★ RockRobin - Open Beta

[nancie]

Wow this was one of the first games I ever stalked here and followed on your old forums. I was really glad to see you working on it because lets be honest there is not another game out there anything like this one. I have to say wow, it was still totally worth the wait. I downloaded it a while ago but well life - kids I just didn't have time to play all of it to give proper feedback. I still have not done all the open ended stories but I think I've played through most of the romance paths currently released (minus Alessandro he just wont unlock in memorabilia but he does appear in the hire list now)
so characters ~
Robin- she is not my favorite type of protagonist but I still love her. She is suborn, selfish, childish, self righteous, angry, temperamental and very misunderstood. She has a good amount of character growth and I love most of her banter. I even love her silly defense mechanisms. She is a very real character to me.
Emmitt - I also generally hate the child romance because I don't want to be anyone's mom... that said I wanted to unlock the extras and play through at least the main paths. He did kind of grow on me a bit I really loved the scenes with his family and how robin stuck up for him. (This was my favorite Robin denial scene as well)
Beau - what can I say... speak french to me baby and the ponytail, ah. He was a character that I both loved and hated. I loved the selfish persona that secretly wanted to please people but had no real idea how to other than saying thing he thought they wanted to hear. His banter was funny and his retorts to robin being ... well robin were spot on. I hated that his character seemed so shallow? (not in an a**hole way just lack of depth) His romance scenes were hot and messy and raw with emotion but the rest didn't really match. I'm not sure if that really makes sense but it almost seems like he was written with different ideas of how he would play out in mind during different scenes.
Dallas - wow the heart-wrenching angst... these two just needed to be locked in a room with no escape paths. I really related to a lot of the unsaid everything it was painful to play through the first time and wonderful to finally end the path (mainstory part) I replayed this one several times trying to get the unlocks to trigger and explored all the different choices. I even chose to stay behind and talk to sterling. I loves the way you handled that kudos to you on that.
Open ended -
Blue Rose - My silly little psyco stalker hero BFF, loved her
Jammy - My ninja stalker loved her too
Emma, Claudette, Bruno, Joel, and Natasha - no real comment
Collin - I found his story sort of silly I opened him up in story mode but I never put him in a band so I can't give any real input. He just didn't appeal to me.
Seth - I like his story. Can't wait to see what you do with him.
Faust - He was all over the place, sort of seemed to wrapped up in his own fantasy world I really liked his story and felt like he was very complicated his romance was cute minus the whole hot cold feel really liked the way robin reacted to his trauma and I loved her reaction to his ex. I was a bit distracted at the end of his path to be honest I found a rather amusing bug on his path (see below) but over all his path was very bittersweet. the last romance scene was awesome (can't wait for the cg)
Wizz - This is by far my favorite story. I was really touched by this one (i really love the geek/nerdy path) so this relationship dynamic was so very real and funny and uplifting. Every time robin got angry I had an urge to strangle him as well (between the fits of laughter) and when I read his reason I almost choked, and Robin's realization. I almost cried. This is the one path that once I started on it I just couldn't say no. So he will probably never be in a band that I am not romancing him. His ending was so sweet, the contrast from beginning to end was so well done. All I can say was thanks for that...

Now for the other bits. In open ended mode, my last band was Robin, Faust, Marcus, and Wizz... I started out with the intention of playing Faust's path making a save just before I committed to a romance and going back and choosing Wizz. Well all was going well I started Faust and was still able to choose to romance Wizz. Well his scene was so intense I just couldn't say no so I figured I'd just do them backwards. well I never got a break up scene - or a jealousy scene. So I romance them both in the same band with no repercussions. I was pretty sure once you chose any romance you were locked into that path so I figured I'd better let you know.
other light stuff - mini games, I generally hate mini games and usually turn them off. I played twice with them active and them turned them off. just not really my thing. Note if you have your game on skip text (ff) it breaks the mini game
the Alesandro memorabilia never unlocked for me tried after several updates.
So last note I am really opinionated and everything said here is just that my silly little opinion, all feed back is a reflection of my thoughts. I love what you have accomplished with this game and the writing quality it by far the best I've seen from anything else I've played here. So thanks. Keep up the great work.

[Aleema]

I'm on the Emmitt's path and i got the error when after I chose "BAND MEETING" with a new dialogue, after that it show the room and the crash show up :/ The last scene i remember is after the valentine's day with Emmitt

Okay, I believe this is Emmitt causing the problem. His 2nd sprite does not have the emotion required in this scene, which I will fix in the next patch. Thank you!

