A Missing Memoir

[M12]

I see. Is anyone else having this problem? Maybe try and download Flash Player 8, or higher? (I think they're up to 9 now)

[M12]

http://eltania.net/m12/mm_mac.zip

The above is the MAC version of the game.

Has everyone been able to downloading the game okay? It's weird how there is so little response. Or are we under a busy period =O? There is even less response than my first visual nove.

[DaFool]

Finally found the time to play this. (When I really anticipate something, I make sure to have ample time to relax).

There's no problem at all with the balance of sounds / music and the playback or the text. I think what other people have problem with is because they don't have English locale (although I played it fine under Japanese locale, but I also install all language and text packs for the operating system.) But as expected, Flash is pretty slow when in full screen. I would have imagined that the transitions and fade-outs would be better in Ren'Py. But of course, the little animations made things very atmospheric and interesting, even down to the little starboard indicators on the Airbus 380 flying by the window, the ticking clock, and elevator numbers.

I liked the story, it's a bit dreary for my taste, but I also didn't expect it to be sort of an action flick. I thought that

the protagonist would be Douglas, and Cara is being nice so that even if she is forced to be loyal to this guy, maybe she might have influenced him to be a kinder gangster

Well, but I also didn't expect

the protagonist to kill himself at the end out of guilt, since it didn't seem that bad while he was reminiscing in the park. The protagonist could have lived on to set up a vigilante squadron who will then take care of Douglas' brothers, while protecting Cara.

But even if I disagree with the ending, I loved the journey. The music and graphics were top notch. Besides rocket and MoonlightBomber and SailorKitty, the rest of the collaborators came from your University, correct? I wonder what's needed to be able to book them unless the project was also part of their portfolio.

All in all, it's a short kinetic novel, but the high production value makes up for it (also, when graphics change every 2 lines, it's hard to be a click-happy player, so you're naturally forced to slow down and bask in the atmosphere.)

Thanks for sharing this work with us.

[Ascaloth]

Okay M12, like I promised, I played it over the weekend. Now, I'm going to be as honest as your protagonist was.

Cons:
1) I would have cut out the prologue altogether. I felt it was unnecessary; it would have been better to leave the reader totally in the dark initially, instead of knowing that

the protagonist had been shot

in the first place.

2) I don't think a shot in the chest area would cause amnesia. A shot in the head, yes (like in The Bourne Identity), but I don't think the chest has anything to do with it. Feel free to show me evidence to the contrary, if you have it.

3) Whoever was voicing Cara didn't do that great a job. You would have been better served making the whole thing voiceless altogether (even more so, when the sound effects tends to drown out her voice in the first place). If you really need to have voice, you'll want a better voice actress next time.

4) Douglas wasn't that well-developed a character;

in fact he was little more than a paper-thin villain. It's like he's there purely as a plot device.

5) Chapter 5 just felt....wrong, somehow. Suddenly switching from a 1st-person to a 3rd-person narrative isn't a good idea, you know.

Pros:
1) For an amateur work, this has pretty high production value. I'm fairly impressed, in fact.

Although your choice to add thunder into the "Cara playing in the rain" scene was a little weird.

2) Great music, too. And nice choice of sound effects, except when they cover up Cara's voice.


In conclusion, M12, I'll apologize for being blunt here; this isn't as good as The Sight of Autumn. I'm still damned impressed by your production values though; in the future, if I can come up with a script of my own, can I entrust it to you?

[Vatina]

I just finally downloaded and played this.

I really liked how the scenery changed, instead of the usual sprites moving around. The music and sound was good too - but, as others have said, the voices were too low, so they were often drowned out by music and sound effects.
Apart from that, it was really strange to try and hear the voices of some of the people I have seen on this forum (I really like the ending song btw....)

I really liked the nightmare-scene, it was done well I think ^^

There's one thing I couldn't help think about though.... The scene where they go out in the rain, and Cara says she likes the rain. I kept waiting for a lightning to strike her More like a storm than just rain But I guess she likes that too.

But I wonder how Cara feels now... I can imagine her being scarred for life, seeing all those people dying in front of her ^^;;

[Jake]

1) I would have cut out the prologue altogether. I felt it was unnecessary; it would have been better to leave the reader totally in the dark initially

I kind of agree. I don't think it really damages the piece, but it probably isn't necessary.

2) I don't think a shot in the chest area would cause amnesia. A shot in the head, yes (like in The Bourne Identity), but I don't think the chest has anything to do with it. Feel free to show me evidence to the contrary, if you have it.

This I don't really have any particular problem with, though - it's far from unknown for people with no injuries at all to develop a psychological amnesia just due to stress. It's probably not so common as Hollywood and Saturday morning cartoons would have us believe, but...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogenic_amnesia

3) Whoever was voicing Cara didn't do that great a job. You would have been better served making the whole thing voiceless altogether (even more so, when the sound effects tends to drown out her voice in the first place). If you really need to have voice, you'll want a better voice actress next time.

