Tay

I agree this isn't a big deal, but as the title of the topic is about little things which make the site more fun, this is the right place to discuss it. Before I say anything more, let me be especially clear about one thing: Just as I've said all over the forums, Fuwanovel isn't going to take a dive into hierarchy. The Fuwa improvement forum represents that whole ideal/movement, and our goal for the community is to let the best (feasible) ideas rule (as opposed to the ideas of those in power). With that context, here's where I come down on the issue: Like Batman and Aaeru, I think Fuwanovel has a good thing going on with the concept of level-playing-field. As I said above, if we lived in a perfect world I'd have all members (and mods and admins) use the same colors to push this philosophical point. I can also understand the logic of helping new members find people (mods) who can answer questions THUS: If a lot of mods or members would like a color change, I suggest we go with the idea provided by Flutterz -- just a darker shade of green. That seems pretty harmless. We're going to keep Admins as red -- for the reasons I listed above -- but a very subtle change for mods is fine by me. That's going to be my suggestion: if we think it'll be helpful, mods display color could be a slightly darker green to distinguish them. Admins will stay Red. (Thanks for a great suggestion, Flutterz)

Blog Entry. Thanks so much, Nosebleed!

Thanks a lot! (+Rep) It takes a surprising amount of time to build these inventories. They're a great, concise resource for many people. Mind if I blog it?

I agree with the sentiments here. The only reason I don't advocate for even admins to be labeled in the same color is that on several occasions non-Fuwanovel people have been helped in identifying me (and found my contact info on my profile page) by the red text.

I hope everything's okay, Kuu. Thank you for everything you do for us. I sent you an email, so please check your inbox. Take care, and I hope to see you back soon. - Tay

Congratulations to Purple Software!

How about : "Phantastic"

Seconded.

lol. If that's something you'd like to do, Kaguya, it's all yours : D Go, Go Special Project Ranger! Mighty Kaguya, Moderator!

Does a non-mod want to check and see if they have permissions to add events to the calendar (green "add event" button in the top-right area)? If not, I'll be happy to add the events if people can help me get the dates. This doesn't need to be a big project or anything, but if people want to add these sorts of things to the calendar, I say "let's do it!" Example: Fate/Stay Night Saber - Birthday unknown Rin - February 4 Sakura - March 2nd First day of the game: ?? (need to look up)

Thanks for reading through my long responses. Yeah, I wish you the best of luck! My comments regarding dialog might not have been clearly phrased. I realize that your aim was to characterize and express personality through the dialog itself (which is important in good writing). My point was that the dialog itself needed to be redrafted before -- in my opinion -- any of that characterization could come through. Right now my attention is drawn to the wording itself, and not to what the characters are saying (or the personalities which are saying it). My suggestion would be to read through all the conversations out loud. I think you'll see what I mean. All the same, good luck! Keep us posted.

Generally only moderators and Admins are given upload access to the forums. That's why those media functions don't work for you. That decision came ~a year ago when either Aaeru and I or Ryoji and I were worried about blanket upload permissions. While I know it's a pain to have to host images off-site, it's meant as a preventative measure.

Happy birthday to Tief Blau, FriendlyFire, Stanleys, and KurotsukiX! And to everybody I missed! Happy birthday and much love!

Darood, Did you finish the Fate route yet, or are you still playing? The route itself addresses (in part) your frustration. Saber and Shirou have to grow (a lot) after that first h-scene, and their relationship (both as master/servant (non-romantic), and as lovers) grows substantially. One thing we have in common is we found strong female leads to be one of the most appealing aspects of the game. As you continue in the Fate route (as well as in UBW and HF), I think you'll find (as did I) that relationship issues (like having Rin in the first h-scene) is part of a running commentary on war, and not because the story is minimizing the women or their relationships. The authors work hard to put redeeming, intimate scenes later in the arcs, but use early content to stress the dire circumstances of the HGW. (I'm not a fan of h-scenes, and a lot of people hate F/SN's h-scenes, but the narrative intent is there) My advice is to not get discouraged. I lean pretty heavily towards feminism, and while F/SN has its problems, Shirou and Saber do grow to have a quality relationship. Don't give up on them yet.

So sad I missed this! Maybe we should go through our favorite games and put their starting dates on the Fuwanovel calendar? That way we can celebrate all our favorite games.

