Hope~ Symphony of Tomorrow[BxG][Romance,Comedy,Drama] Alpha

[Takanashi]

It's finally released! You can download the alpha demo from our website^^

Download it here:
http://tatamivisual.com/demo/

Have in consideration that the final product might differ since this is a very early alpha release!

I hope you enjoy it!
Feedback greatly appreciated!

Taka

[Shalambay Shift]

Congratulations on the (Alpha) demo release!
I've been looking forward to this game, because it has some of my favorite genres. (Comedy, Drama, Plus it's a GxB!)

I'm still playing it right now, and it's awesome so far :3.

Here are some pros and cons (I hope I help! ^,^'):
And a lot of them are just my opinion, feel free to ignore them. >//.//<

[+]
• I loved how I'm greeted with fireflies (using the snow effects).
• Overall the art was gorgeous.
• The music was very emotional. From the dramatic ones to the happy ones~ :3
• The characters were easily likeable~ (Even the principal XD)
• The comedy made me giggle! ^,^
• The sad scenes really gets me (Especially the first time the game talked about Karen and Yusuke), with the help of the music. ;w;

[-]
• I just feel there's a bit too much clicks in the beginning. Maybe try putting them into the same screen? (If you don't want to dump them, maybe use tags like {p}/ \n?)
• I don't know if it's just me having the problem, or it's on purpose. There's pauses between some screens at the beginning. (Too much of them, maybe?)
• The 'Hiraka Fantasy World' and 'Hiraka Reality World' was a bit annoying, fading in and out quickly like that. ;u;

[Extra Comments]
• Maybe it's just a placeholder, but the sakura petals were the same as the ones that were used in Ren'Py tutorial.

"Girl" "... umm... ah..."

• I thought the 'U' and the 'M' are supposed to be capitalized?

"Karen" "Niichan..."

• Isn't it supposed to be 'Nii-chan', since 'chan' is a suffix?

"Yusuke" "Don't fall asleep yet dummy. ----"

• Try adding a comma between "yet" and "dummy"? It'll be easier to understand. :3

• "PFP" Kaminomi~ XD (Maybe it;s just a coincidence, but I can't help it~)
• When stuttering, maybe try adding spaces after each dashes? It'll be less confusing and easier to read.

This game's really good, I don't usually play commercial games, but I'll see what I can do when this gets released ^.^
Do you have any estimate on the full game's price?

I hope I'm understandable, since I'm not too confident in my English. TTuTT

[Deji]

The mac demo doesn't work on my MacBook Pro with Lion OSX 10.7.4
It goes black and I can hear the music and the hover sounds... until I happen to click something and it fades back to my screen, closing itself. No idea what's wrong >_o

I'll try the Windows demo now and run it in Parallels.

[myapple]

I just had time to go through the fireflies part so far, which was lovely ;_; Darn school getting in the way of demo playing.

My only comment right now is that the music is SUPER loud. Even when it was turned as far down as possible it was still too loud @_@

[Cinnamoon]

Soooo~ I played it last night and was too sleepy to stay on the computer to tell you how I felt about this demo, so here I am now ^^

Let's start with the cons !

- The screens saying "Day 1" and "Day 2" were a little bit too fast, I wanted to take a closer look at it :/
- Sometime the text is way too close to the border of the textbox, but it doesn't happen too much
- When meeting Emi, Souta's sprite shows on top of Emi's sprite, and after Souta speech she just... disappeared ? It only happen when I choose to tell him about the foreign girl earlier though.

And now with the pros~ ^^

- I really loved the fireflies, it was really cute and well done !
- The music really is wonderful. It almost made me cry~ t.t and I love Eri's theme (if it was actually Eri's theme ?)
- I laughed so hard everytime Hiraka speaks (especially with his fantasy world >.<), and the foreign girl/swimsuit/Boogey man thing.
- It was a pleasure to read this font ! I love it.
- This game taught me that I am a bad friend who lies to his bestfriend and steals ugly unicorn shaped phone strap. YEAH. I LOVE IT.
- MINAGIIII~ <3

Well, I must say that I can't wait to buy the full game. Thank you so much Takanashi, I loved this demo ! (°^°)

[myapple]

Just finished playing~

I have to say, it's a bit random, but I really love how you've done the credits for the staff. Subtle, and brilliant.
Can't wait for the full game!

