Hasty, but done! (Project Journeys OUT!)

[Yang Sei Fu]

As title, http://clearwind.web1000.com and http://cwds.hp.infoseek.co.jp .

The game is going to be a LONG-running story, and the demo is nothing more than just a taste to the introduction of 20 years worth of ambition, love and hate...

I'm still looking for a better BG and CG coloring artist...

[Trinity Riot]

Good to see that you've got a website out, but...

To be frank, frames went "out of style" a long time ago; most people online consider them a nuisance. You can achieve a better menu/content layout using tables. If your menu is constantly changing, and your host allows it, I recommend using a little PHP snippet to load the menu page if it's going to be changing:

Code: Select all

<?PHP include('menu.html'); ?>

That little line does wonders. I believe includes can be done with HTML, but the exact code escapes me at the moment

Oh yes. If you're not going to change the whole "frames" layout, at least provide a link to a non-frames version of the site. It's common courtesy

Nevertheless, I look forward to your current and future projects!

[Yang Sei Fu]

Until I have enough time to slip a PHP lesson from intensive school (philosophy+weak math+failing comp sc+school politics+PJ = pressure)...

Otherwise, I'd slow down on the web-site renovation with a PHP "frames" emulation project.

How'd you like the game?

[Grey]

Am downloading it now...

I dunno about php, but you can do the same sort of insert thing with javascript (though I dunno a lot about that either :rollleyes: ), by sticking some code to write all the html you want in a .js file, then calling it whenever you need to whether you're using tables or css stylesheets with some variation of xhtml like people seem to be favouring these days.



Edit:

OK, played it now, up untill the point just after choosing Sarina for the 1st question about who to go and read with, when a runtime error 53 occurs, saying it can't find the graphics\1\ei\blush.jtp file. It then crashes out

Choosing Carol just gives an error about a background image, but the game continues.

Anyway the game itself. My main niggle was that the writing style was quite confusing in places, switching between third and first person views every couple of frames.

Sometimes in 1st and 3rd person quoite marks would surround someones speech, but sometimes it wouldn't. Sometimes *thinking* or (thinking) would be before or after Nooniens thoughts but sometimes it wouldn't. Teachers seem to have Teacher: before their speech, but no-one else does...

I think the writer should decide on a fixed convention for thoughts and speech in 1st person, and go back and make sure that these are mostly adhered to.

For example in ToL1 (and Kasuka also) which are entirely in 1st person, all speech is in the box, and whoever is speaking is named somewhere. For thoughts no-one is named.
As this is always the case it makes things easier to read/follow.

This would have been particually useful in the first school conversation which features about five characters.

That said though the quote marks do seems to become a more common convention for speech as the game goes on, which makes it somewhat easier to tell between voice and speech,, but they're still missed out sometimes. It doesn't look amazingly professional having one quote mark at the beginning of a speech but none at the end...


Secondly it would be nice to be able to use the keyboard to scroll through the text, rather than clicking away at the mouse. Surely it wouldn't be that hard for the programmer to do?


Yeah...sorry about that, my comments seem quite harsh for so much work. The demo did have a solid base what with the story, and I did like the character and background art, but the writing style could really use some work.

[Yang Sei Fu]

Definitely not, it is much appreciated.

The name bug is already know by MY alpha testing. The programmer is working on it.
Some graphics and BG are missing/error. Yes. The blush image isn't up yet...will fix. Will check BG thing.

Regarding penmanship, yes. I actually INTENDED to use a mix of 1st/3rd person perspective. Think of it that the reader absorbs the progress from Shou's thoughts, but also hears the voice of some "God".

"Dreams" are ALWAYS in 1st person perspective, and there will be 3 of them in the entire story. The original Chinese text of the story (main story) uses 3rd person, but some points are remade into dialogue (Thinking) instead. Very few 3rd person perspective descriptions are used in the "daily life portion".

Again, thank you for paying so much attention. These bugs will hopefully be straightened.

[BlackSpider]

I downoaded and played the demo on Win 98SE.

A few thoughts :
1. Music - very good, but I had to run the tunes manually from the BGM directory. There was no music when I run the game.
2. Story - interesting start. I can't really complain about the style because English is not my native language.
3. Backgrounds - I had an "error loading background" a few times but overall it's good. Unfortunately B&W.
4. Drawings - good but B&W.

It'd be better if there was an option to hide the text box and see the whole image. Moreover options, load game and save game functions doesn't work. Anyway you should still put some work in this demo if you're planing to release a commercial product. Good luck!

[Wishful]

A demo! -waits impatiently for download to finish-

[Yang Sei Fu]

Actually, it's the ALPHA of the demo,meaning that it's a TEST of A TEST. (Sad).

The BGM and save/load are yet to be implemented.

If there is anyone who can CG as good/better than the title page, please contact me. I'd appreciate CGers who would be able to help.

