Falling Star [DEMO AVAILABLE]

[Chris J. Cinders]

Falling Star is an upcoming romance/drama visual novel spanning over 800k words. If you are interested please read on for more details.

Summary: A wish; the magnificent enormous tree standing in the center of Okaraka town is said to have the ability to grant a single wish to whoever manages to climb up to the top. Of course only a handful of people actually believe in this age-old Urban legend. Sasaki Jiro is not one of those people. He's never believed it not even as a small child, now he's finally returning to his home and his opinion hasn't changed in the least.

Plagued by strange visions as he returns to his hometown for his final year of high school, Jiro's younger cousin, Inoue Sora somehow manages to get Jiro to join the Astronomy Club. Among the two cousins in the club are Fujimoto Shiro, Jiro's childhood friend, Nura Misaki, a mysterious loner, Chitose Akira, the energetic class president, Hasekura Hinako, a preppy seventh grader, and Sendo Yuichi, a perverted honor student. Eventually, Jiro begins enjoying his time with the Astronomy Club but underneath all the happiness and playful comedy there are dark secrets lurking inside everyone's souls.

Characters:

Sasaki Jiro- "I hate the world. I think it's a really crappy place. That's why I want to live my life to the fullest. I refuse to let the bastard win."

Slightly cynical and skeptical to the core. Jiro is the protagonist of the story. He enjoys messing around with his friends to get a reaction out of them, Sora and Shiro being among his favorite targets. However, despite his usual attitude, he can be a generally nice guy when it counts.

 

Inoue Sora- "Will kissing Shiro really mean I can stay...Alright then, I'll do it!"

Naive and gullible, Sora is Jiro's cousin and the president of the Astronomy Club. She's a very kind and polite girl who excels at cooking. She is a good leader and can keep Jiro in check despite usually falling for his jokes. However, she has a tendency to sleepwalk quite frequently, always resulting in chaos. She also is immensely strong despite her gentle appearance.

Fujimoto Shiro- "You must wanna have both your arms broken, huh?"

Brash and short-tempered, Shiro is Jiro's and Sora's childhood friend and granddaughter of the town's founders. Shiro can be easily aggravated especially by the likes of Jiro and Yuichi. She is a lover of all animals and an avid hater of the heat, often doing whatever it takes to avoid sweating.

Chitose Akira- "Hahaha! You guys all actually thought I was gonna pull my skirt down!

Upbeat and playful, Akira is the class representative. She loves to play around and as such she usually counters Jiro's teasing with some of her own. However, she knows when to get serious about her job. She also has a tendency to accidentally say blunt things. Akira loves to eat and is frightened of birds.

Nura Misaki- "It's horrendous."

Cold and aloof, Misaki is a quiet girl in the Astronomy Club. She prefers to be alone and is often eating her lunch on the school's roof. Like Akira, Misaki also has a tendency to be rather blunt, however, in her case, it is completely intentional. Misaki has a fondness for poetry and ketchup and hates being touched.

Hasekura Hinako- "Fuee~ I'm an adult!"

Proud and stubborn, Hinako is a rich middle school student. She is spoiled and has never been punished for anything. As a result, she takes this as being treated as an adult and thus thinks of herself as such. For some reason, she has a habit of saying "Fuee". She has a strong bond with Akira who she looks up to like a sister. She also is quite addicted to playing crane machines. Hinako loves stuffed animals and hates cats.

Sendo Yuichi- "Misaki, my dear. I can see your panties from here. It is truly a lovely angle."

Perverted and intelligent, Yuichi is at the top of the third year class. Despite his status of being an honor student as well as a pretty good athlete, he makes no attempt to hide his more indecent qualities. However, somehow he is always there for his friends when it counts the most.

 

Inoue Yoshi- “I LOVE YOU JIRO, MY BOY!!!!!”

Loud and hammy, Yoshi is the supervisor of the Astronomy Club. He makes the most out of every day by having as much fun as possible. He cares deeply for Jiro and Sora and is always ready to calm down when he knows they need it. He is completely oblivious to his terrible cooking and music skills.

Also feel free to check out our team StarGuide’s social media accounts: https://mobile.twitter.com/StarGuide7

https://m.facebook.com/StarGuide-1723853527657853/?ref=bookmarks

Demo: https://dmasterxd.itch.io/falling-star

Edited May 28, 2019 by Chris J. Cinders

[Dreamysyu]

@Chris J. Cinders Could you please remove the format of the text? Right now it's a bit hard to read. Thanks!

Edited March 18, 2018 by Dreamysyu

[tahu157]

Yeh, I'm gonna quote meself here

Quote

Do me a favor. Edit your post, press ctrl+A, hit this button: , and then save.

 

[tymmur]

I'm not quite sure what to expect from this. The art is decent, the idea with a tree and wishes could be interesting and it looks like there is at least an attempt to make the characters diverse and with personalities. However I still have no idea what to expect. The tags romance and drama tells more about the kind of story than the text in this thread, though it's still very broad. Also there are only character sprites, no backgrounds, no indication of sound effects, music or anything like that. Also no screenshots meaning we don't know what the text looks like and how readable it is.

 

You could say it has bad timing being posted less than 24 hours after this in the Things that you want to see less of in Visual Novels thread.

