On a String is simple and straightforward but it does well what it sets out to do. Aside from a strange inconsistency with punctuation marks, writing works really well; from pacing to dialogue, this project nails it. Visual elements also does a good job of characterising people and narrative, a real complete package. I wish it tackled bigger questions regarding its mechanics and could have done with a more active protagonist, but other than that, On a String is easily worth the time readers put into it.
Stunning presentation and interesting premise. The characters are pretty fun too, their interactions are easy to read. My only gripe with it is that the story basically resolves itself, so other than the fun premise there isn't a lot of meat to the story.
Great story and presentation. While the ending is not completely conclusive, the plot is covering just enough to deliver the theme. I can't really pinpoint the issue, but I do think there's something missing before curtain call, making it just a little bit unsatisfying.
The visuals and audio are amazing, I just wish the sister could have more screen time. Also, I totally love the JVN vibe of the UI. Only problem for me is the text on the middle of the screen could be difficult to read sometimes. Perhaps darkening the screen would increase the contrast and fix the issue.
You make a very good first impression with the title screen. The music matches the vibe of the graphics, and the animated red string is a nice touch. Reminds me of Adastra with the shading and the city in the distance on the water.
The double outline on the names and narration makes it harder to read. A light text colour with a black outline should be readable over dark, medium, or light backgrounds, so the additional light outline isn’t needed. At the beginning with the narrator telling the story over the CGs, I think it’s fine to have the text in the centre, since it’s a different narrator in a different style, but outside of the opening, it being centred with no background like that doesn’t accomplish enough to take the hit in readability. I will also second the notion that not having periods (or other sentence-ending punctuation) at the ends of your sentences makes it harder to read. Some of the sentences do continue into the next text box, and I don’t know if a sentence is finished or not until I click through.
I like your animations with Nadir’s hand with the phone coming up and fading in at the same time, and the TV turning on and off. It’s a good sound effect for the TV turning on. And you have custom text boxes that change colours with the speaker. They’re little things, but they set your entry apart.
Roberto’s expressions are adorable and I very much want him to approach me in a dark alleyway alone or with friends. You have a finger on the pulse of what the readers want with him taking off his hoodie to keep nadir warm (exposing his tummy and tight tank top), and his putting his contact information in Nadir’s phone at the end is a sweet callback. His name is kind of hard to read in the name box, though, with it being so dark and then having a dark outline and a very soft light outline.
The opening narration, other than its first line, seems pretty omniscient. Combined with the game description and premise to the game setting up the “red string means fated lovers” part, I’m really ready to buy that this is what happens in this fictional world.
So when Nadir is confused by his second red flash, I’m confused at his confusion. If this is the first instance of a second red flash, he’s just made history, but the story doesn’t really treat it this way. If this has happened before, then why doesn’t Nadir know that? He’s a twenty-four-year-old who lives in a city and has access to internet and television, on top of him being really motivated to believe that you can have a second red flash. His friends and sister would also tell him about this kind of thing being able to happen if they knew about it.
The second moment of doubt to the red flash narrative comes when Roberto tells Nadir that he doesn’t believe the flash means soulmate. Nadir treats Roberto as if he’s the first person he’s met who doesn’t believe in the red flash meaning soulmate, and I have trouble buying that this is the first time he’s meeting someone like this. Like I said before, Nadir doesn’t sound like he’s lived a particularly sheltered life.
I wasn’t satisfied with the ending. Or maybe it was how you got to the ending, or that I wanted more in the middle before the two are this happy together.
Sure, I want Nadir to get together with Roberto because Roberto is hot and deserves a boyfriend and a hot cup of coffee at the end of this romance story, but his initial prickliness and years and years of contempt for the red flash get undone really fast. Their relationship moving to be such a smooth ride at the cafe at the end doesn’t match the lingering questions that they have about each other, themselves, and the world. Nadir admits that his decision to save Roberto with the police officer was a selfish one, which I like, but that idea doesn’t get much exploration afterwards, and it feels like both of them aren’t on the same page of if the red flash is real or not. They don’t have to be, but the ending doesn’t linger on it as much I think it should. There’s mention of a rocky start, but we (the audience) don’t see the rockiness, and I’m not sure what that would look like since Roberto is pretty psyched about the date before the scene changes.
