Lakeside Sunset (A Practice Exercise)

[dizzcity]

Well, I had plans for a bigger project, but while working on that, I decided to create a very short 3-4 min story as a practice exercise for learning Ren'Py. This was done in two days. Thankfully, I know a wonderful musician. The story was written entirely to suit that piece of music.

Here it is, attached. You can also download it from http://download.yousendit.com/52DFD76C1C20E7DB.

There are still a couple of things that are bugging me though. The character for Flora is actually only a placeholder, since it's a copyrighted work from a mangaka. And I can't figure out how to create menus inside the bottom text-box, instead of a new screen. Those blue buttons are rather jarring. Does anyone know how to change that?

Other than that, comments and criticisms appreciated.

-Dizzy-

[Jake]

And I can't figure out how to create menus inside the bottom text-box, instead of a new screen. Those blue buttons are rather jarring. Does anyone know how to change that?

Replace:

Code: Select all

$ theme.roundrect()

with:

Code: Select all

$ theme.roundrect(button_menu=False)

and the menus will show up in the text box instead of in buttons in the middle of the screen.

You might also want to customise the colours a little, a lot of which you can do by passing other parameters into the roundrect call; check the definition in ./common/themes.rpy.

[Taleweaver]

A sweet little story, dizzcity. You already said you were a writer once; even that shortie has a lot of emotion and mood in it. The music is wonderfully calm and fits the mood of the background photography like a glove. Of course, with only one choice, and close to the ending, too, there's not too much interactivity. But it was an enjoyable three minutes (plus twenty seconds for the second ending) for me. Hope it helped you get the hang with Ren'Py. I never got it.

[dizzcity]

Thanks for the help, Jake! Yes, that does look much better. I was hoping they would appear underneath the "Flora..." text instead of separately on the next screen, but even so, it's a big improvement over the blue boxes. I'll see what I can do about changing the colour scheme too.

And Taleweaver, thank you for your comments. Glad you liked it. Yeah, I did realise that the interactivity was low, but since it was mainly a practice exercise I didn't go too far into that. (Plus that part of Ren'Py still has me fairly stumped... you're not alone. ) I did feel that buzz when I know I've written well, so it's gratifying to see that the emotion and mood got through clearly. I actually excel at short stories... it's the long ones that get me into trouble. (No writing stamina... ) Oh well, here's hoping my next piece would be better.

EDIT: Is there any artist willing to help me draw a replacement character portrait of Flora, so that I can stop violating copyright rules? Only one graphic is needed, really.

-Dizzy-

[Watercolorheart]

I may end up doodling something for you, once I play the game.

I just downloaded it, I'll give my impressions in a few days, when I find the time to play it.

Although it was the thread on the other forum, I enjoyed the small sample of your writing from before and look forward to it again.

[Jake]

I was hoping they would appear underneath the "Flora..." text instead of separately on the next screen, but even so, it's a big improvement over the blue boxes.

Try:

Code: Select all

menu:

        "Flora..."
        
        "I will never forget you.":
           jump promise

        "I wish you could be here.":
           jump together

I just downloaded it, I'll give my impressions in a few days, when I find the time to play it.

Seriously, he's not kidding when he says 3-4 minutes. And Taleweaver isn't kidding when he says it's sweet. It's a little two short to have much of an impact past sweet, but it's promising for later, longer works.

[monele]

Great writing, really ^.^. And too bad you have to part with the girl's graphic... she's cute ^^;

[dizzcity]

Thanks Jake. That works even better now. And I've managed to modify the colours.

monele, yeah, I know. The original character's name is Madoka - she's one of the side characters in a manga called School Rumble, by Kobayashi Jin. It's one of my favourite high school romantic comedy series. And I loved her smile too... in fact, I was writing a multi-chapter fanfic based on her character when recent developments in the manga showed that her development was heading in the opposite direction from where I was going, so I had to scrap the story. 7400 words down the drain.

But oh well. Hopefully BCS or someone else will be able to draw a character sprite that is able to recapture that unique smile of Flora/Madoka.

-Dizzy-

[monele]

I've watched the School Rumble anime and loved it ^.^. I just didn't recognize Madoka at first ^^;

[dizzcity]

Haha, well now you know. This was taken from the scene where Shigeo was in the nurse's office during the Sports Festival. When Madoka finally gets "the motivation to win".

-Dizzy-

[DaFool]

I like this, it's very good.

Nice use of metaphors. (or is it just me or is everything starting to sound poetic lately?)

Good choice of music.

[mikey]

I got the good ending on my first try, so it's great ^_^. Anyway, I am an enemy of metaphores in literature, so I would have preferred a simpler style, but then again who cares. It wasn't verbose or anything and it conveyed the atmosphere... And I like the name. It probably could have been a liiiitle bit longer, to make it past the 10 minute mark, but it's nice anyway. Good luck with the character graphic. Actually, IMO if you need just one graphic, why not look for some artist's galleries and ask for a specific picture that fits (as opposed to actually bugging the artist to draw something new). - Could I use this pic in my VN? - Oh, sure, go ahead...
Well, something like that.

[dizzcity]

Heh, mikey... I think we're polar opposites when it comes to writing. I'm one of the strongest lovers of metaphor and symbolism in stories. But I'm glad you liked it anyway.

Thanks for the idea about the art. I think I'll go ahead and do that. It might be easier and faster for now.

-Dizzy-

[mikey]

I'm one of the strongest lovers of metaphor and symbolism in stories.

On the other hand, I like to translate such texts, recently I translated a similar set of stories and I enjoyed working on it a lot. And I enjoy working on those more than on simply structured sentences (paradoxically because it's harder to translate a simple sentence than a metaphore or a very descriptive and "wordy" narrative, it has much less space for rephrasing and often it's even hard to find equivalents for short statements.)

While we're at it, I took the endings as normal real things that happened, is that correct? Or were they symbolic (I'm not so sure now that you mentioned all that ^_^)? If they were real endings (the stories ended with either being together and death), then it's actually very interesting - it would mean that depending on your choice you completely rewrite the story in your mind - more specifically: If you choose Ending X - she died (not dieS, but dieD). And if you choose Ending Y, she didn't die. So in retrospect the whole part 1 (before the choices) of the story gets a completely different background and tone.

[dizzcity]

While we're at it, I took the endings as normal real things that happened, is that correct? Or were they symbolic (I'm not so sure now that you mentioned all that ^_^)? If they were real endings (the stories ended with either being together and death), then it's actually very interesting - it would mean that depending on your choice you completely rewrite the story in your mind - more specifically: If you choose Ending X - she died (not dieS, but dieD). And if you choose Ending Y, she didn't die. So in retrospect the whole part 1 (before the choices) of the story gets a completely different background and tone.

Yup yup, they were real endings. That was one of my goals when writing this story, actually... to preserve ambiguity about what happened to Flora until the very end, when the player, not the writer, decides her fate... and in the process, completely changes the perspective with which he/she should view the earlier narrative.

It's actually a mini-example of what I was planning to do for my major project (where it gets even more complicated), but I'm having second thoughts about whether I should continue along this line of development or not. It works in a small piece of fiction with only one choice, but once you take it to the larger scale, it's incredibly difficult to continue preserving that state of undecidedness and ambiguity until the end. (Well, to be more precise, it's a trade-off. I can preserve ambiguity at the expense of telling a good and rich story. So it's either vague but technically brilliant, or technically straightforward but richly descriptive.)

Which is why I'm wondering whether it's worth it to continue writing a mediocre story just so that I can show off an interesting narrative technique.

-Dizzy-