Here are the rest of my impressions from the demo. Specific thoughts Looping sound effects are often grating. Longer effect loops with lower volumes will help. For things like this, or adding more lines to dialog boxes (with auto-fitting/scaling, etc.) you can find tutorials on lemmasoft or in the Ren’py support documents. A chronic issue in the demo was the need for less telling and more showing. When you talk about the mindstorm being overwhelming, we’re informed of the fact but not introduced to the sounds and sights and memories which are actually overloading the narrator. Instead of telling us (the readers) that the character is overwhelmed by the details, we (the readers) need to ourselves be overwhelmed by it! A random example from the start: show us why the memory is overwhelming (ex: “The memories are too real and there’s too much to them. It’s too much to remember every raindrop falling on my coat. It’s too much to remember the number of ripples racing across the puddle under my feet. My senses strain and buckle under the load of the perfect memory. // The sound of the rain becomes a roar as my vision goes white. I can’t process it all. The memories are too many, too perfect…”) Another example of telling and not giving us more (or showing): “That piece of writing was key in defining who I am now.” These statements could be expanded upon to give real narrative depth, insight into the narrator. Right now they’re all over the place, which means there’s a lot of chances to make the story even better. Add more sentences to each dialog box (more sentences per click). (Last time I bring this one up, promise!) “And just like that, it’s over.” <-- Stop the sound effects at this screen. The rain effect goes on too long. THE INTRO MOVIE IS AWESOME!!! What is the sound effect which kicks in post-intro movie? It sounds like rustling and it’s endlessly looping. It sounds very distracting. Is it the sound of rain on the roof? Keeping the narrator’s name “???” for a while at the start of the game was an interesting choice. Why did you decide to do it that way? The phone conversation early in the game is stiff and could probably be cut in half with editing. Make sure the Kyousuke’s personality is firm before finalizing the dialog: right now I can’t tell what he’s like (he’s simultaneously friendly-abusive, friendly-caring, and extremely formal). This is further complicated by Aoki calling him a “cretin”, etc. Make their relationship ultra-clear from the get-go. Why is the word “Mindstorm” in quotes in much of the early dialog? You already introduced it to us at the start. Now it’s a proper noun and plot point which we know about, so it can be left on its own. (Update: all of a sudden the quotes went away. Maybe it just needs to be edited out of the earlier lines) The music is very nice! (except maybe for the overly carnival like parts : )) Aoki’s voice is hard to track. Is there a reason his lines are stiff? “Why are you at the mercy of this downpour?”, the line about an “auspicious occasion” to recite a poem, etc. I think I’m starting to understand your use of quotes. “Mindstorm”. “Masterkey”. You use quotes to highlight your fiction’s jargon, right? I think you might be better served by making them a different color (PURPLE!!) than putting them in quotes. The explanatory sequences – where the backgrounds dim and text is centered – are very helpful. If anything, use more of them so you don’t feel the need to sneak worldbuilding into the dialog (where it comes across as out-of-place). I liked having a sound effect announce the decision points. Very nice touch! I’d suggest cleaning up the UI a little when you use character portraits next to their dialog. Right now the face images are layered transparently over the “Violet Hill” image on the far-left. AaAH! My ears! Have that ringing/screeching sound effect fade in and out (a few times if absolutely necessary – don’t let it loop. : ) I almost died, there.), having it ring continuously made me want to furiously click through the dialog until it stopped. Sasaski’s dialog was a little hard for me to swallow (thankfully she gets great music). It was often awkwardly formal (and not in an in-character sort of way) (ex: “That’s right young sir, you could tell?”, followed by a lot of informal language, like “Umm…” etc.). I know this is done purposefully (you have a line pointing this out: “She’s acting strange… now she’s suddenly informal.”), but it doesn’t come across that way yet. If the dialog is tightened up (and grammar fixed), you could show her insecurity without needing to point it out. (… but, really, kill the “young sir” line. She’s young herself, and other polite references would work just as well in the situation) The characterization confusion continues later with phrasings like “Eh? But prez!” Aoki’s conversation with Sasaki was confusing. He’s warm, friendly, making a friend. That grates with the antisocial, conflicted Aoki who called the friend encouraging him to be social a “cretin”. Minamoto’s music really grew on me. It’s great for her early characterization. Will it change as we get to know her better? The switching of the art club presidency was odd. Do it later in the game (such as after Aoki manages to get Kanade in). It really doesn’t make coming at this point (and the line from Minamoto, “There’s no one more capable than you.” was out of place, out of character, and very odd). Minamoto has reasons for saying so (which makes the comment seem less out of place in retrospect), but the timing is off. Later in the game (even just shortly after), such as in the first club meeting or after Aoki displays his talent to them (or as a reward for getting a 4th member) makes more narrative sense. Overall Impressions: Characterization – Needs to be tightened up. A lot. I’d suggest working extra hard to find each character’s personality and voice, and then redrafting the dialog to be consistent with the characters. Of all the characters, Minamoto was done best, but even she needs a lot of work in the second half of the demo. She keeps a relatively stable personality across most of the first half of the story up until the phone call to her late at night (which had a lot of promise, but her characterization quickly got loose and out of hand. I liked having her show excitement (read: more than a cool/cryptic side), but she quickly started speaking in ways outside the personality you’d developed for her. That phone call marked the point of change away from her solid personality). Intro Movie – Extremely good. I’d use it as quickly as possible, in fact. The intro to the Mindstorm is a good idea (but it should be made much shorter and more concise and more vivid (show not tell!)), but it should be notable and quick and quickly lead to the movie. The movie is so good that it promises a quality product. It may make up for a slightly cryptic intro and keep the reader going. Dialog – Stiff, verbose but promising. If it was redrafted to be consistent with personalities and the grammar was cleaned up, I’d say it would come across much better. Also, I think you could cut all the conversations in half by making them concise and clear, and the game would really benefit from it. Sound effects – need to be volume-adjusted, and many need their loops to be adjusted. Also, some are confusing. Pacing – Slow it down. Introduce the major characters before introducing the first plot problem (art club members). Right now the narrative feels washed out: Meet girl A, meet girl B, art club, need one more girl, meet girl C, assume girl C will be the fourth member = easy solution, etc.. And, if I haven’t already said it enough, SHOW NOT TELL! You’ve got an interesting cast of characters. As a reader, I don’t want to be informed about plot developments, I want to watch them. Also, that’ll give you more opportunities to concisely and creatively reveal characters (as opposed to the voice of Aoki/God simply instructing us). I’ll look forward to seeing more of the game. Good luck, you can do it!