@nancie: Thank you for the lovely review! I love hearing everyone's thoughts on the paths.

Romancing multiple people isn't a bug per se, I just haven't written any jealous scenes. (Wizz gets a little bothered if you pay him to stop Ada from spamming the forum.) The skipping w/mini-games will be fixed in the next patch. Though I don't care if people skip the recording session, honestly.

Thank you!

[pinto minto]

I downloaded this yesterday, and it's super addicting... been playing it for hours lol. I also liked how I didn't have to romance with anyone to win the game. There's more I want to write about but, I'm busy with other things and it's late right now.

[78909087]

Pssst... I don't have time to write my review right now (and I've only finished one route) but here is Robin.
(Whom I adore.)



I love how human and realistic all the characters, setting and reactions are. I cried.

*wobbles away to play more*

[Aleema]

You guys ... Thank you! Sometimes I get bummed out by people who hate Robin and then you guys remind me she's not totally hated.

Thank you for the lovely and accurate fanart!

[moonburnt]

I just finished the first playthrough of story mode, 0.83. I played Beau's route. After that I played a bit of Open-Ended mode, but stopped. I'm commenting mostly to say that I can't wait for Seth's story.

Sorry for the wall of feedback. Wanted to write down all my impressions of the game while they're still fresh.

Memorabilia for Robin is missing 4 scenes. One above "Christmas Break", three between "Nominated" and "Rehearsals."

There was an odd moment when Beau asked me to buy him the cheapest keyboard when he already had the most expensive one.

I think I managed to miss a crucial scene in the main story. A reporter mentions it later. From what I gathered, media was involved, Robin didn't handle this well, and Sterling ended up behind the bars (but not really). I really want to see that! It sounds too much like a story climax.

I thought the skip happened because my band became too popular too fast, and I didn't get the opportunity to raise popularity. Maybe the scene was supposed to happen during "raising popularity" period. Oddly enough, the game acknowledges that you're already popular, so perhaps I'm wrong. If I'm right, I can't figure out how unpopular I need to be, so I'm not sure how to play the second time. Or maybe I should've moved to the biggest condo? Seemed like a waste of money. If it's important for the story, I wish a character would suggest it to me at some point. Or maybe there was no scene and I'm misunderstanding something?

Because of Beau's situation, I was under the impression that I was operating under one year time constraint. Later I figured out that's not the case, but I still couldn't relax. His mom would pounce on him any moment, I thought, and then our band is over. It's not clear how much time you have to generate $1,000,000 in CD sales. I kept awaiting with quiet horror the dreaded message "3 weeks left". There's no way I could make a million in three weeks if that happened. So I looked in FAQ and figured I need to raise popularity. But once I concentrated on gigs and released the second album, the sales suddenly skyrocketed in a short amount of time. I'm still bitter my first album, War, never hit the charts.

My second album, "Is it Murder if They Had it Coming?" hit the top of the charts repeatedly and won the award. I find it hilarious.

I couldn't figure out how to make my singles hit the charts in story mode. Maybe you're not supposed to get two awards. Or maybe my songs are not good enough as singles. That would suck.

I kept fretting about the plummeting CDs popularity. I was waiting for popularity to reach zero, then for albums to crush and burn, and for Launch Distribution to call me, gloating: "You're making no sales, so you lost! And now you owe us a million with 100% interest! Muahahaha!" Spent some time trying to figure out how to boost popularity back up, but apparently there's no way. I also kept half-expecting that extra marketing options would unlock later.

I have no idea what timbres are for, but they really make me wonder! They look significant. And pretty.

I didn't mind the mini-game, even though it was lagging a bit. It's fun.

My biggest trouble was raising stats. For some reason I can't raise them in any significant way by practicing, and the only way to actually raise them is hang-outs. Maybe I'm really bad at this, but band practice merely shifts skill points from one bar to another for me. At times I actually lose points without gaining any. So, without hang-outs, my characters end up with degraded skills at the end of the month despite having practiced every day. That happens especially fast with low skill points. Happened with Beau several times. I had to reload when I saw how fast he lost most of his skills in a few weeks of practice. (He really should've remained rusty.) When people don't want to hang out with me, their skills plummet down to zero steadily while I can only watch, horrified. Sometimes I would silently scream:

"You thought it's your personal matter? It's not! You're hurting the entire band with your sulking! Just tell me what's wrong! Let's have a hate-hang-out while we play our instruments angrily! Let's increase our music even if our stress increases as well!"

