Witch/Knight [Fantasy] [Nano 2013]

[Mink]

FINALLY. ;n;





Story:

Lady Knight Bethlyn, of the third rank, of the Order of the High King (just Bethlyn is fine) is finally near the end of her journey to bring Elisa back to life. She's finally close to locating the goddess of rebirth. However, it's not that simple. She has to complete seven tasks if she wants to do so. It may be difficult, but she'll come to find it maybe even harder. By the end, she'll have to ask herself: who is she really?

Characters:
Bethlyn:

Has a near one track mind regarding what she's doing

Xiǎoniǎo (小鸟):

A former attendant for the goddess. He has no love lost for her.

HuǒJī (火鸡):

The goddess of rebirth. Generally even-tempered, as long as her name isn't mocked.

Elisa:

Bethyn's deceased girlfriend.

Other(s):
There are several demigods living in HuǒJī's forest. Not evil per se, but best avoided.

Screenshots:



Contains:

-Four endings
-~14,600 words
-~5 CGs
-Note: The extra stuff is to be put in in an update, and doesn't go anywhere at the moment! All vital components should be fine, though

Downloads:

ALL SYSTEMS
WIN
MAC
LINUX

Credits:

Writing/Programming: Mink

Art: AuroCyanide (!!!)

Coding help: Camille, Leon

Semi-voice acting: Rikka

Idea bouncer: Cheerymoya

Music: Jamendo

Other:

Metal Orphans site
Witch/Knight page

[MaiMai]

FINALLY. Gonna download and play this SO HARD.

... After classes and homework. BUT SOON.

[Seigetsu]

Turkey! (get's shot by Goddess Huoji)

Looking forward to playing the game, and will offer my comments when I'm done

[Anna]

I'm so playing this as soon as I get the chance to! I've been really looking forward to it and it looks gorgeous Auro and Mink, great job <3!

[Mink]

I just noticed a small error, when you do Yi's trial. /fail

It doesn't break anything or whatever, so I'll fix it in the update. Any other other bugs/errors, let me know!

Edit: dang, I just noticed another one. Well, same as before. It doesn't break anything, it's just annoying for a minute, if that long.

[k_arashi]

Yaaay it's finally here~! Downloading now! (:
I'm really excited to play it!

[KittyKatStar]

Just wanted to post that it was *amazing*. <3

[Chibichann]

will download and comment later

[Auro-Cyanide]

Yay! It's done. I'm going to force my brother to play this one :3

[Nellie]

Joining in the party a bit late but... Just wanna say this is awesome, had fun playing and trying to break it! Conversation is hilarious, got trolled at some parts, surprised by the ending twists... and got me cheating to past my 'trials' xD

[Rikka]

HOORAY. I've already downloaded it - will be playing this weekend. :D

[Taleweaver]

BEAUTIFUL choice of intro music, and it leads into a very well-designed, nice-looking game. Huoji is quite the memorable character, and I must say I enjoyed finding three endings. If there are more... well, then I didn't find them.

Minor bug: At the end of one path (where you're being not protective of Birdy), after the final line, the game ends with a black screen, and only multiple clicks into nothing brought me back to the main menu. The end credits don't seem to be playing.

[CheeryMoya]

I literally had this page open yesterday but I was so emotionally distraught that I couldn't type anything. Do you understand what that means? You're probably smiling aren't you? Yes you are. I hate you so much. Thank you for letting me be a part of this.

No seriously, I was the idea bouncer so I knew what was coming, but the execution still got me. Like, DAMN YOU. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY.

There aren't any win-win endings in this story. I simultaneously hate and love that.

"Trade Yourself" ending didn't accomplish anything at all for Elisa. In fact, it probably took two steps back because that was exactly was Bethlyn didn't want and Elisa STILL DID IT WOW THANKS
"Trade Xiao" wasn't much better because while the girls are happily reunited, Elisa still has the sense that something is missing... DAMN IT
"Forever Alone" is the worst of them. Literally nothing gets accomplished. Was it even necessary to include this when you cut out so much already???
"Keep Xiao" was the only "good" ending here... but then again that doesn't really help me feel better.

