Post by Loudo in Valentine's Rain comments

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I've just finished my first playthrough of this game and I couldn't wait to tell you that I loved the experience. It still boggles my mind that this is a one-man project, I couldn't believe how many story altering choices you've included in this VN! You have my deepest admiration, I really like this kind of stuff. I've been reading a lot of furry VNs lately, and while I've stumbled across many incredible stories, yours is the first where I feel like the choices are complex, interesting, and really meaningful. Again, mad respect!

I enjoyed the story and the characters a lot too. You are a fantastic writer. I also have to mention that the music in this VN is phenomenal. I understand that you didn't compose it yourself, but even just the way you found and chose the perfect track tells me you are an incredible storyteller. There was never a moment when I found the music or ambient sounds distracting or out of place.

I have to mention as well that while reading your VN I did look up your other channels and profiles and I stumbled upon the stuff you have shared about your own story and I really connected to it. You've just become a huge inspiration for me and I'm sending you all the love I can as a stranger on the Internet. :-)

If I can share one piece of criticism, the only part that left me a little disappointed was the ending(s). I understand there is a "best" ending I have to read yet, but the endings that I've got felt a bit rushed. After having spent so much with this story and these characters, I was expecting a bit more of send-off. (This is especially true of the vengeance ending I read, that was over in like five sentences! I understand this is probably not supposed to be the "true ending", but I feel like if you give your readers the power to make choices, then you need to give your readers a well-written ending no matter what they choose, even if it's a well-written bad ending!).

I also need to mention that I think I found a bug in your game. **SPOILERS** On the second day, I chose to save the dude's in the cage as Robert. When it then cuts to Jade getting kidnapped, I successfully struggled but then failed to run after her attacker. At that point, the game suddenly stops after she says "Dammit" and I'm kicked back to the title screen. Looking at the script for JadeDay2_2, I see that under label FailedChaseAttacker there is nothing for if SaveJade == False. I believe that is the problem?

Finally, one last thing I have to mention is that I've found a few spelling mistakes here and there. Especially, I saw that you've mixed up "we're" and "were" a lot of times! It might be worth double checking that, if you care about that sort of stuff! :-)

Once again, I really loved this game, I hope your next VN is coming along smoothly. I can't wait to read more from you!

Dracino2 years ago(+3)

As you may have seen below, I have a terrible habit of having wordy comments, so I hope you will forgive me if it's a tad long haha!

First of all, a big thank you, really. Your words are beyond kind! It made me really happy to read it, I can't really describe it. Believe me, it was a crazy project to do on my own, so my mind is boggled too at times thinking about it! The funny thing is, when it comes to choices, the entire thing spawned from a crazy idea that I had, which was "What if a main character could die right at the start if the player chose to... and the story would just continue?". Little did I know what I was getting myself into haha!

I also have to say that I really -really- appreciate you mentioning the music! It is quite amazing what others have made and allowed for use under creative commons, and I'm thankful for them all, but your comment alone makes me glad I spent literal hundreds of hours pouring through track after track XD

And thank you again for the kind personal words ^^ It's been a journey, but hey, no road is without its bumps on the road!

Ah yes, the endings. Thank you for your honesty :) as hard as it is to put out a creative work like a VN, it's also tough to be honest how we feel about things to someone else when work is needed. It might surprise you to hear it, but I agree with you! I can tell you the reasons, that there are 30 variations of the endings, that I was beyond exhausted from making sense of over 150 variables that impact to a greater or lesser degree how things proceed, that I had run out of creative juices so to speak. But a pilot that makes an excellent take-off and a great trip, but crashes the plane on landing can't be told he did a good job. A drastic analogy but you get what I mean =P I won't promise anything, as I don't want to make a commitment, but if only for readers like you who've obviously liked the story I made and the characters, I will try to rethink if I want to redo the ending at some point. Again, no promises; it's hard for me to justify working on a project that did not really have success, but let's say that I have at least the motivation after reading your comment :)

Thank you also for reporting that bug! As I said earlier, there are over 150 variables, so I'm pretty impressed that yours is the first error report I'm getting loll! I'll take that as a good sign that my QA, while not flawless, at least isn't too too bad haha! I'll look into it :) Sadly, I don't know exactly when I'll patch it, but it's duly noted. I apologize that the game ended for you at that point though, I hope you didn't lose too much time retracing your steps =(

As for the spelling mistakes, I appreciate the heads up! A friend of mine kindly combed through the scripts and also pointed out a few mistakes here and there, so I'll take a look at those we're and were as well :) And I do care haha! It's amazing how a typo can take you out of the experience, so gotta make sure there's as few as possible! Though 455k words without an editor, there's bound to be a few here and there =S Add that English is not my first language, so yeah, it's a recipe for disaster lol!

Thank you again for taking the time to write this lovely comment :) I know it will never be a best seller, I know very few people will actually ever read it, and even from the few that do, it may be polarizing... But know that you've made an aspiring writer very happy, simply for playing it :) Thank you!!

Drac

Loudo2 years ago(+2)

You're very sweet, I'm really glad I made you that happy with my little comment! I was a bit worried that my criticism part came off a bit too harsh, but I'm glad you took it constructively as it was intended.

I'm excited to know you might come back to this project, but I totally understand what you're saying, it was a huge amount of work at the time and now you have other things to work on. Do not feel pressured, it was still a worthwhile experience as it is. Of course, if you do choose to write more, I will be reading it. :-)

I'm really sorry that you didn't receive as much appreciation for this project as you'd hoped. I have the feeling that this is not down to any flaw of the story itself, but simply that it still needs to find the right audience. Probably not enough people are giving it a chance because the art is not as eye-catching as in other works and the furry fandom skews more towards the romance/erotica genre. But I get the feeling that you already know that because I see you mentioned these aspects when talking about your next project. I wish you all the success you deserve and I hope that as you become more well known, people will be curious and discover your first work as well!

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

Another funny bit I feel like sharing with someone about the story and that may interest you as the author...

I was so convinced that the big reveal was going to be that Fabio was Valentine ahah! Considering how crazy and Machiavellian Valentine is, I thought he was playing the double identity game and controlling two gangs at once.

It all made sense to me: Fabio had the money and the criminal know-how, Valentine kept using French expressions in his calls, the fur color and the tail matched up, if I'm not mistaken Fabio is never present whenever Valentine calls, there was even a fox in the police force we knew of! Even Valentine's real name is sort of a French name. When it came to the point when Fabio was the only victim whose game took place by phone, I thought to myself "Ah, you're not fooling me, you're alternating between two voices!"

Now I feel bad that I spent half the novel giving poor Fabio the stink eye. ;-(

Dracino2 years ago(+1)

My apologies for the lateness of my reply!! Let's say things have been crazy since the holidays and leave it at that =_=

*****SPOILERS*****
Thanks for sharing that last little bit there! I have to admit that I am quite entertained by how many different conclusions people have come to in regards to the game! I have peppered the story with Red Herrings (e.g because the story implied that Valentine is Canid, well, I decided that half of the characters would be Canid lol), so yes, even Fabio's demeanor is meant to throw off people. Yet its still not that far fetched to find out who the culprit is; with all the information in the game you can get (if you go for the bad ending/save no one that you can), the real one ticks off all the boxes ^^

Thanks again for sharing!

Drac

itch.io

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