gentletentacles wrote:Hey! Whoever runs your Twitter account has already encountered me. :p I've done some livetweeting/liveblogging (on tumblr; it's all in the xoxo droplets tag! I apologize in advance for my immense amounts of swearing and perhaps less than polite remarks regarding Bae) of my time so far playing the demo. Guess I'll start with the given questions.
Hello again. I run all of the social media pages, so I was the who replied to you on Twitter before. I also saw your posts on tumblr. It was very entertaining to read through! And I'm really flattered you made Jeremy your avatar >v<.
gentletentacles wrote:I'M SO HYPE. I was a little wary going into the demo because I wasn't sure if I would love or hate the premise, but I definitely ended up loving it. Very excited to see the full game!
Thank you
. I'm glad you gave it a try!
gentletentacles wrote:Ooohhhh... I wanna say maaaayyyybe Jeremy? He's such a downer, but he's adorable (cute smile! Cute pout!), and I love him. If we went to school together, I'd probably hang around him all the time because I... take an awful pleasure in being happy and ruining the miserable atmospheres around such cute and perpetually cynical boys. I also love his game suggestion on the library date because I love books and analyzing them and omg. We'd be the weirdest pair. Oh and I really hope he goes to a therapist someday because he sounds like he needs it.
Hehe, cool. The MC also has a good time refusing to just let Jeremy wallow in his own misery. And it's nice that someone can appreciate his sense of 'fun'
.
Him possibly needing therapy does come up in the game at one point. One could probably guess how he responds to the idea.
Nate and Jeremy are my personal favorites~
gentletentacles wrote:I think y'all did a fantastic job balancing how insufferable MC and her groupmates could be without making them completely unlikable or irredeemable to players or maybe even some people in-universe who aren't as jerky as them, if that makes sense? For instance, I went into the demo expecting MC to be RUDE. AF and just totally awful... and in playing, she's a sass and kinda shallow, but I still enjoy her. She's really funny. And I don't know if it was intentional, but the boys all have their good traits (besides being attractive), too. It's a nice and frustrating balance that I don't experience in other more uniformly fluffy dating sims that gloss over bad traits.
Thank you! Sometimes I worry that she isn't jerky enough to live up to the game's promise and sometimes I worry she's too unkind (especially to the love interests), so it's always nice to hear that the balance worked out ^^.
And, yep, yep. I did want the guys to have positive traits. It wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable to make them totally lousy, I think. Plus having something good inside them to latch onto makes for a more interesting experience, even if it means sometimes you really wish you could totally hate a guy but just can't bring yourself to fully do it, aha.
gentletentacles wrote:I think the inclusion of Nate is really great, too, because when a lot of people think chronically unfriendable, they don't think about the guy who does EVERYTHING (also wow he has such a nice smile). I feel a little pity for him because it seems like his workaholism could really wear on his health if he doesn't balance himself...
I'm happy you noticed. Nate's not really a usual suspect but, ironically, Mr. perfectionist was a perfect fit for the dynamic of the group.
True, he tends to go overboard. Having people like Everett and the MC hang around is actually helpful for him. They both are quite good at lowering his stress over the things that hit him the hardest, at the cost of making him frustrated over something lesser, of course.
gentletentacles wrote:And I also hope that the full game explores his friendship with Everett some (their flashbacks in Nate's intro events were PRICELESS) as well as Pran and Jeremy's friendship. I'm REALLY intrigued by the latter. If the game doesn't... well, I will just write copious amounts of fanfiction about these buttfaces. Which I'm probably going to do anyway tbh.
It does! In the full game there are 'mini-stories', which are a set of three dates at the same location that have a cohesive theme and/or story that is continued each time you go there. There's a mini-story for Nate and Everett's history as well a mini-story for Jeremy and Pran's. Not to get your hopes up too high, but the history of Jeremy and Pran is very well liked by those who know the full info so far.
I certainly still wanna read any fanfiction you come up for them though >w<.
And speaking of Everett and Nate, I saw your post on tumblr where you mentioned seeing those two as a plausible ship. I can say something about that.
That's an on point opinion. Everett is bi, no doubt about it. Nate assumes he's straight since that's how it usually is, but is currently too afraid of romance/intimacy/physical contact to make any kind of informed judgment call on his preference. He most likely would lean towards women, but could be with any person who made him feel secure. So, yeah, it really wouldn't be much of a stretch to see them having an attraction towards each other.