I don’t get the feeling that Nadir loved his fiancee. He says “We got along”, and then the next textbox is about how he was physically separated from her when he moved to the city and she didn’t. His heart is pounding as he recollects the story of how he and his dead fiancee got together, so the narration should reflect that emotional intensity, but he remains really detached. We get some emotion from him as he’s being robbed and when he’s restless in jail, but I’d like to see more, even if he’s depressed and his emotions are pretty flat.
I appreciate that you wove in the idea of chance in places that weren’t just romance: the cop happening to be around the corner, the woman happening to be filming, and the video happening to go viral. It’s a world where both of the characters feel tossed around by fate in a bad way, but ultimately make the decision to be happy with each other. Even if Nadir is being selfish in pursuing Roberto, it’s a big step for someone who’s lost their fiancee to start dating again.
You hit the nail on the head in so many of the points, I gotta add to it.
The double outline was certainly "a choice", probably the wrong one.
I wanted the narration in the center, and didn't want to darken the background so the pictures were visible. One outline didn't look right for me, as it would blend with the pictures, and transparent ones created these weird artifacts. Also, thicker outlines were out of the question, because of the way Renpy Renders text.
This is a thing I spent a lot of time testing, and in the end I chose the double-outline as a short-sighted compromise.
I will change this i an update.
The center text for the main character's thoughts was important to me, because I wanted to make it clear when something is actually being heard vs when it is only thought or described. Kinda like the way they do it in the 999 DS version, where narration is in one screen, and dialogue is in the other.
Of course, here they benefited from having two screens, and the narration's background wasn't important so it could be obscured. Different case, but it explains the intention.
The missing ending period was a deliberate choice, 100% a wrong one. When I started writing I DID have a period at the end of every sentence, but I thought it looked weird with the red arrow, and thought it could replace it. I also added them when a character would stop speaking and a different character would start speaking.
This choice was unfortunately not the correct one, and I may have missed some. I'm adding the periods in an update.
***
You got me on the story.
As it is pretty rare, cases of double connections are even rarer, but not impossible.
So I had two options here: 1- There were no records of a second string ever happening before. 2- There were records of it happening, but it happened long ago and/or in secluded areas so it is considered a myth.
Either way would be a news-worthy event.
Since Nadir is from a different city, the general public doesn't necessarily know he had a connection before, so the only ones in the know would be him and Roberto. And with Roberto not liking the general idea of the Red string and him being very private, the only ones who could make it public would be Nadir, Amira, and potentially people who have known him and recognized him in the video.
However, exploring this would have made the story considerably longer and when I got to this point I was on the last days of writing. So I did not address it.
The idea of the red string is that it connects people in a visible way, and people gave it their own interpretation. And I made it so it is handled the way the Catholic marriage is handled. With regular marriage you can get divorced. With Catholic marriage it is handled as a union by God and is unbreakable, so divorce is not allowed (annulment is possible under very specific circumstances, but that's another story).
Because it was based on this, the general population has an idealization of the red-string, such that bad cases are not usually reported, like bad marriages that stay together to keep appearances.
Or so was my mental justification, which was not necessarily implied in the story. My bad
As for Nadir, you are correct.
He did not love-LOVE his fiancée, and he doesn't love-LOVE Roberto (not yet at least). That sounds harsher than it is, but it was the intention.
Since the first connection happened when he was very young, he went with the regular expectations. And since it kinda worked out for him, he had no reason to believe it was fake if confronted by potential people who did not believe so. He did not choose his fiancée and she did not choose him. But they did get along, and grew to care for each other. But they weren't IN LOVE. They were expected to be together, and they didn't have a reason not to. The whole red-thread idealization.
The separation was a kinda-attempt for each to live their lives a bit before getting together. And the loss did hurt him, because he did care for her.
A big part of the depression is meant to come not only from the loss, but from the prospect of losing their only "TRUE" connection (The one-true-soulmate belief)
For all of the above, it is hard for him to understand that someone who also has the connection rejects it.
