boiler inn
Thoughts: Mouse doesn’t work on my SteamDeck. Ooh I can use this as a touchscreen instead. That should work well with a visual novel game.
I have 9 weird eyeball, 9 rotating thingies, and 9 cyber orbs. The icons are not made with the same margin and don’t align. This physically hurts me.
Font choice could really elevate this game. Now this reads as a standard font.
The dialog box has a stretched out version of the same panel as the inventory it seems. Wait it isn’t. But that bigger corner cutout and the bigger borders really make it look stretched. I would choose one panel and just 9patch it.
The ??? has some little lines under it. I think it may be UI to show that this is the character name, but it really looks to me like part of the dialog box is transparent and it is noisy/messy. I would’ve preferred it not being there at all.
Ok done with the UI.
Really cool depth sensation of the background while it is still hand drawn. Cool.
When the Player title comes, the little blue artifacts annoy me even more. It makes it harder to read. It’s noise to me.
Cool landlady art.
Interesting use of English.
I can ask about the job and comfy prison. Did I miss some intro? But really good UX here. Players probably won’t read all your text, but they WILL read what’s on a button before they click it. Nicely done.
There’s a whole log of dialog box, for a whole little of dialog. Why not make the dialogs text bigger?
Ok definenitly not native English speakers (writers?)
Oh shit! Minigame! Scamble! Shit, what do I do! Oh arrow keys! It must be some kind of paddle I move to catch! No, that’s not working, maybe because I use a steamdeck? No those are not the arrow keys either… Failed. Oh there are icons next to the arrow keys. Was this a rhythm game?
They’re still happy with my work though. Self high-five!
More people! Who is this immigrant? I can collect tribute? Feels a bit opressive. Nope, he just gives me money. Not feeling to great about that one.
Next… the cyber pimp. Oh he’s a cop. I can collect tribute from a cop? Oh heck yes. Power to the cyberpeople. People immediately disappear after I collect tribute… makes sense I guess.
Click around on the other people. Not sure what this is for. It seems it is the gameplay addition to the visual novel, but not sure what I’m doing here. More tribute!
I am used to the text filling up the dialog to instantly complete when I click and THEN it would continue to the next dialogue. Now it’s an instant skip. This really breaks the UI convention of visual novels.
Ok I am finally getting this is some sort of shop style game, where patrions stop by and you get to know them over time. Right over my head.
Emergency! Ah it’s a spot the infiltrator game. Ok, I’ve paid way too little attention for this. I guess it can be deferred from doing all the interviews but this game is becoming a bit too grindy. That’s it for me.
Review I like the mood of the game. The music does a lot of the heavy lifting there (although it does get repetitive).
I think the strongest part of the game was the visual novel part, and the other more sandboxy part was more conceptual. It was hard to grasp.
The minigame I really just didn’t get. I think it was there because you needed some kind of “I’m doing the operation” to the game. A more reaction based minigame doesn’t really work in a visual novel for me. I wouldn’t mind a dice roll here instead. Perhaps the player can have a progression in stats.
I tried to follow the story, but I just didn’t get it. It felt like the stories were their own thing. Maybe there was something overarching but I didn’t see it.
So mainly for me this was the mood. It was pretty cool, but I do feel some elements were quite mismatched (both in artwork, as in writing). Maybe this was a problem of many different contributors?