Also, I have to keep all the skills balanced because Music and Star are required for gigs to be good, and Writing is something I require because I want to see what songs everyone can produce. It's one of my favorite parts to see what they come up with.

Stats raising issue is the reason why I stopped playing opened-ended mode. (Aside from waiting for Seth.) I accidentally picked all the band members who raise only Writing skill during hang outs. So now it's June, I have 35 Music, 122 Writing, 8 Star, my fans are dissing my attitude on the stage (cringe), I don't dare to work on my Star points for fear of losing all my hard-won Music, I can't play anywhere except in the small bar without being booed, I still have only two songs, and Bast just mentioned how he has lots of work and needs to promote my "new album", so now I know what a massive failure I am, because I should have at least two albums at this point and lots of big gigs. But if I had Seth, I would be motivated to try harder.

My favorite parts are cutscenes, conversations, public opinion board, and making songs. Gigs are fun too, especially when there are events.

I really like it when public posts something related to what just happened. Sadly they post old things again in Opened-Ended. But there's a new story in Opened-Ended, so I don't mind. It's kinda heartwarming to see the same old fans to stick around through thick and thin. It's the second band switch that they're putting up with, and they still remain Robin's loyal fans. I wish I could reward them for that somehow. At least give robinluver a signed disc on stage or something. (Although that might be dangerous. For robinluver.)

I wish the high Writing would produce high quality songs consistently without reload. I also wish I could click on written songs in the list to see what they're about. I find the description "a song about someone (Sterling)" particularly amusing. It'd be great to have more personal song subjects from everyone, where they write about something in their lives, and not just about general stuff (especially not about "nothing"). And then I could reread that in the song list. And compose badass personal albums.

I wish I didn't have to click "Band Info" each time to get to public opinion, and also wish there was a "new" notice when they post something. This way I wouldn't have to do two extra clicks just to see if there's something new on the forum.

I like recording songs and releasing new albums. It's less stressful than band practice. I swear I'm getting more stress than my characters when they practice. No skill points are lost when you record and release, and plus this is exactly what you're working for, so this is rewarding (aside from making songs). This is the whole point, writing personal songs, releasing them, and watching the public's reaction.

I wish releasing albums was a more involved process, with a marketing mini-game or something. I wish I could see the charts or sales progress without having to press any buttons. Even if my album is occupying 1000th position, I want that information right in front of me at all times. I want to know how exactly bad I am at this. I'll be satisfied if I see it move to 999th position after I play my gig.

I'm looking forward to Marcus, hoping he'll have a long story. I seem to recall that he doesn't like to join bands permanently, so there's potential for drama here. Maybe I could make him change his mind. Plus, he's good-looking. And it would be a stab at Emmitt. What, my band isn't good enough for EJ? Good enough for his brother, however... >:)

Wish I could have Sebastian in the band and available for hang outs. I have a lot of questions for him. We managed without a manager just fine in the story mode. Of course, there was Launch Distribution...

I'm confused by the fact that there are record labels to choose from in the opened-ended. Am I supposed to choose? There's no way I will. But am I overworking Bast by not choosing? Or would I just end his story if I do? I don't even need a record label. Do I?

Initially I was put off by Robin and her attitude. But once she recovered a little from the drama, I developed a grudging respect for her, then admiration, because of her smart mouth and her dedication to music. She's a real pro at verbal sparring. She can take a verbal hit without flinching and deflect the strike, or turn an attack into a counter-attack. She's also really funny.

The conversation with Beau when she made him a sponsor is especially hilarious. She kept going back to money. I laughed pretty hard when he finally said it outright, "You really need to hide your greed." I thought it was refreshing she didn't hide it. Very straightforward of her. Plus, it's for the band.

In retrospect, it's not that funny. Maybe that put too much pressure on him. I wonder how Beau's situation plays out when on another route. I guess he goes back to his mom just the same and everything is peachy. It's not like he's in any real danger or anything. Although he obviously suffered quite a bit, which sucks. It's seriously quite a downer that Robin didn't manage to make any difference whatsoever. In their lives, in her own, in anything.

I found the end of the story mode absolutely bloodcurdling. At first I thought it was a nightmare. I would wake any moment, I'm sure. There's no way they could be using the exact same words as her previous band-mates (what are the chances?) Or perhaps it's a time loop? I'm doomed to repeat the same cycle over and over again until I figure out exactly what I'm doing wrong? What are the winning conditions? I thought I managed it right this time. Robin is her own worst enemy, but I really thought I could help her out. Change her fate. We even won that award...