In the end, many of these things probably did not make it to the final script. Either because my time ran out, they weren't implied clearly, or weren't there at all and I thought they were because they're in my head (hehe)
Gotta start off by saying that the art is excellent! The sprites have so much personality, and the backgrounds are clean and polished. No complaints there, it's all technically proficient and functional.
The presentation has some stuff I'm not as in love with. First of all, the font size is huge – I thought the game was using a mobile version of the UI due to a glitch at first. Besides hurting the readability by itself, combined with the tiny text box it means there's not a lot of space for text, which you can see with how many lines get cut off. I also don't get the point of overlaying all the prose on top of the screen instead of using the box; it's harder to read, obscures stuff you might want to look at, and forces your eyes to jump up and down.
But though the text is presented sort of jankily, I'd say the writing feels largely natural and pleasant to read. Some caveats, though: punctuation is inconsistent, with a lot of periods being omitted seemingly intentionally, and while the dialogue is pretty nice, the stream-of-consciousness narration comes off as somewhat blunt and impersonal. I feel like it could afford to be a little punchier and to do more to put you in the character's head instead of just detailing what's going on.
I guess I found a lot about the plot kind of unsatisfying for the same reason I'm not into soulmate stuff in general: I think it literalizes the mechanisms of how romance works as a genre, basically making the characters aware of the fact that they're in a story and removing a lot of the tension as a result.
The "will they or won't they?" turns into "they will". Now, it did surprise me positively that the story seemed determined to bring some nuance and complexity to the premise... but by the end, it didn't really answer the questions it raised or pull off some kind of bigger twist? The characters went on a date despite the initial hesitation essentially because fate said so, and things seemed to work out as foretold. I'm not sure if there's supposed to be more to come or what, but the ending just felt kind of abrupt and anticlimactic. The final line is cute, though.
On a String: ultimately a pretty uneven package. Some of it was amazing, some felt like the devs were still finding their footing in the medium, and some didn't quite fulfill its intriguing promises.
Comments
On a String is simple and straightforward but it does well what it sets out to do. Aside from a strange inconsistency with punctuation marks, writing works really well; from pacing to dialogue, this project nails it. Visual elements also does a good job of characterising people and narrative, a real complete package. I wish it tackled bigger questions regarding its mechanics and could have done with a more active protagonist, but other than that, On a String is easily worth the time readers put into it.
Stunning presentation and interesting premise. The characters are pretty fun too, their interactions are easy to read. My only gripe with it is that the story basically resolves itself, so other than the fun premise there isn't a lot of meat to the story.
Great story and presentation. While the ending is not completely conclusive, the plot is covering just enough to deliver the theme. I can't really pinpoint the issue, but I do think there's something missing before curtain call, making it just a little bit unsatisfying.
The visuals and audio are amazing, I just wish the sister could have more screen time. Also, I totally love the JVN vibe of the UI. Only problem for me is the text on the middle of the screen could be difficult to read sometimes. Perhaps darkening the screen would increase the contrast and fix the issue.
Awesome work ^^
You make a very good first impression with the title screen. The music matches the vibe of the graphics, and the animated red string is a nice touch. Reminds me of Adastra with the shading and the city in the distance on the water.
The double outline on the names and narration makes it harder to read. A light text colour with a black outline should be readable over dark, medium, or light backgrounds, so the additional light outline isn’t needed. At the beginning with the narrator telling the story over the CGs, I think it’s fine to have the text in the centre, since it’s a different narrator in a different style, but outside of the opening, it being centred with no background like that doesn’t accomplish enough to take the hit in readability. I will also second the notion that not having periods (or other sentence-ending punctuation) at the ends of your sentences makes it harder to read. Some of the sentences do continue into the next text box, and I don’t know if a sentence is finished or not until I click through.
I like your animations with Nadir’s hand with the phone coming up and fading in at the same time, and the TV turning on and off. It’s a good sound effect for the TV turning on. And you have custom text boxes that change colours with the speaker. They’re little things, but they set your entry apart.