You're great for taking criticism constructively. I'm playing the game right now and will post my thoughts in a bit. Besides overall thoughts/suggestions/criticisms, let me know if I can help out in other ways. My responsibilities with Fuwanovel (and work, and grad school, etc.) would prohibit me from helping in any major way, but I'd be happy to have a skype session and go over parts of the game in-depth with you or whomever. I'll post the rest soon. Thanks!

They all make me cry, tbh. It's actually much easier to list the VNs which didn't make me cry: Snow Sakura and the vast majority of OELVNs I've played to date. Games like Katawa Shoujo, Fate/Stay Night, Sharin no Kuni and Planetarian blew me away, and I pretty much bawled in each route. That's one of the reasons why I love VNs so much: somehow they squeeze their way into my heart and bring out all sorts of catharsis, feelings and memories which I don't often access. So many memories with those games...

(I'm only just getting to this post. Sorry for the delay.) Let me preface this by saying that I've done a lot of writing and have taught a few writing classes, and so my critiques are coming as a fellow writer, and not necessarily just as a reader. I tried to include helpful criticism (such as my immediate technical difficulties and my impressions as a reader after the first 60 seconds of starting the game (post-disclaimers)). These have always been useful metrics for me as a writer, and I hope they'll be useful to you. I won't have time to finish the full demo right this minute, but I'll post again with my overall thoughts once I've finished the demo. In any case, I'm looking forward to following your project! Tested on Win7 desktop and Win8 Surface Pro 2. Technical problem right away: When I first booted up the program the game window opened up to a size of 1920x1080p. That meant that most of the game was skewed off screen, and it took me a second to realize that I could resize the window to my liking. I mention this because Ren’py has some cool functions to set a default window size when a user first opens the program. My suggestion would be to choose a smaller default window size and include a note during an intro sequence that the window can be resized. (the 1920x1080p window size was linked to my PC's resolution) Technical suggestion: Include the ability to resize text. On some monitors – like my Surface 2 Pro tablet/computer – the text is extremely small and hard to read. A lot of VNers are playing VNs on PC tablets these days. First 60 seconds impressions The title screen is beautiful. The dripping sound effect would sound better if the individual drip sounds were spread much further apart. It rapidly got annoying (for lack of a better word). In the first 60 seconds I was introduced to what will be a key narrative plot point: the “mindstorm” (good!), but its description was convoluted and I have no idea why it's important or where this story is going (not so good). In other words: The writing didn’t offer an immediate hook and failed to grip me. Sentences felt convoluted most of the time and need a lot of editing for grammar. That said, it was accentuated with a few fantastic and insightful sentences (ex: “I’m afraid to be alone with myself.”) <-- These sorts of sentences are vivid, use active voice, and were insightful into the character. Sentence spacing (or whatever term you want to use for how many sentences appear per-click) was distracting. I think every sentence of my 60-second-impression required its own click and stood naked on its own dialog screen. A lot of the sentences would be better if grouped together (one example would be: “Not because of any foreign feeling or my warped awareness, but because there is nowhere [for me] to go. I cannot hide from myself.” <--- Note, I fixed some grammar in that example.) If I were to guess what the rest of the game will be like based on my first 60 seconds: I’d guess: It’ll have an interesting but depressing plot focused around the psychological phenomenon “mindstorm”. The writing will be serviceable but will need a lot of grammar revision. The protagonist will be a psychologically frayed. Reading that over, I know it sounds critical. I'll post as soon as I can finish the demo about my overall impressions. I hope you'll put my suggestions aside and focus on the metrics I provided: the "If I were to guess what the rest of the game will be like based on my first 60 seconds" section at the end has always helped me as a writer. EDIT: Also, I was trying to post a comment on your website and the wordpress login is very strange. Could you fix it to accept wordpress users, and not just wordpress.com blogs?