But apparently it was all for nothing. Her band is annihilated, her connections are severed - no regrets, no hesitation, no warning, not a word of thanks - only fear of her reaction. And her skills are wiped out. She's learned nothing. She's worse off than before.

I really feel for Robin that even after trying hard, she's still unable to develop or retain even the most basic human connections. Even after everything she's done, she wasn't able to earn a grain of respect from her own band. They still kept whispering and plotting behind her back, they never told her anything, and they sprung it on her in the worst possible moment. And they never even called afterwards. Not even a little message. I guess she really is insufferable to be with, huh?

I admit it, I was unpleasantly surprised. I suspected the award ceremony would be the end, but not that kind of end. I thought this was our great band. I was going to take to the top of the world...

Or maybe it's not Robin who's the problem. Maybe she just needs to find some people who are actually committed to music, and not doing it as a side project, or a hobby, or a distraction, and who would ditch her the moment a higher priority comes along. Maybe she needs to get over Shocker M and start making music for the sake of music, and not for revenge. Maybe she needs to break free from record label. Or maybe, just maybe, all she needs is a competent keyboardist!

That's why I have such high hopes for Seth. His sub-story was the highlight of the game. I felt like they had real chemistry, like they're soul-mates. Even if it all ends in disaster, it would be a ride quite worth it, I'm sure. I mean, that guy is like the spirit of music himself. All that repression is obviously not good for him. He can't even help himself, like Robin rightly pointed out, and hearing his own music being played was obviously the tipping point.

The moment she told him "Well, of course, you," was absolutely awesome. I don't think I've ever encountered something like that in (someone else's) romance story before! I mean, at this point she's in love with Beau, but she doesn't even hesitate. Hell yeah, music is stronger than all that love stuff! A muse? Don't let it go! Seth doesn't even want to leave. It was going to work out! Honestly I cursed Beau for interfering. You don't get to call other people poison and then break the band before the big performance (dammit I trained so hard for that performance), you hypocrite!

And considering what Beau reduced her to later in the game and at the beginning of Opened Ended mode, I think she really needs a reminder of what's really important - music. So forget the losers who essentially dumped you and let's make music that rocks the world.

Maybe I'm bitter about the ending. Do I want to make Beau regret leaving her? Yes I do. Let's make sure he cries some bitter tears too. The universe balance would be resorted ever so slightly.

So, I really like the jukebox. Never turned it off. It's awesome.

I do feel there should be more of a forum reaction to Robin starting a new band yet again (in the open-ended). And perhaps something related to her winning the award in the past.

I hang out with the band (in story mode) every weekend. Then spent the remaining day on gigs or recording. Or else all my skill points would degrade and perish.

What's bothering me is there used to be an awesome pic of the band with the whole lot being awesome and radiant, but now the story mode ended, that pic is replaced with a dark and depressing one. Or maybe it's my impression of the ending coloring the new pic. But all the same, why is the old one gone. I still see its outline on the loading screen, like a faded reminder of what used to be. Kinda makes me wish Robin would remember her old (new old) band with the same bitterness that I do.

Also I liked the tutorial explanations Robin gave once, but I couldn't get her to do it again (in story mode), even after looking through all the options and deleting the saves.

The game has 800x600 resolution? Wow, it does. I never noticed.

[Aleema]

That is one long post.

I'm glad to see you so emotionally committed to the game and to feel so strongly about all of the characters. It was not my intention to make you angry at the ending, but instead to show how Robin had matured. In fact, my favorite version of the ending is the one where you don't win an award. It's supposed to be hopeful yet bittersweet, because I have to explain why you get to make a new band in Open Mode. I wrote it this way mainly because I didn't want a cliche ending where Robin gets absolutely everything she wants. I feel bad if the ending ruined your experience of the game in whole, but I'm unfortunately not going to write the alternative. What happens is too important to Robin's character. The same reason that Robin isn't happy-go-lucky and nice is the same reason I chose to end the story that way - because I was just writing a story, not an a self-insert dating sim. I don't see the ending as the real finale, because they're all going to have full epilogues in Open Mode.

It's also interesting to see how people can play in unexpected ways. I really wasn't expecting anybody to just never ... raise stats. But I suppose that it's possible, as you said, through hanging out. Have you tried playing the game on Easy? Don't feel ashamed, I made multiple modes to cater to different play styles and I think you may like it. The degradation is less harsh. The game requires you to balance your stats, so it is slightly a game of back-and-forth, but you will almost always get 5 of one stat, 1 less of another (or something). You will make progress.

