Cell Phone Love Letter

[Scout]

This is my NaNoRenO game. I'm posting it now just to show that I'm really not just a hi-bye poster and totally went through with it.

However, in going through with it, I ended up staying up all last night. I'll write a blurb or something later; right now, I REALLY need to take a nap.

http://www.scoutshonour.com/lilyoftheva ... er-1.0.zip
http://www.scoutshonour.com/lilyoftheva ... 86.tar.bz2
http://www.scoutshonour.com/lilyoftheva ... .0-mac.zip

The Windows version is up now, Linux and Mac should finish uploading in an hour at most.

[mokenju1]

Congratulations .

I have enjoyed playing your game a lot. It looks different to any other game thanks to the funny character art, the color of the text bar or the detail of the battery in the upper side of the background. The music also helps a lot to enter into the story. The main character is "real" in every aspect (although I have my doubts about some major and sudden changes in her life ) and the story is well narrated with funny parts mixed with very depressing parts.

My only complaint is that the game crashed at Ichigo's story. I got that traceback:

I'm sorry, but an exception occured while executing your Ren'Py
script.

TypeError: an integer is required

While executing game script on line 459 of S:\renpy-6.1.1\Cell Phone Love Letter/game/yamazaki.rpy.
While executing python code on line 71 of renpy-6.1.1/common/00mainmenu.rpy.

[DrakeNavarone]

I got the same traceback error as mokenju1. Another thing I noticed, when you finish one story, and start another, rollback no longer works. Instead, it brings you right back to the main menu. (Well, at least that's the case when you finish Hazuki's story, since the traceback error prevents me from finishing Ichigo's...)

I hope that traceback error can get resolved soon, as I am eagerly waiting to finish the second story. I have to say this is the most impressive nanoreno game that I've played so far. I really like the whole style of it, and the story is entertaining too. So here's hoping to a quick fix so I can read the rest of it!

[Scout]

Oops. I really need to run through the game to make sure there's nothing else like that-- but here's a replacement yamazaki.rpyc. That should do the trick; I'll fix those distributions now.

(although I have my doubts about some major and sudden changes in her life )

I'm a bit skeptical, too, given just how quickly her mood seems to change on whim... but for what it's worth, I discovered I was gay when I was basically Hazuki's age-- I wasn't half as innocent as she is, but the discovery was pretty much just as abrupt. (I didn't, however, get the girl in the end.) So it's at least possible that she's right about it; whether or not she is, I'll leave it up to you.

I'm not sure what the rollback issue is; let me know if it's still there after getting the unbroken yamazaki.rpyc, and I'll look into it.

[chronoluminaire]

Yay, congrats on the release! It's really good to see that even if you weren't posting much, you were working hard at delivering the goods

I also stayed up far too late finishing my NaNoRenO release - 4:30am isn't quite all night, but it's later than I'd have wanted!

I haven't downloaded the game yet, but I'm looking forward a lot to doing so. I'll let you know my thoughts

[mokenju1]

Ok, the problem is solved now.

If you tell me that she is a lesbian I believe you, you have to know it best, you created her after all . It's only that I found "strange" that a thirteen years old girl doesn't notice that she doesn't like guys till she reads a yuri manga. Maybe some years ago the girl would never had thought about that, but nowadays it seems people thinks very early about that kind of things (OMG I'm talking as an old old woman again ). I'm sorry that you didn't get the girl at the end .

[Jake]

That was... well, cute.

I really like the presentation style, for that matter - it works well in the reinforcement of the story. And the flickering of the crayon-drawings was great, for that matter; I love that kind of thing.

A few minor things that looked wrong, although I don't know if all of them are unintentional or not:

Several of the date/time titles in Hazuki's story stayed on through the entire scene; seeing as most of them didn't, they looked a bit odd. The ones I noticed particularly were:
"Thursday, February 22
Late Afternoon",
"Wednesday, March 14
Afternoon
(three weeks later)",
"Thursday, March 15
Morning",
"Thursday, March 15
Midday",
"Monday, March 26
Evening",
"Tuesday, March 27
Morning/Afternoon/Night"
"Wednesday, March 28
Morning"

A couple of lines from Hazuki's side which looked like they had typos or errors in:

"I glanced at the floor, left out on the floor; and for the first time ever, ignored it,"
"...because I'm only interested in fucking woman"
"I was only amused with I dumped Taro..."
"particularly loverly message"

In Ichigo's side, one sentence ("I felt like an idiot...") came in in 'Incoming Message' format, which seemed a little incongruous, and the next day, Mar 31/07 ("It was the next day that I realised I'd still screwed up") is in Hazuki's orange decoration for a short while, showing Hazuki's bedroom, but still with Ichigo's font and dialogue style.

