first impressions?
I kind of like the art. It's kinda realistic and not abstract --I'd place it in the lower left section of McCloud's triangle of comics art. If you choose to stick with this style, you might benefit from avoiding character animations. If they start moving during a scene, it *might* invoke the uncanny valley.

The cartoonish and cheerful-looking robot Kitt seems out of place. It might be wise to include an in-story justification of why it looks like it does. (Its designer might say something like "We didn't want a walking, blocky computer.")

Law versus chaos has been used to determine a character's alignment in all sorts of games. How will it work in the story? Will the decisions lean toward being obvious? Will they be mostly vague and potentially misleading? Will there be a variety of clear and opaque choices?
Rinmaru wrote:2- If you played the demo, what do you think so far?
I downloaded the demo, tried to install it... and got a notification saying "Windows SmartScreen prevented an unrecognized app from starting." I will try to sort out this problem. (At least it's better than some antivirus programs which I've used. One or two have automatically deleted freeware programs and demos without asking for my permission.)

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Re: Cardinal Cross [sci-fi][DEMO][Commercial]

#5 Post by morinoir »

oh woow, the artworks are gorgeous! Those cg is simply stunning, and the story looks very promising. I've download the demo and will play it when I have the chance. Just one thing though, is there a reason why you made Pious standing so awkwardly?

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Re: Cardinal Cross [sci-fi][DEMO][Commercial]

#6 Post by LizardRobot »

gekigan, that's a Windows security feature... you just have to tell it to let you run the application anyway. (The dialog box should have something you can click for more information, which will reveal the "run anyway" option.) This happens with anything downloaded from the internet that doesn't have a publisher signature recognized by the computer. Actually, it's happened with my demo, I'm going to try and figure out what I have to do to have computers recognize my game isn't a threat. :\

The demo is awesome so far! I'm really liking it. The arts are fantastic, especially the sprites and CGs. I see the price is $10... I think the game's worth $15, at least. I love the codex system, I'm doing something similar in my own game! The setting and world building is so strong, it's wonderful how you've found a way to showcase it. I loved the non-swear words and the text effect on them, they made me chuckle! Overall, the writing was so enjoyable. I chuckled and gasped and worried right along with the characters!

My biggest issue is how some elements flash in and out a lot: characters, when they change position, and the dialogue box, when a different character speaks. That was really annoying to me. It's like, stay on the screen, you! Could things maybe just fade transition between poses/speakers without totally disappearing? Also, I ended up skipping the intro because the text was taking so long... I get really impatient waiting for text because I read quite fast. Which actually, the way the dialogue boxes and characters sometimes flashed in and out took a bunch of time, and I ended up over-clicking just trying to get the story to go as fast as I can read.

While I appreciated the tutorial stuff, having that information appear one sentence at a time seemed ineffective. I would prefer if a few sentences showed up at once, and then I could parse them all and decide if there was a sentence I needed to parse again. Instead, I was clicking to read the next sentence, only to realize I might have wanted to re-read some of the sentences based on the sentences that came after. Obviously I ended up going to the log, but I think it would be more efficient if tutorial information displayed a few sentences at once.

I found some typos, if that counts as a bug? Right after the artifact is shown and you are given the first order/chaos choice, "commission" is misspelled. The line is "5k and you'll pay for the transfer comission fee." Then, at the club, when Egon is talking to Lex, the line "He didn't look like a proffesor, though." When Virgo and Videns are talking, "It is too early say" should be "It is too early to say." And I'm not sure, but when Karel and Kitt appear, jacuzzi is spelled "jakuzi," is that intentional? And then Egon and Lana are talking to Karel, there's a line by Egon, "You are a friend of Aarons. Did he tell you anything about me?" It's missing an apostrophe on "Aaron's." And then professor is misspelled again a little after the: "They can't even decipher one percent of the information I'm receiving in algorithms per millisecond, Proffesor."

