Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

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TigerAlpaca
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Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

#1 Post by TigerAlpaca »

All sprites are placeholders- even the backgrounds.
As this is still in development and a demo- It stops abruptly. You can get near the end of Act One- but currently no further. And there will be bugs.
Many bugs.

In future updates, I plan to add music- but my collaborator is otherwise occupied currently.

Any reviews are appreciated- I don't care how harsh the reviews are. Keep in mind that there is no ending yet- this has been in development for 5 months now, and I want people to test it.

More builds are being made.

In the finished thing there'll be the false endings and the true ending. The release date for the finished game is 25th December 2020- but it may be finished before then.
BeatingHearts-2.0-pc.zip
WINDOWS/LINUX DEMO
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BeatingHearts-2.0-mac.zip
MAC DEMO
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MaliGarnet
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Re: Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

#2 Post by MaliGarnet »

I tried it and am not even sure if I managed to get to the intended end, since a bug stopped me on both decisions.
Generally, the idea of "school with people that have magical powers" is always a good one, but you're rushing it waaaay too much. That also makes the character interactions rather weird, since "I" seem to hate Lewis after three sentences, then bump into him and have him completely snap at me, just to have us in a romantic interaction seconds later. If you want your story to flow well, you will have to lengthen it a LOT. (I'm sorry for being a bit harsh here, but you said that's fine)
Personal preference, just for you to know that other might have the same problem: I hate it when I'm given the option to decline something, just for the story to force me into it after all. It feels like a useless decision.

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Re: Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

#3 Post by TigerAlpaca »

MaliGarnet wrote: Sat Jun 09, 2018 3:29 pm I tried it and am not even sure if I managed to get to the intended end, since a bug stopped me on both decisions.
Generally, the idea of "school with people that have magical powers" is always a good one, but you're rushing it waaaay too much. That also makes the character interactions rather weird, since "I" seem to hate Lewis after three sentences, then bump into him and have him completely snap at me, just to have us in a romantic interaction seconds later. If you want your story to flow well, you will have to lengthen it a LOT. (I'm sorry for being a bit harsh here, but you said that's fine)
Personal preference, just for you to know that other might have the same problem: I hate it when I'm given the option to decline something, just for the story to force me into it after all. It feels like a useless decision.
It's fine- thanks for the review. This kind of lost its way- I might remake it with a clearer path in mind. But yeah, I'm working on adding endings for now :D

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Re: Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

#4 Post by philip »

@tigeralpaca-

Downloaded and began to play through; hadn't gotten very far when an exception occurred. Usually when that screen pops up there is a choice that says "ignore" and one can proceed, but that was not the case here. Unfortunately, the error happened so early that I was not able to decide how I felt about the game.

Get it fixed and I'll be happy to try again.

philip

Here's the exception: While running game code:
File "game/script.rpy", line 608 in script
jump falsepath4
ScriptError: could not find label 'falsepath4'
"One who has never made a mistake has never attempted anything!"
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and
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"Finish what you start"

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Re: Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

#5 Post by TigerAlpaca »

philip wrote: Thu Jun 21, 2018 12:22 pm @tigeralpaca-

Downloaded and began to play through; hadn't gotten very far when an exception occurred. Usually when that screen pops up there is a choice that says "ignore" and one can proceed, but that was not the case here. Unfortunately, the error happened so early that I was not able to decide how I felt about the game.

Get it fixed and I'll be happy to try again.

philip

Here's the exception: While running game code:
File "game/script.rpy", line 608 in script
jump falsepath4
ScriptError: could not find label 'falsepath4'
I'm sorry- I haven't got that coded in. I've nearly finished Act One- and then that path will be coded further. Sorry!

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Re: Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

#6 Post by TigerAlpaca »

Act One has now been coded in
Two new jumpscares
New characters

The model number won't change because when I try to code it in I get an error- so don't be put out that it says 2.0
If you get an error about an uncoded path- that path will most likely be in Act Two which hasn't been coded yet
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BeatingHearts-2.0-pc.zip
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Curtid21
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Re: Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

#7 Post by Curtid21 »

Hey Tiger,

Just tried out the demo.
Overall I really like the style of constant playthroughs to find out more about the world (setting). The demo only got more interesting as I found out about the hidden relationships between characters, though I felt the murder plot needs more context to develop that same interest.
With my first ever playthrough, I felt overwhelmed. I felt like there wasn't enough context about the world before asking me to make a choice about whether or not I have powers. So my concern rests with how you're going to tell the reader more about the world as the VN develops. I'd love for there to be some blueprint (perhaps through more dialogue or main character monologue) of the game world at the beginning before heading further into choices/storyline.