17 hours ago, finiteHP said:

I agree with a lot of these, but I’m too lazy to list them all.  I’ll add one that only applies to OELVNs:

Less use of Japan as a setting.  This includes everyone having Japanese names in a western school.  JVNs have that setting covered.  If we want Japan, we’ll play ones from Japan.  Show us what you can do with your country and culture.

However this is mainly something to consider early on and you make it sound like you spent ages on it already and it's approaching a release. If that's the case, then stick to what you got. It's not that Japanese names and settings are a bad thing as such, it's just that competing against Japanese releases on Japanese terms is not a winning strategy. Use the non-Japanese origin as an asset instead (if possible) and the result will if nothing else stand out as not being just one more Japanese school drama/romance. This is however not what decides if a VN is worth reading or not so you shouldn't put too much into it.

[skrewball717]

The art is fine, but considering how long you expect this to be I'm just wondering if you are announcing this too early or if you just did a really poor job in explaining what your VN is to us...or possibly both?

800k words is very long regardless of standards, but also seems like quite the endeavor to partake if all you have done is what you have shown (basic character sprites and a loose summary)

I'm hoping this is farther along than it seems and you will expand upon/edit you're first post to show how much you really have accomplished to this point (engine/background/progress/etc.)

Also I am assuming you are a team of some sort and not just one person doing this all themselves, in which case it'd be a good idea to set up a website, twitter and other forms of social media to advertise not only your product, but your team/studio as well.

Either way best of luck

[Plk_Lesiak]

1 hour ago, skrewball717 said:

800k words is very long regardless of standards

It would be the longest OELVN in history by a huge margin. Among top 10 longest VNs overall maybe. I somewhat hope it was actually meant to be 80k words, otherwise it's an absolutely insane goal.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Plk_Lesiak

[Chris J. Cinders]

Oh, I have done all of the writing for it already. The editing, however, is still not finished (basic typo editing and stuff, all of the plot rewrites are done).For music, I was originally going to use tracks I made on Musicshake but then I came across a composer I really liked. So currently we only have an OP song. As for the backgrounds, I was planning on doing a Kickstarter for that as I don't have enough to pay for it. I also plan on releasing a demo alongside it in early May.

I can still show screenshots with the stock backgrounds if people are interested though.

And yeah, I was well aware the Japanese school setting was going to be a turn off for a lot of people when I started it. But last time I tried doing something else I ended up hating the project so much it started to feel more like a chore than anything. I don't ever want to feel that way about writing again, so now I'd rather just write this kind of stuff for anyone who does still enjoy it.  

And yes I am part of a team and we have a Twitter account and a Facebook page already, so I will update the first post with them. I will get working on making a website ASAP though. And thanks for all your feedback everyone!

[tymmur]

I'm still puzzled by the 800k word count. To be honest it puts me off because it sounds bloated. Lord of the rings is 455k words for all three books combined and I spent way longer reading that one than I will spend on reading any VN. Are you sure it's not 80k words? Also is it words on the screen or are there control words too, like who is speaking and sprite changes.

[McDerpingheimer III]

inb4 word count includes each time you go through the common route and events copy pasted between routes

[Chris J. Cinders]

Well it takes place over the course of six months and the final route is seven months. If the word count puts you off as well that’s fine though.

It’s definitely 800k though. I typed the script in renpy before transferring it over to word and it excludes code from the word count. 

[skrewball717]

Not so much of a put-off as hard to believe given your groups' personal anonymity. Really we are hoping for the best, just...skeptical to say the least until more of the artwork comes out or the kickstarter/whatever begins. Part of the fear is for a game that long, the routes/artwork, particularly background, can become quite repetitive if not careful as well. I hope there are enough venues outside of the school so we aren't trapped in one place for a years worth of text, lol

[milkteebaby]

6 hours ago, Chris J. Cinders said:

Well it takes place over the course of six months and the final route is seven months. If the word count puts you off as well that’s fine though.

It’s definitely 800k though. I typed the script in renpy before transferring it over to word and it excludes code from the word count. 

...800k? Jesus. That's a door stopper of a word count. How long have you been working on the script? (also, whoever is editing that many words, they have my sympathies. I can't even edit 5k of my own stuff without wanting to kill myself)

Edited March 20, 2018 by milkteebaby

[Chris J. Cinders]

5 hours ago, milkteebaby said:

...800k? Jesus. That's a door stopper of a word count. How long have you been working on the script? (also, whoever is editing that many words, they have my sympathies. I can't even edit 5k of my own stuff without wanting to kill myself)

I started it four years ago, haha. 

[Chris J. Cinders]

Well here is an update in the form of music. Hinako's theme composed by ChtuluSeeker: https://soundcloud.com/davidsalazar-1/sets/falling-star-visual-novel

[Chris J. Cinders]

Another update, sprite art for Akira has been finished. 

[Chris J. Cinders]

Update: Yuichi’s sprite has been completed.

[Chris J. Cinders]

Update: Yoshi’s sprite has been completed. I also have some screenshots. (As mentioned backgrounds are subject to change).

 

[Chris J. Cinders]

The demo has been officially released! https://dmasterxd.itch.io/falling-star