I only played this one in English, since I don’t speak the other language. Also, I had Ren’Py’s documentation open in a separate tab so that I could check things like how to make the music go dimmer when other sounds play.
Writing: Having two language options is nice, but I only speak one of those languages, so I’ve only read the English version. I think Ren’Py does support making a single version that asks people which language they want to read it in so you wouldn’t need to make two versions. By the way, I saw one of the strangers at the market (I mean the market in the world that Mauro lives in) says something that looks like it’s in Chinese. Is that meant to be unreadable or is it a line that ended up in the wrong language by mistake?
There were choices too, and I like that one of them, while it did lead to a “bad ending”, put me back at the place where I’d made the choice rather than me having to manually rewind or load a save. I think more VNs should do that (if they do have bad endings, that is). But that one with the telescope was confusing: why does it let me look at the moon over and over?
I like the story and the characters. And Mauro being a monster and not wanting to be one kinda reminds me of how some people dislike some types of people because of their origin or their disabilities or whatever that isn’t really their fault or anything they can change. I wonder if Elvis is also some sort of reference to a real type of people (hopefully nice people too… the first thing that sprang to mind when I tried to think of him as a person was “maybe vampires he did become a vampire because he wanted to but he regretted it and now some magic makes him turn others into vampires, sorta like you might join a cult voluntarily but maybe then they don’t want you to leave and they want you to convert others… or maybe I’m overthinking this). The stranger that speaks a language I don’t understand reminds me of being in a country I don’t belong in, and I guess Una is in a world she doesn’t really belong in… And I feel like I partially belong in one country and partially in another, but I don’t really try to make each country be like another one. Then again, if I’m in Spain and it rains I will put on a raincoat, especially if it’s windy, whereas real Spaniards would use an umbrella and they’d use it even in a blizzard. I guess Una asking Mauro to follow some rules is a bit like her trying to keep some of her human identity. Yet she does seem to not really think a lot about the human world: if you’re used to one place and end up in another one, you’d probably wonder what’s going on in the other place.
Also, the submission page says you made the whole thing and the project page says someone else made the music, SFX, backgrounds and barks. Maybe you could add those names in the about screen (the one you renamed to “Credit”… and maybe if you do put more stuff in that screen you could rename it to “Credits” in plural). I think you can add text somewhere in options.rpy and it would show on that screen before the default text (look for gui.about).
Finally, maybe I’d suggest re-reading the English version of the part where the MC wakes up and is wearing a dress she hadn’t put on. I think I spotted a typo somewhere around there.
Theme: It starts at a Halloween party, it involves a witch, a monster and a vampire. Why do I always write a whole paragraph just about how the VNs I’m writing feedback for fit into the jam’s theme. Well, it fits, so let me go on. What’s next? Audio?
Audio: I liked the music, maybe some parts a little bit more than others. (I suspect some aren’t really meant for people to leave them playing until they loop just to hear the whole thing, but yeah, I tend to do that when I want to write feedback.) There’s quite a few styles (baroque, romantic, impressionist, lullaby, film soundtrack, something jazzy and playful, game soundtrack, boss music, and… folk?). Yet, they don’t really clash as much as you’d expect them to when they’re that different. They do fit the story, and having the music do something crazy when something crazy happens in the story seems kinda fitting.I could try to write what I think about each piece, but maybe that isn’t necessary. (I wrote most of this feedback yesterday in the evening.)
Also, the title screen has some music that loops before it finishes, and when you go from the title screen to the main menu the music restarts. And when the story finishes, it shows some text (“To be continued”, then the “Hi! I’m Raisu…” text) while it starts playing the music that sounds like baroque music, then jumps to the title screen which restarts it. I don’t know how you’re making the music play, but I know that at least in some places you can put if_changed after the name of the music to stop it from restarting if it’s already playing.
The sound effects are nice too. And by that I mean sounds from things that happen. (The speech sounds I call barks.)
The barks work well, but when the MC asks the stranger if she’s been asleep for a long time and the bark sounds like “no” but the text says “about three days” I think that is a bit odd. I mean, it could be that three days is little time for that character, but I don’t think a bark should seem like it contradicts the text.
And the balance seems to be a bit off: the music is at its maximum volume by default, sometimes masking the barks. I guess it doesn’t matter as much as it would if the barks were actual English words, but I still feel like they drown a bit sometimes. But you might consider lowering config.default_music_volume or setting preferences.emphasize_audio to True.
