The Bygones uses a bunch of music terms I as a non music person don't understand and cannot keep up on even with the context clues.
And I think this is a theme that draws itself through the story itself.
The Bygones is written for a group of people that is in the know. I did not want to be handheld, I just wished to be included.
The art style is nice until the CGs pop up, which contrast heavily with the sprites, which breaks it a little too much.
Songs lyrics paced to the text on screen is a fun idea but doesn't really work if its not perfectly fine tuned and some lyrics just show up after they have been sung.
On that note the song in the beginning ontop of the existing dialogue is very distracting, I wasn't entirely sure what I should have focused on.
Keeping on I liked the "fast forward" pace of the VN, but this also lead to some things just being thrown into the void and others just arising out of nowhere.
The conflict with the MCs Dad/Parents didn't go anywhere, and one of the band members being addicted also kinda came from nowhere.
The main conflict and tragedy were played out nicely but I REALLY dislike the weird sci-fi fantasy fantasy thing happening at the end. I feel like that could have easily been resolved in a different way than to break the setting that was established until this point.
I'm giving this one a "I wish I loved you, but I can't."
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Sorry you didn't like it!
The Bygones wasn't written just for musicians, but there's a possibility that in my musician mindset, I included too many terms that weren't friendly for non-musicians. I know some stuff like Rickenbacker and pentatonic scale especially would fly over people's heads now.
As for the song lyrics part... that scene was coded in two hours as well as two hours before the jam ended. It was never going to be perfect unfortunately, though I plan on touching the timing up a bit when the wait period is over.
I knew the ending would be controversial. Reception has been mixed on that part; some really like it, some hate it. I plan on expanding that scene a bit more in an update since I didn't get everything I wanted in it out there (ex. the jam version didn't conclude Ashley's and Pat's stories properly).
I hope you'll give it another chance when I update it, but I understand if you won't!