Snow Light (indie VN)

[AtA]

Hello VN readers,
I'd like to introduce you my home-made visual novel done with a little indie team, Snow Light.
First of all, I don't like to disappoint, so don't expect an super-hyper-badass graphic quality as we can see in very professionnal works.

There is one artist in this work (me) not a whole team, it's not a complain but I think it have to be told

Sooo,
 

Snow Light is a Kinetic Novel, who propose some point-view choice (a few). 

The game takes place in a close futuristic world where nations are living in a fragile peace, military conflicts have become commonplace since the scarcity of first resources and the rise of private armies. 

 

You'll follow a professional of espionage missions, Snow, and will travel in various parts of the globe such as Turkmenistan, Russia or England. 

Click to see the game gallery

 

Snow Light Feature : 

• Story divide in 5 chapters, with more than 30 000 words dialogue length (~2h lengh)
• Anime inspired Graphic Style, CG based narration
• Intense action scene rythmed by Quick-Time Event
• Unique story arc, with some viewpoints changes
• 19 music tracks composed by two great composers, Petteri SAINIO and Christoph RAUCH

 

The story is linked to the on-going indie series "Dragon and Weed : Origins",events are chronologically between episodes 22 and 42 (chapters 51 to 71 for the 'paper' version), but you don't need to read the series to understand Snow Light narration.

 

 

You can download the game on STEAM*

 

(*) : Or if you have no money, google told than you can download it some others plateforms, but if someone ask I didn't say anything/

I don't care of how you will have the game, but if you play to, I'd be very glad to have so feedback about no matter if you like or not the game.

I plan to do other Visual Novel and it's important to me, and my team to know what is good and can be improved.

 

Have a good read

 

[Heizei_koukousei]

So why didn't you join Fuwanovel sooner?

[Mr Poltroon]

Here's something important.

People don't generally like to pay for products they don't feel are well polished. From what little I saw on the trailer and on the steam page, the writing seems to have various spelling and grammatical mistakes. It's by no means gibberish, but it's hardly the best English I've ever seen.

I think it's quite readable, but you might want to ask some people to read and spot the mistakes for you. Some editors if you will. 

 

Otherwise, this looks pretty good. I may or may not be playing it pretty soon. 

 

Edit: Actually, given it's a kinetic novel, even I should be able to help decently at spotting and fixing spelling mistakes. So if you do go ahead and do that, I can help.

[AtA]

@Heizei_koukousei: Lol I didn't knew the website, but thanks to Google I do know
@Tiagofvarela: Ah I understand, the english translator was French so I think it was predictable ^^'
If you're interested to make some correction, it would be very nice. I've check several times the english version, but as English isn't my first language I've probably missed a lot of mistake :S
I can provide you the scenes texts if you have time for this

[Decay]

I'm not usually this highly critical of fan projects but since this is a commercial product, I'm going to be brutally honest here. You need more than people offering a few corrections, you need a completely new effort. People are not going to tolerate paying for a product with this level of quality. The level of english is extremely poor, and is not something people should pay money for. To charge money for the english version that you're advertising is actually kind of shameful.

 

Well, at least people know what to expect looking at your Steam page. To be honest, your VN has already become a laughing stock in a couple regular gaming communities I frequent. Your english description on Steam is extremely poor and gives an awful first impression. I can't think of a bigger "do not buy" warning than a description for a novel that is borderline illegible.I would almost recommend taking your game off steam until you can come up with a better description and better screenshots. Because at this rate its continued existence is doing more harm than good. Maybe if you clean those up, you could at least trick people into thinking that it might be well written.

 

I'm not trying to be a total asshole here, there are plenty of OELVNs that I give a free pass because maybe they're just not to my tastes. But this isn't about taste, I think you either over-estimated your english script's level of quality or under-estimated the audience. I'm pretty serious when I say that drastic action is required to make this an acceptable product.

[Mr Poltroon]

I'm not usually this highly critical of fan projects but since this is a commercial product, I'm going to be brutally honest here. You need more than people offering a few corrections, you need a completely new effort. People are not going to tolerate paying for a product with this level of quality. The level of english is extremely poor, and is not something people should pay money for. To charge money for the english version that you're advertising is actually kind of shameful.

