I wasn't able to finish it yet, so I'll talk about what I've experienced so far (I'm at the gift-giving part of the opening section). First of all, the amount of content here is impressive. The art is great too, and the music is beautiful. I love the inclusion of side-scrolling sections and little minigames. You put a whole farming sim experience in Renpy, and that's very impressive.
What I think needs fixing post launch: the walking speed. I'm sure I could've finished this game today if the walking wasn't so extremely slow. There needs to be a run button or a fast travel or SOMETHING. Walking from one end of the town to the other is a slog.
All of you did some amazing work overall, and you should be proud.
Thanks for playing so far! For reasons I don't understand, the default walking speed is different for different people 😅 it was quite fast for me lol (which i am so grateful for because i have NO patience, so you're already stronger than me). iirc holding down SHIFT lets you run ^-^
thank you so much bez! you have so much more experience and have been doing this for way longer so i always really enjoy seeing what you have to say, and i’m glad the parts that did work out were successful :(
and sorry again about the walk speed! we will definitely make it more clear post launch that pressing shift will allow you to run. thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to play and rate!
I should've minded the tags, lmao! Such impressive work done, omg! The art, the writing, the music, the game mechanics -- wow! I only have done the Emrys' route at the moment, because I love my tsunderes and he was adorb (and it's so funny because I also just wrote a tsundere named Emrys and, like, what are the odds lol)
I also always love when games get all meta, and I definitely loved how the epilogue played out -- pretty persuasive tactics to make me wanna try out a different route, lol. You guys did an amazing job <33
oh my gosh, thank you so much!!! yes haha the tags really do jump out at you don’t they… well, anyways! you and i are the same kind of person because i love tsunderes too and the fact that we both did tsunderes called emrys… emrys is a really hot and cold prickly name i’m not surprised we both went for the same thing. i absolutely have to see your tsundere emrys now and i’m looking forward to it!!
i’m such a sucker for games going meta, which i still think hasn’t been explored quite enough yet. i’m glad that it was able to work for you! when thinking of a plot for a sentient setting, i just KNEW a meta angle would really capture that sentience. what can get more real than a chunk of code gaining sentience? hope that you enjoy future replays – we inserted tons of foreshadowing so hopefully a second playthrough will yield many of those “ohhhh wait” moments haha. and thank you so much for playing and rating our game, it means a lot to us :D
Foreshadowing, my love. Ooh, I can't wait to replay it then! (I've been eyeing Rowena every time I had to make a purchase with her lol) And you're so right about the name Emrys; I didn't realize it until now but it does have that vibe, huh. The game's not yet out, but you can see a sneak peek of my grump here lol.
Woah, it's so cool y'all made like a mini rpg game. It reminds me of playing old dating sim flash games, and the fact that you guys did something like this and wrote as much as you did is super impressive! I had fun with the meta narrative going on, as well as the cast we got. I think Harper was my favorite, but I just love dreamers longing for something more lol and ALSO
(spoilers inbound)
I thought the ending/epilogue felt so emotionally taxing. I mean this positively, it really did feel like the frantic begging and lashing out someone might do when you end a toxic relationship, except this time it's about a game trying to convince you to keep coming back to it and playing. Well done!
thank you so much!! i used to love those dating sim flash games haha they made up a big part of my childhood, esp pacthesis games (if you know of her). i feel like this prompt was just perfect for playing around with the fourth wall, so i’m glad you enjoyed it! i’m usually a fan of the surly, tsundere-y love interests but i totally agree, pam wrote harper in such an endearing way that i found myself quickly loving them as well hehe.
and i’m really happy to hear that the ending worked well for you! it absolutely is like that; i almost see it as a crab bucket situation, but i also felt that it was fitting for the nature of a game anyways. is a game still really a game if no one plays it? if its code remains dormant and untouched? but all that to say i loved your comment and kind words – and i’m especially looking forward to playing your entry!