I did sometimes find the outcomes of choices to be surprising... When Egon asked about using the Arion I chose, "Oh, no," expecting this would just express alarm, but it turned out I was saying "no" to him and that this was a cunning option. I realize the facial expressions in the boxes is a clue... I think it might be worth emphasizing that players should look at those expressions, because it turns out they're maybe more important than the actual words chosen! The cunning face might be a bit too subtle, though... I found myself mistakenly choosing cunning options again at other points, thinking they were more neutral. I unintentionally pissed Egon off quite a bit as a result. XDDD

There was a background sound effect of some sort, at the scene where the Auditor appears, which was very high-pitched and painful; I had to mute my computer.

I didn't make it all the way to the end of the demo... not because I wasn't interested, but because there's so much in the demo! This game is absolutely a must-buy for me. It's fantastic! You 100% have a customer in me.

EDIT: When I was about to quit, I noticed I only had one CG unlock left in the gallery, so I realized I was probably near the end of the demo and finished it after all! So excited to find out what happens next, the full game is gonna be amazing based on the demo.

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Re: Cardinal Cross [sci-fi][DEMO][Commercial]

#7 Post by Rinmaru »

Elmvine
Oh lawd. I am so ready for this. Pretty much everything I want. Will have to play the demo on my next break!
^ First Impressions. Also... I suspect Kieran and Egon may be favs from those quotes alone. But that might say a lot about my type.

Ah! Thank you so much! :) I hope you enjoy the demo too! Kieran is actually one of my favorites too. haha :P!


Zelan
Holy shit, the art's beautiful. That's the first thing that stood out to me. I also like the idea of order vs. chaos. It's not new but it's always interesting to think about.
I'm not sure what your word count is going to be, but just looking at your art I would say you could probably sell this for 12, maybe even 15 dollars? I'm not an expert but I'd be willing to pay that much.

Thank you so much! I actually had the cost of the making of the game already saved up, so I don't really want to sell it for more than $10. :D Making it affordable was always a priority.


gekiganwing
I kind of like the art. It's kinda realistic and not abstract --I'd place it in the lower left section of McCloud's triangle of comics art. If you choose to stick with this style, you might benefit from avoiding character animations. If they start moving during a scene, it *might* invoke the uncanny valley.
The cartoonish and cheerful-looking robot Kitt seems out of place. It might be wise to include an in-story justification of why it looks like it does. (Its designer might say something like "We didn't want a walking, blocky computer.")
Law versus chaos has been used to determine a character's alignment in all sorts of games. How will it work in the story? Will the decisions lean toward being obvious? Will they be mostly vague and potentially misleading? Will there be a variety of clear and opaque choices?

Thank you so much for taking the time!
I don't have any character animations in the game. I actually did try giving Kitt a sort of floating animation, but it didn't work out as I expected. So no animations here. :P
Kitt does have a sligtly different look, but that is explained in the game. =)
Chaos and Order choices will be more towards actions and consequences. Not in an epilogue either, you will see the consequences while you are in the game. Some of them are pretty severe too. They will not be very obvious by choice, especially the Order choices.
It won't be as easy as "kill this guy, you are bad, help this person, you are good." You may have to let some people die for the big picture etc.

I downloaded the demo, tried to install it... and got a notification saying "Windows SmartScreen prevented an unrecognized app from starting." I will try to sort out this problem. (At least it's better than some antivirus programs which I've used. One or two have automatically deleted freeware programs and demos without asking for my permission.)

Lizardrobot seems to have answered this for me. =) Thank you so much!
gekigan, that's a Windows security feature... you just have to tell it to let you run the application anyway. (The dialog box should have something you can click for more information, which will reveal the "run anyway" option.) This happens with anything downloaded from the internet that doesn't have a publisher signature recognized by the computer. Actually, it's happened with my demo, I'm going to try and figure out what I have to do to have computers recognize my game isn't a threat. :\





morinoir
oh woow, the artworks are gorgeous! Those cg is simply stunning, and the story looks very promising. I've download the demo and will play it when I have the chance. Just one thing though, is there a reason why you made Pious standing so awkwardly?

