Ceri here!
Was scrolling through the Lemmasoft Forums Works-In-Progress page out of boredom and discovered your project a few days before the demo’s release. As I’ve been into epic narrative type stories for the past few years, I felt that it was time to return to my roots of gentle slice of life tales with a fantastical touch and I found that in A Cottage Story!
First Impressions
Both the main menu screen and UI evoke a quaint homely feel with the story being quite in-depth yet a delight to read! The subtitles popping up during Nimruil and Rufus’ first meeting made me snort with laughter. Looks like the two of them have hit it off quite well! The way you created the character designs plus background art is down-to-earth yet natural in its own way. I now even have the meadow scene as my desktop background. My compliments to your skill in illustration and aesthetic!
Of the friendship/love interests when I first saw them on the main post, I really like Nimruil’s character design as their outfit reminds me of Rayla from The Dragon Prince in color motif along with certain aspects of their personality. Getting into the game itself, Klafka’s attitude is somehow hilarious yet she means well in being there for the protagonist through thick and thin since childhood. Rufus is a sweet boy who’s plenty bookish with eclectic taste and insightful on a lot of topics. Nimruli’s something of a ham, is the sassiest of the trio and seems to be integral to more of Emory’s development and growing curiosity of the outside world.
Suggestions
- Make the other menu screens in the same style as the main menu itself (like flipping to different pages in the book)
- Add an ‘Extras’ option on the main menu which contains a CG gallery for the routes and character design and story concept notes
- Give the action/choice options a fancy border similar to the text box
Well, that’s it for my review on the A Cottage Story demo. Looking forward to what the full game will bring (especially Nim’s antics as Emory’s roommate and how they would interact with Klafka)!!