Sukoshi Hakucho [Early Alpha]

[deadwarrior63]

Hello guys, this is my first attempt at building a VN. This game is so early on in development even the introduction I will be introducing shortly isn't finished.

This game is in Alpha (V. 0.0.1.0) however everything works as intended (on my system anyway). We (Me, Tyler and Sam (neither Tyler nor Sam have accounts here)) are currently designing character models and the script. Logo's and "title" screens are likely to change during development.

As stated above, this IS NOT FINISHED. No images of characters are present, at all.

Screenshots can be seen below:



You probably have noticed that this is based off an existing game/vn, Katawa Shoujo. In-fact without that VN we would never have even considered making one. As a side note: all works in this game are unique, nothing is taken from an existing VN to our knowledge. The source for most images was the internet as well as some being our own work. The music is all royalty free and can be found at http://incompetech.com.
You may download using this link (the android version will be put up via request):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dwygjlml5b15p ... .0-all.zip

I look forward to reading your comments and suggestions.

~James

[Ophelia]

I'm going to download the Alpha and take a look at it, though I don't have much experience with beta testing.

But first I have a question. Does any of you have Japanese knowledge? Your title is supposed to be "Little Swans" translated but "sukoshi" does not mean little in that sense, it rather means "a few/a bit". So you may want to change that.
Little means "chiisai". (But I don't know if you would use this reading or the other for this situation...)

Reference:
http://tangorin.com/general/すこし
http://tangorin.com/general/小さい
(you have to copy and paste the links manually, since it won't include the japanese characters for some reason)


/edit:
The download link doesn't work.

Error (403)
It seems you don't belong here! You should probably sign in. Check out our Help Center and forums for help, or head back to home.

[deadwarrior63]

Sorry about the link. Worked for me so I stupidly assumed it would work for everybody else. As for the title, since none of us speak Japanese we were forced to use google translate, resulting in: http://translate.google.com/#en/ja/little%20swans.

On to the file.. Try this.. (I will also update the main post): https://www.dropbox.com/s/dwygjlml5b15p ... .0-all.zip

~James

[Ophelia]

Sorry about the link. Worked for me so I stupidly assumed it would work for everybody else. As for the title, since none of us speak Japanese we were forced to use google translate, resulting in: http://translate.google.com/#en/ja/little%20swans.

On to the file.. Try this.. (I will also update the main post): https://www.dropbox.com/s/dwygjlml5b15p ... .0-all.zip

~James

Yeah, that's not right. You can't really trust those translating services.
I'm not an expert and you should probably asks someone who really knows their stuff regarding the title.

The links works now, thanks.

[deadwarrior63]

Sorry about the link. Worked for me so I stupidly assumed it would work for everybody else. As for the title, since none of us speak Japanese we were forced to use google translate, resulting in: http://translate.google.com/#en/ja/little%20swans.

On to the file.. Try this.. (I will also update the main post): https://www.dropbox.com/s/dwygjlml5b15p ... .0-all.zip

~James

Yeah, that's not right. You can't really trust those translating services.
I'm not an expert and you should probably asks someone who really knows their stuff regarding the title.

The links works now, thanks.

I've always tried to avoid translation "software" for anything but in this case we were struggling to find any good sources for translations so resulted to google translate. I only just realized that the logo is spelt wrong.. off to photoshop i go..

let me know what you think in your own time

~James

[Ophelia]

Notes while playing:
Like the music. Though it's going on for too long imo. Sad, dramatic music doesn't really fit the scene when they arrive at the academy.
Ash - Katashi? A bit confusing.
Imho too much text into the textbox.
Zhangshai? That's some culturally diverse setting. It has a chinese name but the first people from it are obviously japanese?
I think Suki as a nickname for someone named Na-tsuki is a bit weird. Japanese words are made up by units of only vocals or a consonant and a vocal. Thus it's not nat-suki but na-tsuki and nobody would really call her suki, since it's an entirely different sound.
He turned off the light but the light on the background is still on. Breaks immersion.


I looked into your gamefolder and saw that you do have sprites for ash and suki, but none of them are shown in the prologue. Is that intended? Though I can't think of a reason not to show suki's sprite.
(And you also don't need an extra image for a black background, it's enough to just type "scene black" into your script!)

Well, this was very short and you don't learn very much about the premise. A specific academy for children with issues.. yes, I see the connection to KS. I think it's an interesting idea, but this can easily go the wrong way. Mental issues are a bit of a different thing than physical disabilities. But I certainly don't want to discourage you and wish you guys the best of luck (and fun) working on this!

