Date Warp (GxB, commercial - discount details)

[Aquane]

Haha good point! Anyway I guess I was mainly curious because I did get Bradley to that status, and they have been less than acquainted until that date. maybe he is just easy? XD I think I got most of the endings now though... I really love the game Also, what ethnic background does Janet come from? It says somewhere that

Her parents came from another country.

I thought that would have been a fun fact to know if you actually chose a background for her

[papillon]

Her parents are Indian. There are a few clues about it - some of the things she says about her family and her last name among them.

[Savvy30039]

I really love the choosing mini-game. Even when a VN has a great story sometimes the reading does get monotonous and this helps it break it up a bit. Plus, it's not too chalenging and doesn't feel like it was thrown in a random corner of the game because it's part of the making decisions mechanic. I think it was integrated really well. Great idea!

So the demo was intriguing enough to get me hooked, and I'd definitely like to buy a copy. But it was mentioned that there would be updates to the game. Is there a lot I would be missing out on if I bought the game now instead of waiting for the updates? Also, is there a general estimate as to how long before an update is released?

[papillon]

The only updates planned at the moment:

CG gallery
Extras screen with listing of endings reached and jukebox
Patch for a minor issue that can happen if you save your game at *exactly* the wrong spot in the demo

Testing so far suggests that the gallery and extras should add on just fine to the existing version of the game, players don't need to start over in order to unlock graphics for the gallery or anything (At least, it works so far!) So there's no new plot or graphics coming, and the stuff to be added shouldn't make too much difference, unless you prefer to have the game show an endings list to help you keep track.

It will come out when we can get enough tests done to be fairly confident that there aren't any lurking problems. The code is written and seems to work, I just don't want to rush the release. (If the weather here would cool off a bit, that would help get more done too!) I'd guess next week sometime unless problems come up.

[cloudyssky]

How long is the full game?

[papillon]

I think the final lint count was around 67,000 words? Novel length, but not doorstopper length.

[Riviera]

I liked the mini-game as well! It was cute.

It also ended up as me liking Alben best, which is odd since before I played this and RE: Alistair++ I completely avoided the "bad boy" types.

Huh.

Totally supporting the gallery option. But I mentioned that elsewhere (I think on the game dl screen?).

I also sympathize on the weather situation. I love taking walks and I end up sweating to death every time I step outside the door lately. It's terrible.

[rioka]

Heeey~! Check what I saw at DeviantArt:

Pretty cool, papillon!
Is advertising reasonable on DA? I may market MT.com there if it's not so bad.

[papillon]

Commercial advertising is absolutely insanely expensive. "Noncommercial" ads (that is, if you link to your deviantart page rather than directly to what you're advertising) are tolerable. Not cheap, but tolerable.

I'll need a bit more time to check logs to see how much of the traffic that got to my DA page actually got through to my games though....

[rioka]

Cool, a loop hole. I've checked their ad page out and I like how it uses all the funds up and doesn't go beyond that plus it only counts those who actually clicked on the ad and not just impressions. How long did it take before X amount of people clicked your ad and basically used up what you paid for?

[papillon]

Both times it claims to have given me a pile of free clicks on top of what I paid for, as well. (about a 20% bonus) The reporting tools don't seem to break it down hour-by-hour, though, so I'm not sure how long it actually took to burn through the order.

[Sheru-chan]

err.. i have a question... i already finished all of the endings except for the two Bradley endings(the one with the locked and the one which is probably Bradley's good ending...)

Can anybody help me out??

[Qookies]

For good one you have to pick no instead of yes when bradley asks you to would you escape if you were in his place or something like that. And when you get that ending the locked about susan option will unlock. Pick it to get the true ending!

[nefferinthia]

Ah, I absolutely loved the demo <3
Too bad I can't buy things online, I'm very curious as to how the story progresses now.

[Ren]

Ah, I absolutely loved the demo <3
Too bad I can't buy things online, I'm very curious as to how the story progresses now.

And that's a pity, because it's actually quite a good visual novel. :)
The story seemed to be quite typical at first, but ends up being a mix of things that make it much more than just 'another otome game'. I read a review or a comment here (I can't remember which) complaining that the game didn't focus enough on the romance element, but I thought that is actually a good thing.

I tried going for Alben, as a first try, since I'm biased towards that kind of character; after I got his two endings, I was initially motivated in getting the other endings in the hope of obtaining the one that would have unravelled the mystery.
I wasn't even driven by some kind of 'completist' instinct - the way the story is presented really made me quite curious about it. And as I was pursuing the different characters, I confirmed the idea that this isn't just a story in which the ending with your favourite guy will be your main reward: a story about a girl in a house full of men may make some of the potential buyers wary of investing their money on this game but, as I said, the romance isn't the main focus of the story. There's a lot more to it, and every single character provides a few more pieces to the puzzle. Every one of them has an interesting enough personality (even though they do belong to a set of archetypes which I've often found in shoujos, for example) to make every path enjoyable to read and discover.

I found myself being quite fond of Janet, too. She's intelligent, has wit and she can be sweet too. She has her weaknesses and insecurities: she feels more believable than a lot of female protagonists I was subjected to in the past, I like her. :)
I would have liked it if her sprite hadn't been drawn that way, though - she kind of looks 13 to me, while she's supposed to be 19. I also thought it didn't really go well with her personality so much, since she looks way too 'moe' for my taste, considering her strong character.

I wasn't particularly fond of the style for the sprites in general, but I do recognise they're drawn competently, and they're certainly consistent. I found myself much more intrigued by the CG art: it was a bit hit and miss, but I loved the colouring in certain scenes (particularly

in the ones where all the characters are together in the lounge, playing games: Raphael is drawn and coloured very well).

I'm also more fond of the rendition of Janet Aqu drew. I'm going to keep an eye on her art: it seems to me that she's adventurous enough with things like perspective and poses that, even if there are some flaws now, she promises to become quite good in the future. Her style also seems to go quite well with the sprites, contributing to making the whole graphic aspect coherent enough, having just a couple of artists working on the graphic aspect of the game is something this game benefited from quite a lot, compared to a game like Fatal Hearts - and was actually one of the things that made me more inclined to give it a try.

I appreciated the gallery and list of endings, these features made it a lot easier to keep track of my progress and helped a lot in pursuing all the endings.

I liked the music quite a lot, it's nice to listen to, and it compliments the story well, which is why it's nice to have it available for me to listen whenever I want in the extras. I really liked the opening: the tune is very nice and the voice of the singer very pleasing to the ear; :P I've not skipped it once, when I replayed the game.

I was fairly satisfied with the ending too, my only desire would have been to

take a peek at what the other characters where doing, but I guess that is me being demanding. :P

I was really quite happy with my purchase, this game has given me quite some hours of entertainment, making it excellent value for money.

Today's lesson learnt: give your money to Hanako games. :P

Edit: this is a bit of weird thing to mention, I guess, but... I didn't like the title so much, it made me expect something much more typical than it ended up being, somehow.

Would you consider inserting some sort of afterword on the starting idea that made you create this game as you did, which things may have inspired you somehow and anything else which contributed to the final product? I'm genuinely quite interested.