[Group Play 5] DSanchez's - City of Lost Hope

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Auro-Cyanide
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[Group Play 5] DSanchez's - City of Lost Hope

#1 Post by Auro-Cyanide »

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Group Play is a weekly event in which one game is selected to be promoted within the forums to be played by us as a group. It provides an opportunity to promote some smaller games that would otherwise get lost, promote discussion and promote creativity. This isn't just about the creators of the games, but also us as a community. It acts as a way for us to analyse work as creative people and for us to develop the necessary critical language to develop and pursue our work.

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This week's game is "DSanchez's - City of Lost Hope" by DarkStem!

You can find links to the game here: DSanchez's - City of Lost Hope

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There are some rules to follow in the following discussion about the game.

- In your primary comment on the game, please try to mention one thing you liked and one thing you think could be improved. This is in the spirit of giving both encouraging and helpful comments to the creators. You may of course go beyond this with praise or critique. I can't enforce this rule, I'll just silently judge you.

- Please try to do one play-through or enough of the game to develop a solid opinion. Some things can be commented on early on, but things like plot might be best left until you finish the game.

- There is no rule as to whether you post here only or in the completed game topic. Feel free to do as you like. This is just a space to discuss this game while playing it at the same time as others.

- Please try to think about the game play as a whole, as well as the different parts that make up the game.

- Please be respectful to the game and creator. You don't have to like a game, but you should be respectful to the effort.

- Please follow the forum rules.

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If you would like to make your own suggestions and haven't already, please feel free to PM them to me.

These are the current guidelines for suggestions:

- Anyone can send me 3 games (VN, KN Sim, whatever, just from these forums or related to) that they think are worth playing by PM.
- There can only be three suggestions per person and if a game gets suggested multiple times, they still only get one draw.
- You may suggest your own games.
- For now they must not be 18+, just because we want to encourage everyone to join first up. If it goes well, maybe something can be arranged for the big kids.
- Please try to make sure the game is short (around a max of 30,000 words). It isn't a hard and fast rule, but it's easier to make time for smaller games and it will give this a greater chance of success.
- They must be free and preferably available on all 3 platforms, again for easy access.

And with that, let the games begin!

AxemRed
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Re: [Group Play 5] DSanchez's - City of Lost Hope

#2 Post by AxemRed »

+ interesting premise
+ event graphics

- past events change through current choices
- poorly explained, hard to believe motive for the killer(s)
- plot holes
- droning, repetitive music

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Re: [Group Play 5] DSanchez's - City of Lost Hope

#3 Post by Reikun »

Played this just now. I thought it had an interesting premise too, I just wish it was executed a lot better. If
the plot actually made sense and was applicable to make the killer different people, it would have really been interesting. Like AxemRed said, the motives for the killers were really unbelievable. I would have also appreciated it if there was a way for the player to actually draw a conclusion on who the killer was. When the choice came to picking who the killer was, I was just like "What?! How would I know at this point with the little details given to me?!"
Overall a cool way for telling a story. It would be really interesting to explore this kind of story
where the endings confirm the player's suspicions accordingly though I'm not sure how interesting it would be to read if the story always ended as you guessed it.
Also, the art is rather nice in this one.
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Re: [Group Play 5] DSanchez's - City of Lost Hope

#4 Post by Carassaurat »

A handful of thoughts:

Art
- Individual assets look nice, both the characters and the backgrounds.
- Backgrounds are, however, a bit problematic in that they all have different horizons and those don't always line up well with the characters. The bar scenes work, but the horizon in the office is just too low and there's a scene with Sylvie in front of the apartment complex which looks just silly. The horizon is at your eye level. If someone's eyes are above the horizon, they're higher than yours.
- Amy's breasts, I mean wtf, they're huge.

Text
- Dialogue could do with more flavour; it's a bit on the bare bones side and giving the characters a bit more character wouldn't hurt.
- I know it's proofread, but it ought to be proofread better. It still has a couple of mistakes.
- Periods: use one or three, never any other number, and use the triple variety as sparingly as possible.