I didn't really have any problem with her acting, but I suspect that the noticable Australian accent was partly responsible there. Some of the intonation was odd to my ear, but all the Australians I've met have had pretty odd intonation as well.

The main two things thing I had against the voice acting were nothing to do with individual actors or actresses, though. Firstly, it's disconcerting to not hear the protagonist when I could hear the other characters talk every other phrase. Secondly, the voices didn't skip if I advanced the text, even if the same character said something else, and still played when skipping backwards, leading to the game being a bit cacophonous with multiple Caras talking if I jumped back a few lines quickly.

I also had the same problem others have mentioned with the music and SFX totally drowning out the vocals in places. By which I mean 'pretty much everywhere but the hospital room'.

4) Douglas wasn't that well-developed a character;

in fact he was little more than a paper-thin villain. It's like he's there purely as a plot device.

Yes and no. He's not particularly developed, but there's not a great deal of chance to develop him further without more flashbacks, IMO.

The whole setup reminds me quite a bit of Cowboy Bebop; the protagonist as Spike, Douglas as Vicious, that whole "die nobly to redeem life of murder" theme... and the only real difference between Douglas and Vicious in terms of character development is that Vicious had several episodes' worth of flashbacks to embed his character in, and Douglas only had a couple of minutes' worth.

[M12]

DaFool:

I liked the story, it's a bit dreary for my taste, but I also didn't expect it to be sort of an action flick. I thought that

the protagonist would be Douglas, and Cara is being nice so that even if she is forced to be loyal to this guy, maybe she might have influenced him to be a kinder gangster

That's pretty good. Never thought of that one.

Besides rocket and MoonlightBomber and SailorKitty, the rest of the collaborators came from your University, correct?

Actually, nobody else came from my University. I found them from a film and tv board. Sorry, I no longer remember the URL. But yes, they are actors/actresses looking for experience.

Ascaloth:

You would have been better served making the whole thing voiceless altogether (even more so, when the sound effects tends to drown out her voice in the first place).

Half way through the project, I decided to do the same thing. No more voices from now on. I don't think they did a bad job, but it was difficult to manage them all on my own.

Douglas wasn't that well-developed a character

It's like what Jake said. I didn't want to force some backstory in.

2) I don't think a shot in the chest area would cause amnesia. A shot in the head, yes (like in The Bourne Identity), but I don't think the chest has anything to do with it. Feel free to show me evidence to the contrary, if you have it.

I just came up with it after a bit of research. But I'm no medical student, so I'm not going to embarrass myself here. Maybe what Jake said?

this isn't as good as The Sight of Autumn

I agree =(. But I just don't like it as much because it feels more commercial.

in the future, if I can come up with a script of my own, can I entrust it to you?

Thanks for requesting. Unfortunately, I am always taking on new personal projects. For instance, The Sight of Autumn v3... just kidding.
But yeah, I'm sure you understand .

Vatina:

the voices were too low, so they were often drowned out by music and sound effects.

I have a silly reason for this. I really appreciate the time Chris put into composing the soundtrack, so I wanted to make sure people can hear it. At the same time, I appreciate the voice cast, too. It's all so confusing >_<.

Jake:

it's disconcerting to not hear the protagonist when I could hear the other characters talk every other phrase.

I wanted to give the protagonist a voice, but I got frustrated at the person who was supposed to voice him. In fact, he just disappeared completely. Even now, I still haven't got a reply from him. Another reason why I'm not going to have voices again.

But man, this didn't turn out that bad, didn't it ?

[Jake]

I have a silly reason for this. I really appreciate the time Chris put into composing the soundtrack, so I wanted to make sure people can hear it. At the same time, I appreciate the voice cast, too. It's all so confusing >_<.

If there's no chance to have separate volume sliders for each, I think I'd nearly always prefer to have to turn the volume up so the voices are loud in order to hear the music than have them obscured by it. It's nice music, sure, but the best background music is just that - background. It should be subtly influencing the viewer's mood rather than intruding into the foreground and making the viewer consciously aware of it.

Then there's that old saw about .hack//sign, where someone asks the producer why the music was so loud and he responds "well, we figured nobody would be trying to listen to the dialogue anyway, it's not like they're saying anything important".

But man, this didn't turn out that bad, didn't it ?