Roberto’s expressions are adorable and I very much want him to approach me in a dark alleyway alone or with friends. You have a finger on the pulse of what the readers want with him taking off his hoodie to keep nadir warm (exposing his tummy and tight tank top), and his putting his contact information in Nadir’s phone at the end is a sweet callback. His name is kind of hard to read in the name box, though, with it being so dark and then having a dark outline and a very soft light outline.
The opening narration, other than its first line, seems pretty omniscient. Combined with the game description and premise to the game setting up the “red string means fated lovers” part, I’m really ready to buy that this is what happens in this fictional world.
So when Nadir is confused by his second red flash, I’m confused at his confusion. If this is the first instance of a second red flash, he’s just made history, but the story doesn’t really treat it this way. If this has happened before, then why doesn’t Nadir know that? He’s a twenty-four-year-old who lives in a city and has access to internet and television, on top of him being really motivated to believe that you can have a second red flash. His friends and sister would also tell him about this kind of thing being able to happen if they knew about it.
The second moment of doubt to the red flash narrative comes when Roberto tells Nadir that he doesn’t believe the flash means soulmate. Nadir treats Roberto as if he’s the first person he’s met who doesn’t believe in the red flash meaning soulmate, and I have trouble buying that this is the first time he’s meeting someone like this. Like I said before, Nadir doesn’t sound like he’s lived a particularly sheltered life.
I wasn’t satisfied with the ending. Or maybe it was how you got to the ending, or that I wanted more in the middle before the two are this happy together.
Sure, I want Nadir to get together with Roberto because Roberto is hot and deserves a boyfriend and a hot cup of coffee at the end of this romance story, but his initial prickliness and years and years of contempt for the red flash get undone really fast. Their relationship moving to be such a smooth ride at the cafe at the end doesn’t match the lingering questions that they have about each other, themselves, and the world. Nadir admits that his decision to save Roberto with the police officer was a selfish one, which I like, but that idea doesn’t get much exploration afterwards, and it feels like both of them aren’t on the same page of if the red flash is real or not. They don’t have to be, but the ending doesn’t linger on it as much I think it should. There’s mention of a rocky start, but we (the audience) don’t see the rockiness, and I’m not sure what that would look like since Roberto is pretty psyched about the date before the scene changes.
I don’t get the feeling that Nadir loved his fiancee. He says “We got along”, and then the next textbox is about how he was physically separated from her when he moved to the city and she didn’t. His heart is pounding as he recollects the story of how he and his dead fiancee got together, so the narration should reflect that emotional intensity, but he remains really detached. We get some emotion from him as he’s being robbed and when he’s restless in jail, but I’d like to see more, even if he’s depressed and his emotions are pretty flat.
I appreciate that you wove in the idea of chance in places that weren’t just romance: the cop happening to be around the corner, the woman happening to be filming, and the video happening to go viral. It’s a world where both of the characters feel tossed around by fate in a bad way, but ultimately make the decision to be happy with each other. Even if Nadir is being selfish in pursuing Roberto, it’s a big step for someone who’s lost their fiancee to start dating again.
You hit the nail on the head in so many of the points, I gotta add to it.
The double outline was certainly "a choice", probably the wrong one.
I wanted the narration in the center, and didn't want to darken the background so the pictures were visible.
One outline didn't look right for me, as it would blend with the pictures, and transparent ones created these weird artifacts.
Also, thicker outlines were out of the question, because of the way Renpy Renders text.
This is a thing I spent a lot of time testing, and in the end I chose the double-outline as a short-sighted compromise.
I will change this i an update.The center text for the main character's thoughts was important to me, because I wanted to make it clear when something is actually being heard vs when it is only thought or described.
Kinda like the way they do it in the 999 DS version, where narration is in one screen, and dialogue is in the other.
Of course, here they benefited from having two screens, and the narration's background wasn't important so it could be obscured.
Different case, but it explains the intention.
The missing ending period was a deliberate choice, 100% a wrong one.
When I started writing I DID have a period at the end of every sentence, but I thought it looked weird with the red arrow, and thought it could replace it.
I also added them when a character would stop speaking and a different character would start speaking.
This choice was unfortunately not the correct one, and I may have missed some.
