The Censor [Dystopian/SF - English, German]

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saguaro
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Re: The Censor [Dystopian/SF]

#16 Post by saguaro »

Thank you for your feedback everyone!
cometgears wrote:I'm still a little confused about the RootPro part of the game. Does your censoring have an effect, or is it just for additional story? Regardless, I was surprised how much I liked reading the messages. I usually get bored of those kinds of things pretty easily, or just skim them to be completionist, but even with the hard-to-remember names it added to the worldbuilding/foreshadowing.
Random notes: I'm really curious what was happening in Agri. JE, argh. Poor gadfly was so sad when I censored their story. And now I ship outerlimt and SG874248/Sky.
Originally RootPro was supposed to be this elaborate mini-game/backstory delivery system where the player could censor messages, seed misinformation, report dissidents, and so on. It got convoluted fast and ended up being a lot of work for an optional feature players might not even use, so I gutted it to avoid scope creep. One problem with the censorship function was it meant the player wouldn't get to see the rest of the messages in a branch, because the users would stop posting messages, and that seemed counterintuitive? As it stands, censoring messages will cause certain users to retaliate, either with a warning message or in the case of the higher-level hackers, a spike that temporarily disables the system for a day and a gloat message, but I think I disabled all the other actions.

I'm very glad you enjoyed the RootPro, I wasn't sure how many players would even pay attention to it so I'm happy to hear about your interest. I'd like to continue experimenting with systems like it in future projects.
I think the original draft had more information about the infiltration of the Agricultural Bureau, but there are ongoing issues with the Outside attempting to compromise the food supply and recruit from within that area.
Carassaurat, thanks for those issues you caught. As far as game vs. demo... Li'l felt like the demo was too much, and on reflection I agreed. It just wasn't the vibe I wanted.
Carassaurat wrote:
About the choices: I'm not sure they always work. It is possible, for example, not to ever see Eff in person. Why anyone would, I'm not sure, but it really messes up the flow of the story, since she ends up fulfilling a rather important role later on. Some of the other choices are a lot of fun. Personally I kept flip-flopping all the time between the System and the Outside because both factions are made up of jerks and the actions of the characters had me change my reactions to others all the time. It's so easy to bring down the system when they set you up with Jay; it's so easy to support the system when Jennifer is so unpleasant. Perhaps because of my lack of conviction, I ended up in a situation where I could load a save before the last conversations and get four out of five endings by choosing differently there. I don't know if that was supposed to be possible, but I think it's a tad on the cheap side when you're having me make decisions quite consistently and seemingly relevantly for the entire thing, only for all options to be open in the end.
Thanks for your observations on this. I think originally the outcome was determined by a points system, but as I rewrote things I ended up using a combination of major decision flags plus points, because I felt CJ's final actions were more relevant than some of the smaller actions the game assigns points to early on.

There may also be some legacy issues because originally I was experimenting with the idea of letting the player NOT play the game. Usually, a game that gives a false opt-out option steers the player back to the main story, I figured if the player wanted to stand on the sidelines and be oblivious I would let them, the game would go on without them. I dropped the idea later but I think there are areas where I failed to put in guardrails to guide the player back to the main story. Development dragged on so long it was easy to forget what changes I'd made.

Ultimately, it's an oversight on my part that the situation you describe is possible. I wanted this game to be different from Locked-In in that regard. It's definitely something I need to improve on. I didn't recruit testers for this game and I should have.
Li'l magic deserves compliments too. The super theme is great, and it works really well with the sirens. I thought they were part of the score until I found the music files. It's an awesome moment when the music starts. I suppose 'cinematic' is the wrong word, but there is a kind of tension that is really uncommon for a visual novel.
I'll pass that along! I'm really proud of that ending sequence, it's my favorite part of the game.
ludeshka wrote:I found this very interesting.

I don't want to be part of the system...but the outside is horrible....but Mother is kind to me...yes, but she's in league with the very bad no good oppressors, she's manipulating me....aaaargh, this is claustrophobic and it's making me paranoid! XD

I liked Locked-In more, perhaps because I felt I knew who Jacqueline was (a boss bitch) and what she wanted (to be respected by all these fools, dammit! this "sickness" is but a temporary setback!) while being Cj is very confusing. Like, she wants to... stay alive. That's good, I guess? I want to say something about how CJ rejects her roots, and the very interface she works in is called ROOTPRO, and that, that means something, right?

All in all your game is beautiful, elegant. The sound does wonders. The soothing wall creeped me the hell out. I nodded sadly at the screen when it called me
a snitch and a traitor
because yes, I was, yes, I was.
Oh, and the telenovella they made her watch? Pfeh!. The love story I would read in a heartbeat is that of
SR8/Outer_limit
I hope I remember their names right.

Your games are something rare and wonderful. Please make more. :)
Thanks for playing. I'm pleased people enjoyed that particular "couple" on the RootPro. As I said above, I wasn't sure if people would take to the RP or not. I agree that Jacqueline is a stronger protagonist, CJ has a sort of ambivalence that I felt was necessary, but I'd like to write a stronger protagonist for the next one.