Thank you so much! And Pious' pose is changed, actually. XD I thought it was a tiny bit awkward too lol. I just forgot to update her website pic. =(


LizardRobot
gekigan, that's a Windows security feature... you just have to tell it to let you run the application anyway. (The dialog box should have something you can click for more information, which will reveal the "run anyway" option.) This happens with anything downloaded from the internet that doesn't have a publisher signature recognized by the computer. Actually, it's happened with my demo, I'm going to try and figure out what I have to do to have computers recognize my game isn't a threat. :\

The demo is awesome so far! I'm really liking it. The arts are fantastic, especially the sprites and CGs. I see the price is $10... I think the game's worth $15, at least. I love the codex system, I'm doing something similar in my own game! The setting and world building is so strong, it's wonderful how you've found a way to showcase it. I loved the non-swear words and the text effect on them, they made me chuckle! Overall, the writing was so enjoyable. I chuckled and gasped and worried right along with the characters!

My biggest issue is how some elements flash in and out a lot: characters, when they change position, and the dialogue box, when a different character speaks. That was really annoying to me. It's like, stay on the screen, you! Could things maybe just fade transition between poses/speakers without totally disappearing? Also, I ended up skipping the intro because the text was taking so long... I get really impatient waiting for text because I read quite fast. Which actually, the way the dialogue boxes and characters sometimes flashed in and out took a bunch of time, and I ended up over-clicking just trying to get the story to go as fast as I can read.

While I appreciated the tutorial stuff, having that information appear one sentence at a time seemed ineffective. I would prefer if a few sentences showed up at once, and then I could parse them all and decide if there was a sentence I needed to parse again. Instead, I was clicking to read the next sentence, only to realize I might have wanted to re-read some of the sentences based on the sentences that came after. Obviously I ended up going to the log, but I think it would be more efficient if tutorial information displayed a few sentences at once.

I found some typos, if that counts as a bug? Right after the artifact is shown and you are given the first order/chaos choice, "commission" is misspelled. The line is "5k and you'll pay for the transfer comission fee." Then, at the club, when Egon is talking to Lex, the line "He didn't look like a proffesor, though." When Virgo and Videns are talking, "It is too early say" should be "It is too early to say." And I'm not sure, but when Karel and Kitt appear, jacuzzi is spelled "jakuzi," is that intentional? And then Egon and Lana are talking to Karel, there's a line by Egon, "You are a friend of Aarons. Did he tell you anything about me?" It's missing an apostrophe on "Aaron's." And then professor is misspelled again a little after the: "They can't even decipher one percent of the information I'm receiving in algorithms per millisecond, Proffesor."

I did sometimes find the outcomes of choices to be surprising... When Egon asked about using the Arion I chose, "Oh, no," expecting this would just express alarm, but it turned out I was saying "no" to him and that this was a cunning option. I realize the facial expressions in the boxes is a clue... I think it might be worth emphasizing that players should look at those expressions, because it turns out they're maybe more important than the actual words chosen! The cunning face might be a bit too subtle, though... I found myself mistakenly choosing cunning options again at other points, thinking they were more neutral. I unintentionally pissed Egon off quite a bit as a result. XDDD

There was a background sound effect of some sort, at the scene where the Auditor appears, which was very high-pitched and painful; I had to mute my computer.

I didn't make it all the way to the end of the demo... not because I wasn't interested, but because there's so much in the demo! This game is absolutely a must-buy for me. It's fantastic! You 100% have a customer in me.

EDIT: When I was about to quit, I noticed I only had one CG unlock left in the gallery, so I realized I was probably near the end of the demo and finished it after all! So excited to find out what happens next, the full game is gonna be amazing based on the demo.


Wow, thank you so so much for taking the time and for the detailed review!
About the flashing in and out, I can definitely fix the dialog box, but the characters are a bit hard to fix T_T!
I don't have them as whole images, because it would make thousands of png files in one folder, instead, I have body/face/outfits etc. all seperately in a live composite, so I change the poses with one variable. Which makes me have to hide the character first, change the variable, show the character again. T___T!
I will absolutely fix the one word tutorials. It does take a lot of unnecessary time to go through it. XD
I actually gave chapter.1 to the editor 2 days ago. So, the typos are being taken care of. :D English is not my native language, so I make a LOT of typos/spelling errors. Editing/Proofreading is a must for me. =)
I will fix the Auditor ambiance sound! So sorry for that!!! My ears are very unsensitive, so I always turn on the volumes of the sounds/music. T_T I need to be warned...
I will change the personality choice icons, so that they are more visible! =) Also, don't worry about Egon. He is pissy by nature. >.< lol