The scenes you are missing are mostly Robin's single version of the main story scenes (not on anyone's path) so you're not missing anything, really.

What really worries me is that you're implying you didn't see a very important scene from Beau's path. Did you see the scene where Sterling punches Beau? That is the scene the reporter is talking about. It occurs after a gig after Seth and Beau's confrontation (which you did see). That scene and the scenes that follow are required to start Beau's romance. So I am wondering now if you got the "Beau's path failed" pop up before the AMP awards? Did you actually ever romance him? Please confirm, very important. >_>

If you play Open Ended Mode with the full story, Sebastian's route is what I consider to be the "main" story, so his ending is the "ending" of Open Mode. The character you are dating will have a unique scene with him and such, but they are not scripted yet.

Honestly, it seems like the game just stressed you out, and that sucks. You have a lot of good points and you've shown me another way of looking at my game. At this point, I just want to finish the game and move on (how many years of development hell??) but I will take your critique with me into my new games. Thank you.

[moonburnt]

I didn't mean to criticize the story, or to ask for a different ending. Sometimes, when I'm immersed into a story too much, I get too passionate about it. I got carried away rambling, I'm sorry. Please erase my feedback from your memory with a magical eraser and don't take it anywhere!

I didn't mean to imply that the ending ruined the game for me. I had a blast, and I'm looking forward to open-ended even more now because of how the story mode ended and because there's more. What happened to Robin at the beginning of the story wasn't personal for me, because I wasn't present for her old band, but the story mode end was personal because I was there along for the ride, and so the open-ended restart is more emotional for me, and I'm even more invested into the second band's success because of it.

I'm going to try it again without the award because I'm intrigued now, and besides, more suffering is good, better motivation for the second band. I'm planning to keep out of the charts by suddenly switching genres and band name. It's something I'm constantly tempted to do anyway. Then, I'll be able to consider the story mode's end as a second act. The lowest point. And there's the main story to look forward to!! This is super exciting.

I see, somehow I completely misunderstood the reporter's remark. There was no missing scene, I'm sorry. I saw that scene where Sterling punched Beau. I completed the romance and there was no pop-up warning.

What confused me was the line "Since the Sterling incident, I had relinquished all media control to him..." (made me think there was yet another Sterling incident, this one caused by media), and also the line "What does it feel like to see your ex-lover behind bars?"

I went all "What? How? When? I want to see him behind bars! Oh no, I must've missed out because I didn't pace myself!" Robin does deny it, which immediately made me think there's even more to the story. So my overactive imagination painted a scene where Sterling and Robin are interviewed by media and they come to blows and they're dragged away by the police, handcuffed, and then thrown into jail together but Robin is bailed by Beau while Sterling isn't by anyone, so she gets to mock him while he spends the night behind bars. My bad.

I tried playing on normal again (Emmitt route) but this time without raising anyone's Writing but Robin's. She takes care of all the song-writing while raising her two other skills by hanging out and occasionally she switches to balance her other two skills. While other people just concentrate on Music and Stars. This time I'm making much better progress on skills, and Emmitt's skills skyrocketed and fans are writing about how hot he is and that he's almost as good as Marcus! Hehe. Awesome. His Writing is supposed to suck anyway, he doesn't even recognize music sheet if you give it to him, so it all makes sense.

So, I learned that Marcus got married (although that was a close one.) I wonder if that means that he got over his commitment issues. Also I'm really curious why Owen joins when he refused before. I'm kinda worried because of his previous argument with Tracy. She didn't permanently kick him out, did she?

Even though I wanted to replay the story mode first, I peeked at Wizz' story in open-ended and now I can't stop. I'm laughing so hard, my stomach hurts. Wizz and Robin are a perfect match. It also contains one of the most badass exchanges in the game.

Robin: Who's better than us?
Sebastian: No one.

That's right, that's what I'm talking about! All right, this is getting too long again.

EDIT: OMG I can actually have a violin in my band. It's gameplay-integrated. I really need a genre named "experimental rock" now.

EDIT2: It's Christmas in my story mode, and Robin has written a song all by her lonesome, which she has titled "Christmas Sucks." She is now performing that song in a gig, all alone, and everybody is loving it.

[vrael101]

Hehe. Awesome. His Writing is supposed to suck anyway, he doesn't even recognize music sheet if you give it to him, so it all makes sense.

You'd be surprised.
Usually, Robin wrote songs that were around 4 stars and Emmitt/Beau always wrote 5-star masterpieces.