[deadwarrior63]

Notes while playing:
Like the music. Though it's going on for too long imo. Sad, dramatic music doesn't really fit the scene when they arrive at the academy.
Ash - Katashi? A bit confusing.
Imho too much text into the textbox.
Zhangshai? That's some culturally diverse setting. It has a chinese name but the first people from it are obviously japanese?
I think Suki as a nickname for someone named Na-tsuki is a bit weird. Japanese words are made up by units of only vocals or a consonant and a vocal. Thus it's not nat-suki but na-tsuki and nobody would really call her suki, since it's an entirely different sound.
He turned off the light but the light on the background is still on. Breaks immersion.


I looked into your gamefolder and saw that you do have sprites for ash and suki, but none of them are shown in the prologue. Is that intended? Though I can't think of a reason not to show suki's sprite.
(And you also don't need an extra image for a black background, it's enough to just type "scene black" into your script!)

Well, this was very short and you don't learn very much about the premise. A specific academy for children with issues.. yes, I see the connection to KS. I think it's an interesting idea, but this can easily go the wrong way. Mental issues are a bit of a different thing than physical disabilities. But I certainly don't want to discourage you and wish you guys the best of luck (and fun) working on this!

Thanks for your comments. I didn't include the images as they are elbow-less so could only stay on the edge of the screen. I'm not really the script writer so all I did was a simple proof-read of it before adding it into the game.

We are still choosing music and I did feel that the song dragged on, something i'm looking to fix for the next version.

Thanks for the "scene black" suggestion. Didn't realize it was that simple, everything else needed lines of code to work..

I was also thinking of breaking up the script for two benefits, firstly, a longer intro and secondly, so its less of a strain on the eyes.

Thank you very much for your thoughts, they will go a long way into the development of our VN.

~James

[Ophelia]

No problem!

Yes, sometimes things can be simple.

[Lola]

Hello~! First of all, congratulations on starting your project! ^0^ I'm new to the whole business of VN making, but I would like to add on to what Ophelia mentioned about the Japanese issue:

I wouldn't recommend relying solely on Google Translate as an aid unless you have a decent enough knowledge of the Japanese language to be able to tell when it's leading you down the wrong path. This online translator is superior to Google's in my opinion. While it has it's flaws like most online translators, it at least translated your title more accurately. ^^"

And just as a side note: Whenever you use GT take whatever translation it gives you, paste it back into the text box and see if it translates into English as something different. You can also click on the word to view a mini thesaurus.

Ophelia also made a good point with Natsuki. There isn't any "suki" in "Natsuki;" it just appears that way since it's written out in our roman letters as opposed to Japanese characters. Na-tsu-ki is the correct way to read it and depending on who is addressing her you could use nicknames like: Nacchan, Nacchi, Nacchin, Nakki, Natssun etc...

Knowledge of the Japanese alphabet would be a big help if you plan on using Japanese names and such in future projects. But you can get a decent translation for free by enlisting the help of an online translator, dictionary, google and Lang-8.

• 1. Use an online translator to get a translation. Ex. Chiisai Hakucho or Sukoshi Hakucho
  
  2. Use a dictionary to compare the meanings of Chiisai and Sukoshi; which one is closest to what you want?
  
  3. Google both of them and see which one actual Japanese people use. You won't find any results where someone used Sukoshi Hakucho in a sentence; but the search results for Chiisai Hakucho tell us that we are on the right track by using "Chiisai!"
  
  4. From Google we learned that Chiisai Hakucho seems to be the right way to go. But the search revealed other variants such as Chiisai na Hakucho and Chiisai Hakucho-tachi. This is where Lang-8 comes into play. Just sign up and ask a native which of the three would work best with what you want to convey. You could also ask about which pronunciation of swan should you use: Hakucho or Shiratori? (You of course would return the favor.)

So yeah, that's my two-cents. Sorry if this wasn't the exact feedback you were looking for. ^^

Best of luck to you and your team!

[deadwarrior63]

Thanks for the translator link but I can't seem to understand it as is in Japanese. When I'm back home I'll try using Google chrome 's page translation tool to see if I can work out what I'm doing.

I will look into the names and hopefully sort them out so they actually make more sense. As I've said before, I don't have much experience with Japanese so getting the correct meaning can be difficult.

Many Thanks for all your inputs.

~James

[Ophelia]

You put what you want to have translated into the textbox and click "英語->日本語" (English -> Englisch) and get the result on the right side. Copy one result, put it back into the backs and click "日本語->英語" (Japanese -> English) to see if it is what you want.
With little swans you get two results: 1. ほとんど白鳥でない 2. 小さい白鳥
Translating "ほとんど白鳥でない" back into english you get "It is hardly a swan". Translating "小さい白鳥" back you get "Small swan" which is definitely better than the other one.
Not perfect, but better than simply looking up the words "little" and "swan" in a dictionary.
I also support Lola's suggestion of using Lang-8! You can simply put the translations for little swan in there and wait until somebody speaking Japanese corrects it for you! I've used it before and it's really great and useful.