Lucky Me, Lucky You [NaNo2016]

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ebi-hime
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Lucky Me, Lucky You [NaNo2016]

#1 Post by ebi-hime »

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Synopsis:
Okada Nanami is in a serious slump. Her super cute girlfriend just broke up with her, without any explanation, and she’s at her wit’s end trying to figure out why.
Enter her best friend, Ryo.
In an attempt to cheer her up, Ryo invites Nanami over to his apartment to eat ice cream and watch dodgy porn.
What begins as a perfectly ordinary night, however, soon takes an unexpected turn, when Nanami discovers one of the actresses is none other than Morishita Misae – a has-been pinup model, and Nanami’s first crush.
Impulsive as always, Nanami decides to go on a journey with an (unwilling) Ryo to find Misae, and confess to her her feelings – but can her dreams ever hope to live up to reality?

Characters:
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Okada Nanami:
A university student, aged 21, studying to become a nurse.
A loud girl who loves going to parties, and hates being alone for protracted periods of time.
She’s good at making friends, but is prone to making thoughtless, insensitive comments, which can drive others away.
She cares a good deal about her appearance, and spends an ungodly amount of time on her hair, make up, and (especially) her fingernails.

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Hisaka Ryo:
A fellow university student, aged 21, studying chemistry.
He’s quiet but sharp-tongued, and doesn’t fluster easily.
Mature and reliable, he’s a good friend, despite his caustic comments and fondness for gossip.
He doesn’t identify as female, but sometimes dresses as a girl when the mood strikes – generally when he won’t run the risk of running into anybody he knows.

Screenshots:
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Credits:
Writing/Programming: Ebi-Hime
Art: Awedacious

Notes:
Lucky Me, Lucky You is completely kinetic, and is 28k words long.
There aren't any CGs, and the backgrounds will be filtered photos because I'm cheap orz
Also, it's probably more suited for an older audience, given the subject matter - even though there isn't anything explicit.

Download:
The VN can be downloaded from itch.io here, and runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux!
I hope you enjoy it! <3
I have a lot of free & commercial VNs available on Steam and itchio.io if you want to check them out! ☆

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MimirollCookie
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Re: Lucky Me, Lucky You [NaNo2016]

#2 Post by MimirollCookie »

Congrats on finishing NaNo! :D
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"If they can do it, you can do it too! make them do it. They can do it, right?" :lol:
Getting a new laptop. Hopefully going back to VN making! (BWAHAHA)

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Re: Lucky Me, Lucky You [NaNo2016]

#3 Post by LeonDaydreamer »

I played through the whole thing, so I guess mini-critique:

The writing is engaging, and the characters are nice and fleshed out. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I thought the ending was satisfying. I like the structure of it going back and forth from dialogue bar to full screen passages when Nanami was reflecting, it was really effective. I did think people might find some of the language offensive, but the content is good; and I noticed a couple of spelling mistakes, but nothing major.

I felt like some immersion was lost during Nanami's monologues in the beginning when she second-guesses her reactions or choice of words (like when she says she felt like a mother proud of her child and then brings attention to that being a strange analogy). It only happens once or twice, but it kind of reminds me that she's explaining something to me rather than experiencing her own life and 'thinking out loud' within it.

The character artwork is great and works very well, and the ending theme is really nice. :)
Not sure what else to say, good work!
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Re: Lucky Me, Lucky You [NaNo2016]

#4 Post by ebi-hime »

@ MimirollCookie
Thank you u///u

@ LeonDayDreamer
Yup, NVL mode is very useful if you want to do some introspective/thought-focused writing. ADV is more useful for back and forth dialogue exchanges. Since the ADV text window is smaller, there's less room to put in descriptions, or really long run-on sentences, because they'd get cut off.

When I was writing it, I was like, 'Oh, people are going to find it offensive', but nobody has told me that, so it made me wonder if I didn't make it crude enough... It's not on the level of some of the authors whose work I was emulating, haha.

There are also some periods where she addresses the reader, like 'wait a sec I'll get to it', and things like that. I'm not sure why I've started to introduce these elements into my writing, since I'm not that fond of 4th wall breaking stuff... I should pay more attention and edit a bit more strictly, I think.
I think it's also easier for this stuff to creep into 1st person POV writing - I don't think I do it when I write in 3rd person.

Thank you, and I'm glad you enjoyed it! u///u
I have a lot of free & commercial VNs available on Steam and itchio.io if you want to check them out! ☆

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Seigetsu
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Re: Lucky Me, Lucky You [NaNo2016]

#5 Post by Seigetsu »

Congratulations on completing NaNoRenO! Thanks for the lovely game. I had fun playing it while I was stuck at home, sneezing my nose out from a cold.

Overall, I really liked the story. Definitely quite different from the usual cute, lovey-dovey VN (not that I don't like that kind of story, but something different is always refreshing). At points, especially the middle part of the story when Nanami and Ryo are on the train, the narrative is a little slow, but after reading through your notes I can see why you wrote it that way. The dragging narrative did give me a sense of impatience during the "train ride" that you were probably trying to express. While the ending is quite...expected, I did like how it wrapped things up neatly. All in all, the atmosphere of the VN is excellent. The ending BGM was really nice too.

I did find that maybe you tried just a tad too hard in making Nanami the loud, obnoxious gyaru. Parts of her conversations with Ryo are a little droning to read (not sure if it's intentional or not). And given how much she says she detests thinking, she does do a lot of it throughout the VN, even if her thoughts are a little shallow. Well, it's just sort of a minor point though. I liked the VN all the same.