Oh, and right back at you on making more games! I am looking forward to Hierofanìa 2 you have no idea.

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Re: The Censor [Dystopian/SF - English, German]

#17 Post by saguaro »

Version 1.2 includes a German language translation, thanks to Marcel!

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Re: The Censor [Dystopian/SF - English, German]

#18 Post by marauderspirit »

Dude, I don't know if you work alone or in a group, but the visual novels you are churning out are just marvelous. I have to say I really enjoyed 'Locked In' and I just finished downloading this and am preparing to give it two thumbs way up.
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Re: The Censor [Dystopian/SF - English, German]

#19 Post by Godline »

You are amazing. :)
Truly. I wish I had more to add. I didn't get all of the endings... sadly. I'll have to go back and play for more and it ended on a rather huge cliffhanger (you could do more with this story for sure).

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Re: The Censor [Dystopian/SF - English, German]

#20 Post by saguaro »

marauderspirit wrote:Dude, I don't know if you work alone or in a group, but the visual novels you are churning out are just marvelous. I have to say I really enjoyed 'Locked In' and I just finished downloading this and am preparing to give it two thumbs way up.
Thanks for playing Locked-In. The Censor is a different vibe but I hope you enjoy it all the same.

LSG consists of myself and the resident composer, L'il Magic.
Godline wrote:You are amazing. :)
Truly. I wish I had more to add. I didn't get all of the endings... sadly. I'll have to go back and play for more and it ended on a rather huge cliffhanger (you could do more with this story for sure).
Thank you for playing! Development dragged so long I needed to get this game off my back. There are definitely areas that would have benefited from further exploration, and I never got close to the level of interactivity I really wanted with the Rootpro, but it was time to move on.

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Re: The Censor [Dystopian/SF - English, German]

#21 Post by Der Tor »

@ saguaro:

Have you ever heard of something called "A Mind Forever Voyaging"?

Could that have been an inspiration?

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saguaro
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Re: The Censor [Dystopian/SF - English, German]

#22 Post by saguaro »

I'm not familiar with it, but I could have been inspired by something that was inspired by it. I think my biggest conscious inspiration was the film the Lives of Others (maybe better known as Das Leben der Anderen)

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Re: The Censor [Dystopian/SF - English, German]

#23 Post by Morhighan »

I really enjoyed this, saguaro!
I got this ending:
Survivor
I'll see if I can get more endings.

As a fledgling programmer I really admired what you did with this VN.

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Re: The Censor [Dystopian/SF - English, German]

#24 Post by saguaro »

Thank you for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

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Re: The Censor [Dystopian/SF - English, German]

#25 Post by Zelan »

Apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but I've just spent several sleepless late-night hours playing this and I can't figure out how to get the Traitor ending. Does anyone have any pointers for me?

That aside, this VN really does an exceptional job putting the player/MC in a sort of impossible situation. Neither side is really "right" and I struggled to stay consistently loyal to either one on my first few playthroughs.

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Re: The Censor [Dystopian/SF - English, German]

#26 Post by saguaro »

Sorry for the late reply, I don't remember anything so I had to dig around in the script. "traitor" is a weird middle-ground ending where you're not trusted enough to get the protection ending, but you're not subversive enough to get deleted. As best as I can tell from my code and notes, you have to choose to stay inside during the ending sequence and it looks like two routes are to either lie to Mother, but still have higher "friendship" points with the system, or to have the highest friendship points with the system but not take major actions to help Mother (like revealing the packet).

I hope that helps. I'm just glad people are playing the game. I think a lot of players disliked the ambiguity in this one, so I'm glad you found it interesting enough to play through multiple times.

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Re: The Censor [Dystopian/SF - English, German]

#27 Post by Zelan »

saguaro wrote: Wed Nov 20, 2019 5:09 pm Sorry for the late reply, I don't remember anything so I had to dig around in the script. "traitor" is a weird middle-ground ending where you're not trusted enough to get the protection ending, but you're not subversive enough to get deleted. As best as I can tell from my code and notes, you have to choose to stay inside during the ending sequence and it looks like two routes are to either lie to Mother, but still have higher "friendship" points with the system, or to have the highest friendship points with the system but not take major actions to help Mother (like revealing the packet).

I hope that helps. I'm just glad people are playing the game. I think a lot of players disliked the ambiguity in this one, so I'm glad you found it interesting enough to play through multiple times.
Haha don't worry about it, I'm just now seeing your reply, too. c: I did manage to get the ending on my own by opening up the game files and looking to see what I needed to do to get to the last ending.

I liked the game a lot, it was interesting to see where my choices would lead me in each playthrough, and I liked how it doesn't really feel like there's a "best" ending. Obviously the endings where the main character dies are "worse" endings, but there were different ways to survive that each had their own benefits and drawbacks. I was also impressed with how you managed to convey character with more minimal art.

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