Ah thank you so much! I'm so glad you like Harper. They're my favorite, but shhh don't tell the others ^-^ Something about a dreamer who will never pursue their dream is so fascinating to me... the quiet tragedy of it all hehe
I'm also so glad the weight of the ending came through! It's always hard to tell if the emotional weight of a scene will come across to the player, so it's such a relief to hear that it did. Thanks for playing!
I'm sorry to do this but is anyone else having this problem where the game just doesn't open at all? I spent almost an hour trying to make it run but it just didn't want to, which absolutely sucks, and I don't know if this is my fault or if anyone else is experiencing it too
Uh oh. That's not good :( I'm on Windows and have to manually bypass the security setting to run the game, but we did test that it works on both windows and mac. Are you getting any error reports at all?
I click and there's literally nothing going on. No error, nothing. I suspect it has something to do with the security settings from my tests with the task manager but I'm not entirely sure what I have to disable to get through
wait that’s so awful agh!! i’ll make some time in my schedule to sit down and try to figure this out with you + lemonink + pam and hopefully we can get it to work? since this jam is so small it really would be a shame if we all couldn’t play each others’ games!
Unfortunately, with no popups to even say what's going on, it's hard to find a solution ;v;
I did find this lemmasoft forum that suggests the following if its a case of your antivirus blocking the game:
- Create a folder in a location you can find
- In your antivirus, find the EXCEPTION parameter and add the folder you just created for that.
- Unzip the game in that folder
I've had my security program completely delete the .exe file before when unzipping games without telling me, so maybe something similar is happening with you, Naarel? It's so unfortunate you're running into trouble just trying to play the game T_T
I tried to disable my antivirus stuff COMPLETELY but that seemed to change absolutely nothing. Very fun. I'll still try to get it working but my options are getting slimmer and slimmer
WITH SOME HELP I FIGURED IT OUT. TURNS OUT THAT "PRESPLASH.PNG" FILE WAS CAUSING SOME ISSUE. DELETED IT AND IT ALL WORKED. HALLELUJAH I CAN PLAY EVERYTHING.
i’ve had creative writing as a hobby for a long time and i really do enjoy it, so i don’t get as tired of writing constantly as some people might … although i still do get burned out sometimes
i don’t have any concrete evidence for this but i think i also tend to be a faster writer, at least compared to my friends. this game is on par for what i normally write in jams; for a month-long jam i wrote 40k, for velox formido i did 11k in 27 hours, and my actual solo project in velox turbo i wrote 15k in four days. ~18.5k in 5 days is very doable for me!
since lemonink did all the coding, i could devote a lot of time specifically to only writing! she’s carrying all our projects on her back so i can type leisurely like a pampered princess hehe
and finally, it helps A LOT that there’s actually two of us writing! pam and i can cover for each other and build off one another’s ideas. although this was our first time working together, we had really nice chemistry and share a similar style. i definitely felt very inspired by her, and i think it goes both ways!
so i guess i really did mean it when i said power of friendship! it’s a combination of something that i already tend to have a grasp on (writing a lot in a short time) and having reliable teammates who can help carry the burden. hopefully that’s what you were looking for!
Can confirm that Katherine is an extremely fast writer XD
Another thing that helped is that we had a very clear roadmap before writing even began. Scenes were outlined and story beats laid out so we were able to jump straight into writing a scene without having to think much about where it would go. Having an editing partner that you trust takes off some of the mental burden that can come with writing. Even if my writing isn't perfect, I can trust Katherine to help me get it there. Much easier to enter a flow state that way.
And, ofc, LemonInk covering all of the programming was a HUGE factor in Katherine and I being able to write as much as we did. I was still adding dialogue on the final day which I never would've been able to do if I had to program it all myself. Us writers were truly spoiled for this one <3
Comments
I wasn't able to finish it yet, so I'll talk about what I've experienced so far (I'm at the gift-giving part of the opening section). First of all, the amount of content here is impressive. The art is great too, and the music is beautiful. I love the inclusion of side-scrolling sections and little minigames. You put a whole farming sim experience in Renpy, and that's very impressive.
What I think needs fixing post launch: the walking speed. I'm sure I could've finished this game today if the walking wasn't so extremely slow. There needs to be a run button or a fast travel or SOMETHING. Walking from one end of the town to the other is a slog.