[DeeKay]

*sees the entry credits*
Wait... I'm the only proofreader Takanashi ? Please tell me people were just too shy to be in the credits ! ...Please ? ^^'''

Just finished playing~

I have to say, it's a bit random, but I really love how you've done the credits for the staff. Subtle, and brilliant.
Can't wait for the full game!

Yeah, I liked that too when I was given the opportunity to proofread beforehand

- When meeting Emi

Eri, Eri, Eri ! Um... sorry.

The mac demo doesn't work on my MacBook Pro with Lion OSX 10.7.4
It goes black and I can hear the music and the hover sounds... until I happen to click something and it fades back to my screen, closing itself. No idea what's wrong >_o

I'll try the Windows demo now and run it in Parallels.

Dang ! I was testing this on an old Macbook Pro with Leopard 10.5.8 and it works well... Any other Mac users around to give some more input on that ?

• I don't know if it's just me having the problem, or it's on purpose. There's pauses between some screens at the beginning. (Too much of them, maybe?)

I'm pretty sure it's on purpose. Maybe I got overly immersed into Takanashi's writing style with the proofreading, but it feels like they're there for a reason.

• "PFP" Kaminomi~ XD (Maybe it;s just a coincidence, but I can't help it~)

Don't worry, I thought about it too

I hope I'm understandable, since I'm not too confident in my English. TTuTT

Of course you are ! ^^

[Takanashi]

Hey!! Thanks so much for the feedback everyone!
I really love to read it!

Congratulations on the (Alpha) demo release!
I've been looking forward to this game, because it has some of my favorite genres. (Comedy, Drama, Plus it's a GxB!)
I'm still playing it right now, and it's awesome so far :3.

• I loved how I'm greeted with fireflies (using the snow effects).
• Overall the art was gorgeous.
• The music was very emotional. From the dramatic ones to the happy ones~ :3
• The characters were easily likeable~ (Even the principal XD)
• The comedy made me giggle! ^,^
• The sad scenes really gets me (Especially the first time the game talked about Karen and Yusuke), with the help of the music. ;w;

I’m very happy that you liked It so much!!^.^

• I just feel there's a bit too much clicks in the beginning. Maybe try putting them into the same screen? (If you don't want to dump them, maybe use tags like {p}/ \n?)

Thanks!! I'm very glad to hear that!!!^^
Yeah, I'll probably reduce the lenght of the intro and the gymn scene a bit, it should tone down that feeling a lot. I'll probably also join some of the phrases up in the same sentence. Most of the feedback so far is that both these scenes should be a little shorter.

• I don't know if it's just me having the problem, or it's on purpose. There's pauses between some screens at the beginning. (Too much of them, maybe?)

Yes, it's on purpose xD I wanted to slow down the pace and let the player emerge in that part. I might have exaggerated on that a bit though xD I'll review this point for sure!

• Maybe it's just a placeholder, but the sakura petals were the same as the ones that were used in Ren'Py tutorial.

Yes, it's just a placeholder. I also intend on changing some of the game menus for the final version!

• Isn't it supposed to be 'Nii-chan', since 'chan' is a suffix?

I think it works both ways, but I'll check this one!

• Try adding a comma between "yet" and "dummy"? It'll be easier to understand. :3
• When stuttering, maybe try adding spaces after each dashes? It'll be less confusing and easier to read.

I see what you mean and I think it does in fact make it much less confusing. I'll fix this!

• "PFP" Kaminomi~ XD (Maybe it;s just a coincidence, but I can't help it~)

There are no such things as coincidences Elsie! xD ahah it's amazing how so many people picked up on the reference ^^

This game's really good, I don't usually play commercial games, but I'll see what I can do when this gets released ^.^
Do you have any estimate on the full game's price?

Thank you so much!! <3
I will be around 15$, no more than that!

I hope I'm understandable, since I'm not too confident in my English. TTuTT

Don't worry, it was perfectly clear!
Thanks for all the nice comments and the pointers, I'll definitely use them

The mac demo doesn't work on my MacBook Pro with Lion OSX 10.7.4
It goes black and I can hear the music and the hover sounds... until I happen to click something and it fades back to my screen, closing itself. No idea what's wrong >_o

I'll try the Windows demo now and run it in Parallels.

That's really bizarre. If it was on the video part it could be a video compatibility problem, but in the menu it's kinda weird :/ (I’m glad that you were able to run in on windows in the meanwhile^^)

Anybody else has the same problem on the Mac?