 

Well, at least people know what to expect looking at your Steam page. To be honest, your VN has already become a laughing stock in a couple regular gaming communities I frequent. Your english description on Steam is extremely poor and gives an awful first impression. I can't think of a bigger "do not buy" warning than a description for a novel that is borderline illegible.I would almost recommend taking your game off steam until you can come up with a better description and better screenshots. Because at this rate its continued existence is doing more harm than good. Maybe if you clean those up, you could at least trick people into thinking that it might be well written.

 

I'm not trying to be a total asshole here, there are plenty of OELVNs that I give a free pass because maybe they're just not to my tastes. But this isn't about taste, I think you either over-estimated your english script's level of quality or under-estimated the audience. I'm pretty serious when I say that drastic action is required to make this an acceptable product.

Of course, the only sodding time I go and mince my words is when it's not needed.

Brilliant, as always.

[AtA]

I'm not usually this highly critical of fan projects but since this is a commercial product, I'm going to be brutally honest here. You need more than people offering a few corrections, you need a completely new effort. People are not going to tolerate paying for a product with this level of quality. The level of english is extremely poor, and is not something people should pay money for. To charge money for the english version that you're advertising is actually kind of shameful.

 

Well, at least people know what to expect looking at your Steam page. To be honest, your VN has already become a laughing stock in a couple regular gaming communities I frequent. Your english description on Steam is extremely poor and gives an awful first impression. I can't think of a bigger "do not buy" warning than a description for a novel that is borderline illegible.I would almost recommend taking your game off steam until you can come up with a better description and better screenshots. Because at this rate its continued existence is doing more harm than good. Maybe if you clean those up, you could at least trick people into thinking that it might be well written.

 

I'm not trying to be a total asshole here, there are plenty of OELVNs that I give a free pass because maybe they're just not to my tastes. But this isn't about taste, I think you either over-estimated your english script's level of quality or under-estimated the audience. I'm pretty serious when I say that drastic action is required to make this an acceptable product.

Hi Decay,

Lol I'm not affraid of brutally honest people don't worry and for what I've read your comment is helping so no problem

However, what do you mean when you talk about a "new effort" ? Do you suggest to translate the game from zero ? Because there will be mistake again and an other correction would be needed.

And are you basing your thought on the description ? This is not the game translator who made it, I did, and my english level isn't at the same level of her ^^'

 

 

Anyway, I'm not trying to justify or minimize your word, I take seriously criticism who need to and the quality of my works.

[Decay]

If you're selling a VN to an english audience, then the words they're reading need to be written by a native-level writer. Nobody wants to pay to read any kind of novel that is awkwardly written. You may not need to retranslate it from scratch (although that would honestly be preferable), but at the very least, you need someone who can look over and address each and every line. Not just fans submitting problems, but someone there who can rewrite them in fluent english. I would highly recommend that you recruit a native-level writer to edit your scripts so they sound more natural. 

 

As for the description, the whole thing is full of typos, bad grammar, and awkward phrasing. "Snow Light is a visual novel, a digital graphic novel that you can read dynamically and where you ear musics and sound effects ! " This very first sentence is a disaster and the rest isn't much better. First, there's the typo, "ear" should be "hear". Punctuation should immediately follow the last word, don't include the space before the exclamation mark. "Music" shouldn't be pluralized.  What does "read dynamically" even mean? It's especially nonsensical because there are no choices, it's a totally static story. "where you can hear music and sound effects" is a very unnatural phrase and needs to be completely rewritten. I talk big but I actually have trouble coming up with catchy wording good enough for a store description. Well, describing what a visual novel is may not be necessary in the first place, there are several on Steam now. If I was to try, though, I'd say something like "Snow Light is a visual novel, a digital graphic novel with sound effects and background music!" I will say that "digital graphic novel" is actually a decent to-the-point way to describe the medium to outsiders, one that I never really thought of before. So points to you for that.

 

Every sentence in the description requires just as much attention and I don't really have the time or will to do it, but you should get someone with better english to take a good look at it for sure. I know for a fact that it's turning off many customers, as people I know are scoffing at your game just because of it. The longer it stays like that, the worse. Anyways, I hope you're able to work out the issues.

[AtA]

Description page have been edited

 

Thanks for your help and Tiago's one, I'll think about this issues for my next creations !