Miranda, Princess at Heart [GxB, slice of life]

[sonorousgem]

This is my first Ren'py game (yay!). It has 10 parts-- I used the first few to experiment with Ren'py, but I couldn't just leave the story hanging after that ;D

Website: https://sites.google.com/site/mirandapr ... heart/home
(very very useful for seeing summaries and screenshots of each part separately!)

Summary:
Miranda is living a boring, self-sufficient, and lonely life until she unwillingly gets a new babysitter, Garrett, who prompts her to audition for the school musical. Play as Miranda as she deals with school projects, the musical, and new relationships.

For the most part, this story is very light and the choices are pretty easy. Like I said, I basically used this project to experiment with Ren'Py

Features:
~anyone and everyone can play this!
~about 25,300 words
~about an hour of gameplay (each part takes 5-10 minutes to play through)
~1 good ending (and 10 bad!)

Characters:
Miranda Kelley

miranda profile.jpg (10.49 KiB) Viewed 14781 times

Player character (so, she has the most in-depth bio . A junior in high school, daughter of a busy dancer and actor. As a result, she is often left at home alone. She is generally very responsible and studious, so she doesn't need to rely on others for school or at home. However, Miranda is kind to others and even goes out of her way to help them.
She is reserved, even as a narrator, but can hold conversations, especially with people she knows well. Miranda also tends to be very passive, even if she does care about something, because she strongly (and naively?) believes that everyone has good intentions (she's gullible).

Joey Fischer

joey screenshot1.jpg (16.49 KiB) Viewed 14781 times

Miranda's friend and neighbor, junior in high school. Joey is playful and cheerful, but will be nice at times. His friendship with Miranda is somewhat limited due to his participation in the marching band, which sucks up all his time. Joey can be very childlike in front of his older brother, Garrett.

Garrett Fischer

garrett screenshot.jpg (17.07 KiB) Viewed 14781 times

A popular senior in high school who has starred in every school play and musical and who still manages to be humble about it. Garrett is eager to be helpful and polite, and many are taken by his charm. (Best not to make him angry, though...)

Xavier
The fifth member of Miranda's English project group.

Jennifer
A girl who has managed to play as Garrett's love interest for every play and musical they've been in together.

Screenshots:
See the website for more

couldn't find a place for this on the website :P

Credits:
~Main music: "Sunsplash" by Lifescapes
~Additional music: Kevin MacLeod
~Phone Sound effects: Apple Inc.
~Proofreading: totalthedog
But since totalthedog has been so busy lately, I've had to do it x.x
If you find any mistakes, please comment! I'd really appreciate it.

walkthrough: https://sites.google.com/site/mirandapr ... alkthrough

edit: my proofreader has just played through it really quickly and has already found that (all in part 10) I have put a quotation mark inside a quotation mark, accidentally put Jen in the wrong costume for a line or two, and forgot to put in the doorbell sound when the doorbell rang. Debating whether or not I should put out a second release... I guess if anyone finds two more mistakes, I'll put out another version

Download here:
edit: Thank you for 1000+ downloads! 8D
Windows:

Miranda, Princess at Heart-1.0-win.zip

(47.95 MiB) Downloaded 2134 times

Mac:

Miranda, Princess at Heart-1.0-mac.zip

(46.28 MiB) Downloaded 180 times

Linux:

Miranda, Princess at Heart-1.0-linux.tar.bz2

(48.63 MiB) Downloaded 121 times

If you have any problems downloading, comment or send me a message and I will try to help (:D ?).
Also, I would like to get feedback on this so I know better where to improve in possible future projects. (e.g. my art. I will definitely work on that.)

[Jessie17]

Looks interesting. I'm downloading it right now.

[Kato]

I'm glad you saw this through and got it finished! When I've a minute to spare I'll be sure to check the rest out!

[sonorousgem]

Looks interesting. I'm downloading it right now.

Yay, thank you! Tell me what you think

I'm glad you saw this through and got it finished! When I've a minute to spare I'll be sure to check the rest out!

Thank you Also, thanks for prompting me to finish this and helping me with coding and stuff XD It must have been tedious for you but I really appreciated it!

[Jessie17]

OMG. I finally finished. Took more than 10 minutes. It took me like an hour or more..LOL. I love it so much. You got have more good endings. I got a bad ending and I'm trying to get the good one. It's so hard, but I enjoyed!!

[sonorousgem]

OMG. I finally finished. Took more than 10 minutes. It took me like an hour or more..LOL. I love it so much. You got have more good endings. I got a bad ending and I'm trying to get the good one. It's so hard, but I enjoyed!!