Art: The sprites look good too. Maybe more drawn while the backgrounds look more painted. But at least the different sprites are consistent with each other (the stranger sprite looks a bit less detailed though… but I guess that could be a way of showing it’s an unimportant character).
And also, I might want to mention that the MC’s hat is floating above her head. That’s magic before she finds out that magic exists. It also looks a bit weird when Elvis kisses her, two heads below that hat and yet it’s just floating in the background. If the hat looked like that in the real world, it would probably fall off, and if that world is anything like our world and she went outside, chances are it would at least blow off if it were windy.
And speaking of sprites and odd positioning: when the text says “Pumpkin boots, okay”, the text box maybe gets a bit in the way of too much of those boots.
There are maybe a few places where the expressions don’t quite fit the text. For example, after the line “You are the only person that can break the curse on me, and I need your magic.”, the MC replies “(???)” but is shown smiling in a way like she knows what’s going on, which is odd considering she does have other expressions that would fit better that do show up in other situations.
The backgrounds look pretty nice, and I think they’re fairly consistent with each other. I do think the first one (the MC’s room) looks like it’s a room inhabited by a person and a cat though, so I’m a bit surprised when she got told she’d been sleeping for three days she didn’t say something like “oh no, my cat must be missing me!” or something like that. Or maybe it’s just me that thinks that that thing in the left side of the image looks like something made for a cat to climb on.
I also see a bright spot in the left side in Elvis’ castle. Like a lamp, but floating in the air and with the lampshade somehow invisible… I get that light coming in from the window could hit the wall like that, but then I’d think there would be more than one bright spot.
I also like those animated sequences that appear. But When it zooms in on a part of an image, the pixels and the lack of details become a bit obvious. At least the less detailed image is only shown for a brief moment.
The UI looks nice. I like the little ghost that spins at the end of the text.
The font is cute and it’s not too hard to read. The little hearts are cute, but the number zero being slashed like an Ø might be a little bit confusing… except the text is in English where that isn’t a letter.
Maybe I would consider adding an option in the settings to change the font to something more plain, but I didn’t have trouble reading it, except when the hat got a bit in the way.
And that pumpkin mouse cursor is so cute. (I almost called it cute like a mouse, but apparently that sounds too mousy in English.) Only confusing thing about it is that I’m not quite sure where exactly it’s pointing. If I start the story, get to the name screen, then the name as Una and move the pumpkin to the OK button without clicking, I can move it to the left and right and see when the OK button gets highlighted and when it stops. Placing the pumpkin in the centre of the K and moving it up and down I see that it seems to respond to the position of the very top of the pumpkin: its stem; but putting the end of stem in the middle of the K, I find that the furthest I can move it to the left and still register is to the right of the middle of the O, whereas if I move it to the right I can move it all the way to some spot under the space between “your” and “name?” So either there’s some oddly positioned invisible border around the button or the cursor’s actual position is somewhere to the left of the stem. Maybe if the stem curled to the left it could end at the point it’s pointing at?
Fun: The fact that there’s two languages is nice. Even if I only understand one of them. And the barks help show the mood the characters are speaking in (the expressions help with that too). And I like the story, music and art too.
I notice the title shows without spaces and even with an underscore… in the titlebar. I think that makes sense for a filename, but I wanted to point out that the text in the titlebar doesn’t need to match the filename. If you want to change the title bar text, look for config.name in options.rpy.
What I liked most: The music and characters.
What I’d suggest changing: Maybe don’t let me look at the moon over and over? And maybe have some choices where some of the consequences come a while later. (And perhaps you should avoid opening brackets inside brackets (like I’m doing now), or at least make sure you close as many as you’ve opened.)
I do think this must have been a lot of work for a solo writer, especially in two languages. I only managed to finish mine in one language and even there the writing isn’t as good as I’d wanted it to be.
[Edit: while I was typing a lot of that feedback, I was listening to the main menu music. The one that sounds like baroque music. I think it’s one of those types of music you’d expect to hear in a big and fancy castle (or in a cathedral). The music sounds fancy, like the musical equivalent of a beautifully decorated, expensive chandelier that you’d also see in such a castle. And yeah, some people think VN music shouldn’t be fancy because it distracts from the text, but I don’t really mind fancy music in VNs myself. I think it’s nice to listen to something that sounds like it’s meant to be listened to and not just meant to exist as a background to keep the text in the spotlight.]
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