[Zelan]

Hehe. Awesome. His Writing is supposed to suck anyway, he doesn't even recognize music sheet if you give it to him, so it all makes sense.

You'd be surprised.
Usually, Robin wrote songs that were around 4 stars and Emmitt/Beau always wrote 5-star masterpieces.

Yeah, I had the same. ^_^ Emmitt's writing was hard to get up, but when I did manage to do it he wrote some of the band's best songs.

[Jackrabbit]

Well, after playing this about 8 times, it's time for some feedback! I'll start with the questionnaire from the first post.

I played the game on Easy (because I'm terrible at stat-raising sims) and Fastest (because I'm impatient).

I almost always set Robin's strength to Writing, because I feel like writing new songs is the immediate concern when starting a new game, especially since you need to have enough to switch around when their popularity decline. You do need good Music to write good songs, but even with super low Music you can write decent ones if Writing is maxed.

I started with Emmitt, both because he's the first to be introduced and because I liked how straightforward his friendship with Robin was. While I generally enjoyed seeing them dance along the line of friends to lovers, I did grow impatient toward the end because I felt it became somewhat repetitive. I also feel a bit bad for him for never getting any, unlike all the others.
After that I went for Dallas because of the angst potential, and I was not disappointed. I was a bit sad to see how emotionally unstable Robin was throughout the entire route, but I guess that's understandable. Some of the flashback scenes sorta made me feel Dallas was one of those Nice Guys, who remain friendly anticipating the day you realize how great they are and date them - but I guess no one's perfect.
Beau's route I did last, because he's not my type. I'm not really interested in that type of character, and I never really bought any genuine emotions from him. I guess like Robin said, they don't really know each other. I feel like their relationship was mostly born out of inertia with the fake relationship rather than developing naturally.

I was playing on Easy, so I can't comment much on balance. Playing gigs was my main source of income until I could craft a perfect album, at which point you can lie back and watch the money roll in. Once you get your stats high enough it's just a matter of spamming shows to max popularity, but I did fail a couple of times before getting there.

I actually wish there were more goals, especially since some of them were just "wait for [x]". Those made me so anxious, I was sure I had to prepare somehow but not what I should do! I would love to see goals for publishing an album with [x] stars, or perfecting a show in [x] venue.

Oh boy, the mini-game. I think any mini-game gets wearisome when you play it so damn often. It wasn't terrible, since it doesn't take much time to complete and skipping it doesn't cripple your performance. I wish it could have been a rhythm game of some sort, but I understand that would take far too many resources.

The jukebox was a great joy and one of my main considerations when picking a genre! I did end up adding to it from my personal collection, but I thought it had a respectful variety.

I also really liked the forum posts, but I wish they reacted more both to the romance and just general "band events" - like the first time you have a show in the arena, or doing a private event for someone on the forum. For band chats, it's similar - little talks about having a great show in a huge venue or writing a 5-star song.

I really abused the Hang Out option, because it gave great bonuses to the stats. I think I used it the least with Dallas though, because his added stress as well. Kinda wish there were joint hangouts possible now and then.

Across my many playthroughs I managed to snag a few awards, a few times for album/single, twice for Robin and once for Emmitt (I was so happy for him!).

The resolution was annoying at first, but honestly I stopped noticing it after a while. I usually prefer playing in windowed mode anyway.

There was some lag during the mini-game, but hardly noticeable.

I think my least favorite part was the whole fiasco with the canceled show, just suddenly deciding the music industry is evil and clearly we're the only band with artistic integrity so we gotta screw over a whole lotta people and bail on the show, not to mention losing a lot of fans. It just felt pretentious to me, I guess. Also the band breaking up with literally 5 minutes notice felt really contrived - I didn't notice any foreshadowing to it, and the whole things felt almost planned, like some weird sort of intervention. That could have easily been fixed by a few chats/hangouts where the boys are uncomfortable and/or try telling Robin something and change their mind. If they REALLY feel the best time to announce breaking up is before going on stage, it should've have at least felt more spontaneous ("it just slipped out").

My favorite part, hm. Hard to say - it really deepened on the route, I suppose. I just liked whenever Robin could really enjoy what she was doing and not feel the shadow of her past with Sterling over everything. I really enjoyed seeing Robin work through things, she's such an interesting character and not the type of protagonist you usually see.

Features wishlist - I reeeeeeally wish we could've have replied to forum topics. It's a terrible idea but oh dear god, the havoc Robin could cause on those forums. That feature is just super neat and I wanted more of it, I kept trying to scroll down topics to see more replies.