I had a couple of issues with the original yamazaki.rpyc where I'd try and rollback or load a save and get taken right back to the main menu, but I don't seem to be able to reproduce it with the new one so I guess it's no longer a problem. Whatever it was.

And... I want to know where I can get a mobile phone with a battery that lasts over a month with full battery. I keep forgetting to put mine on to charge...

[PyTom]

There's an issue that bites on case-sensitive filesystems, like Linux and Mac. You have the filename "WHITRABT.TTF", but in the script you use "whitrabt.ttf". This causes an error.

It can be fixed by renaming the file. I had to do that to get it to run on Linux.

Other then that, this is a heck of a game.

I'm really wondering how we should classify this for the RAA, to avoid spoilers.

[Scout]

The secret is to never actually use it as a phone.


The dates staying on is bizzare; they're not supposed to. All of those are definitely mistakes, thanks for pointing them out.

In particular, Ichigo should NOT be in Hazuki's bedroom... I don't think they're quite at that stage yet.

[DrakeNavarone]

Good news is that the rollback bug I reported earlier doesn't occur when finishing Ichigo's story. The Notes section is also safe. So it might just be some code (either broken or missing) at the end of Hazuki's story that is causing the problem. Perhaps looking at what's different between the ends of both stories can help you figure out what the issue is.

[Scout]

There's an issue that bites on case-sensitive filesystems, like Linux and Mac. You have the filename "WHITRABT.TTF", but in the script you use "whitrabt.ttf". This causes an error.
...

I'm really wondering how we should classify this for the RAA, to avoid spoilers.

Oops. I should really know better than that. I've updated the distributions again; fixed that, along with various typos and the errant dates. I think the rollback bug seems to have vanished; I can't manage to replicate it.

I don't know how to classify it, either. Obviously, it wouldn't be fitting to spoil the big twist... but that GxG section is so lonely!

Hm. Maybe the description could say that Hazuki's half of the story is plain old straight, but Yamazaki's is about two girls.

[DaFool]

Congratulations! This looks very innovative. I'm assuming the links I'm downloading now I won't need the updated rpyc file...

[Scout]

Correct. Ignore the unchanged numbers, those links have everything up to date.

[DaFool]

W..O..W. Utterly amazing. You sure it only took 3 weeks to write this (and with half the night before the deadline?)

Okay...specific commentary time...

1.) The style is very reminiscent of the al|together 2006 Jp game Collage. The text, the hyper-sliding widescreen backgrounds, the multiple perspectives, music. Tell me this wasn't at least inspired by it, and I'd have a hard time believing you.

2.) You really get to feel for the characters. I'm far from a thirteen-year-old middle school girl from Japan, but by golly, her struggles, and the issues she deals with, some are the same. And Ichigo the computer otaku is just too cool a character, I wish I had someone like that in my anime club.

3.) I didn't realize the click-to-continue indicator issue with NVL mode was actually useful, until I saw it here. By the way, I also did experiments using NVL mode in a larger-than-average textbox style -- I called it 'Crusader Mode' (named after the Crusader Helm which is the extreme widescreen slit that's become of the backgrounds). Apart from the humbling experience of being beaten to it with regards to using Crusader mode, I like the usage here and it couldn't be any better. Good job!

4.) Does the cell phone battery run out? I don't remember the green bars becoming any less as the story progressed

Thank you for your contribution to NaNoRenO. It's rare that I get introduced to such talent. So you're not an artist...etc etc. I say blah. You are a writer and director, you can bring together so many resources together into a very cohesive union -- far more than any single piece of art or music can deliver on its own (Sorry DrakeNavarone -- yet another counterpoint to your essay thread)

So you didn't get the girl? Come to the Philippines, we're overflowing with women! In fact I'd say there's a gay explosion, so the women are complaining that they are getting lonely

[gekiganwing]

I tried Path One last night, and I was really impressed. A neat, coherent story, few typos, a great font, and interesting characters.

One thing which could be corrected: the heroine's week at school. In most Japanese schools, she would probably have to go to school on half of Saturday.