Opona [Idol][Psychological Thriller][Comedy]

[rorycarson]

The free demo for my game Opona is now available!

I'd love to get some feedback on it.

The full game is still in development, but this demo is around 20-30 minutes long.





Strawberry Fool is the worst entertainment agency in Canada, and Mia and Noah are two of it's least talented members,
but they're forced into the spotlight when their agent signs them up for an international singing reality TV show!

They'll face manipulative producers, shady editors and terrifying judges... and maybe even make some new friends along the way!










You can find the demo here:


https://rorycarson.itch.io/opona


It's around 80MB and it's available for PC and Mac (:

Cheers!

[Zelan]

WELP I WAS GONNA WORK ON MY PAPER BUT I'M PLAYING THIS FIRST

[rorycarson]

WELP I WAS GONNA WORK ON MY PAPER BUT I'M PLAYING THIS FIRST

Yay thanks Zelan! I'm glad I can provide a distraction from your work

[Zelan]

I finished the demo! I really enjoyed it ^_^ it feels super polished.

I was surprised by the writing style and it was a little difficult to get used to at first, but I think it works.

I really liked being able to look around and collect things, and use the mirror. It added to the polish and made the game feel more lifelike. I liked how Noah's dialogue changed to reflect the fact that Mia had been rummaging in the garbage. I think some options should be taken away once they've been completed, though, like getting rid of the eyelash or eating the plane food. It didn't really make sense to be able to do them twice lmao.

I liked the battle system, but found it a little simple. That's fine for the first few battles as the player gets used to the system, but I'd be interested in seeing some more depth to it. Maybe special abilities for either the protagonists or the enemies. I would like it if Mia had the ability to heal other party members besides just herself, since that's her strength and Noah's weakness. Having an enemy like Evelyn occasionally heal or do more damage would be interesting too (probably not for Richie since he's the first battle).

LOVE LOVE LOVE the art and animation. Even just the title screen took my breath away, I was so impressed my it. The continued use of the logo with something centered in the middle of the O is a really cool effect.

So I actually... hid the textbox so that I could read the entire contract lmao, I was curious to see what was hidden in it. Turns out Mia reads all the important stuff if you keep reading it lmao, so that wasn't really necessary, but at least I felt justified in getting a game over. I did notice that because I spent so long looking at the contract, the music reached the end of the track, and then started up after maybe 10-15 seconds. It might be good to revisit the music files so that there isn't so much silence before it starts to loop again (a slight pause would be fine but not so long to be noticeable).

Oh, and I don't know enough about coding to help fix this, but the icon isn't the actual icon of the game. The game has the default Ren'Py icon, with the actual icon just being a separate file.

Overall, super enjoyed this and I'm really looking forward to seeing more! I was sad when the demo ended because I was really getting into it (although it's probably a good thing I don't have an excuse to play more because I do need to write this paper lmao).

[rorycarson]

Wow, thanks so much for all this great feedback!

I think some options should be taken away once they've been completed, though, like getting rid of the eyelash or eating the plane food. It didn't really make sense to be able to do them twice lmao.

I'll definitely edit out the option to do some of those actions twice, it's a bit weird that Mia has access to infinite lemon cakes lmao

I liked the battle system, but found it a little simple. That's fine for the first few battles as the player gets used to the system, but I'd be interested in seeing some more depth to it. Maybe special abilities for either the protagonists or the enemies. I would like it if Mia had the ability to heal other party members besides just herself, since that's her strength and Noah's weakness. Having an enemy like Evelyn occasionally heal or do more damage would be interesting too (probably not for Richie since he's the first battle).

I totally agree with you on the battle system, it's pretty simple at the moment. I'm going to think about new skills to add later so it doesn't get too repetitive, maybe different styles of dancing and singing, or special skills like posing and rapping? I'll try some stuff out!

I couldn't figure out how to get Mia to heal Noah at all, but today I realised I could probably just use a simple choice button like: "Sing to: >Mia >Noah"
Why didn't I think about that before?! It's so simple...

So I actually... hid the textbox so that I could read the entire contract lmao, I was curious to see what was hidden in it. Turns out Mia reads all the important stuff if you keep reading it lmao, so that wasn't really necessary, but at least I felt justified in getting a game over. I did notice that because I spent so long looking at the contract, the music reached the end of the track, and then started up after maybe 10-15 seconds. It might be good to revisit the music files so that there isn't so much silence before it starts to loop again (a slight pause would be fine but not so long to be noticeable).

Oh, and I don't know enough about coding to help fix this, but the icon isn't the actual icon of the game. The game has the default Ren'Py icon, with the actual icon just being a separate file.

I'm glad you read the entire contract! I spent way too much time typing that thing out... I just checked the song in that section and you're right, there's like 40 seconds of silence at the end, I'll fix it tomorrow, along with the issue with the icon.

