[KICKSTARTER][Demo] Beach☆Volley!! (Mushi)

[Mushi]

Available on: Windows, Mac, Linux, (iOS, Android soon)
Language: English, Français, 日本語
Japanese voices available!

Download here:
PC: Mega
MAC: Mega

And see the Kickstarter page here!: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mushi/beachvolley



Beach☆Volley basically tells the story of 3 characters.
We’ll be putting ourselves in Jun’s shoes – a young man who is about 17 years old – during the most important summer of his life.
Jun will spend wonderful moments with the sun, the beach, and his two no less ravishing female friends, Alice and Rin.
And of course, the annual Beach-volleyball competition will be taking place!
But the tension increases and settles between the 3 friends… how will this end?





In "Beach☆Volley!!", time goes by. Morning, Evening, Night.
3 different Textboxes are also available which are adapted to every moment of the day!
When you are in the menu, it will sometimes be Morning, Evening, or Night.



THE CGs


Jun is telling a joke that does not make everybody laugh.


Alice is eating really quickly and making some weird sound.


You can choose...


Alice is cute.

The gameplay!

Because it doesn’t just have a lovely atmosphere, "Beach☆Volley!!" is also a sports Visual novel.
Here is how a beach-volleyball match will occur in the game:
There will be several matches, and each match goes up to around twenty points.
The match will be played with a timer, but there will be 3 different levels of difficulty in the game (easy, normal, hard). To make it simple, in "easy" mode you'll have to click on the next action in less than 3 seconds, in "normal" mode it will be 2 seconds and for "hard" it will be only 1 second.



Alternative possibility:



But this system is still being developed. There will be different choices to make: passes, shots, as well as other useful feints.



The team members who worked on the project are:
Yoru: Director, writer
Minii: Co-director
Kainkout: CG Artist
Konett: Character-sprite Artist
GlassHeart: Background Artist
Matthew Dear: Sound Composer
Dragoon HP: Programmer
WinterMochie: GUI Designer
Camille Arana: Settings Designer
Nonomura Taisetsu: Japanese translation
William Darlington: English translation
WhiteCharisma: Video editor
LegendEX: Programmer (browser version)
Maria Ayase: Alice's voice
Satomi Nakamura: Rin's voice
Masato Koide: Sensei's voice

I hope you will like the demo!
- Here are a few questions:

1. What do you think of Beach Volley?
Did you like the demo?
Do you find some aspects original, pleasant or weird?
(What are your feelings about it? Is there a scene your particularly liked? Which character do you prefer?)

2. What do you think of the Kickstarter campaign?
The « commercial » aspect is important to create the sequel, so I would simply like to know if you find anything disturbing, and if the rewards appeal to you.
If you have any questions you are asking yourself, it would help me to create a frequently asked questions list, it might help.

3. How could I improve the gameplay?
I think it’s difficult to create a sports-themed Visual Novel. The “action” genre is very difficult, it can also be really demanding financially.

Feedback and/or support is very much welcome!

[gekiganwing]

Your game reminds me quite a bit of Dead or Alice Xtreme Beach Volleyball. It was made fourteen years ago on the original Xbox, and it featured not-too-realistic volleyball gameplay. Unlike your game, it featured 3D polygon graphics, and it was kind of, sort of a girl x girl romance game.

As of this writing, your Kickstarter goal is $12900 US. It appears that you already had a successful campaign for Dumb! 1 and 2. However, I don't know how easy it will be for your group to reach your current goal. In my opinion, I think you will find more crowdfunding backers by...

* Showing what makes your characters memorable. Who is Jun, and what does he want? What have Alice and Rin experienced, and what plans do they have for the near future?
* Showing more of the Beach Volley cast. Who are the competitors? What sort of people attend the competition and interact with characters outside of matches?
* State whether you'll consider porting the game to mobile devices.

