Lemma Soft Forums

Hello everyone. This is my first VN project, which I'm working in parallel with another one I'm not revealing just yet. This one in particular is based on a hypothesis I've had for a while regarding ghosts and I decided to use a story to leave that in the open.

As of now, as long as I have enough feedback, I think I can deal with the writing on my own but I still need art and sound to deal with. For art, a member of this community is already helping me by sketching the characters for me so I can lineart/color/shade them accordingly. What I do need though is help with CGs, backgrounds and a proper GUI.

Title: Biospectre

Plot summary:

Sophie's life takes a turn for the worse ever since her older brother Simon died in a gang fight. As it turns out, every person who used to be afraid of her brother is now taking their anger out on her and her family. However, all of that changes when she meets a boy named Liam who holds the means for her to reunite with her dead brother through human experimentation regarding the summoning of ghosts. Will Sophie be able to survive long enough to meet Simon again?

Art process:

Liam (Secondary protagonist)
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y78/jo ... 4a35a8.png


Beta version 0.1 Download:

https://app.box.com/s/jepzfbkvd4zocnnlldso


Beta version 0.2 Download:

https://app.box.com/s/4smolv92d7dcdtqvjlur

Credits:

Backgrounds were taken from Unclemugen's topic, +cube's website (which is now down forever) and the standard ones from visualnovelty which were originally from shass.sakura.ne.jp which is also down.

Please give me feedback on the writing and also it would help if you could suggest gameplay styles (I thought of this as a simple written story so I still haven't decided how interactive I'll make it so I'm open for suggestions). Though more than anything, I need to know if this sounds interesting enough to actually continue this story in this direction.

Thanks in advance.

Downloading now Ill make sure to add my thinking after

First of all, congrats on making a demo. Not many people make it this far.

Now for some critiques:
-I feel like you could use some more "showing, not telling" and indirect characterization. You addressed the audience a lot, which isn't a bad thing, but I feel it breaks the immersion.
-Sophie. Oh my god, Sophie. Just... where do I start with this one? I think you should aim for a character that's empathetic, not sympathetic. I think you're trying way, waaayyy too hard making her sympathetic. Sophie, to me, feels hollow and like a caricature. She lacks a lot of depth and is mostly defined by her circumstances. I didn't care much for Sophie, and because I didn't care much for Sophie, I really didn't care about the plot at all.

Work on Sophie and your characters a bit more, and you'll be halfway there in making a good story. I wish you luck on this project. c:

First of all, I'm glad someone was able to hate it right away. This way I don't have to change that much to aim it in a better direction.

PhoenixStardust wrote: I think you should aim for a character that's empathetic, not sympathetic.

I know what the words mean, but could you elaborate a little? I read an article about it, which said I should try to convey emotions in a more indirect way, but because this is just the intro and I don't want to extend the timeframe any longer (she's supposed to have all of that happen in two days no matter what), I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do exactly. Am I supposed to just reduce the monologues? (cuz I honestly only added those cuz it felt too short without them) or should I make them less elaborated altogether? (this is why I said I sucked at narrative.)

She lacks a lot of depth and is mostly defined by her circumstances

I read about it and that's something I honestly did not think about (I thought depth was only about not making personalities too simple). I'll try to add more details to her life that are not related to the actual plot she can react to.

Again, thanks for your opinion. I hope the next version stops being annoying and actually allows people to care about the plot. Since that's honestly all I want. from this xD

Empathy means people can understand other's actions and sympathy means they feel sorry for someone. That's what I'm getting with Sophie; the audience feels sorry for Sophie, but doesn't really understand her and what she does. When writing Sophie, you really have to think about who she is and why she does what she does.

With depth, comes understanding. Who exactly is Sophie? Why is she here? Why does she do what she do, act the way she acts? Can you describe her without necessarily describing her circumstances?

All of these questions you don't have to answer, just think about.

And remember: the audience doesn't have to like your main character, they just have to live through them.

I like it, especially the beginning in the bathroom. You definitely set the mood well, although some of the sentence structures and wording could use a bit of revision.

I'm planning on rolling out my first VN as well, and I don't know if we're in the same boat, but I haven't written anything appreciable in length since highschool. Just for reference, how long did it take you to produce the demo you have now?

makorihi wrote:I like it, especially the beginning in the bathroom. You definitely set the mood well, although some of the sentence structures and wording could use a bit of revision.

I'm planning on rolling out my first VN as well, and I don't know if we're in the same boat, but I haven't written anything appreciable in length since highschool. Just for reference, how long did it take you to produce the demo you have now?

It took me a week to write and program just that. However only 4 of those 7 days I actually fully dedicated them to the writing.

Also I'm glad you enjoyed at least part of it. I've decided that I won't change the story but I will change the order in which the events are told (it won't be in chronological order anymore so Sophie's story will be told through dreams and flashbacks instead.) . That way, I can avoid people getting bored before getting to properly meet the characters (who cannot properly be introduced in Sophie's story as they're still both strangers at that point).

He,hee! I'll be working on the writing from here!
Expect a revised script coming soon!

Back to the top of the forum, this goes!

The second demo is out but not up for review yet. Just in there for organization sake and to show off some of the icons and backgrounds I got. As StellarOrb said, he'll be helping with the writing this time so you can all expect something much better for demo 0.3. See ya /o/

I didn't download demo 0.1, so maybe that's why I think it's too short. Since you're releasing demo 0.3 soon, I'm going to just wait for that. So far, I can't tell anything what with the short amount of dialogues that I read, my fault for not downloading 0.1 demo though, lol. But I like your sprites, the art's so cute. :3

CrimsonMoon wrote:I didn't download demo 0.1, so maybe that's why I think it's too short. Since you're releasing demo 0.3 soon, I'm going to just wait for that. So far, I can't tell anything what with the short amount of dialogues that I read, my fault for not downloading 0.1 demo though, lol. But I like your sprites, the art's so cute. :3

Got shocked when I opened your .xcf file though, wasn't expecting that, lol. >.>

Oh, I forgot that thing was there OTL I should reupload those things just in case sorry xD