All of you did some amazing work overall, and you should be proud.
Thanks for playing so far! For reasons I don't understand, the default walking speed is different for different people 😅 it was quite fast for me lol (which i am so grateful for because i have NO patience, so you're already stronger than me). iirc holding down SHIFT lets you run ^-^
thank you so much bez! you have so much more experience and have been doing this for way longer so i always really enjoy seeing what you have to say, and i’m glad the parts that did work out were successful :(
and sorry again about the walk speed! we will definitely make it more clear post launch that pressing shift will allow you to run. thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to play and rate!
Still working my way through this one but WOW, the amount of stuff here!!! Y'all are impressive as hell!!
thank you so much!! hope you enjoy ❤️
I should've minded the tags, lmao!Such impressive work done, omg! The art, the writing, the music, the game mechanics -- wow! I only have done the Emrys' route at the moment, because I love my tsunderes and he was adorb (and it's so funny because I also just wrote a tsundere named Emrys and, like, what are the odds lol)I also always love when games get all meta, and I definitely loved how the epilogue played out -- pretty persuasive tactics to make me wanna try out a different route, lol. You guys did an amazing job <33
oh my gosh, thank you so much!!! yes haha the tags really do jump out at you don’t they… well, anyways! you and i are the same kind of person because i love tsunderes too and the fact that we both did tsunderes called emrys… emrys is a really hot and cold prickly name i’m not surprised we both went for the same thing. i absolutely have to see your tsundere emrys now and i’m looking forward to it!!
i’m such a sucker for games going meta, which i still think hasn’t been explored quite enough yet. i’m glad that it was able to work for you! when thinking of a plot for a sentient setting, i just KNEW a meta angle would really capture that sentience. what can get more real than a chunk of code gaining sentience? hope that you enjoy future replays – we inserted tons of foreshadowing so hopefully a second playthrough will yield many of those “ohhhh wait” moments haha. and thank you so much for playing and rating our game, it means a lot to us :D
Foreshadowing, my love. Ooh, I can't wait to replay it then! (I've been eyeing Rowena every time I had to make a purchase with her lol) And you're so right about the name Emrys; I didn't realize it until now but it does have that vibe, huh. The game's not yet out, but you can see a sneak peek of my grump here lol.
Omg if I had a nickle for every tsundere Emrys....
I'm glad so many people have been choosing Emrys because Katherine did such a good job writing him. So prickly, but so sweet...perfectly balanced.
Thank you for playing! You have to play a different route now! The game needs you to...please...it's being so patient....
Woah, it's so cool y'all made like a mini rpg game. It reminds me of playing old dating sim flash games, and the fact that you guys did something like this and wrote as much as you did is super impressive! I had fun with the meta narrative going on, as well as the cast we got. I think Harper was my favorite, but I just love dreamers longing for something more lol and ALSO
(spoilers inbound)
I thought the ending/epilogue felt so emotionally taxing. I mean this positively, it really did feel like the frantic begging and lashing out someone might do when you end a toxic relationship, except this time it's about a game trying to convince you to keep coming back to it and playing. Well done!
thank you so much!! i used to love those dating sim flash games haha they made up a big part of my childhood, esp pacthesis games (if you know of her). i feel like this prompt was just perfect for playing around with the fourth wall, so i’m glad you enjoyed it! i’m usually a fan of the surly, tsundere-y love interests but i totally agree, pam wrote harper in such an endearing way that i found myself quickly loving them as well hehe.
and i’m really happy to hear that the ending worked well for you! it absolutely is like that; i almost see it as a crab bucket situation, but i also felt that it was fitting for the nature of a game anyways. is a game still really a game if no one plays it? if its code remains dormant and untouched? but all that to say i loved your comment and kind words – and i’m especially looking forward to playing your entry!
Ah thank you so much! I'm so glad you like Harper. They're my favorite, but shhh don't tell the others ^-^ Something about a dreamer who will never pursue their dream is so fascinating to me... the quiet tragedy of it all hehe
I'm also so glad the weight of the ending came through! It's always hard to tell if the emotional weight of a scene will come across to the player, so it's such a relief to hear that it did. Thanks for playing!
