Hi ExcellentDoughnut4!
Glad to see you've finished all the routes and returned here! ^.^-
First of all, thank you for writing this detailed review! From the meticulous writing, I can feel how you poured your passion and love to it -and I couldn't ask for a better review >///<
1. Ah, Reksa once again claimed the first spot!
I don't have much to say since you've practically already said everything that needs to be said! You even noticed the moment where Reksa returned to warn Tamara about the oncoming war QuQ I get really happy when players notice those small things! And yes, each route has their own weakness & strength, but I have to admit that Tamara is more badass in Reksa's route. There are soft and rough moments here, a lot more balanced compared to Mitra's easy-soft route or Rama's hard-psychology route.
Hmm, maybe I'm a little biased? >< Reksa is the first character I created for this novel so... oh, you asked about how the process behind the novel? Let's continue this later on number 3, okay? x'D
2. Me too! Aside from diving into the past, I also love fantasy genre so Winged Ones is kinda like a mix of those two + an experiment whether I can pull this off or not >< fortunately, it worked! I didn't expect the fighting scenes to be so intense though. Maybe because I watched a lot of movies and animes? But overall, I'm very happy to be able to keep the readers interested from the beginning to the end!
3. Okay, so I told you that Reksa is the first character I created, right?
This visual novel is supposed to be my college's final project. I was experimenting about how to mix anime style with Indonesian culture and create an original character design from it. I already liked VNs back then, so I thought it would be nice to have a demo for a representation.
And so, that's where it all started.
At that time, the inspiration for the story came from a movie called 'A girl that leapt through time', 'Harry Potter', and my love for Angels/Winged People. After lots of revision, trials, and errors, the demo is done and I posted it on lemmasoft for fun. I didn't expect to have so many people like it though >< as more and more people came and ask when is it going to be completed, I decided to YOLO and finish the project.
At first, I used Novelty (A free software, easier than Ren'Py but still in alpha mode). It took me a little more than a year to complete it, but the result is quite bad. This software have bugs in it and there were crashes everywhere.
With no other choice, I decided to learn Ren'Py from scratch and managed to finish the Ren'Py version in a long year of sweat and blood.
After seeing the positive comments, I decided to walk the path of becoming an indie VN developer x'D
*cough*
I hope I didn't bore you with my text wall o.o;
But thanks for asking and I hope you get to become a great programmer! If you want to be a game dev, you'll need dedication and commitment, but after that? It's very fulfilling to see our characters came to life :'D
Oh, and here's some good news for you:
Winged Ones is coming to Steam really soon! There's going to be a major fix on the grammar, achievement system, and trading card later in the future if the game is going well and reached certain threshold on reviewers! But because Steam is a commercial platform, I decided to put a price of $4.99 there >< However! I will give away Steam Keys for loyal supporters, so please drop your email down here so I can send it to you later ~
I'm also in the middle developing my 2nd project called 'Nusantara: Bermuda Triangle'. It's not a sequel; it's a new story but the setting is the same yet, much, MUCH, broader than just an island. More info can be seen by clicking my profile and click the game page ^.^-
Last but not least, thank you for your support and warm review! I guess I'll see you around? ;)
xoxo,
SweetChiel