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Salacia258 days ago

Good Stuff

The game looks and feels like a finished game. The soft transitions and music are quite relaxing. The light values of the artwork also add to this. This would be a great game for destressing.


Stuff to Consider

Dialogue feels too monotonous, not the writing itself, but how it is presented in the game. I find myself trying to click through it as fast as possible as there is nothing unique in the presentation or pacing that makes me want to slow down and enjoy the moment.

Some of the dialogue options are too similar, so aside from tone the choice feels essentially meaningless.

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Marie Marie Studio258 days ago(+1)

Thank you for checking out the game! I am sorry to hear that the writing and the story was not for you. But I am happy to know how you felt about it and what the experience was like for you. I have reviewed the game and here are some of my thoughts in response to your comments: Some options in the game indeed have an element of chance, like many dating sims do, where you really have to just be lucky enough to pick the "right" choice for the main plot to proceed. And of course, each choice also showcases/reveals aspects of the characters' personalities and their preferences, and will create different kinds of interactions between them. But every choice you make opens up new aspects of the story and interaction, and this is something that I've always strived to make a part of the stories I publish -- so there really isn't a "right" choice, but an experience of the myriads of possibilities between the characters in the story. Some choices do allow for an element of "control" in directing the story -- and as this is a dating game, the tone that the protagonist chooses to use, reflecting their feelings towards the love interest does make a difference. And of course, the love interest is not for everybody, so even if the "happy ending" is not achieved, this does not equal to "losing" the game. It just means a lack of chemistry with the love interest. Ultimately the game was created and designed based on what I find interesting, entertaining and meaningful, so perhaps its style and tone really isn't for everybody. But again, thank you for checking out the game and leaving a comment, because it helps to know what your experience was! 

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Salacia258 days ago(+1)

Thank you for all of the information in your reply! I can appreciate the passion and reasoning you have for creating the game the way you did, and some things make a lot more sense with your explanation. (While I have played plenty of games with romance and a narrative/relationship focus, I have only played perhaps a couple of straight VNs.)

I also want to clarify that I thought the writing was good, it was simply the presentation that made it hard for me to focus on the writing/reading. (i.e. Lack of movement/reactions within the characters/world/text, pauses for cutscenes/alternate gameplay and pacing within scenes of pure dialogue, etc.) Considering it's a limited-timeframe jam, I also know there's no way to get to everything you might want to add, but I wanted to include that feedback in case it might be useful to you.

Oh I did also like seeing the information for the character being unlocked and shown as you progressed.

I hope you can take my words with a heavy spoon of salt, as visual novels are a hard genre for me to play in general, and I think what you've done probably works just fine for lovers of the genre. ( ' u ' )

Thanks for sharing your work!

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Marie Marie Studio258 days ago(+1)

Mmmm… the character has several different outfits and accessories, and her expression does change depending on the content of the dialogue, and even in the middle of it, and the music changes as well. In some scenes, there are even changes to the background. Perhaps it would be helpful if I could get a reference on what you would find engaging in terms of presentation. But thank you for clarifying your point! If I had more time I would definitely like to create character sprites for other characters. As for cutscenes that would definitely take a bit more time. I do have a CG scene for one of the endings, but I haven’t had time to put that part of the game into the uploaded version yet! I made this project as a one-person team so I was definitely pressed for time and had to also make sure the game is not buggy. But I do hope to get everything assembled and uploaded, perhaps this weekend or the next! 

I’ve only ever played VNs, so I guess my reference point is a little different from yours. But this is just a game that I created to have fun with the mahou shoujo genre and this is just my take on it! 😆 Thanks for checking out my game anyhow, and letting me know what you think! 

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Salacia258 days ago(+1)

The music and environment changes definitely helped build on what I mean (which I appreciated), the outfits to a far lesser extent as they help with visual storytelling but don't add anything for movement/pacing. I think providing you with some examples is a great idea, so here's what I got:

The idea of movement is summarized well in this part of Visual Novel Design's Video on Youtube. This can make your game feel more alive and can also contribute to the pacing depending on how its implemented. (In your game when the character trips, that was a great moment because the movement added needed visual stimulation, along with reinforcing the storytelling.) He also has a longer video talking about some staging (composition + perspective) and animation here, which can help with both motion and pacing, in a broader sense. Perfect Gold has a constant repeating movement in the characters and also a few elements in the BG as one example, but honestly even a just bit of camera panning (or character/background panning) can do wonders. Coffee Talk uses a lot of small movement throughout characters, BGs, camera, and even the transitions to  create visual interest while it also switches to shots of things in the environment (eg. coffee on a table) to add variety. (It also has alternate gameplay, but that's far too much work obviously.)

There was a video I saw where it talked about how to add character to the text itself to avoid boring standard dialogue text (which would be incredibly useful in a game all about dialogue/narrative), but I cannot for the life of me find it. (It's probably in one of the many GMT videos.) The idea is that you express parts of the story/emotion through the text, visually. For example, if someone is scared of ghosts, the word "ghosts" might tremble or have a spooky distortion to it. If a character is excited about ice cream, the words "ice cream" might bounce around a bit. If a character is peeking into a scene coyly, the text might also slide coyly onto the screen. You can also use color, size, and alternate font to enhance whatever is being expressed, or differentiate between characters and/or tone. This makes the text dynamic, breaking up the monotony of constant text. You know, comics/manga might actually be a good reference too, especially the ones with sound text, as they try to add a lot of variety in how these are displayed to match the expression/action.

This video from GMT is great for working on pacing in other types of games, but you might be able to take some of the logic and translate into ways you can diversify for pacing in a visual novel.

One of the other VN submissions for this jam has some of what I'm referring to in it, if you haven't played it. It's Listen to My Song.

Considering you did this as one person (wow, that's awesome!) and there isn't enough time to add everything in a jam, I would only use this as something to consider for the future. (Hearing you have a cutscene already planned is also great!) And honestly, you have far more knowledge about VNs than I do, obviously lol. I'm just coming from a general engagement/game design point of view.

Thanks for having this discussion!

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Marie Marie Studio258 days ago(+1)

Thanks for your suggestion! I haven't had time to look at all the examples you have provided, but I will certainly do that. I can only say that I have made my stylistic choices based on what is realistically achievable within the time frame of the jam, taking into consideration all the other aspects that warrant attention in a VN, and that many preferences are rather subjective. The details that stand out to me as important in a VN are quite different from yours, and what keeps me playing a VN are quite different too, and I did make deliberate choices and prioritised certain aspects over others given the contraints I was faced with and what I find more appealing. Bouncing words and changing fonts are certainly not my cup of tea, and hence they are not in my VNs. In any case, I do appreciate reading your comment and seeing your perspective. But since this is my project, I do have to write in defense of it as much time, thought and effort had been put into its creation and design. 

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