Yeah, each part should take you about 5-10 minutes, sorry if I didn't clarify ^.^
I'm so glad you like it!
Which part did you get a bad ending in? (if it's just parts 1-9, just replay and choose the other option if it's part 10,

you need to get at least seven lines correct. There are 10 lines you should have memorized or written down. Tell me if you want any pointers.

[Kato]

Thank you Also, thanks for prompting me to finish this and helping me with coding and stuff XD It must have been tedious for you but I really appreciated it!

Not at all, everyone needs a little nudge here and there, especially on their first project. A lot of people never see their first one through, let alone a 25k word count for a first one @_@!

Also just saw the good to bad ending ratio! Oh geez, the pressure is on now! . I'll keep an eye out for any spelling / grammatical mistakes when I play through it too.

[sonorousgem]

A lot of people never see their first one through, let alone a 25k word count for a first one @_@!

Also just saw the good to bad ending ratio! Oh geez, the pressure is on now! . I'll keep an eye out for any spelling / grammatical mistakes when I play through it too.

Haha, this story turned out to be longer than I expected
While there are 10 bad endings, the ones for parts 1-9 are so admittedly cheap that they shouldn't really count as endings in the first place... although the choices probably get harder as you go on X) It's part 10 that actually has a bad ending, and if you paid attention in the previous parts (or played through part 10ish in the WIP thread) the choices won't be ridiculous or hard at all.
And yes, thanks in advance for proofreading! XD

[Viobli]

I just finished the whole game and it's REALLYY sweet <3 *melted at the good ending* This is extremely good for your first game, I hope you make more games in future! (P.S. amazing art!)

[sonorousgem]

I just finished the whole game and it's REALLYY sweet <3 *melted at the good ending* This is extremely good for your first game, I hope you make more games in future! (P.S. amazing art!)

Thank you so much! Yay, you got the good ending, too! (did you guess, or did you figure it out? ) I do plan to make other games, but we'll see if that happens Also I'm glad someone likes my art-- hopefully it'll be better in future projects

[Viobli]

I just finished the whole game and it's REALLYY sweet <3 *melted at the good ending* This is extremely good for your first game, I hope you make more games in future! (P.S. amazing art!)

Thank you so much! Yay, you got the good ending, too! (did you guess, or did you figure it out? ) I do plan to make other games, but we'll see if that happens Also I'm glad someone likes my art-- hopefully it'll be better in future projects

For parts 1-9 I pretty much figured them out on my own and for part 10, I kind of thought the "princess-ly" (is there even such a word?) way and with some referencing to the script, I got the lines correct

That's great to hear! If you do make some more games, I'll be sure to play.

[sonorousgem]

For parts 1-9 I pretty much figured them out on my own and for part 10, I kind of thought the "princess-ly" (is there even such a word?) way and with some referencing to the script, I got the lines correct

That's great to hear! If you do make some more games, I'll be sure to play.

Thanks XD but wait, were you aware that

the quotes on each title screen (part 1, 2, 3, etc.) were the correct lines for part 10? I don't know if anyone's caught that yet, but...

[Virelai]

WOW! Great job in completing it. I downloaded and played it, and it's a really nice story. It's longer than it looks, and I like the feel. You're not a bad writer. Is this your first completed VN? If so, it's pretty good! I'm looking forward to your other projects! Keep it up!

~Have a nice day

[Didules]

Hi there! I just finished the game, first of all: CONGRATULATION!!
Here are my thoughts: /!\ may contain spoilers!
The plot was simple and efficient, your writing was easy to follow and to read, that was great there was never a time when I didn't understand I felt like I had to finish it the day I started playing XD It was longer than I thought because there was times when I wanted to re-read what a character said, and I ended up playing it twice XD
I simply loved the expression "family-zoned" XD I knew about friend zone, but here it's really well found!
The characters are nice, they're not really developped since the game is so short, but I like Jen's personnality the most (Miranda was a bit too "perfect" for me ^^). Otherwise, they were all cute and funny, Mira+Gary were the cutest of all *^^*. An issue would be that some secondary characters were a bit strange:

for instance when Miranda's friens learned that she got the role, their behaviour aren't natural, they're switching moods too quickly ^^;