It was a damn mistake to be nice to Xiao on the first run and I regret everything.

And well, we all know how nice Auro's art is. During the game it was great to see Bethlyn get more and more wounded and have it not *magically* heal (then again, you have to ask if she didn't want to patch up a little between trials). It was also nice to see that there were no late choices at the end to determine an ending, everything throughout the trials decided what would happen. I think the only things I have to complain about is that the art remained serious during the comedic parts (Elisa and Bethlyn screaming at each other; despite their expressions, the art didn't really convey the humor of the scene if it makes sense) and slight anatomy problems in the CGs. Still, considering Auro did everything herself, everything looks great.

The choice of music was good I think, it carried the emotional bits well. Rikka's voice clips definitely add to the scenes too, though I wonder if you guys recorded some grunts and battle cries (here's looking at Trial 4). I don't know what else to add since it'd all be fluff besides YOU PUNCHED ME IN THE FEELS AND YOUR MISSION HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED. CONGRATULATIONS.

Good job everyone \ (˚▽˚) / Definitely one of the highlights of NaNo13.

[Anna]

I got one ending, so I'm not sure how much different the other endings are and if I'm missing out (tell me if I am !) the ending I got was

where she saved Xiao in a way and gave up on saving her girlfriend.

The characters you've written are very lovable;

It's OK, I understand. You're a knight. I'm green. <- I laughed so much.

And dialogue was just really interesting and fun. I think Xiao is a cutie too, really liked him.

I also really liked the music you picked, the art Auro did for this (it matched the story very well) and the setup of the story with the trials. It all comes together nicely and makes the story a fun read~

However, I feel some parts could have been handled better:

The scripting felt lacking here and there, for example with fade-ins of the sprites; when everyone just suddenly appears it becomes normal so it's weird that Bethlyn is surprised by Xiao and the goddess suddenly popping up. It also makes dramatic scenes feel too sudden, such as when her side-sprite flicks from fine to crying out within a second/without a transition. And it makes some stuff unclear when you don't explain them in text either. There was a part where she fell into the lake and fought against it, but I had no idea how or what was going on there. All I knew was the lake suddenly lost - an explanation, visual flash or magical other effect from her armour might have helped clarify things.

Aside from that it feels like the VN assumes you know Chinese, because it keeps making jokes about/mentioning the Chinese names and even shows this doodle with Chinese written under it. It can still be somewhat understood from the text, but you have to look for it and it feels a little frustrating. Same goes for the mentions of strange creatures of which you can't make a clear image in your head because you have no idea what they are for example, or the gùn you have a choice about in one of the trials (I had no idea what that was).

Some foreshadowing to what was really going on was a bit missing for me as well. While there seemed to be some subtle foreshadowing (like with the lake in the second trial), it felt lacking and easily hand-waved by the reader. The blue-eyes thing also made no sense for me as a clue because seeing a goddess, a green girl, and a black-eyed kid is much weirder than a blue-eyed dark-skinned person.

Still, the biggest problem I had was that all of the drama of the story came from a silly mistake Elisa made. It's still in-character, but instead of feeling sorrow for the characters, it made me feel frustrated because it was all because of that mistake and then she simply waited for the angry crowd to arrive and burn her alive ^^;. And then the end sort of didn't work for me anymore because it all relied on feeling sorry for the characters there.

I hope I didn't upset or insult you in any way, because that was definitely not my intention. I just really wanted to let you know because I enjoy your writing a lot.

[Chibichann]

The game was fun,with all the commotions and all,well have to say one of the most well made vn i have played,Xiǎoniǎo is my favorite character,but i wanted to ask why did you only make 1 male character.