Story
- First choice is so fake. I'm a PI, dammit, I don't drink water :( .
- I've got to admit I like the idea going on here. The problem is that the VN doesn't have the length or depth to really make the most of it; there's so little interaction with the characters that they're all a bit throwaway and the explanations given for the murders are flimsy and shallow. It also doesn't quite work for the character that isn't the murderer; if Amy's the prep, why *did* the Doc take care of Mathis so unusually quickly, and if Doc's the killer, is it really a *coincidence* that Amy went to work there after the incident? The clues here ought to have multi-interpretable - instead, the VN just ignores half of the clues depending on which ending you pick.
- There really are only two or three endings, as far as I've seen, dying and winning; picking Amy or Doc as the bad guy doesn't lead to any significant changes. In fact, at one point when Amy was the killer, Doc was still found guilty, presumably an oversight of the creator. It's exactly these points that need difference, where the VN needs to shine, since these different endings are its unique feature.
- I don't think the near-future setting pays off. I requires a couple of awkward lines about how things have changed, and it talks of credits instead of real money, but there's no point to it it all, it just complicates things needlessly.
All in all:
the main idea (the killer depending on your choice) is a very nice and ambitious idea that the scope of the visual novel just can't do justice to. But, as a consolation, there's this quote attributed (no doubt falsely) to Michelangelo that "the greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."

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Re: [Group Play 5] DSanchez's - City of Lost Hope

#5 Post by wakagana »

+ Art
+ CG/Event Art

- Storyline/Plot Development
- Character Development/Interaction
- Lack of non-narrative script

Overall, I feel like DSanchez had a good thing going but I feel like it could've been executed a bit better, the art and music were good. (Although the music did get a bit repetitive.)

My suggestion(s) :
Add more non-narrative script into the story. ( example : "I lean back in my chair and take a small swig of scotch before looking back towards Doc Sanders" )
It felt way to rushed with conversations and it did little to really distinguish character's feelings about each thing that arises in the story.

Also, Changing the colors of the name titles when people are talking would be a big help, I'm a fast reader and I don't really like paying attention to the names of the characters If i don't have to, so being able to spot that the color is perhaps red, which would stand for Doc Sanders after seeing it the first few times allowing my mind to automatically see the red color and know it was Doctor Sanders speaking.

The plot development felt rushed,
and the dream sequence scenes felt tacky and a bit strange because half the time it was him in first person being awake and then suddenly he's asleep.
I didn't really understand the motives of some of the characters with just one play through, which may suggest playing through and getting all the endings done. I can understand how leaving blank spaces might make people want to go back and try different options, but sometimes the blank spaces are far to large and you're left going... "wat..."

I played the Mac Version, so appologies if any of what I said had been changed on the other versions :o

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Re: [Group Play 5] DSanchez's - City of Lost Hope

#6 Post by saguaro »

This was one of my picks. Obviously a lot of time and effort went into the art, and this is the game's strength. The writing is its weakness.

Mysteries can be very challenging to plot anyway, but the plot holes and motivations in this story are an issue, and lines like this one tell me a writer should have been recruited to help with this project: "Ever so often, it sprinkles more depth into my mind. Revealing itself as if it were a laundering secret."

The idea is ambitious and interesting. I think a writer with a knack for red herrings and dialogue could make it work.

Near-future sci-fi is a great setting, but it needs to be reserved for stories in which a new technology or sci-fi situation is relevant to the story. There was nothing in this VN that would have prevented a present-day setting.

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Re: [Group Play 5] DSanchez's - City of Lost Hope

#7 Post by Arelune »

A lot I want to say has already been said.

Artwise is looks good. I rather like the logo, and the colouring of the backgrounds especially. Making the GUI look more unique would have been a plus.

The writing and story was worse of. A better proofreader would have taken out some of the grammatical mistakes. Capitalisation and punctuation was often forgotten. When people are cut off, you normally use a -, but nothing was used here and that just made the sentence seem odd.

I agree with most of the rest about the story. It could have been more elaborated. I had the feeling it was just beginning when it suddenly ended. I don't really like the idea of
picking a killer yourself. Where's the mystery?
And I agree with Carassaurat about the different endings.

The music did what it had to do. Some were a bit short though, which can start to annoy when played too long.

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Re: [Group Play 5] DSanchez's - City of Lost Hope

#8 Post by SusanTheCat »

The game is a pleasure to play, but maybe I've been playing too many of the not so good ones lately.

The art, music, and writing go well together.

The sprites are very very well done. ( except Amy's boobs look like they are being strangled. :D )

The perspective on a couple of the backgrounds made it look wonky. The apartment hallway especially.

See me playing the first ten minutes here: http://youtu.be/7iIoP7y2-Io One of my beefs is that in the first ten minutes my only choice is my type of drink -- and I'm forced to drink water anyway!

I agree with the other people that the the writing is the weak point. It is written more like an outline than an actual story.

Susan
" It's not at all important to get it right the first time. It's vitally important to get it right the last time. "
— Andrew Hunt and David Thomas

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Re: [Group Play 5] DSanchez's - City of Lost Hope

#9 Post by DSanchez »

I'd like to say thanks to everyone for all of the reviews and feedback. They really help me to expand my craft and hopefully create something better next time. Also, thanks for shining the spotlight on my little project.

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