[Grey]

Definitely not, it is much appreciated.

Regarding penmanship, yes. I actually INTENDED to use a mix of 1st/3rd person perspective. Think of it that the reader absorbs the progress from Shou's thoughts, but also hears the voice of some "God".

"Dreams" are ALWAYS in 1st person perspective, and there will be 3 of them in the entire story. The original Chinese text of the story (main story) uses 3rd person, but some points are remade into dialogue (Thinking) instead. Very few 3rd person perspective descriptions are used in the "daily life portion".

Yeah, I'm sure you did mean to, otherwise the mix wouldn't be in there.

I was just trying to say that it would be much nicer to read if you decided on conventions for them, like a name box for the person speaking /no name box for the characters thoughts in 1st person, and quote marks for 3rd person speech.

Edit: I just spotted also that the first time you meet Carol her legs seem to stop just above the table? I think the same thing happens to Nooniens sister as well, except it's less obvious as she's entirely behind the textbox. The same for the 2nd time you talk to Carol...and the 3rd


Heh, and also furthering runtime errors, if you give the game a blush.jtp file to load it crashes a little later trying to find a 'normal.jtp' file. But you give it a normal.jtp file as well then it runs fine untill he end (bar numerous string replace errors)

[Yang Sei Fu]

Thank you for more input.

Regarding 1st/3rd person perspective speech: That's actually one thing you didn't notice -- if you read the code, everyone's speech is supposedly be like ye below:

Yuu: You stupid fool! <next click>
I then looked...

Character speech is supposed to have a name label BEFORE, but the program somehow isn't showing that. This is a known bug.

Also, I'm refining the script os that all "dream" sequences are in past progressive tense, while "real life" sequences are in present progressive tense.

Blsuh.jtp ..I had trouble compiling the raw art into it, so it was never put into the game files (...), will hopefully be replaced by next release of the testing.

Regarding character sprites loading in awkard ways -- I noticed that as well, it's some weird problem that our programmer fixed on his computer. It'll be fixed when I get the fixed versions from him.

[mikey]

Well I had no troubles with "quoted" words, you can feel the story will be really big and the graphics, they are B/W No music is not a problem for me, even though I listened to the nice tunes. Really, I just wish you all the best with the completion - kill them bugs and all, and if it stays B/W like this, it doesn't really matter, even the BGs. Some very nice character art there!

Bugs (not mentioned by the other guys): When I put a second window (like say IE) over the game window, I lose the picture - irreversibly. I am left with a static portion of IE in the game window. Dunno, tested it on 98, XP always the same thing.

[Erik]

I downloaded and played it on WinXP Home, and I can't see the text. the font text seems to be white, and the boxes are white too. By editing the resource files (ie make the boxes black) I was able to get most of the text to appear correctly. The questions remain unreadable though, so I have no idea what I'm doing, but what I can read sounds very nice already. Keep up the good work

[Yang Sei Fu]

My text appears as grey, because my 3D Objects text color is grey.

This "bug" is because the program doesn't set a specific colour for the text. We plan on making the box translucent in the future, but for now...I'll tell him to uh...set the font color.

[Yang Sei Fu]

Well I had no troubles with "quoted" words, you can feel the story will be really big and the graphics, they are B/W No music is not a problem for me, even though I listened to the nice tunes. Really, I just wish you all the best with the completion - kill them bugs and all, and if it stays B/W like this, it doesn't really matter, even the BGs. Some very nice character art there!

Bugs (not mentioned by the other guys): When I put a second window (like say IE) over the game window, I lose the picture - irreversibly. I am left with a static portion of IE in the game window. Dunno, tested it on 98, XP always the same thing.

I'm not the programmer, but from what I heard:

The BGs and other sprites are IMPRINTED on the game window (drawn), and only once. So once something else is displayed, it will overlap and run over the previous image.

I told the proggie that this is a system that has gotta change. He's slowly figuring it out. I doubt that this system will be fixed in the next test though.

[Yang Sei Fu]

News / Current Tasks
The demo ALPHA (The testing version of the demo) is out. Several bugs known.
Known bugs List (for v. 0.1):

- Music is not in game (not implemented)
- Save/Load/Option/"Omake" not clickable (not implemented)
- No keyboard controls (Enter, space, CTRL skip keys)
- Right click (ALL, including above not yet implemented)

- Choosing "I'll go with Sarina/Yuki" (Carol/Ei's line) causes a crash (missing image)
- Minor crashes regarding BGs
- Names aren't displaying (except Teacher and students)
- Grammar (and spelling?) mistakes

Developer's Extended List
- Charas wiped as BG changes
- Some characters are awkwardly positioned
- Transitions nowhere to be seen?
- Translucency not yet implemented
- Text cannot be seen if system "text" color set as white (needs to be defined)
-

this is today's list...