Regarding Open Mode, for some reason it felt harder than the Story Mode. I have no clue why, could it be just that the lack of objectives made it seem so?
I have Thoughts about everyone in it, so here we go:
Basty - He's a riot and I love him, I only wish he showed up more in the other character's route because he's such a great counter to Robin. His story is a rollercoster but what can you expect from Robin's brother? Overall there's no doubt in my mind he does a lot of good for Robin and the band.
Owen - Okay technically Owen is in Story Mode too but he's great here as well. I really appreciated how supportive he was when things got messy, but I wish we knew more about him and Tracy (some scenes suggested there's some tension between her and Robin?).
Wizz - What a precious little shit he is <3. The sexual tension in that route was off the charts and every barbed conversation with him was a treat, but I wish we had a few more scenes of him being vulnerable. I really liked how they both tried to familiarize themselves with the other's hobbies to make it a real relationship. I loved seeing his family and friends, grounded his character wonderfully.
The Blue Rose - I'm surprised how likeable she is, considering she's a bit off her rocker. Her budding friendship with Robin was heartwarming and her crush on Wizz is adorable. She clearly needs more combo scenes harassing everyone!
Al - Precious cinnamon roll, but not a lot of filling. He's sweet but not very interesting. I wanted more scenes of him taking digs at Robin when she's trying to write love songs, or Robin trying to take him under her wing and failing because he's more mature than her.
Faust - Oh boy, I do not get Faust at all. He has that ridiculous "fonetik aksent" and does that thing with using German words for things he knows in English and his weird melodrama and all of it feels like window dressings covering what could be a really interesting character. And it was never really explained why he's interested in Robin or vice-versa. What do they do together, beside sex? Music is so important to him and yet he just vaguely talks about his past as a child prodigy and that's it. I don't know, there were so many ideas there but nothing really rose above "nice" for me.
Emma - She's a weirdo but there's no doubting her passion for music. Her scenes were interesting but I'm not sure how much of a connection there was. I do love having a violin in my alternative band, though.
Joel - Hell yeah, Joel is your bro and he's such a good guy. I really like having such a calm and reasonable personality on board, and Robin could always use friends like him.
Natasha - Took some time for me to warm up to her, what with her super tacky style and the cliche "bimbo with a kid" story. But she showed her depth and her shared scene with Joel was sweet.
Colin - I saved the best for last, because GOD DAMN I love Colin. I adore his ridiculous speeches, his dramatic rivalry with Robin, his uncesserily complicated mind games and his shameless and relentless flirting. I found his route to be the most emotional, both because of his history with Robin and because he just showed the most of himself. Even at his most showy something about his dialogues conveyed genuine emotion, and I loved how Robin slowly opened up to him. A very interesting character paired with excellent development and distinctive banter, everything you could ask.

Phew, I think that's it. I hope some of this babble was useful, and I'm looking forward for further updates to the beta!

[Aleema]

More feedback!

You have some good suggestions. I would like to include more goals. In fact, I want the record label (in both story and open mode) to randomly generate goals such as you listed. And you make a good point about milestones that I just ignore, like the first time playing in an arena. That would be a huge moment for the characters, indeed!

At this point, I realize that I handled the ending poorly but in defense of myself, I did try to drop hints. Dallas tries to tell you on the pier when he talks about his family being in trouble. Beau tries to tell you in bed when you ask about "Robin" in French. Emmitt will freak out if you gift him things like a luggage set and I think there was something else, but I can't remember. >_> Looking back, those only happen if you're on their romance. So, I wasn't very good. Fortunately, that's something I can fix. That is what betas are for!

Thank you for detailing how you enjoyed each path! I love that stuff. Another Collin lover! Woo!! Dallas definitely treads into "Nice Guy" territory. I had to rewrite some of his stuff when I realized this. There's something romantic about someone secretly loving you, but you gotta value friendship for friendship's sake.

EDIT2: It's Christmas in my story mode, and Robin has written a song all by her lonesome, which she has titled "Christmas Sucks." She is now performing that song in a gig, all alone, and everybody is loving it.

That's hilarious!

Glad you're enjoying Wizz!! I had so much fun writing him, but I was also really worried about the public's response to him and his path. Robin isn't at her best and themes I never really brought up before are introduced (porn, for example) so I wondered about his dateability. Really happy to hear the favorable response.