Other little, trivial things I noticed:
- With such long, sharp nails, wouldn't Nanami poke through the surgical gloves she wears for her work? I've certainly poked through quite a number whenever I don't keep my nails cropped, haha.
- Is Ryo a biochemist or a chemist? I just found it a little odd that you refer to him as a chemist despite that he reads (and throws) a biochemistry textbook. Actually, chemists and biochemists are quite different in terms of their training. Biochemists know about as much chemistry as...maybe your typical physicist. They are more concerned with enzymatic pathways than the precise structures of molecules and how they contribute to chemical reactions (there are some mandatory chemistry classes to take, but it's certainly not their expertise). It's a really minor point, and honestly, I just thought about it because the other day, the chemist I was working with thought it'd be ok to freeze some human enzyme she was working with. It just came to me that pure chemists really know very little about biochemistry, and vice versa for biochemists where chemistry is concerned. Then again, I'm not sure about the education system elsewhere in the world though.
- I read in the notes that you changed everything to American spelling because you want to use the word "popsicle". Actually, Canadians use this weird combination of American and British vocabulary, and mostly British spelling. So even if you did use British spelling with the word "popsicle", it'd just make your writing sound Canadian, eh?

Anyway, thanks again for the nice game. I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. Hope to see more of your games in the future. Best of luck!

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Re: Lucky Me, Lucky You [NaNo2016]

#6 Post by ebi-hime »

@ Seigetsu

Ooh, thank you for such a long and thoughtful comment! u///u

Well, I like fluffy romance a lot, too... But I think one-sided romance that doesn't go anywhere is actually my favourite thing to write, haha XD;
When I wrote the story, I wrote the scenes at the start and the scenes at the end, then wrote the train ride scenes last of all. Tbh those scenes mostly exist to... Not necessarily pad the story out, but I wanted to slow down the pacing between the start and the end, and I wanted to try and capture a sense of monotony.

I'm not good at writing characters like Nanami, so I had to force it. I was worrying, when I wrote it, it sounded too try-hard or unnatural. I need to work at writing more diverse character types. It might have been a bit easier if I was writing in 3rd person instead of 1st.
I guess it's good if it sounds droning, though, since it was partially intended. I mean, I was writing while listening to songs with beautiful lyrics like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc6JJ_TaTqw

I was thinking this when I wrote it too, haha XD; She probably gets in trouble for it...
I thought of writing she wears false nails when not at the hospital, I'm not sure why I didn't put it into the actual story.
Ryo should be a biochemist, I was being vague because I didn't research it too much XD;
For American spellings, it's also generally easier to use American spellings (though I make mistakes sometimes) because I've had people tell me I spell things 'wrong' before when using British spellings. It's easier to assimilate... Though I default back to British spelling/grammar when I write things set in Europe, since that seems to make more sense.

And, thank you again u///u
Well, if you're interested, I've written a bunch of other stuff here: https://ebihime.itch.io/
XD;
I have a lot of free & commercial VNs available on Steam and itchio.io if you want to check them out! ☆

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Re: Lucky Me, Lucky You [NaNo2016]

#7 Post by Mandy »

I loved this! I didn't think I'd like Nanami's character at first but I grew to like her a lot as the story progressed. I liked Ryo too, the two of them make such cute friends. ^^
I also liked how realistic the ending was. People aren't always who you think they are or who you want them to be, especially people who you idolise and don't really know as a person.
I think you expressed this perfectly with this VN and it was an enjoyable read because of it. Your writing style in this was nice to read too! I'm always blown away by how good your writing is hehe.

Nice job! :D

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Re: Lucky Me, Lucky You [NaNo2016]

#8 Post by PeroxidePrince »

I really enjoyed your writing in this! I think the slow pacing of the story really helped to captured the melancholic, everyday atmosphere very well.
The way you transitioned between ADV and NVL mode was done really smoothly too, and there was clearly thought put into how your story was structured. The filtered black-and-white background photos provided a nice contrast with the crisp brightly coloured sprites, which also helped set the tone of the story effectively.
Nanami was an entertaining protagonist, and I liked her friendship with Ryo -- the two characters were quite different, but their relationship was realistic and believable. Their differences made for a good dynamic between them in conversation, too.
Congratulations on completing your NaNo project, and thanks for making this VN!

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Re: Lucky Me, Lucky You [NaNo2016]

#9 Post by ebi-hime »

@ Mandy
Thank you, I'm glad you liked it u///u

@ PeroxidePrince
I tried to create something with a very slow pace... To make it seem more banal, I guess.
Never mind the fact that this story only works based on a string of coincidences - but I tried to make the coincidences seem similarly banal XD;

The BGs mostly exist like this because I didn't have the time/money to commission drawn BGs, but I'm fond of filtered BGs anyway... I think they work nicely for stories that are meant to be more grounded in reality - it makes it seem more like 'Oh, these characters are meant to be living in the real world that we do'. Maybe I'm just partial to filtered photo BGs because of Umineko, though...

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it u///u
I have a lot of free & commercial VNs available on Steam and itchio.io if you want to check them out! ☆

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Re: Lucky Me, Lucky You [NaNo2016]

#10 Post by DrSchizo »

You can now play Lucky Me, Lucky You online: http://sandbox-adventure.com/lucky-me-lucky-you.html

The game is in full HTML5 so there is no need to download or install anything.
You have to register to save your game but not to play the game.

While in game, you can hit F1 to display a list of available shortcuts.

You can find more information about Sandbox Adventure Engine on this thread.

Enjoy this great game!

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