I was also disappointed that Xavier

was finally just a jerk, I hoped he would be nice guy, I was wrong

Also in the end I really like the

"Let's see if you read the chapters' title"

part XD That was quite funny and it was easier for us to understand the plot of the play, which was a bit vague. It's a great idea!
There were some little things about the game that could be better (for instance the name of the windows that is just "A ren'py game", etc) but that's not important in the story, it's just plain coding ^^
The musics were good, I like the first one, more "jazzy" than what we usually hear in a VN Good choice here!
The variations on the BG when Miranda's cleaning the bedroom are quite cool :3
Well then, the art... I won't surprise you by saying that it feels quite amateur, but that's not disturbing at all. The first sprites (Mira's friends) could be a little better if they didn't have some blank between the lines and the colors (if you see what I mean) but here it depends on the software you used to draw your sprites, a better software allow more stuffs (GIMP is quite useful and it's free if you want). But this is only about learning and training ^^ For instance, I liked Jen's sprite the most because her lineart is a bit thinner and it looks better ^^ Also, I feel like you could have put more shadows on your characters, they felt a bit flat because of that. Oh, now I think about it, a bit of light on their hair would be nice too, but I didn't really notice it until the end ^^
I simply love having a lot of CG and you did a lot of them. That was simply great!

(My favorite one is at the park, Joey+Mira+Gary )

Also: Yay! Tons of bad endings ^o^ I only got 2 of them, that was funny ^^
Congratulations again, I look forward to playing another game from you

[sonorousgem]

Here goes a very long post... (thanks to Didules ;P)

WOW! Great job in completing it. I downloaded and played it, and it's a really nice story. It's longer than it looks, and I like the feel. You're not a bad writer. Is this your first completed VN? If so, it's pretty good! I'm looking forward to your other projects! Keep it up!

~Have a nice day

It is my first one. Thank you!! XD (and have a nice day as well, it has been a nice day for me )

Hi there! I just finished the game, first of all: CONGRATULATION!!

Thank you so much! And thank you for this verrryyyy thorough critique! :'D

The plot was simple and efficient, your writing was easy to follow and to read, that was great there was never a time when I didn't understand I felt like I had to finish it the day I started playing XD It was longer than I thought because there was times when I wanted to re-read what a character said, and I ended up playing it twice XD
I simply loved the expression "family-zoned" XD I knew about friend zone, but here it's really well found!

Yay, I'm glad you liked my writing Yes, I didn't want to use friend-zone, so I used family-zoned instead

The characters are nice, they're not really developped since the game is so short, but I like Jen's personnality the most (Miranda was a bit too "perfect" for me ^^). Otherwise, they were all cute and funny, Mira+Gary were the cutest of all *^^*.

Yeah, I finished writing and then I was like, wait, I didn't develop the characters... they were all too nice from the start though. And yeah, I can totally see why you would like Jen more-- she's definitely more relatable

An issue would be that some secondary characters were a bit strange:

for instance when Miranda's friens learned that she got the role, their behaviour aren't natural, they're switching moods too quickly ^^;

I was also disappointed that Xavier

was finally just a jerk, I hoped he would be nice guy, I was wrong

True, I didn't really put too much thought into the friends in general... Also I'm sorry about Xavier XD

The other characters were so nice, I just wanted a straight-up bad guy!

Also in the end I really like the

"Let's see if you read the chapters' title"

part XD That was quite funny and it was easier for us to understand the plot of the play, which was a bit vague. It's a great idea!
There were some little things about the game that could be better (for instance the name of the windows that is just "A ren'py game", etc) but that's not important in the story, it's just plain coding ^^
The musics were good, I like the first one, more "jazzy" than what we usually hear in a VN Good choice here!
The variations on the BG when Miranda's cleaning the bedroom are quite cool :3

I wrote a whole script for the play that never got used, so part 10 allowed me to expand on it Yeah, I probably should've changed the "A Ren'Py Game", but... oh well ._.

Well then, the art... I won't surprise you by saying that it feels quite amateur, but that's not disturbing at all. The first sprites (Mira's friends) could be a little better if they didn't have some blank between the lines and the colors (if you see what I mean) but here it depends on the software you used to draw your sprites, a better software allow more stuffs (GIMP is quite useful and it's free if you want). But this is only about learning and training ^^ For instance, I liked Jen's sprite the most because her lineart is a bit thinner and it looks better ^^ Also, I feel like you could have put more shadows on your characters, they felt a bit flat because of that. Oh, now I think about it, a bit of light on their hair would be nice too, but I didn't really notice it until the end ^^
I simply love having a lot of CG and you did a lot of them. That was simply great!

(My favorite one is at the park, Joey+Mira+Gary )

You can tell that I did Mira's friends sprites first, huh? ;D (and I did Jen's last.) I used deviantARTmuro, and as much as I like deviantART, I really want to use another program for other projects! I'm used to doing traditional art, so now that this is done I'm definitely going to work harder digitally (i.e., shadows, hair, etc.)~!

Also: Yay! Tons of bad endings ^o^ I only got 2 of them, that was funny ^^
Congratulations again, I look forward to playing another game from you

Yes, thank you again for playing and for taking the time to write this!!!