[midnightswolfsbane]

I only heard about RockRobin recently, but I absolutely love it! I've already finished Dallas's path on normal and am about halfway through Beau's. So far I haven't run into any problems in story mode, but I have been experiencing a problem with open mode. Whenever I start a game in open mode, I can choose the music genre, name, and logo just fine and get through the scene of her meeting Sebastian with no problems. After that, though, I can't press anything except 'Band Info' and 'Shop.' Every button works under those two, but that's it. I had originally updated from an older version, then I tried re-downloading the entire game, but it still hasn't let me do anything else. I've also filled up all of the band spots and chosen a record label to see if that was the problem, but to no avail. Looking through this forum, I don't think anyone else has had this issue, which sucks because I was really looking forward to trying out Wizz's path, what with him being the adorable little bastard he is and all. I hope it can be resolved but until then, I'll gladly enjoy finishing Beau's path and starting on Emmett's.

[flawedbydesign]

I absolutely love this game. I played all of the routes multiple times and done the romances for everyone unlocked in Open End mode. I really like how human the characters are. I honestly thought that I would hate Collin, and kinda had to force myself to even add him to my band, but he ended up being my favorite romance, although I also loved Wizz.

I am missing two dates, two flashbacks and six (not counting Open End mode) things in Dallas's memorabilia. Two in Wizz's, though I have played through several time in a romance and not. Five in Emmitt's. Six in Beau's.

The achievement for romancing Faust has not unlocked, even though I have all of his things in memorabilia, not including combo scenes. The achievement for completing his story had unlocked.

I also found a mistake in Collin's path, when you go to his house after Grace shows up. It says "But tachere shouldn't be even a drop of fear..." right after asking if he is going to hurt you.

I was also curious as to why the dialogue in the "Contingency" memorabilia is different than the dialogue during the actual game.

[Aleema]

I only heard about RockRobin recently, but I absolutely love it! I've already finished Dallas's path on normal and am about halfway through Beau's. So far I haven't run into any problems in story mode, but I have been experiencing a problem with open mode. Whenever I start a game in open mode, I can choose the music genre, name, and logo just fine and get through the scene of her meeting Sebastian with no problems. After that, though, I can't press anything except 'Band Info' and 'Shop.' Every button works under those two, but that's it. I had originally updated from an older version, then I tried re-downloading the entire game, but it still hasn't let me do anything else. I've also filled up all of the band spots and chosen a record label to see if that was the problem, but to no avail. Looking through this forum, I don't think anyone else has had this issue, which sucks because I was really looking forward to trying out Wizz's path, what with him being the adorable little bastard he is and all. I hope it can be resolved but until then, I'll gladly enjoy finishing Beau's path and starting on Emmett's.

My only guess is that you unlocked Open Mode with cheats and haven't completed the initial game tutorials. I should fix this, but for now, you can get around that by playing through the first tutorials in Story Mode (Shift + > skips to next interaction). If that's not the case, maybe try changing your video settings by holding Shift when booting up the game.

Glad you like it otherwise!

I absolutely love this game. I played all of the routes multiple times and done the romances for everyone unlocked in Open End mode. I really like how human the characters are. I honestly thought that I would hate Collin, and kinda had to force myself to even add him to my band, but he ended up being my favorite romance, although I also loved Wizz.

I am missing two dates, two flashbacks and six (not counting Open End mode) things in Dallas's memorabilia. Two in Wizz's, though I have played through several time in a romance and not. Five in Emmitt's. Six in Beau's.

The achievement for romancing Faust has not unlocked, even though I have all of his things in memorabilia, not including combo scenes. The achievement for completing his story had unlocked.

I also found a mistake in Collin's path, when you go to his house after Grace shows up. It says "But tachere shouldn't be even a drop of fear..." right after asking if he is going to hurt you.

I was also curious as to why the dialogue in the "Contingency" memorabilia is different than the dialogue during the actual game.

You can compare your missing scenes with the walkthrough.rtf in the game folder to see how those scenes are triggered. Some scenes in Wizz's path changes if you were nicer to him in the beginning, but the flag resets to "not nice" when not in the game. There's also 1 variable called "robin_cool_with_porn" that gauges if your Robin is cool with raunchier stuff (you either get mad at Wizz's porn or joke about it to set your choice), so some stuff will change based on that too. The changes are small enough to not really warrant their own scene slot or whatever, but the variable can be re-flagged if you replay the scene where the variable changes first.

The romance achievement not triggering for Faust (and major Memorabilia unlocking issues) should have been fixed in the latest version. Which version are you playing?

Nice to see you gave Collin a try.