Fatal Hearts - Awaiting Release

[papillon]

Yes, he's a datable boy.

I'm still running around chasing after artists to get everything finished, but the game features should be stable at this point. Autosave is working (it saves when you reach a choice or a puzzle) as well as mark-read and mark-read-choice - basically, like in Ever 17, when you get to a choice screen, a choice you've already selected on a previous playthrough is colored differently, in order to help you find choices you haven't made yet.

Which means I am willing to accept applications for a beta tester.

I am PICKY about betas and at this point the game is nearly finished so I really can't give it out to everyone, therefore don't be upset if I don't pick you! What I need is someone:

1. with a Windows machine that is at least win98se. I have no idea if it will run on win98se and am almost certain it won't (lots of visual effects!) but if you have win98se and want to be the crash test dummy, let me know! WINE is not an option, nor macs. Testing so far has generally been on XP. If you have 2000 or Vista that would be useful. If your graphics card is very poor (low vram) I already know it will crash horribly. This is a much fancier game than Cute Knight was. So please give me your computer details if you want to play.

2. with a lot of free time. I'm guessing gameplay at 8-10 hours but it's hard to judge with puzzles. If you can't play through the game within the next few weeks you're not going to do me any good.

3. verbose. I need to know what you're thinking and feeling about EVERYTHING. Character getting on your nerves? Suspect that the ice cream man is actually a CIA agent? Tried to click on something and had to click three times for it to work? I need to know all of that! I'm going to be biased in favor of people who write really long posts.


If you want to be part of this, drop me a PM with details about your computer specs (and any testing/reviewing background if you have it).

[x__sinister]

I read the first post of this thread, then the next two, and I'm really too lazy to read the rest, because there's so many pages. But, I was wondering if there was another thread that you had the details of the game posted. The concept art looks really nice, even if it's just to get a rough idea of what you like.

I might just become a fan-girl of this game/novel/whatever it is. [cheers on]

[papillon]

The game webpage is at http://www.hanakogames.com/fatal.shtml - that concept art from the first post is LONG since replaced. (Well, almost all of it. Some artists are still not done yet.)

[papillon]

All game art for an initial release is now in. (We're talking about the possibility of maybe making a fancier title screen in a later release.)

I don't yet know when the game will actually be on sale because I need to talk to Point X and try to negotiate marketing bonuses and so potentially the release will be delayed so that they get it First, and this is all business nonsense that none of you care about.

However. Knowing that the game will be out sometime this month but that the game is now basically complete and I can whip up an actual demo in the next couple of days... Would you guys *want* to be able to play the official demo version before it publically goes on sale? Or would you rather I waited until the order page was up?

[Guest]

this is all business nonsense that none of you care about.

I do.

Would you guys *want* to be able to play the official demo version before it publically goes on sale? Or would you rather I waited until the order page was up?

It is up to you... there might be last-minute feedback from a pre-release demo.

[monele]

I don't really see the good part about releasing a demo later, so.... asap sounds good?

[papillon]

Well, the downside is that someone getting a 'Must Buy NOW!' feel would be thwarted and then might forget about it. But yeah, I'll probably put a demo out soon.

[Alessio]

Wish you great success with the release! Congratulations and ten thumbs up! (That's mine plus my tentacle friend's.)

[Jake]

Well, the downside is that someone getting a 'Must Buy NOW!' feel would be thwarted and then might forget about it.

I'm on this side of the fence, myself. While - if I'm being perfectly honest - I quite probably won't really be interested enough to buy this particular thing anyway, it's certainly the case that the vast majority of games I've bought based on good demos have been purchased almost immediately after finishing the demo...


Still, congratulations - I hope it sells well!

[papillon]

Okay, there is a demo. It has not been really thoroughly tested, but it should work. Please report any problems.

http://www.hanakogames.com/demos/FatalH ... oSetup.exe

The download is 17MB. Windows only.

[Ignosco]

The demo was great - the story looks intriguing, and the art and music are both good. For a VN, it's very heavy on interaction, which worked well for the most part, but the cobwebs puzzle and the click to find something seemed a bit unnecessary, and for me at least, might have been better presented in a more traditional VN format. Most of the puzzles were clever and effective though, and required a bit of thought to solve - the downside is that, if the player can't solve them, then the game can't be completed (and something like the 'phone' one, might be game-breaking for a few players, even with the hint). I'm guessing there will be some sort of FAQ for the game though?

The only technical problem I had with the demo a slight waiting time between some of the transitions. I think these breaks only happened when the music changed, even though it was uncompressed.

[papillon]

Yeah, depending on your computer there can be a noticeable lag when loading up music tracks because they're rather big. It's much faster if the sounds are uncompressed, but if you go click-click-click reading through quickly you will definitely notice a bump when it has to pull up a new song.

I expect players confused about puzzle solutions to flock to game walkthroughs and forums to chat about them. There's a mostly empty one waiting at http://hanako.informe.com/viewforum.php?f=4 - also anyone who buys the game directly from me will be able to get special puzzle-skip codes in case they just really can't beat one of the action-based puzzles later in the game. (Adventure gamers love chewing their fingers off trying to solve mind puzzles but sometimes get really frustrated by action puzzles.)

[Anvil Factory]

I actually like the puzzles, but yeah, I haven't been able to solve the cell phone one. Something tells me that this is preparing me for Trace Memory, which I bought from someone recently...

[Ren]

I loved the cellphone puzzle :3It wasn't evil as Silent Hill 2's door puzzle but it still felt quite rewarding when i figured it out ^D^
Pretty character graphics too!

[papillon]

I have Trace Memory, but I always get walkthroughs for adventure games, I don't like being stuck.

(However, iirc, I got the True Ending and the walkthrough author *didn't*, so it's not like I was only following the walkthrough...)