Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

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dizzcity
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Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

#1 Post by dizzcity »

Hello!

I've finally finished the Wedding Vows project, close to exactly 3 years after I first started it!

Category: Kinetic Novel
Estimated Playtime: 25 minutes
Relationships: BxG and GxB (It's balanced equally between both points of view)
Ren'Ai Archives: Yes, please! All copyright permissions have been secured and credit has been given.

Description: Wedding Vows is an anthology of 14 short snippets portraying the love story of Lawrence and Rebecca, two childhood sweethearts who grew up together and got married. It shows their evolving relationship from childhood until old age, and the special moments that bind them together. A tribute to marriage and idealised love with a vintage Americana feel.

Image

Downloads:
Windows: http://dizzcity.com/projects/Wedding_Vows.zip
Mac: http://dizzcity.com/projects/Wedding_Vows-mac.zip
Linux: http://dizzcity.com/projects/Wedding_Vo ... 86.tar.bz2

Enjoy! Comments and feedback appreciated.

Cheers,
-Dizzy-
A smart man follows the rules, a dumb man breaks them. A great man bends the rules and thus creates them.
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Writer and director of Working Woman (NaNoRenO March 2010)
Writer and director of Wedding Vows (finished 2009).
Creator of Lakeside Sunset (finished 2006).

raylynn
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Re: Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

#2 Post by raylynn »

This...was so..beautiful. I cried. I did. Very well done. :)

V2Blast
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Re: Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

#3 Post by V2Blast »

Downloading now; comments shall follow later. :P
Pie is delicious.

chronoluminaire
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Re: Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

#4 Post by chronoluminaire »

Oh, wow! I remember this from a couple of years back; it's awesome that you finally got it finished. I'll definitely play it!
I released 3 VNs, many moons ago: Elven Relations (IntRenAiMo 2007), When I Rule The World (NaNoRenO 2005), and Cloud Fairy (the Cute Light & Fluffy Project, 2009).
More recently I designed the board game Steam Works (published in 2015), available from a local gaming store near you!

dizzcity
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Re: Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

#5 Post by dizzcity »

Great! Glad you enjoyed it, raylynn. The rest of you, thanks for downloading, and do let me know what you think of it.

Cheers,
-Dizzy-
A smart man follows the rules, a dumb man breaks them. A great man bends the rules and thus creates them.
Fanfiction.net Profile.
Writer and director of Working Woman (NaNoRenO March 2010)
Writer and director of Wedding Vows (finished 2009).
Creator of Lakeside Sunset (finished 2006).

Poketto Kunoichi
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Re: Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

#6 Post by Poketto Kunoichi »

You made me cry D: Thanks a lot.

The game was really beautiful <3 I loved it. The part with the father's death got to me x_x It was really good =)

V2Blast
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Re: Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

#7 Post by V2Blast »

Personally, I thought it was too cutesy.

(I'm not a particularly happy person. :P)
Pie is delicious.

Ren

Re: Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

#8 Post by Ren »

Added to the archives.

I played it just because your avatar is from Mitsuru Adachi. :P
Nice, although a bit too sweet for my tastes, might be my mood lately.

dizzcity
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Re: Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

#9 Post by dizzcity »

Great! Thanks for playing and adding it to the archives.

@ PokettoKunoichi: Glad you liked that father scene. It was the only new section I added after the initial script was written 3 years ago (I took out a less-interesting scene and replaced it with this one), and I do feel it's one of the best parts of the story.
I wanted to convey the idea of responsibility to care for the family as the duty of the husband and a natural part of married life that should be passed on from generation to generation. A lot of the broken homes I've seen today are a result of the husband / father failing to fulfill this role - to take on the responsibility of caring for the family and passing it on to the next generation - so this was written as a specific response to that issue. Plus there are some psychological issues behind this as well... I believe that any woman raised with a strong and kind father-figure in her life would naturally want her father to approve of her choice of husband, and this is the clearest demonstration of the trust her father has placed in Becky's husband - to step into his shoes as the new head of the household.
(Yes, I have a tendency to layer meaning upon meaning in the stories I write, even though it doesn't always show explicitly in the writing. I could go on and on about each section's meaning and how it fits into the overall picture, but I'll stop here. :P)

@ V2Blast and Ren: Admittedly, I was pumping in the sweetness factor by the barrel in this story, so I'm not too surprised if you found it too cutesy for your tastes. :) It IS meant to be an idealised love story, after all. I deliberately made each section as sweet or touching as I could write. Think of this as the first attempt at a VN-equivalent of inspirational chick-lit stories. (I'm finding out that girls tend to like the story better than guys do.) I used up about 2 years of sweetness in writing this, though, so I'm pretty sure my next piece of work is going to be rather dark and possibly angsty / depressing.