My only comment right now is that the music is SUPER loud. Even when it was turned as far down as possible it was still too loud @_@
Just finished playing~

I have to say, it's a bit random, but I really love how you've done the credits for the staff. Subtle, and brilliant.
Can't wait for the full game!

Hm, that’s weird:\ But does the option in the configuration work for you or it has some kind of problem? If you slide the bar until it goes empty, the music doesn’t mute? I have my sound, text and music all in the middle and I have no problems with the sound :S
I’m glad you enjoyed it though!^^

Soooo~ I played it last night and was too sleepy to stay on the computer to tell you how I felt about this demo, so here I am now ^^

I’m soooo sorry Cinnamoon! I took more time than expected in correcting last minute bugs yesterday and ended up taking more time to upload it

Let's start with the cons !

- The screens saying "Day 1" and "Day 2" were a little bit too fast, I wanted to take a closer look at it :/
- Sometime the text is way too close to the border of the textbox, but it doesn't happen too much
- When meeting Emi, Souta's sprite shows on top of Emi's sprite, and after Souta speech she just... disappeared ? It only happen when I choose to tell him about the foreign girl earlier though.

-You are right, especially day one, even I missed it several times when I was clicking through the prologue, I’ll revise this part!
-Yeah, I’ll correct this. I still have a lot of space on the lef side, I’ll pull the text more to the left.
-The showing on the top was on purpose, it seemed(at least to me xD) that Souta was just right in front of Eri when he barged in through the room. I actually didn’t noticed that she vanished afterwards.
I’ll review this scene, since more people also complained about it^^’

And now with the pros~ ^^

- I really loved the fireflies, it was really cute and well done !
- The music really is wonderful. It almost made me cry~ t.t and I love Eri's theme (if it was actually Eri's theme ?)
- I laughed so hard everytime Hiraka speaks (especially with his fantasy world >.<), and the foreign girl/swimsuit/Boogey man thing.
- It was a pleasure to read this font ! I love it.
- This game taught me that I am a bad friend who lies to his bestfriend and steals ugly unicorn shaped phone strap. YEAH. I LOVE IT.
- MINAGIIII~ <3

I’m so glad you loved it!!! :3
It seems that Souta is really popular ahah xD
The ugly unicorn saga is just starting!

Well, I must say that I can't wait to buy the full game. Thank you so much Takanashi, I loved this demo ! (°^°)

It was my pleasure! I’m just glad that you all are enjoying it

*sees the entry credits*
Wait... I'm the only proofreader Takanashi ? Please tell me people were just too shy to be in the credits ! ...Please ? ^^'''

Ahaha xD
Actually teacup also did it, but she had internet problems for the past days and didn’t manage to send them to me on time to fix it (that and different timezones^^’); but today I’ve got a lot of precious advices/suggestions in my mailbox waiting for me!!

But... her name was supposed to be there, I totally forgot to put the image there omg X_X!
Gomenasai teacup!! ;_;
I’ll fix this on a small patch that I will make with the corrections to the GUI positioning and etc!

[
Eri, Eri, Eri ! Um... sorry.

You really need to change your name to Yusuke! xD

DeeKay thanks again for all the help!! You were a life saver to accept it in such a short notice xD

Thanks again everyone for all the precious feedback, makes me feel motivated in trying to improve on everything!
On a side note, I'm so happy that everybody loved the fireflies scene xD It was well worth all the hours and hours putting it together^^

[DeeKay]

You really need to change your name to Yusuke! xD

Don't you get me started on that ! :p
Ugh... I'm so Hope~less... Sorry about that one ^^'

DeeKay thanks again for all the help!! You were a life saver to accept it in such a short notice xD

You're giving me too much credit, I'm just happy to help and you know it by now ^^

[gekiganwing]

Thank you for the demo.

I definitely recommend finding at least one more person to check the script for typos. I didn't see any glaring errors or continuity problems, but I noticed some spelling mistakes.

The characters in the foreground seem to contrast with the unnamed background characters. It's not a major concern, but the characters in the backgrounds have a more angular, cartoonish look about them. I'm not entirely sure how to describe it... The best point of comparison that I can think of right now would be character art from Justice League: The New Frontier.

This is a slice of life VN with a slow pace, and only a few decisions. Nearly all the indie games that western VN developers have made and sold contain quite a bit of gameplay, or at least quite a few decisions. This is not a complaint... to be honest, this could be a good point of difference, and a way to make your game different from its competition. I don't think you would benefit by adding unnecessary gameplay. That said, make sure you sell your VN based on its strengths.

