I like the music, and the story is pretty sweet. Also, the gameplay portion where you have to collect acorns is hilariously charming.
The brown color pallet is a little overwhelming at times - I do like how the characters go into sillouette when they are thinking inner thoughts. I think for the future, you can have less dialogue that shakes the screen -- the effect was a little overused.
It's cool that you coded this up in Python! I want to try that, too!
I tried to go for reds, oranges, yellows, and browns for fall colors. Although, I definitely see what you mean there. I was trying to keep similar colors together to complement one another and to keep them muted to not overwhelm the senses. I didn’t want any one thing to stand out. However, the witch’s house is very brown and red. So, I totally understand that being too overwhelming there.
I do have a habit of overusing the shake effect because I feel like certain dialogues need that extra oomph. You can also disable transitions in preferences to get rid of those shake effects in playthroughs.
The acorn minigame I created through the use of screens and jumping from one label to the next. That minigame was originally going to serve the purpose of the protagonist foraging for fallen acorns to help create the pie, except the story changed since, making that portion of the game feel like filler.
Although, I still put it in there to break up the monotony of always having the player read through text and to lengthen the window of time between the protagonist starting in the woods and getting to the witch’s house.
I created this through the use of Ren’Py. In Ren’Py, you simply show and hide character sprites and backgrounds, and you write out the text and narration in quotes. It’s very easy to use. I highly recommend it.
So long as you have a story in mind, you’re good to go, as the story is the foundation for a visual novel, while the visuals are what helps communicate that very same story. That’s my advice to you if you ever decide to get into making visual novels yourself. 😊
Otherwise, thanks for playing and leaving a review! I greatly appreciate it! 🤩
I love the fall vibe :) I like a brownish palette and I'd like to see you do something like that again, but maybe vary the saturation to call attention to certain things. Thanks for taking my comment to heart - I try to make comments that critique the things I really like, if that makes sense.
The minigame does help to break up the monotony of reading through the text - I think that came across very well!
Thanks! This is my thirtieth visual novel so far. So, I have other short stories you can read on here for free that are in the form of visual novels. Sometimes I like to go with a certain color in my visual novels, whether that be blue, pink, gray, or green. Otherwise, I’m in the works of making a visual novel in RPG Maker right now. The big difference there is that it’ll involve some light walking to get from one place to the next or to make a choice in the game. Of course, I’ll still use Ren’Py for future visual novels, but I’m trying to spice things up too for future games as well. Take care! Love the feedback! 😃😊