-Dizzy-
A smart man follows the rules, a dumb man breaks them. A great man bends the rules and thus creates them.
Fanfiction.net Profile.
Writer and director of Working Woman (NaNoRenO March 2010)
Writer and director of Wedding Vows (finished 2009).
Creator of Lakeside Sunset (finished 2006).

V2Blast
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Re: Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

#10 Post by V2Blast »

I prefer realism.

I look forward to your next work. :mrgreen:
Pie is delicious.

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Re: Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

#11 Post by lunasspecto »

I liked the way you structured this, and the visuals were suitably pleasant (although I sometimes felt that the wedding invitation-style font was a tad overused). The music was appropriate, but grated on me after a while (perhaps because I once had an uncomfortable experience involving Pachelbel's Canon, or maybe just because it was repeating for such a long time). I read the whole thing, and I liked the fragmented format and the unifying wedding vows motif (both of which I thought were clever ideas), but I'm just too cynical to thoroughly enjoy the story. Good luck with your next project.

Peace,
Kazuki Mishima
from the virtual desk of Kazuki Mishima

V2Blast
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Re: Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

#12 Post by V2Blast »

Oh, yeah, and I'd say something about the overuse of Pachelbel's canon, but I think Rob Paravonian puts it best.
Pie is delicious.

Wintermoon
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Re: Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

#13 Post by Wintermoon »

I'm surprised at how much I liked this. I guess it is possible to write interesting hetero romance stories, although I still prefer yuri. Amongst the things I liked:
  • Absolutely no filler. Every scene is filled with emotion, and just long enough to fully convey that emotion.
  • The music. I'm a fairly fast reader, so I didn't find it overly repetitive at all.
  • The use of photos.
  • The way the wedding vows were used as a menu.
The one aspect I didn't care for was the artwork. Not my cup of tea. The young Becky should have looked cuter, IMO.

dizzcity
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Re: Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

#14 Post by dizzcity »

(Lol, I'm constantly getting mixed reviews for this work, and they all have different ideas about what to improve... so... oh well, maybe it is a personal taste issue after all, not a systemic problem with the script.)

@lunasspecto and Wintermoon: I'm glad you liked the structuring and the wedding vows as the menu as well as the overall motif. That was actually the first thing I had in mind when conceiving the project - I wanted to experiment with structuring a Ren'ai novel in a different way than the usual daily stream-of-consciousness storytelling. Admittedly, this idea was a lot more impressive 2-1/2 years ago, when I first completed the script, and there wasn't so much variety in the VNs produced by this community, but I'm glad it still stands well even today. And yes, each scene was written specifically to convey a specific emotion / theme, and nothing more. Glad you spotted it.

Interestingly enough, the usage of the photos and conversion from the typical VN presentation format to a scrapbook style NVL was a fall-back position for me, because I simply didn't have a reliable artist. For 2-1/2 years. Four attempts at working with volunteer artists, before I finally gave up and scrounged up the cash to get someone from DeviantArt to do paid work for me. Which she finished in 1 week. For the lack of 1 week's worth of art, I had to delay the project release date for 2-1/2 years and revise the presentation format three times to try and reduce the art requirements. It sometimes really sucks to be nothing but a writer in the VN community. But you can understand why I'm very grateful to the artist I finally hired and have no complaints (any more) about the quality of the character artwork, even if it's not entirely perfect. I just wanted to get it done and finally out of my hair.

-Dizzy-
Last edited by dizzcity on Fri Jul 24, 2009 3:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
A smart man follows the rules, a dumb man breaks them. A great man bends the rules and thus creates them.
Fanfiction.net Profile.
Writer and director of Working Woman (NaNoRenO March 2010)
Writer and director of Wedding Vows (finished 2009).
Creator of Lakeside Sunset (finished 2006).

V2Blast
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Re: Wedding Vows - a Kinetic Short Story Anthology

#15 Post by V2Blast »

Ah yes. Regardless of the content, the "vows as menu" thing was pretty cool.
Pie is delicious.

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