I wasn't sure what was happening in the opening scene... it sounded like the narrator was dreaming or recalling a vague memory. I thought it went on longer than necessary, and took quite a while to set up the main character's anxiety. I'd recommend cutting a few lines, so that the story establishes themes and conflicts without meandering.

Finally, I recommend reducing Japanese words and honorifics to a minimum. I assume that you want to portray your setting accurately. Show us details about how they live. But unless you have a word, phrase, or concept that is difficult to express in English, I think you should avoid using Japanese terms.

[DeeKay]

I definitely recommend finding at least one more person to check the script for typos. I didn't see any glaring errors or continuity problems, but I noticed some spelling mistakes.

Dang ! I wasn't good enough ! xD
Seriously though, I did what I could given what time I could spend. I've been a bit sleep deprived as a result but I'm fine now (being on fire has its limits I guess ^^')
I'm playing the demo again and I can see what you're talking about, thanks for pointing that out
I'll let Takanashi speak for himself but he was set on releasing the demo this week, he probably didn't get much sleep either these last few days ^^'''

[Takanashi]

Thank you for the demo.

I definitely recommend finding at least one more person to check the script for typos. I didn't see any glaring errors or continuity problems, but I noticed some spelling mistakes.

The characters in the foreground seem to contrast with the unnamed background characters. It's not a major concern, but the characters in the backgrounds have a more angular, cartoonish look about them. I'm not entirely sure how to describe it... The best point of comparison that I can think of right now would be character art from Justice League: The New Frontier.

Thanks for playing the demo!

I'll try to get more proofreaders for the final version of the game without a doubt. It was entirely my fault and complete inexperience to only ask for help on that part, with only 4-3 days until the release. I'm really grateful to the people that helped out

About the characters in the background, do you feel that only about the cafeteria background or also the class one? If you take out of the equation the teacher, do you still have that feeling?

This is a slice of life VN with a slow pace, and only a few decisions. Nearly all the indie games that western VN developers have made and sold contain quite a bit of gameplay, or at least quite a few decisions. This is not a complaint... to be honest, this could be a good point of difference, and a way to make your game different from its competition. I don't think you would benefit by adding unnecessary gameplay. That said, make sure you sell your VN based on its strengths.

I'll be honest, I had never thought of it that way, but that's in fact a very good point of view. As it stands, I was doubting if there was space for the more "classic" approach in the EVN world. Im glad you gave me that feedback.

I wasn't sure what was happening in the opening scene... it sounded like the narrator was dreaming or recalling a vague memory. I thought it went on longer than necessary, and took quite a while to set up the main character's anxiety. I'd recommend cutting a few lines, so that the story establishes themes and conflicts without meandering.

I really wanted you and everybody to be lost on that scene, success then
I'm going to rework it for the next version. I never realized that the scene dragged that much. In the process of wanting to slow down the pace in the 'dream' sequence, I ended up exagerating a lot. Did you find the 'pauses' between the text transitions annoying on that scene?

Finally, I recommend reducing Japanese words and honorifics to a minimum. I assume that you want to portray your setting accurately. Show us details about how they live. But unless you have a word, phrase, or concept that is difficult to express in English, I think you should avoid using Japanese terms.

[/quote]
Hmm, damn. I had no idea that it was a trope. I'll have to think hard on this one. There are some jokes or context, where I really like to use them, but then again there are a lot of them that can simply vanish.

Personal question, what about the pace in the scene with her sister? Did it also felt that it dragged or the pace was good?

Thanks for playing and for the feedback!

[Funnyguts]

Every time I try to download the Linux version from your site I get a 404 error. Can you fix the link, please?

[Takanashi]

Every time I try to download the Linux version from your site I get a 404 error. Can you fix the link, please?

So sorry about that, I already reauploaded it, I don't understand whats wrong, it should be working.. :S

edit: i'm reaploading it again, ill update this in a few minutes
edit2: I have no idea why but the *.bz2 files always seem broken.

Can you see if you can download from this one?

http://www.tatami-visual.com/Hope-Demo- ... ar.bz2.zip

Please tell me if it works or not, if it doesn't I'll try to find another solution.

[Funnyguts]

Ah, sorry, I missed the tweet yesterday! Both the link you posted on Twitter and the link above work. I'll go actually play the game now!