Post by bitshiftgames in The Hero of Shallowcreek comments

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Love it Sheep.

Finally got around to finishing this, sorry it took so long. But in my defense, there's a LOT. Which is great, but it does take a while to get through.

I ended up throwing out a lot of what I was going to say, because you actually ended up implementing it as the game goes on. Early on, it's largely a bunch of silo'd encounters that all end in game overs, but further in you start to have some NOT be hard game overs, and start to mix them into each other a bit better, which is exactly what I was going to suggest. I especially appreciate the various callbacks to what's happened so far by the time we get to the Monster Hunter guild quests, especially the werewolf one. Very nice.

I didn't enjoy EVERY setup, such is the nature of kink and personal taste. But there's a LOT of fun stuff here. Personal favorites would be the Griffon knight (though I'm not as much into the scent aspect as just the "abuse" /manipulation/abuse of power etc), the lizard shaman fella while guarding (VERY nice), and I think most of all the traveling hypnotist.

The whole monster guild thing is a really nice bringing together of everything, and a good actual capping off the proper story the thing has. My only real complaint there is that I wanted Lenti and Oliver to get into more trouble together, potentially even just get blindsided by the griffon again. Maybe betray each other TO him. But a very fun little group after all.

And a very impressive piece of work overall! I think the only downside is that BECAUSE it's text-only, and Twine, a lot of people may bounce off it before they get hooked in, which is sad because there's a LOT here to enjoy. Not that you have to, but if you wanted to, I think dumping this into something like Renpy (to give easier control on some things), making some MINOR tweaks and sprinkling in a few visuals (Not full scene stuff, just a few bits here and there to get the imagination going) would let you absolutely blow people out of the water with this, even more than you are already. Potentially even make some decent money, if you were interested in going that route. Again though, just thoughts.

I'm glad you finished this, and that *I* finally got around to going through it all. A really fun little adventure.

sheeplike26 days ago(+1)

oooooooh wow what a spectacular comment. thanks so much for taking the time to check it out!! gosh.

i spent such a long time on this project (and learning twine) that act 2 is pretty significantly different from act 1, which thankfully sort of manifested in a smooth progression of complexity but yes, having that level of quality all the way through would have been nice. looking back, i really should have done more in the first act especially, but i was determined to release it as a finished project in november, and a number of scenes - even ones that were partially done - just had to go.

also i'm really glad you liked the lizard shaman guy. i think he's my personal favorite deep down!! lenti and oliver bumping into sir griffin again and betraying each other to him would have been SO fucking good oh my god. maybe something for the increasingly-less-vague idea of a future expansion.

a renpy version would be pretty amazing!! and i do think there's a pretty significant chunk of players who see twine (regardless of all the effort i put into visual polish) and close the tab, but gosh, my limited experience working on visual novel projects has made me realize that even my most conservative ideations of art assets is an absurd amount of work that would ALL have to be outsourced. maybe one day!! but probably not for shallowcreek.

thanks so much for playing!! i can't easily express how excited i was to see a comment with your name on it and i'm really happy to hear you liked it enough to play it to the end!!

bitshiftgames25 days ago

Ha, glad it was useful then. No, I totally agree: you work and learn as you go, and if it's good enough for release, you release. Things never end up releasing if you worry too much about polish. Ha, and glad you liked the griffin suggestion. Maybe some day!

And yeah, getting visual stuff in IS a lot of work, whether you do it yourself or pay for some assets. Just wanted to suggest, as it gives a LOT of bang for the buck: even a little bit here and there does a lot to pull people in and keep them in place. People's minds wander a lot especially these days. I guess you could say it's its own form of hypnosis.

But I'm glad you were able to satisfyingly cap this off, and definitely hope you're able to plunge into another big project once you've built up a head of steam again. It's satisfying to get something this big finally done, isn't it? In a way that's just different than smaller projects.

sheeplike25 days ago(+1)

it's certainly very different than my usual project size, yes. this project in particular was very nice, being a lot of individual scenes with huge variety so i could avoid feeling stuck working on the same thing, and i had a LOT of passion for this particular work which made it relatively easy to avoid burnout. releasing it truly felt like nothing else i've ever worked on!! i remember having some mental wires crossed that day - i was getting so much positive attention from friends and acquaintances that i kept unconsciously thinking it was my birthday, haha.

more big projects are definitely on my mind, but i think it'd have to be something sort of like this, where there's enough variety for me to not feel totally stuck. maybe a superhero twine (or something?) similar to shallowcreek, i have a few VNs an artist friend and I are both excited about, maybe a few other things. i've been spread pretty thin on hobbies lately and that makes it hard to commit to anything, especially since it's not my job (sadly) but yes, now that i've had a taste for making something i'm truly immensely proud of i am certain to continue chasing this feeling in one way or another

thanks so much again for playing!!

itch.io

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