Thanks again for all your nice comments about the demo, I'm so glad you enjoyed it and I'll keep working to make the game as good as possible!

Also good luck with your paper! (:

[Zelan]

I totally agree with you on the battle system, it's pretty simple at the moment. I'm going to think about new skills to add later so it doesn't get too repetitive, maybe different styles of dancing and singing, or special skills like posing and rapping? I'll try some stuff out!

I couldn't figure out how to get Mia to heal Noah at all, but today I realised I could probably just use a simple choice button like: "Sing to: >Mia >Noah"
Why didn't I think about that before?! It's so simple...

LMAO posing and rapping sounds great, although definitely make sure they fit into the battle system if you use them. I wonder, since you can use the menu for who to heal, will everyone be able to heal everyone, or will only Mia have that power? It could definitely work either way. If that's Mia's ability, maybe Noah's ability could be a temporary strength buff? Just throwing ideas out lmao, I've never designed a game before so I'm not sure what would work or be easy to implement.

Thanks again for all your nice comments about the demo, I'm so glad you enjoyed it and I'll keep working to make the game as good as possible!

Also good luck with your paper! (:

You're welcome! Thank you for making such a cool game ^_^ and I got about half of it done so I'm on track!

[AlexNumbers]

Just tried out the demo,
Looks fine, liked the artstyle, in-game animations and the ones in Main Menu are good. Also I like the amount of text: the story goes fast enough, as a writer myself I suffer from the problem of too much text.

As Zelan said, the writing style is minimalistic as I would say. Liked the battle system, I think you should look for some old JRPGs to take a little bit of ideas. Looks like Mia is kind of support with her healing songs, so she could have something to buff her teammates (posing or rap suggested by Zelan).

And there is a thing I am wondering about: Why does Evelyn have a Russian surname, even though she is from Ukraine? You could call her Ivanovko to make it Ukrainian. Though, I really liked the details in Siberia studio's backgrounds, especially the correct signs in Russian (still the magazine ones seemed a bit strange to me)

Also about the .ico, I think you can fix it by that:
1) Put the .ico (I use 128x128) in base folder of your game (not the .../game one) and the .png (I use 250x250) one in .../game or .../game/gui as you want. You actually need both to replace the desktop icon AND the taskbar one.
2) Write this in your options.rpy anywhere you want:

Code: Select all

define config.window_icon = "gui/window_icon.png"

3) You are ready to go. Compile the game

[rorycarson]

Also about the .ico, I think you can fix it by that:
1) Put the .ico (I use 128x128) in base folder of your game (not the .../game one) and the .png (I use 250x250) one in .../game or .../game/gui as you want. You actually need both to replace the desktop icon AND the taskbar one.
2) Write this in your options.rpy anywhere you want:

Code: Select all

define config.window_icon = "gui/window_icon.png"

3) You are ready to go. Compile the game

Thanks for your help, I just tried this and the .ico is working now!

Liked the battle system, I think you should look for some old JRPGs to take a little bit of ideas. Looks like Mia is kind of support with her healing songs, so she could have something to buff her teammates (posing or rap suggested by Zelan).

I'll definitely look at some old JRPGs for inspiration, I've been wanting to replay Earthbound and Golden Sun anyway so this is a good chance! A buff is a cool idea, maybe she could sing backup vocals and raise Noah's attack or something? I'll try it out for the full game (:

And there is a thing I am wondering about: Why does Evelyn have a Russian surname, even though she is from Ukraine? You could call her Ivanovko to make it Ukrainian. Though, I really liked the details in Siberia studio's backgrounds, especially the correct signs in Russian (still the magazine ones seemed a bit strange to me)

I didn't know this! I used a Ukranian surname generator for Evelyn back when I was writing the story, seems like that generator wasn't very accurate... so from now on her name is officially Evelyn Ivanovko. The magazine is all google translated nonsense, I'm going to redraw that anyway, so I'll try and make the text more accurate next time.

[AlexNumbers]

The magazine is all google translated nonsense, I'm going to redraw that anyway, so I'll try and make the text more accurate next time.

I can suggest using Yandex Translator, it translates more accurately from English to Russian. But of course you better find somebody who knows Russian (actually it can be anyone from CIS countries and even Eastern Europe) and who can check your translations.
What about the magazine, you can write this:
"72
небольших
совета
об
ОСЕННЕЙ
КРАСОТЕ
вы удивитесь"
Everything else is fine

[rorycarson]

"72
небольших
совета
об
ОСЕННЕЙ
КРАСОТЕ
вы удивитесь"
Everything else is fine

Ah thanks for the translation, I'm going to use this for the magazine instead!

I'll use Yandex in the future and find someone who knows Russian to check it first (: