This is even better than anything I could have even imagine, mixing the best from both worlds. It's even really easy to edit and adapt by just changing the numbers until it fits perfectly. Thank you very much, even more considering how fast you got it. Have an amazing new year and I'll make sure to add your name to the credits once it's out (still a long time for that, sadly).
Thanks!
Absolutely incredible code, thank you very much.
I have one small question/suggestion if you don't mind, though. The current code make characters talk as the text appears on screen, however, some players really like to speed up the text so it appears inmeditely, giving the feeling that the character only move their mouth for an instant.
Is there a way or do you think it would be possible to apply the flapping depending of the number of characters in text instead of the speed the text appears on screen? That way it would always feel as if the player is talking through the entire sentence instead of finishing as soon as the text ends.
Thanks again for the great work and sorry for bothering.
After completing the game, you get a small extra by pressing the new ???? option. Here they will tell you about getting all hearts with all characters, and if you do and reach the end of the game again, there's a short extra scene. After that visit the ????? and you get the achievement.
Summary: get all hearts and complete the game again.
Thank you a lot for the comment dayfly! It means the world to me to receive this kind of thoughtful feedback.
You mentioned tons of things there! I really like that it made you think this much, that was the idea in a sense. To think and question while having a good time, that's all I ever wanted out of this and knowing it did for you is great. Especially if at the end it left you with some sense of loss, but still hopeful (for a reason hope is the final message of the game!).
The beginning being lacking is something that I thought about. The idea was to make a huge contrast of it with the rest of the story to make clear it is a different story and narrator, but I think I could have handled it differently. Probably my biggest mistake of the book now in retrospective, but as you say it also filters out people which was probably for the best on the long term.
Anyway thanks a lot, listening to your ideas was great. Let me know if you ever give it a second run :)
Haha thank you very much. Yes I appreciate the comments really, I try to never take it as something negative, the opposite, just the fact you guys put this tome to comment and talk to me means you really liked it and it is a true honor for me.
I may open beta testing too soon in fact, just finishing the demo of the new game (well, it is more like a short introductory chapter). I want to give around a private beta first for only a few players then I'll make it public. You'll find out in the website if you register to receive emails or follow any of the accounts: twitter, tumblr, facebook, discord. https://www.lotusreverie.com/
Sorry for transforming this in a shameless self-plug but I'm working really hard for this new novel :P
Thank you very much for your comment, I really appreciate the support and thank you for reading this story that I worked so hard to try to make to become true :)
ABOUT THE SPOILERS
I get you. It is actually a thing a lot of people have commented. It is sad but I think it is appropriate to fully give this bitter feeling to the end of the story. I have actually thought about making a "definitive" edition of the novel after a lot of people asked me for it with better backgrounds and actually putting some money into it (this has been made with the smallest of budgets, never thought people would even download that much in the first place). This way I could offer a bit of "fanservice" and add these extra routes and fill some of your requests. But I'm currently 100% busy with my new novel Lotus Reverie so that will have to wait to be honest. I'll keep it in mind though!
Thanks a lot for your kind words signus! I really appreciate it.
(Spoilers)
Umm as you say it is a bit troublesome if I say "what happens next", and more in this story that the entire point at the end is about "Based on a story that I will make true", putting everything in that hope that you need to use to build your own future. However I can say that the ending is obviously bittersweet and that as you can guess the birthday party doesn't really happen, at least not normally.
Growing distant is not a bad thing though, since sometimes that may be the best to forget about the past and get over the trauma... and Ziva's own obsession. She was also stuck in the past trying to heal Ciar, making it dubious if she was in love, was only a sense of responsibility, or maybe even her own selfish desire to "make things right" and bring that "perfect world" she talks about in Chapter 4 at the arcade.
Maybe even after going past their past they can meet again, and start all over. That would be great don't you think? At the end you can't really know since this is a story full of lies, and whatever truth you try to guess out from it depends of your own interpretation (or at least that was my aim).
Finally about Koishi... you are totally right hahaha. I'm pretty much touhou obsessed so yes, Koishi was a reference for Claire the entire time (and Marisa for Luce to a lesser degree I would say). While writing I would think of her, and then finally when I explained and made documentation for Bonkiru, the artist, she was the main reference I gave him. Never told him to use the same color scheme, only the hair had to be silver for symbolism about the moon and she had to be a loli to make sure it fits with the time Ciar's trauma happened, but since it is a nice color scheme he just decided to use it anyways and go for it.
He did the same for Ausse using Battler from Umineko as the reference (they look a bit alike, right?) and the Baldy using Professor Badass as reference. Although knowing him he could probably work as a teacher too, who knows?!
Anyways thanks again for everything, I appreciate these comments a lot and they help during the hard times of deving (practically everyday tbh). So you all help to make this worth it. Thank you!
Got it! As I said before right now we don't really need anything but I'll keep your email and let you know if something comes up or at least I manage to announce the title. Every little help will probably be appreciate it since we are aiming high this time. Thank you and see you around! Suerte a ti también.
Hello Swordticus, or should I say hola? Si eres argentino imagino que la segunda es una mejor opción pero voy a usar inglés ya que me has preguntado en inglés por ahora ;)
Glad to see I made an impact on you, it's always great to hear stories like that and it makes all the work worth it. Hope your gf likes it too (and well even if she doesn't it's always nice to get feedback at least haha). For my new project we are working pretty hard right now to be able to announce it and don't really need anything "right now" but maybe in the future that may not be the case. Feel free to send me or leave me your portfolio for your art if you want, who knows if I may request you something someday, or at least I always like to see what other artists do (and support them too since I know how hard is to get somewhere in this craft). Or simply feel free to add me to twitter (@Keinart) or something when the time comes. I sure will need all kind of proofreading and testing in every possible language (I actually write in spanish since I'm from Spain myself and then translate to english), so you can count with that at least haha.
See you around and thank you!
Haha that's ok, you are not the only one who thinks the Baldy was a bit overboard and it's understandable. I guess I simply have a thing for absurd humor and the Baldy is the kind of humor resource that strikes me fancy. Still I'm glad you liked it overall and I apreaciate your comment and insight. I'm also glad to see you figured out a lot of small details most people don't notice :)
Thank you very much, and nothing to be sorry about I really appreciate your comment! You are not wrong about the moonlight and sunlight part either, I think in general you got a really good grasp of everything including Ziva and everything else :)
Thank you very much for your comment, and stay tune for more things in the future!
Ah, creo que es un bug raro porque ya ha habido más de uno que me lo ha dicho que le pasa y sinceramente no he conseguido nunca replicarlo. Si quieres desbloquearlo es tan fácil como volver a pasar por el juego, puedes simplemente hacer nueva partida y darle al tab para que se salte todo el texto y con eso debería ser suficiente. Es extraño porque a la mayoría le suele pasar solamente con la CG de la piscina, pero a veces a otros les pasa con otra, a ti con tres. Si algún día averiguo por qué pasa intentaré parchearlo.
Por lo demás gracias por el comentario, me alegra que te haya gustado. ¡Un placer!
Hey thanks for the comment, I appreciate it and I'm glad you liked the novel.
For the bald guy he is mostly comedic relief but it has a biiiiit of symbolism on him, not directly related to him as for the narration as a whole of the story and how absurd his scenes are. If you haven't checked make sure you read the One Hidden Truth in the main menu, I'm guessing you did but just saying because some people missed it.
Hello Sandpixie. Sorry to hear that. Maybe you downloaded the wrong version? Make sure you download the windows, linux or mac version according to your system. Also maybe something went wrong during the download in the processs and maybe you need to download again. I can't help you with that since the downloads are managed by itch.io so please just try again. If after that it's still not working let me know and send me a screenshot of the error if possible, I'll help to fix it.
Thank you, I'm glad you liked it that much. You can probably find me around twitter https://twitter.com/Keinart
I also have a blog (also I don't update it that much and it's mostly in spanish, sorry for that): http://keinart.weebly.com/
I'm not very talkative myself and I'm usually busy so I can't promise anything but feel free to ask anything from time to time if you want :)
I'm a guy, male yes. I don't know why someone called me she before lol. I had a Trumblr long time ago but I didn't really used it that much. What I use the most is twitter (@Keinart) so you can probably find me there.
Uhmm the Luce thing, that's again one of those things I would like to leave people to imagine, but I think something more "mature" and "masculine" would be kinda funny, wouldn't it? Something like Punch of the North Star or Jojo, it would be special and the kinda unexpected thing I would love to find out of someone like Luce.
And the Ziva thing, well, they were kids after all, so they really never had a true relationship as to be sure if they were in love with each other. It's that more pure love or just caring for an old friend? Ziva is the kind of responsible woman that takes care of everything she does by himself, it is mentioned a few times how she took all the work for the committee and some other things until everything would be perfect, so it wouldn't be weird to think that the thing Ziva had with Ciarán was more related to her sense of responsibility than actual love... or maybe not. Again I prefer people thinking about this.
Also her introduction without Ciar it's something like this: "Hi, I'm Ziva. I'm from the same class as Endyein. I love to study the human brain and I hope to become a psychologist one of these days." Kinda the normal introduction, isn't it? I think it's a lot better how it is right now, even if Ziva gets mad for it.
Diniz: some people have actually complain about how Diniz wasn't really developed that much, but I think that was a bit the point with him. He's more the kind of the "observer" character, someone that is "just there". You don't see his personality directly since he doesn't talk that much, but through other people. How he was in the past, how he acts in the present. He knows everything but tries to not do that much, he's a bit the opposite to Ziva, trying to help by "not helping". I think he's interesting enough and leaves the reader with doubts and ideas about him that helps to don't make the general plot not so easy. So he's more of a support, a small role that actually impacts big if you keep attention to the details (he's mentioned as soon as in chapter 2, but most people don't even realize this).
Ciar: well he's the main character, so I guess he's my favorite, not so much because of personality but because how complete he is. It's obvious he's the most developed character, but well, this is his story, it's all about his development, so there wouldn't be any point to this story without him. The main point I wanted to make with him was how he was a character in a gray area. Most characters in all stories represent something in society, they are important with great lives so they catch attention, or they are depressive, lost at the bottom, trying to make everything sad. I wanted to make something different with him, as if someone who doesn't really have a reason to be sad or happy. He's not unkown in his class or school, he's a clown after all, but at the same he's kinda unapproachable, since he's so sarcastic and a general asshole about everything. So that puts him in a gray area, people knows him, nobody really cares about him since he seems to be doing well, but at the same time nobody admires him, nobody really wants to be close friends with him. All his relationships are superficial and mediocre, and there's really nothing that makes him special. With time you can hear about his trauma and leg and everything, but the point of all that was how it all was psychological, how he actually didn't really have any problems. Nobody ever blamed him of anything, nobody ever throught high of him: and that was made him suffer. People need an identity, they need to be someone to somebody, to be able to be proud of something, and that was kinda the point about this character and his relationship with Pygmalion story. I think he represents really well the current youth in society, how nowadays most people can't really complain about their lives since they had all their basic necessities covered, they had good families, education, money, everything. But at the same they are nobodies, they are just one more person among a million, they are not the best at anything, neither the worse, they don't have any sad story to share, neither a victory. That gray area creates a void of emptyness in a lot of people, and there's no answer to that, not help.
For the pairing, well I'm the author, so I'm with the pairing I put at the ending lol. I understand some people would like more some other pairings but I guess that's ok, not everyone will feel the same about what I tried to convey and that's great. Same for a possible Ziva and Ausse pairing, I'll let people think what they want about that. Also the Luce and Ziva thing wasn't really gay lol (well, again it's ok if people want to think that), but it was more about Luce just admitting how Ziva was so great. Luce is not really envious or anything and she can be really direct about what she thinks so she doesn't have any issues stating how Ziva is obviously a better person than her, and also has a great body (maybe she has a bit of concern about a lack of something? Oh... I better let this for the readers once again).
The Ausse thing at the end was a bit of a joke and not. The situation actually got out of hand for him, to a point it would put him in an embarassing moment, but since people is used to him being a prankster nobody actually took it seriously. It was a small point I wanted to make about how sometimes being a liar can be really useful if you don't want to be labeled of anything. Nobody would take a clown seriously.
I think this covers everything. Wew that was long. In any case thanks again for your comments, and feel free to ask anything any time again (you can do it in spanish if you want lol). Bye!
Woah that was a long comment. I appreciate it, though, I'm glad to see this... passion I guess we can call it. Also I'm answering in english since your comment is in english but Spanish is also my mother tongue so it may be a bit weird.
Well let's see there's a lot to comment. First I wanna tell you that I don't really like to give all the answers, so I may leave some things open. I prefer people thinking about it themselves. And second: SPOILERS, so for people reading this that doesn't know anything about the story, please avoid!
For the Wolf story, well there's a lot to comment there, I may create a blog entry about it one day but the main point behind it was to recreate what you were reading in the story to a point inside another story. The entire "story that should be true" in a more complex way with certain representations and metaphors. The other characters on the story, like the snake, crow and all that, they are not necessarily people from the "real world", but actually influences in the main character. Each chapter represents certain types of "pressure" the wolf receives, expectations he must fulfill if he wants to reach an objective. The very moment you need something from the world, the world will put labels on you on one way or another, that's why in each chapter the characters try to put a "label" on the wolf. The first chapter, about right and left, represents control, and how Ciar was obsessed with controling everything through lies to be able to reach his objective. The entire complex plan to express his feelings avoiding the risks of his trauma, it is made clear how his plan "will fail" because the sun "has already won", because how right and left, black and white, happiness or sadness, how they are change so brutaly at every given moment during this chapter. Because they are all lies, and with so many lies you can't really control anything.
The second chapter with the snake is about tentations. The vivid colors of the snake, her attitude about being really close and flirty. Those represents tentations on Ciar about going "one step ahead", in this case saying the truth about his feelings. However he knows how tentations can lead to the poison of the snake. There's fear of failing now that things are going well, and at the end avoids the snake just to suffer more and more in his doubts, just because at the end all he wants is to make sure the the moon will be there to run away in case he needs it.
The crow chapter is about relationships, that's why is about a collaboration between the wolf and the crow, how they need each other to get an objective, in this case represented through food. What Ciar is trying to express here is how he managed to make it so far until now thanks to his friends (Ziva, Ausse, etc...). He needs of society to reach the sun, all humans needs of others for everything and nobody is truly fully independent, however what is put in doubt here is how real can this relationships be considered. Is there really love? Friendship? Or is everything just people acting for their own benefit (including yourself)? That's why this part of the story is called Real, and the crow never gives his name. In the previous story it was right or left, warm or cold, in this it should be real or false, but it is never really expressed which one is the correct one. So, are these relationships real or false? That's what the wolf (Ciar) doesn't know. Or doesn't want to know, because he himself may be false too.
There's more to it than just this. The references to Skoll and Haiti, Yagatarasu and some other things, but I'll leave those for people to investigate themselves.
Now, about my opinion for the characters. Let's see, this may take long.
Luce: she's great. I just can't help but love her. I tried to create a character that people would fall in love with. Not so much because of her aspect (that she's pretty sure, but Ziva for example was made more appealing exactly for this reason), but because of her personality. I wanted to create someone that you would fall in love with her a little bit more with each scene. So you first see her and she almost doesn't talk, then in each scene she's more and more brave, opening herself more, and showing how strong she actually is. She's the strongest character in the game, she manages to overcome everything by herself and just by her power of will. However, she still becomes embarassed about showing certain parts of herself, and doesn't really want to to be labeled by other people. In that aspect I took some aspects that actually happen to me to try to make her more realistic and tackle some themes in the novel, to make sure her character is more complete. The final plan was to make sure that you, the reader, fall in love with her, so you can identify better with Ciarán at the end and become overwhelmed when she actually saves you, and not the other way around, changing the usual style romantic visual novels follow where the guy saves the girl.
Ziva: She's pretty, and in this case I wanted to make it as a more perfect character. She's the best in every aspect. She loves the main character in her own way, she's popular, helpful, caring, attractive, she's even good at videogames! In a lot of visual novels and anime one thing that happens a lot is how there's clearly a girl that is better at everything that everyone loves, but the main character goes with someone else for no real reason and makes everyone mad. Here I wanted to defy that in a different way most people would understand: Ziva is perfect, but she's not the most compatible person with Ciarán. I think this is something really important that most creators don't know how to handle. The scenes between Luce and Ciarán are interesting because you can see a chemistry between the two. Sure they insult each other and all that, but it's made obvious how their compatibility is really high, however with Ziva is different. They are not compatible, they can be friends, and Ziva sure, is great, but it's not what Ciarán needs. Her caring aspect is not good for a Ciar that, due to his trauma, can't really accept help from other people, that suffers when people spend their time or efforts on him. Luce is different in that aspect, she even bullies Ciar from time to time, but that's precisely what Ciarán needs. So here comes the point: sometimes the best for us is not "the best" option, but the one that helps us to grow, so even though the story with Ziva ends kinda... let's say... bad, at the same time I think no one really felt as if it was forced, people can relate to how Ziva is great but there's a pit that separates the two that can't be helped. Life is not fair, and sometimes you can't do anything about it.
Ausse: Oh man Ausse is such a great character. He's a character that has survived me some other novels and projects that never actually came to light. The first point was to make him the cliche flirty friend that loves all the girls, and sure he is, but it was all to get to his conclusion and theme at the end. About how the personality can't really be set in stone for someone, how people can decide what to be or how to act depending of the situation and that's not a bad thing. People get obsessed about being "something" or "someone" in particular. I'm personally tired of hearing that "just be yourself" as if "yourself" was actually something. People change all the time, they act differently with different people, and that's ok. Ausse takes that and makes jokes about it, becomes whom he wants to become and helps the main character in his own way. Sometimes people think that you can only be friends with someone when you talk serious or deep themes, but I think a good friend can also be that guy that only wants to make you happy, even if it's just with silly things.
Wow, thank you, I'm glad you liked it so much. Let's start from the beginning and see what I can answer:
Everyone is always confused about that character lol. I actually prefer not to say it so I can let people think about it, but I can say you are not totally mistaken with your assumption and are actually pretty close! I personally prefer if you think more about it instead of giving you the answer directly, but If you still wanna know for sure what happened I can tell you that someone in the Steam forums of the game managed to solve it, so you can look there to find the answer. Since someone "already solved it" I took the freedom of creating a personal blog too where I give some answers about One Thousand Lies and some other things: http://keinart.weebly.com/
The blog is bilingüal so you can filter to only english entries. Still I personally prefer if people don't try to get the answer from me at least until they haven't think about it first. In the other hand I prefer to give an "official answer" because I hate those pretentious authors that never give any answers, I always get the feeling that they never actually had any idea of what they were doing and are just letting the fans to fill the holes in their own story with whatever they can come up. One Thousand Lies contains some certains points that are open in purpose, but mostly everything has an answer.
About greek, yes I used a lot of greek! The story after all is a new modern interpretation of the Pygmalion myth, so there's a huge greek influence. Ciarán's surname is also greek, ενδυειν, that at the same time is a variation of another myth, the myth of Endymion. For Claire you are not mistaken. I thought that was a surname, I didn't know it was a name nowadays.
For Luce however I made a bit of a play there so even thought it can be read in Greek, the main meaning for her surname is not from Greek but from Latin (but we all know how Latin took a lot from Greek anyways), so her surname meaning is actually "Golden". Claire surname is supposed to mean "Silver" so take your own conclusions considering the story (this is also something that I answer in the blog, so take a look if you want).
Anyways thank you very much for reading and for your comment, I appreciate it a lot.
Gracias a ti por leerlo y por el comentario, me alegra que te haya gustado tanto.
Lo del apellido es normal porque es Griego (ενδυειν) y es algo complicado, se pronuncia como "endin", alargando la "i". Significa algo así como "adentrarse en el interior" y es de donde viene el nombre Endimión. En la mitología griega la diosa de la luna Selene se enamora de Endimión, y bueno, digamos que tiene una profunda relación con la historia al igual que con Pigmalión.
Muchas gracias a ti por leerla. Esta clase de comentarios hace que valga la pena todo al final, así que muchas gracias. Ahora, sobre tus spoilers:
****************SPOILER****************
1. Realmente tanto Ziva como Diniz no es que no actúen como si no le conocieran, sino que jamás mencionan el pasado e intentan hacerse los locos respecto a ese tema. Es un tema tabú ya que cualquier mención al mismo activa el trauma del protagonista y por ende el dolor en su pierna. Ya desde la presentación de Diniz intenté que los diálogos de Ciar con él fueran un tanto "extraños", como que da un poco de vergüenza ajena verlos, con silencios indebidos. Intentan actuar como si no pasase nada pero se nota que hay algo ahí que falla.
2. La segunda pregunta, bueno, esta es la pregunta que me hace todo el mundo jajaja. La verdad es que prefiero no dar la respuesta 100% y dejar que la gente sea la que piense al respecto y saque sus propias versiones. Aunque puedo asegurar que hay una explicación lógica detrás de todo lo de Claire. Te daré una pista de todas maneras, lo importante no es tanto lo que ella "es", o si existe o si no existe, sino el contexto en torno a ella. ¿Cuál era su objetivo? ¿De qué o quién hablaban sus diálogos? ¿Para qué la usaba Ciarán? Sólo existe una única respuesta a todas esas preguntas que tenga sentido, y esa es la realidad de esta historia. En un tiempo de todas maneras igual me animo a dar todas las respuestas de la historia claramente, pero prefiero dejar un tiempo para que cada uno se coma el coco lo que quiera.
****************FIN DEL SPOILER****************
Sobre poner un juego gratis en Steam, pues sólo tienes que intentar pasar el Greenlight. Dentro de la propia Steam tienen esa opción y sólo tienes que seguir los pasos. El único problema es que tienes que pagar 100 dólares para poder entrar, y luego depende de los votos de la comunidad y un poco de suerte que te pillen. Pero oye, yo nunca pensé que me aceptarían y aquí estoy. Yo empecé como tú, tenía alguna cosa escrita y quise animarme a hacer algo más grande y me puse a aprender Renpy, un poco de programación y a intentar mejorar mi escritura. Para mi sería un honor motivar a más personas a dedicarse a esto y si esto es lo que quieres hacer, ¡HAZLO! No dudes, se pasan muchos momentos malos y muchos altibajos, pero luego puedes leer comentarios de gente que se emociona con lo que has escrito y hace que todo lo demás merezca la pena :)
Si quieres colaborar económicamente, pues bueno, aquí en Itch.io puedes "comprar" el juego (aunque ya lo tengas) dandole a descargar o puedes directamente irte a mi paypal: http://paypal.me/keinart De todas maneras el dinero es secundario y si te resulta difícil o no puedes usar paypal o cualquier otra cosa pues no te preocupes. La intención y el sentimiento es lo que cuenta.
Muchas gracias de nuevo y la mejor de las suertes para ti y tu futuro.