Offering three levels of beach volleyball gameplay difficulty is a good idea. Be sure to think about how it will work on a computer. Will the player need to click a specific button in time? How many other actions will be required (camera movement, positioning a character, pressing button combinations)?

[Mushi]

Thank you for your comment!
I will try to answer point by point.

> I’m very pleased that "Beach Volley" reminds you of DoA Xtreme Beach Volleyball, but apart from the beach-volleyball theme there won’t be much in common.

But it makes me wonder: are sexy poses necessary for the beach-volleyball content? (or even for the beach theme in general)
I would really like to use "Beach Volley" to show that it’s not necessary, that we can make something else out of it.
Even if, based on some illustrations you can tell that I’m hesitant on that point, a part of me would also like to show more sexy illustrations, I like creating them and people will appreciate it if I show some.

As of this writing, your Kickstarter goal is $12900 US. It appears that you already had a successful campaign for Dumb! 1 and 2. However, I don't know how easy it will be for your group to reach your current goal.

Actually, it’s not easy and I’m very surprised. My first Kickstarter was "Dumb! 1 and 2" and it was more successful than this one, which took me much more time and seemed much better to me. And yet, today I feel like there’s something wrong.
I wonder where it’s coming from? I have several theories, like the lack of an "attention-grabbing effect" (I’ll get back to this in my next paragraph), but I’m not sure about anything.

I think you will find more crowdfunding backers by...

* Showing what makes your characters memorable. Who is Jun, and what does he want? What have Alice and Rin experienced, and what plans do they have for the near future?
* Showing more of the Beach Volley cast. Who are the competitors? What sort of people attend the competition and interact with characters outside of matches?
* State whether you'll consider porting the game to mobile devices.

Thank you for telling me what’s missing, it helps me understand a few things better.

1. It’s true that it’s not detailed enough, but I wanted to keep some things. Also, this Visual Novel is quite simple in the end, it’s just some friends spending a week together, there will be some funny moments, sometimes some emotional moments, then a sort of fight will break out and all this will be happening while the beach-volleyball match is occurring during the week. The character is mainly there to enable the other two to get along together, it’s a bit like a slice-of-life. If I had to take an example, I would say it’s similar to the anime "Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai".
Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to put forward a project that I can’t sum up in a single sentence like I could for my previous Visual Novel. It doesn’t really foster an "attention-grapping" effect, and I just learned how important that is.

A sentence like my previous Kickstarter: "the story of a not-very-smart man who lives in a world where everyone is as disturbed as he is." makes you want to play it more.

2. I have planned it so that there will be an offer on the Kickstarter page where competitors can create whoever they want, and chose the details of their physical appearance and personality.
Maybe it would be better to create some sprites as examples?

3. This point is mentioned (maybe not visible enough?) and the demo is already available on Android, and if all goes according to plan, it should be available on iOS soon.

Offering three levels of beach volleyball gameplay difficulty is a good idea. Be sure to think about how it will work on a computer. Will the player need to click a specific button in time? How many other actions will be required (camera movement, positioning a character, pressing button combinations)?

I have one idea to create a timer, and the choice would have to be made within a certain time limit. The reaction time will depend on the difficulty. For example, for “Hard” you would have to choose in one second if you will shoot/pass/feint maybe.
That’s roughly what it would be like, with better created buttons:



But it wouldn’t be possible for each point, because you need around 20 to win a match, so some points would only be integrated to the scenario. And also, some points will be lost in advance, as part of the scenario for example, or if you make the wrong choices. As for guessing the right choices, I’m not too sure how to go about it. It would maybe be through repetition or by making the mistake at least once to remember it afterwards, but it wouldn’t happen every time.
Well, I’m open to any suggestion on this point, I think it’s interesting to try to put in some action.

"Beach Volley" is one of our first shorts, so we’re mainly aiming to gain some experience from all of this, while also trying to make something that people might like in the future.

Thank you very much for this message, and I can’t wait to have everybody’s opinion!