Bugs:
There seems to be an issue with super-close up leg visuals with Victoria/Lauren.
And with Lauren, we can initially see her whole character, but after some text it's simply a full leg visual.

But definitely keep posting about this. Hope to see it complete!
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TigerAlpaca
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Re: Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

#8 Post by TigerAlpaca »

Curtid21 wrote: Sat Jun 30, 2018 7:28 pm Hey Tiger,

Just tried out the demo.
Overall I really like the style of constant playthroughs to find out more about the world (setting). The demo only got more interesting as I found out about the hidden relationships between characters, though I felt the murder plot needs more context to develop that same interest.
With my first ever playthrough, I felt overwhelmed. I felt like there wasn't enough context about the world before asking me to make a choice about whether or not I have powers. So my concern rests with how you're going to tell the reader more about the world as the VN develops. I'd love for there to be some blueprint (perhaps through more dialogue or main character monologue) of the game world at the beginning before heading further into choices/storyline.

Bugs:
There seems to be an issue with super-close up leg visuals with Victoria/Lauren.
And with Lauren, we can initially see her whole character, but after some text it's simply a full leg visual.

But definitely keep posting about this. Hope to see it complete!
Thanks! I'll have to look into those bugs - thanks for pointing them out. Also, since this is based on my book world - I've realised that I can't just assume everyone's read the books - so I'll add some monologue at the beginning which you can skip if you don't want it

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Re: Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

#9 Post by TigerAlpaca »

URGENT


I need a person to playtest the jumpscares- because while checking the LINT I've found some unusual errors I didn't know about. I will tell you how to test the jumpscares below.
For Lewis' jumpscare -
Don't lie about your powers, bump into Lewis and then don't apologise like the mean person you are (jk). Accept Harper's idea to leave the school grounds and wait for Lewis to drag you under the lake. Refuse to kiss him back and he'll get bratty and jumpscare you- ending the game (ideally save before this so you can reload later)
For Ruby's jumpscare -
After saying something funny in class and opening the note- refusing to meet that little pain will make her jumpscare you later.

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Curtid21
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Re: Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

#10 Post by Curtid21 »

Sounds good!
And yea, I didn't see anything unusual with the scares past the "Exception" error that ends the demo.
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Re: Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

#11 Post by Curtid21 »

Hey Tiger,

I know it's only been a few days, but I also wanted to tell you I just finished my first script of my own. I wanted to share it with you to get your input. I'd appreciate it a ton if you could. viewtopic.php?f=47&t=50825
Thank you!
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TigerAlpaca
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Re: Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

#12 Post by TigerAlpaca »

Quick question - during the cafe scene did anybody else get a transparent background with red writing at the top saying 'image it7EdiT not found'? I was playtesting to find a bug but there appears to be an error with my image. Did anybody else get the same??

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Re: Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

#13 Post by TigerAlpaca »

Also, I see what you mean about the bug. I'll have to size down the character's canvas size - Lauren's thighs just popped up on screen and gave me a heart attack XD

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Re: Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

#14 Post by TigerAlpaca »

I'd say that you'd have to put up with the bug until I get around to drawing the characters - it's too hard to scale them down currently

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Re: Beating Hearts (Fantasy) (DEMO)

#15 Post by TigerAlpaca »

- mini update -
now added -
- some hand-drawn characters have been implemented
- mini story corrections (typos)
- attempted bug fixes
- bugs from new update -
lewis and lauren will always appear in the middle of the screen due to their costume positioning on the canvas. this will be fixed soon!
victoria's thigh bug still hasn't been fixed
a background has potentially disappeared
BeatingHearts-2.0-mac.zip
MAC UPDATED VERSION
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BeatingHearts-2.0-pc.zip
PC UPDATED VERSION
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