I'm adding the periods in an update.
***
You got me on the story.
As it is pretty rare, cases of double connections are even rarer, but not impossible.
So I had two options here:
1- There were no records of a second string ever happening before.
2- There were records of it happening, but it happened long ago and/or in secluded areas so it is considered a myth.
Either way would be a news-worthy event.
Since Nadir is from a different city, the general public doesn't necessarily know he had a connection before, so the only ones in the know would be him and Roberto. And with Roberto not liking the general idea of the Red string and him being very private, the only ones who could make it public would be Nadir, Amira, and potentially people who have known him and recognized him in the video.
However, exploring this would have made the story considerably longer and when I got to this point I was on the last days of writing. So I did not address it.
The idea of the red string is that it connects people in a visible way, and people gave it their own interpretation. And I made it so it is handled the way the Catholic marriage is handled.
With regular marriage you can get divorced.
With Catholic marriage it is handled as a union by God and is unbreakable, so divorce is not allowed (annulment is possible under very specific circumstances, but that's another story).
Because it was based on this, the general population has an idealization of the red-string, such that bad cases are not usually reported, like bad marriages that stay together to keep appearances.
Or so was my mental justification, which was not necessarily implied in the story. My bad
As for Nadir, you are correct.
He did not love-LOVE his fiancée, and he doesn't love-LOVE Roberto (not yet at least).
That sounds harsher than it is, but it was the intention.
Since the first connection happened when he was very young, he went with the regular expectations. And since it kinda worked out for him, he had no reason to believe it was fake if confronted by potential people who did not believe so.
He did not choose his fiancée and she did not choose him. But they did get along, and grew to care for each other. But they weren't IN LOVE.
They were expected to be together, and they didn't have a reason not to.
The whole red-thread idealization.
The separation was a kinda-attempt for each to live their lives a bit before getting together. And the loss did hurt him, because he did care for her.
A big part of the depression is meant to come not only from the loss, but from the prospect of losing their only "TRUE" connection (The one-true-soulmate belief)
For all of the above, it is hard for him to understand that someone who also has the connection rejects it.
In the end, many of these things probably did not make it to the final script. Either because my time ran out, they weren't implied clearly, or weren't there at all and I thought they were because they're in my head (hehe)
Thank you so much for your review!
Gotta start off by saying that the art is excellent! The sprites have so much personality, and the backgrounds are clean and polished. No complaints there, it's all technically proficient and functional.
The presentation has some stuff I'm not as in love with. First of all, the font size is huge – I thought the game was using a mobile version of the UI due to a glitch at first. Besides hurting the readability by itself, combined with the tiny text box it means there's not a lot of space for text, which you can see with how many lines get cut off. I also don't get the point of overlaying all the prose on top of the screen instead of using the box; it's harder to read, obscures stuff you might want to look at, and forces your eyes to jump up and down.
But though the text is presented sort of jankily, I'd say the writing feels largely natural and pleasant to read. Some caveats, though: punctuation is inconsistent, with a lot of periods being omitted seemingly intentionally, and while the dialogue is pretty nice, the stream-of-consciousness narration comes off as somewhat blunt and impersonal. I feel like it could afford to be a little punchier and to do more to put you in the character's head instead of just detailing what's going on.
I guess I found a lot about the plot kind of unsatisfying for the same reason I'm not into soulmate stuff in general: I think it literalizes the mechanisms of how romance works as a genre, basically making the characters aware of the fact that they're in a story and removing a lot of the tension as a result.
The "will they or won't they?" turns into "they will". Now, it did surprise me positively that the story seemed determined to bring some nuance and complexity to the premise... but by the end, it didn't really answer the questions it raised or pull off some kind of bigger twist? The characters went on a date despite the initial hesitation essentially because fate said so, and things seemed to work out as foretold. I'm not sure if there's supposed to be more to come or what, but the ending just felt kind of abrupt and anticlimactic. The final line is cute, though.
On a String: ultimately a pretty uneven package. Some of it was amazing, some felt like the devs were still finding their footing in the medium, and some didn't quite fulfill its intriguing promises.
cute, with great story
lovely