Again, thank you so so much for your reply and for your time! I really hope the rest of the chapters will be even better. =) Chapter.1 was the slightly calm/quiet one, so I was worried people wouldn't get excited! hehe :P

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Re: Cardinal Cross [sci-fi][DEMO][Commercial]

#8 Post by ZaiyaN »

I can not see the text. What should I do? english is not my mother tongue sorry

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Re: Cardinal Cross [sci-fi][DEMO][Commercial]

#9 Post by OhthatCal »

I played the demo and have to say I LOVE IT! I am totally going to snatch it up as soon as its available to buy!

I adore the art and story so far and the use of codex's to not clog up the conversations. The world building is top notch so far and all the characters are fun~

I have no idea if there is any romance in this game but please, PLEASE let me smooch Egon. >//u//> He is a cutey-poot.

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Re: Cardinal Cross [sci-fi][DEMO][Commercial]

#10 Post by Rinmaru »

@ZaiyaN
I can not see the text. What should I do? english is not my mother tongue sorry

ZaiyaN, please update your GTX drivers. :) It is most probably caused by an outdated driver.


@OhthatCal
I played the demo and have to say I LOVE IT! I am totally going to snatch it up as soon as its available to buy!

I adore the art and story so far and the use of codex's to not clog up the conversations. The world building is top notch so far and all the characters are fun~

I have no idea if there is any romance in this game but please, PLEASE let me smooch Egon. >//u//> He is a cutey-poot.

Thank you so so much for taking the time to play the demo! <3
And yes! Egon, Karel and Pious are all romanceable. :)

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Re: Cardinal Cross [sci-fi][DEMO][Commercial]

#11 Post by kistnerelizabeth »

I like your art style. I get a lot of Torment vibes from this. Looks pretty awesome, so far! I look forward to hearing more about it. :)

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Re: Cardinal Cross [sci-fi][DEMO][Commercial]

#12 Post by Elmvine »

Okay, currently playing the demo and it has exceeded my expectations. Right of the bat, I am very happy with the amount of diversity in characters (there's so many different personalities, shapes and sizes!). Also, can I just bless you on these CGs. I always think to myself people might think I'm being excessive if I try for x amount of CGs, with variations. I was wrong! It verified everything I wanted to see. Cardinal Cross is comes across like a damn movie already! Your games are just getting better and better.

I said Egon and Kieran would be my favs. I was right.

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Re: Cardinal Cross [sci-fi][DEMO][Commercial]

#13 Post by Rinmaru »

@kistnerelizabeth
I like your art style. I get a lot of Torment vibes from this. Looks pretty awesome, so far! I look forward to hearing more about it. :)

Thank you so much! :)



@Elmvine
Also, can I just bless you on these CGs. I always think to myself people might think I'm being excessive if I try for x amount of CGs, with variations.

I was very worried about this too, but the scenes really needed it. That's why I asked for a sort of sketchy CG style that looks more casual and less glossy/polished.
I'm happy it works for Cardinal Cross! :D
I said Egon and Kieran would be my favs. I was right.

I really like them both as characters too! >:D Especially Kieran. haha :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

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Re: Cardinal Cross [sci-fi][DEMO][Commercial]

#14 Post by Unicorn_Magic »

Hey, just wanted to drop by and tell you how amazing this game is! I played the demo, and Ioved it! I might love Kitt a bit too much haha, also, the art is so beautiful, I can't stop marvelling at it. I like the narrative and diversity of characters as well. The choices were so much fun to choose from too. I find this game way too interesting, and I'm looking forward to the full release. Good Luck!

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Re: Cardinal Cross [sci-fi][DEMO][Commercial]

#15 Post by Rinmaru »

@Unicorn_magic
Hey, just wanted to drop by and tell you how amazing this game is! I played the demo, and Ioved it! I might love Kitt a bit too much haha, also, the art is so beautiful, I can't stop marvelling at it. I like the narrative and diversity of characters as well. The choices were so much fun to choose from too. I find this game way too interesting, and I'm looking forward to the full release. Good Luck!
Thank you so much! :) If everything goes right, the full release will be on May 2018. :mrgreen:

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