Although to be completely honest, in the game Everett's preoccupied with a hatecrush of his own on a different guy, aha.
gentletentacles wrote:I also want to give a special shoutout to Bae for being my first hatecrush ever. He reminds me a little of an old friend (or so I thought) of mine from high school even though they're condescending and awful in... different ways. Bae's a lot less subtle and less likely to even pretend to be your friend to get what he wants, which makes him more tolerable in one way but more unbearable in another. But. He's. So. Hot. That smirk. Those cute hairpins. His fashion sense in general. And I haven't been to the daycare yet, but when I saw he worked there, it totally clicked that he'd be good with kids (and it's been hinted at that he's rather family-oriented), and I'm so MAD because that's ALSO attractive. Like and if I existed in this world I'm sure Bae would fricking KNOW I find him insanely attractive despite hating him (because I am a sensitive and gentle soul unlike MC) and would probably CONSTANTLY MOCK ME FOR IT OMFG WHICH WOULD JUST MAKE ME MORE ATTRACTED TO HIM IN THE ANGRIEST SENSE POSSIBLE BECAUSE I WOULD JUST WANT TO... CONQUER HIM. AND THINGS. My feelings about Bae are a giant can of worms that are improper to have about a character in a T-rated game. I am so sorry. (I just saw his shocked face in the event intros, and it is so. Satisfying. Like yeah. Get caught off guard. Screw you.)
Bae would be very flattered to know he's gotten such a reaction out of someone. He loves when people get upset over how he acts, especially if they still like him to degree. That's pretty much exactly what he hopes for. The only other thing needed would be for you to also think he was intelligent and/or talented, then it'd be perfect for feeling good about himself and enjoying someone else's frustration. And it's true, he would be extremely condescending and smug over your situation and wouldn't bother trying to hide it if you met in real life. He's a prick like that.
gentletentacles wrote:(Also holy BALLS I was wondering if those glasses were prescription. His family must be pretty well off because good frames and prescription lenses are expensive...)
Bae indeed comes from quite a bit of money. He's veeeery humble though, so he tends not to bring it up. When it comes to the wealthiness of the main characters' families, it goes as such (from richest to least richest);
Bae
Nate
Everett
MC
Jeremy
Shiloh
Pran is either at the very top or the very bottom, depending on how you measure his family's wealth.
His parents are pretty much completely broke, but his grandparents on his mom's side are richy rich. They pay for basically everything in his life (though he refuses as much of it as possible) and would get him anything he wanted if he asked, so you could consider him the wealthiest.
gentletentacles wrote:Oh oh oh and I also really love Lynn. I understand WHY you can't romance him, but that doesn't make me want to any less.
Haha, sorry that about :'D. It is kind of sucky of us to add a genuinely thoughtful and cute guy to that asshole group and have him be the one person you can't pursue. But I selfishly couldn't bring myself to make him different than I initially imagined, even after I realized people could be sad he's not a romance option.
gentletentacles wrote:I think someone posted a review mentioning this, but I'd love to be able to make more decisions within conversations with the boys + feel like my interactions beyond which ones I decide to talk to are making an impact on their feelings toward me.
You're right. There was a recent review mentioning that. There is an explanation for that not being a thing. The MC is meant to be a jerk, it would go against the point of the game if you had to choose nice choices to get closer to the guys. But, on the other hand, it would be too questionable to make it so choosing jerky choices over kinder choices is what made a dude like you more. And even if we tried to have choices that were both jerky but one seemed more correct to say in the context, we still didn't feel right about it because you're meant to be to do, basically, whatever you wanted. Having right/wrong choices would've put a damper on that spirit v.v.
Because of that, we decided that dialog choices would not effect how much the characters liked the MC, it would just give you different conversations.
So why aren't there choices in the dates that just change the conversation? That's because there was another goal we had in mind for the game; avoid repetition as much as possible. In the entire game, the only time you can get repeating dialog is with those weekly comments from the MC. The one said is chosen at random, so there's a chance you could get the same one. However, there are 50 of them to diminish that chance.
We don't want a way for people to make an entire conversation repeat. We'd like each interaction to be something new. That's why dates events can't be redone. Since they can't be redone, having choices would be a pain. You'd either have to save/reload every time to see both options or accept that there's content you just won't get to see. It's not that big a deal in the group events, since you automatically go through those every time you play through the game anyways. Adding choices there makes replaying a little more interesting.
