Hey guys! I'v had the NOBY demo in the works for a while and its finally time to test it!!! The black backgrounds are backgrounds that ware not completed yet and the Cgs are being redrawn.
So some questions i want to ask:
1) What do you think of the ending of the demo?
2) Any major Glitches?
3) TO MUCH PINK?
If you have anything else to input please tell me. I need all the advice i can get.
Kyle Tyner
Creator of Unwonted Studios ktyner@unwontedstudios.co Visit Our Website Projects: No One But You, Sickness, Written in the Sky, Wander no more, Catch Canvas, Warped Reality
Glitches:
Megumi's sprite disappears when she's at the mall with Ryo and Hideaki - there's a message saying 'image megumi (neutral/blush/smile) not found'.
When Hideaki goes to Ryo's house and is in his room there's a black background but then half-way through they are in Hideaki's bedroom.
Art:
This has some of the lovliest backgrounds I've seen. The sprites are drawn and coloured well (sometimes feel a little familiar but that's okay). I would have liked to have seen a second pose or perhaps week-end clothes - but again not a big deal.
The sprites and background mesh well together.
The text-box overwhelms the page in my opinion. I'm going to be looking down there anyway, so I don't need it to try and stand out. This is just a personal preference - some folks may like that style.
Writing:
Okay, I hope you get a lot of feedback with respect to this because mine is rather negative. If you get a lot of folks who enjoy the writing, you can just ignore my comments as coming from someone who wanted more in their experience than this type of VN is designed to deliver.
Japanese high school setting - not a problem for me, I actually like that. [Not sure if sophomore is part of the school terminology there or not.]
Protagonist with amnesia - made me groan, but it's fairly popular to come across and can be done well.
Protagonist lacking a background - I realise that sometimes the idea is to have the playable character as a blank slate but it felt odd to me that Hideaki had no thoughts/emotions about the place he was leaving - was he happy to go (perhaps hadn't been fitting in and was looking forward to starting over when people didn't know him) - was he sad to go (leaving his friends behind) - maybe he was apathetic (but I would have needed more of a sense of that to pin that emotion down.) It certainly seemed odd he had no idea what town he was moving to until he got there and asked his mother (maybe that was a hint he was apathetic although the rest of his behaviour didn't seem to support it).
Writing style:
The conversations between the characters never seem to get beyond banal chatter.
Hideaki's dialogue when no-one else is around also seems to be in this vein.
His internal thoughts have little emotion in them.
Narration also tends to be plain - (I put on some clothes and went down stairs)
And a lot of the writing uses very generic terms/words that won't help to convey emotion - the boy in the water scenes suffer from this - very important scenes to the story but the words and descriptions used don't bring it to life.
So for me, because of the above, the story lacks depth and meaning with respect to what the characters were doing, what they want, and I started to lose interest in it.
Final scene seems a little tacked on. What was the switch that caused it to transpire when it did. Did Hidaeki do something to trigger it? I guess to me it just seemed to happened out of the blue without having a reason for being there yet.
I'd say the biggest pro is the art. I'm not an artist and can't really critique it, but I still enjoyed the style. Music/sounds were also nice additions. I wish there at least some filtered photos for the missing backgrounds. It really throws you off while reading the story.
The story, in all honesty, leaves a lot to be desired, because the characters don't strike me as true to nature.
Unlike the students he meets, Hideaki clearly doesn't have a defining personality/interests. The first defining thing I learned about them, literally, was that he plays games a lot and throws tantrums when he loses; I can already tell that's self-insertion from the writer, honestly. I wasn't learning his hobbies or his distinctive thoughts on life/people. This uses 1st Person Narration, but there's not a lot of personality to match it.
Chinatsu's family apparently knows Hideaki's, but he doesn't remember because of the accident. Why did he never bother to ask her about their past? Or why didn't his mother bring him up to speed on the things he forgot?
Megumi and Ryo are clearly extroverts. Why does Hideaki seem to be their only friend? And despite the very little dialogue that occurred, Megumi is treating him like her best friend, even using the informal suffix -kun instead of -san. People aren't naturally like that.
Shiro literally just met Hideaki, and she's trusting him with her secret that she made a copy of the janitor's keys? She could have just lied or said it wasn't his business, that would have been more realistic.
Then there's very little dialogue and events. The few times he's talking with Megumi or Chinatsu don't last long, and don't reveal much about the characters. A lot of hours are skipped every day; hours that could be spent showing events in his life at school and outside of it.
Also, his mother just seems like someone who should be there, not really a character by herself. I mean, more than once her son comes home very late without calling her, or her calling him, and she's not that concerned. Or the fact that Hideaki has missed some classes, slept through others, and has played games when he should have been studying. We can assume he's having a poor academic start, but there's no concern from his mother. I mean, she doesn't even ask if he's making new friends or how he's adjusting to the new scenery.
Lastly, because this is a dating game, Hideaki can't continue having his plain personality. Either it becomes more refined, or you give players more decisions to define their own personality. Why? Because plain, ordinary guys like Hideaki never get girlfriends like the girls in this game, or any other dating game, ever.
He doesn't have any appealing hobbies like debate, philosophy, or sports. He's not charming, confident, and without a sprite, we don't know if he's arguably handsome. Why should multiple girls consider him, when there's definitely other guys at school that would have some of these desirable qualities. Sure, he's polite, but manners alone don't make relationships.
I hope it doesn't like I'm ripping on this story. I liked it enough to where I wanted to actually write this feedback. Honestly, and I've reviewed enough stories to spot this, I can tell the writer either isn't very experienced, or needs to brush up on a few tips. The general tone of this story is certainly nice. But it too much resembles your average high school manga. The only for this story to stand out, is to have more defining characters, with much more dialogue.
Just played through the beta - it's very nice; the art is attractive, and the story is interesting. Will certainly download the full story when it is released!
philip
"One who has never made a mistake has never attempted anything!"
-
and
-
"Finish what you start"