Oh, not really, no. It was enjoyable enough for me to play all the way through it, if nothing else (which isn't by any means guaranteed; I can be quite impatient at times) and Cara at least was a fairly compelling character. I agree with the other guys that The Sight of Autumn was the better work, it's more... punchy. And I'm also not sure about the end of this one:

Die-nobly-to-redeem-life-of-sin plots are all very well, but I'm not sure suicide cuts it, really. If he and Douglas had shot each other and he'd just survived long enough to have an emotional goodbye scene I think it probably would have sat a lot better than him shooting himself for no good reason. It seemed to clash a little with his previous annoyance at Cara's perceived cowardice.

[rocket]

Firstly, it's disconcerting to not hear the protagonist when I could hear the other characters talk every other phrase.

*blinks*

I always thought that was normal for a VN... Allows you to step into the protagonist's shoes better and all that, no?

[Jake]

I always thought that was normal for a VN... Allows you to step into the protagonist's shoes better and all that, no?

I find it disconcerting in other places, as well, to be honest. There's just this whole segment of the conversation which is totally silent, that's far freakier than hearing someone else's voice. It's like listening to someone else talk on the telephone.

[Ascaloth]

But man, this didn't turn out that bad, didn't it ?

Actually M12, I think you actually had a pretty interesting concept going there. I'm sure you can do a lot more with it....just that 5 chapters simply isn't enough to realize the full potential of a promising premise such as this. The Sight of Autumn didn't suffer from the same problem, because it was in effect a very simple story to begin with. However, a premise like Missing Memoir's asks for a full-length VN; it needs that kind of space to develop the characters enough, such that they can sufficiently support the plot.

The way I see it, M12, if you ever decide you want to try for a no-shit full-length project instead of the small ones you've done thus far, I'd say this is the foundation you want to be building on. Discard the prologue and Chapter 5, take Chapters 1-4 as the starting chapter of a larger overall story, and see where your imagination takes you from there.

And as for Cara's VA, I don't mind the Australian accent so much (I can always adjust for it to an extent), but it's the fact that there was hardly any emotion in her voice that bugs me so much. But yeah, it's a good idea not to try for voice next time; you need professional VAs to make it sound any good, and I get the feeling that these are rare around your area.

Anyway, don't worry about it, dude. It's still pretty decent for a sophomore effort, and it's a good learning experience for you.

(And go easy on the sfx in the future; I couldn't help thinking at one point, "she's gonna get struck by lightning, she's gonna get struck by lightning" :p )

[rocket]

There's just this whole segment of the conversation which is totally silent, that's far freakier than hearing someone else's voice.

You mean you don't speak the protagonist's lines outloud while playing?!

*boggles*

(^_-)

[PrettySammy09]

Yay! After the technical help of everyone on this forum, I opened and played the game.

It's one of my favorites OELVNs, to tell the truth. I really liked the story the most. I was surprised by the ending, to say the least. I thought the voice-acting was a nice touch, but it was often drowned out by the louder sound effects.

Speaking of the sound effects, I liked those a lot. I loved the footsteps and the rain and the others sounds you put in there. The music was also nice.

I thought the graphics were charming as well, especially Cara's head poking through the door.

Anyway, congratulations! Great job!

[Nobody]

Interesting... Like most of the other reviewers I have mixed feelings about it.

The Good:

• Very nice visuals.
• Lots of animation. I think many VNs would benefit from having something as simple as raindrops or the background clouds. Even though I usually just glance at the graphics and focus on the text instead, the constant little changes prevent the scenes from getting stale and makes it much more immersive.
• I personally really liked the voices. Maybe I'm just not fussy about it or not used to ultra-emotional VA, but I thought both Cara and Douglas acted really well. The recording quality, on the other hand, leaves a LOT to be desired, especially in Cara's case.
• I have to disagree with the others again in that I liked the twist in the end. The switch to third person - while a bit confusing - gave it a nice detached feel, as if the protagonist was already considering himself dead. The suicide was a good end for a somewhat typical story and it made sense to me with the whole I've-no-future build-up.
• Music was nice but overemphasized in places. The ending song felt very extremely professional.

The Bad:

• It's short. Well paced, but still short.
• The ambient sound effects are overdone and way too loud. They are a nice touch but when I can't even hear the dialogues it only detracts from the experience.
• The grey background (ie in the credits) looked really cheap - like someone just applied a dozen of random Photoshop filters to a grey clouds layer.
• All audio was way too compressed. While I agree that filesize is important, audio quality is a major factor, especially in a piece that lets the background effects loose all over the place.
• A bit too much repetition in Cara's dialogue. Even though it was intended, I thought it didn't add anything.
• You had to go ruin the bleak atmosphere with a bento, eh?

Nice little game, but some simple problems like the ambient volume really damaged its value.

[M12]

Updated the link in the first post. This is the final version. Audio issues fixed. Guide book included. Somebody please update the file on Ren'Ai =)? Please let me know if you have received this message. Thanks.

By the way it's SWF instead of EXE now. After all, SWF is compatible with both PCs and MACs.