The Life Threads [KN][Sunofes][Desert Adventure]

[Sonya]

I played this, like, two weeks ago and have been meaning to comment... oops.

First off, it worked fine on Chrome on a Mac.

Second off, I really like the art style. The use of color in particular is phenomenal.

Aside from the art, I thought the strong point was world-building. The Calikoh was explained well without being over-explained and was an interesting premise.

The one thing I didn't like was the Cloudnovel interface. It felt laggy compared to Renpy or even a Flash game, and seems to be lacking save, back, or skip functions (?).

As far as suggestions for future projects, I'm no expert, but IMO you'd probably benefit the most from working on story and structure. I liked the story of this KN, but thought it was just kind of functional compared to the art, setting, and characters, which were all very strong.

Hope that's helpful. Overall, a fun read!

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

And yes, one of Cloudnovel's biggest drawbacks (to me) is the lack of a save/back feature. I've heard that they've implemented a skip feature, so it seems that they're trying to overcome some of these problems. (I've been meaning to do a write up on the strengths/weaknesses of Cloudnovel, I really should get around to that, haha :'D)

And yes, about the plot- I tried something a little different where I tried to write a 'scenery piece' (there's a real name for this I just don't know it), where I wanted to explore a place/culture/environment more-so than a driving plot. And in some ways I'm happy with how it turned out, but I can definitely see that the story as a whole is weaker without said driving plot. Definitely an area in my writing that I can work on .

Thank you so much for your comment!

Hey guys, sorry don't mean to interrupt your thoughts since I'd REALLY want you guys to give your honest opinions on CN, but just to clarify, CloudNovel does have a save load, back/previous-page, skip, auto, fullscreen and more features. Before you had to right click on the screen to open the menu, but now we just implemented a set of options (customizable options too) at the bottom right corner of the VN stage/screen. Just refresh your cache/browser history again, play any visual novel on our site, and you should see it!

I'm really sorry if I'm disrupting your thoughts guys, but I'd want you guys be informed about all of the features we offer entirely before you officially post anything, so that way you guys can give a completely honest & informed review! I'd completely understand if you'd use another engine that better suits your VN creating needs, but we DO have this feature

[Laiska]

Oh, this was really fantastic! The world-building was subtle, but Ife's reactions told enough about what the various world elements meant in context. The characters were both very endearing, as well. At first I found Manaem a little annoying (and was distracted by his shirtlessness, lol), he grew on me; and I loved Ife right off the bat, with her cool demeanor and appearance.

The choice of music in the game was great, and the backgrounds set the mood well. The only thing that was a distracting to me was the monster design - it looked a little like a hand puppet xD I'm not sure whether there were sound effects in here or not, though, as I couldn't hear any of them (playing on Chrome on a Mac).

The story was just sort of mildly interesting until

Ife freaked out about Manaem's Calikoh. That's when the feels hit me, and I was really worried about the duo. I'm still not 100% on whether the Calikoh is purely symbolic, or whether it has a tangible tie to something, but you can tell immediately that it's something important, and that it has metaphorical ties to virtue. It definitely made me with of Journey - was that intentional?

Overall, really enjoyable and satisfying experience. It left me wanting more of the world and perhaps the characters, but not the particular story, which means it wrapped up well. Then again, things like this are best left open-ended. Whether you expand on it more in the future or not, I had a great time reading.

[Heiden]

Hey guys, sorry don't mean to interrupt your thoughts since I'd REALLY want you guys to give your honest opinions on CN, but just to clarify, CloudNovel does have a save load, back/previous-page, skip, auto, fullscreen and more features. Before you had to right click on the screen to open the menu, but now we just implemented a set of options (customizable options too) at the bottom right corner of the VN stage/screen. Just refresh your cache/browser history again, play any visual novel on our site, and you should see it!

I'm really sorry if I'm disrupting your thoughts guys, but I'd want you guys be informed about all of the features we offer entirely before you officially post anything, so that way you guys can give a completely honest & informed review! I'd completely understand if you'd use another engine that better suits your VN creating needs, but we DO have this feature

Ooh you're right! Sorry about that! And that's perfectly understandable, since I was spreading wrong information! I had made that comment when it was still the "right click to open the menu" method and so wasn't aware that it existed! I'll make sure to go back and edit that post to point this out. Also can I say that I am loving the added save/load/auto/skip features? They are very helpful when replaying longer titles and trying for multiple paths!

Oh, this was really fantastic! The world-building was subtle, but Ife's reactions told enough about what the various world elements meant in context. The characters were both very endearing, as well. At first I found Manaem a little annoying (and was distracted by his shirtlessness, lol), he grew on me; and I loved Ife right off the bat, with her cool demeanor and appearance.

The choice of music in the game was great, and the backgrounds set the mood well. The only thing that was a distracting to me was the monster design - it looked a little like a hand puppet xD I'm not sure whether there were sound effects in here or not, though, as I couldn't hear any of them (playing on Chrome on a Mac).

The story was just sort of mildly interesting until

Ife freaked out about Manaem's Calikoh. That's when the feels hit me, and I was really worried about the duo. I'm still not 100% on whether the Calikoh is purely symbolic, or whether it has a tangible tie to something, but you can tell immediately that it's something important, and that it has metaphorical ties to virtue. It definitely made me with of Journey - was that intentional?

Overall, really enjoyable and satisfying experience. It left me wanting more of the world and perhaps the characters, but not the particular story, which means it wrapped up well. Then again, things like this are best left open-ended. Whether you expand on it more in the future or not, I had a great time reading.

OOhh I'm so glad you enjoyed it!

Haha, monster design is definitely an area I need to work on XD.

And yes, there was originally a "roar" sound bite when the monster appeared on screen and during the fight but I had to take it out due to the sfx file not cooperating.

And ooohh yes I was originally inspired by Journey! I liked how the main character's scarf got longer as their journey continued and how it acted as physical proof of all the things they went through. And how someone could look at that person and immediately know where they had been. And then I got to thinking about how someone could use that to discriminate against someone and I basically ended up with the idea of the Calikohs, haha :'D.

Thank you so much for playing!

[Sonya]

Ooh you're right! Sorry about that! And that's perfectly understandable, since I was spreading wrong information! I had made that comment when it was still the "right click to open the menu" method and so wasn't aware that it existed! I'll make sure to go back and edit that post to point this out. Also can I say that I am loving the added save/load/auto/skip features? They are very helpful when replaying longer titles and trying for multiple paths!

Awesome, I'd glad to hear it's useful

[Laniessa]

I finally got around to playing it, and gosh I loved it a lot ;o;

1) Thoughts on Ife or Manaem?
Eek, I loved Manaem! I'm a sucker for super happy naive people like that, and he was so sweet ;m; His excitement for ROCKS!!! was super cute as well, and his positivity made me happy! Ife was really nice too, I loved the contrast between her and Manaem!

The character designs were both really nice!!

2) At what point of the story did you figure out what a Calikoh was?

When Ife talked about how clean Manaem's was!

3) General comments/suggestions?
It was really fun to play! Like I said, I enjoyed it a lot, and it made me smile by the end of it. Everyone bouncing around was a really nice touch too, it really gave everyone life <3