We might, maybe, add choices that have a very brief effect on date conversation if people really want a chance to impact those, but we don't have too much time to add additional words and there's other things that could be added.
gentletentacles wrote:I think more meaningful character interaction throughout the week would be cool, too. Like what actually happens when I choose to sit with a particular clique or a certain boy during lunch (I sit with Jeremy a lot but have only gotten one lunch convo between us)? What do I text them about if I text them on the weekends? I'd looovvvvvvvvveeeee to see that stuff fleshed out, and just more meat added to the week in general, so that it's a little more than just choosing where to sit, how to react to cliques, and an MC comment here and there.
I do want to add something to spice up the weeks a bit. But whatever it is will need a lot of variations to make sure it's not constantly repeating after awhile. Since we likely will only have time to add one thing, it's hard to decide.
We might have a poll about it at some point. Let the players decide if we add brief choices to dates, or brief text conversations, or if you can get little off hand comments by the guys instead of just the MC throughout the week, or whatever.
gentletentacles wrote:I'm also experiencing the December freezing glitch. For me, it can begin as early as the twelfth, and if I use the Swifty Taffy, I freeze when I try to interact with anything on the next weekend. I only have one save file so far, but I'll be trying again soon to see if it affects all of mine or if Jeremy hates me so much that he's freezing my attempts to love him. The game also told me I had some sort of error while going through the tutorial in the "more" menu, but I'm not totally sure what, and it hamper going through the tutorial at all.
Thanks for telling us! We haven't found anything yet, but we'll definitely keep looking into it. Maybe it does have something to do with pursuing certain guys/getting certain events since it seems to only happen sometimes.
And if you remember anything about tutorial error, do let us know.
gentletentacles wrote:What, beyond not fitting in well enough with the student body, can trigger a game over?
Nothin'. All you gotta do to stay in the game is not have basically the whole of the student body think you suck.
gentletentacles wrote:I'm really loving the game's racial/ethnic diversity because so many VNs are very racially homogeneous. All the character designs are lovely; they feel like they belong together artistically without being too same-y. PRAISE YOU FOR INCLUDING SO MANY OUTFITS; minimal outfits in media is one of my biggest pet peeves.
Thanks very much, haha. I really have trouble getting into casts that all have basically the same skin tone, so that's definitely not something you'll find in the games we make. And, yes, the more outfits the better! I originally wanted 12 casual outfits for each guy, but we just didn't have the time to finish them all. Someday I'll have to post the sketches of the poor outfits that got cut from the full version of the game.
gentletentacles wrote:Also, I will never ever get over how Pran looks kinda like Xemnas from Kingdom Hearts and Jeremy looks like (and acts just a tad like) humanized Nageki Fujishiro from Hatoful Boyfriend. No idea if it was intentional, but Pran's resemblance to Xemnas was one of the first things that drew me to the game when I saw a post about it on tumblr like I WANNA DATE XEMNAS IN A PASTEL SWEATER OMFG. The boys' themes from when you first talk to them one on one (and I think they show up sometimes afterward, but I'm bad at keeping track) are great and really suiting. I think they all give a great suggestion of what the boys are like, and I think Pran's especially gives you a sense of his personality despite his refusal to open up.
Most of the characters were just traits I liked that got jammed together. Pran, however, was the only one directly inspired by an already existing character. The character is Amir from Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar.
http://hm9-cdn.fogu.com/amir.jpg
I can see what you mean about Xemnas though, haha. As for the Jeremy comparison, I've had Hatoful Boyfriend sitting in Steam for ages but have never gotten around to playing it, so I'm afraid I don't know who Nageki Fujishiro is >>.
gentletentacles wrote:Shiloh's everywhere freckles are perfect, and while I haven't spoken much on him here, I really like him. He's a cutie, and I'm terrified of pursuing more events with him because eventually his supposed lying tendencies might shatter my adoration of him.
Yeah, he's a bit of a heart breaker in his own way. But one of the reasons he's in the game is to give people a little joy, if they're willing to ignore/look past his less savory implications that is.
gentletentacles wrote:And I think last one! Since the blog specifically for XOXO Droplets was erased (RIP), will the bios, full references, and other screenshots and stuff ever become available on the GB patch blog?
The full references were re-posted on the GB Patch blog a few weeks backs and we post screenshots every now and then. I will get around to reposting the bios and links to those Cloud Novel events as well, but likely not until next month. This month is mostly about A Foretold Affair (which will release soon) and Floret Bond (which was just announced)~
gentletentacles wrote:I can't wait to hear more about the game development + for the full game to be out! I'll definitely be buying the full version because that's where two of my fave boys are, but I might have to wait until it's on sale because I'm broke. :p
Thank you very much! It really means a lot that you've enjoyed the game enough to talk about it and give us such a long response. We hope you'll have even more fun with the full game when it's ready
<3