I'm sorry to do this but is anyone else having this problem where the game just doesn't open at all? I spent almost an hour trying to make it run but it just didn't want to, which absolutely sucks, and I don't know if this is my fault or if anyone else is experiencing it too
Uh oh. That's not good :( I'm on Windows and have to manually bypass the security setting to run the game, but we did test that it works on both windows and mac. Are you getting any error reports at all?
I click and there's literally nothing going on. No error, nothing. I suspect it has something to do with the security settings from my tests with the task manager but I'm not entirely sure what I have to disable to get through
wait that’s so awful agh!! i’ll make some time in my schedule to sit down and try to figure this out with you + lemonink + pam and hopefully we can get it to work? since this jam is so small it really would be a shame if we all couldn’t play each others’ games!
Unfortunately, with no popups to even say what's going on, it's hard to find a solution ;v;
I did find this lemmasoft forum that suggests the following if its a case of your antivirus blocking the game:
- Create a folder in a location you can find
- In your antivirus, find the EXCEPTION parameter and add the folder you just created for that.
- Unzip the game in that folder
I've had my security program completely delete the .exe file before when unzipping games without telling me, so maybe something similar is happening with you, Naarel? It's so unfortunate you're running into trouble just trying to play the game T_T
I tried to disable my antivirus stuff COMPLETELY but that seemed to change absolutely nothing. Very fun. I'll still try to get it working but my options are getting slimmer and slimmer
omg i'm SO sorry it's being so difficult T_T I wish I was smarter so I could fix it, but please don't stress yourself out trying to get it to work!
WITH SOME HELP I FIGURED IT OUT. TURNS OUT THAT "PRESPLASH.PNG" FILE WAS CAUSING SOME ISSUE. DELETED IT AND IT ALL WORKED. HALLELUJAH I CAN PLAY EVERYTHING.
OMG???? WEIRDEST ISSUE IVE EVER SEEN BUT GLAD YOU FIGURED IT OUT
I'M SORRY???? Y'ALL LITERALLY WROTE A NOVELLA-LENGTH SCRIPT IN 10 DAYS?! HOW
power of friendship!!!
Hell yeah! But like seriously, how did y'all do it?
hmmm well on a more serious note
i’ve had creative writing as a hobby for a long time and i really do enjoy it, so i don’t get as tired of writing constantly as some people might … although i still do get burned out sometimes
i don’t have any concrete evidence for this but i think i also tend to be a faster writer, at least compared to my friends. this game is on par for what i normally write in jams; for a month-long jam i wrote 40k, for velox formido i did 11k in 27 hours, and my actual solo project in velox turbo i wrote 15k in four days. ~18.5k in 5 days is very doable for me!
since lemonink did all the coding, i could devote a lot of time specifically to only writing! she’s carrying all our projects on her back so i can type leisurely like a pampered princess hehe
and finally, it helps A LOT that there’s actually two of us writing! pam and i can cover for each other and build off one another’s ideas. although this was our first time working together, we had really nice chemistry and share a similar style. i definitely felt very inspired by her, and i think it goes both ways!
so i guess i really did mean it when i said power of friendship! it’s a combination of something that i already tend to have a grasp on (writing a lot in a short time) and having reliable teammates who can help carry the burden. hopefully that’s what you were looking for!
Can confirm that Katherine is an extremely fast writer XD
Another thing that helped is that we had a very clear roadmap before writing even began. Scenes were outlined and story beats laid out so we were able to jump straight into writing a scene without having to think much about where it would go. Having an editing partner that you trust takes off some of the mental burden that can come with writing. Even if my writing isn't perfect, I can trust Katherine to help me get it there. Much easier to enter a flow state that way.
And, ofc, LemonInk covering all of the programming was a HUGE factor in Katherine and I being able to write as much as we did. I was still adding dialogue on the final day which I never would've been able to do if I had to program it all myself. Us writers were truly spoiled for this one <3