Post by bashindan in Iron Company comments

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1) The character dynamics are very good, they sound very natural in conversation and are pleasant to follow (namely I picked all the nice choices, if I did the mean ones Id probably think Sykes is too mean, as I did feel that for the non-choice dialogues[I'd never tell Erika to stfu]).

2) Erika is cute, I need more doses of her looks ~~pls post any doodles you have of her, the singular sprite left me hungry for more~~ (nvm found the doogles on toyhouse reading before posting is good)

3) I AM SYKES THE IMMORTAL (this is a tip based on how I saw it on a VN i played, but I think you could do the battle scene with slash animation cut-ins; I had the impression youd make a cg for each scene, which is a bit of a big investment, so just a suggestion to save your time and deliver the experience the same way, FX animation, a hurt sprite and good sounds sell a scene better than cgs can sometimes)

4) I don't know where the store might go from here, but Erika's mystery is interesting enough to make me want to see more. Who knows if she's the key to everything or just Act 1, but she was the biggest hook of Chap 1 to me.

5) Just played one game, will see how other choices spin out later, but I do appreciate when bad choices can lead you to a bad end, instead of just a branch dialogue that then resolves into the same event again. I think all vn players save 5 times whenever a choice pops up anyway, so theres no need to fear killing the player for a choice (doesnt even need to game over and title screen most of the time, just jump back to the choice screen after the bad end rolls).

6) You're a good writer.

doodlemancy113 days ago

THANK YOU for this very detailed and kind comment!! FEEDBACK MAKES ME SO POWERFUL AND STRONG.

1) HAHAHA people mostly seem very inclined to pick the nice choices-- though i've tried to make sure every choice is interesting or valid somehow even if it's mean or seems like a bad idea. i want to try to reward people's choices no matter what they choose. we'll see how well that holds up as the stack of variables gets taller and taller-- but it's my philosophy ;)

2) HEHEH yessss! you got the goods! and i'll definitely have more doodles to post, many many many more, on my various social medias.

3) is this a Golden Kamuy reference????? i love Golden Kamuy. anyway yeah-- i'm gonna have to find ways to work really economically with what i want to pull off. i'm definitely not going to be fully rendering a colored and shaded illustration for every sketch you see; it'll be cleaner sketches, mostly monochrome with stand-out color here and there. i'm getting a sense for what i want to do as i go. cut-ins are a good idea i should think more about how to execute on haha. i'm definitely not following VN convention here LMAO

4) i love Erika very very much and i have. plans ;D

5) i actually had a long conversation with myself about this-- back in the day, in a very early demo almost nobody has seen, i had lots of choices that could kill you, and i decided it'd be more interesting to make the player feel like a lot of choices could kill them but actually mostly have even the worse-looking ones end in Messy Success. that said: you definitely can die. have fun ;D

6) WAUAUAGUuagugh THANK YOU..........

bashindan113 days ago

3) now that I know youre into it, checks out, I can see how it might have influenced your writing now. They don't sound like Sugimoto and Asirpa at all, but the way they relate and talk to each other has that same vibe, it's a relationship you do want to see more, in a variety of situations to see how they clash or meld into each other.

I'm also writing one that doesnt follow convention, and doing the exact opposite of the very advice I'm giving, but it's what fit for me, so in the end we can only create whats natural to us.

5) I think that works well too. It's two extremes, one right choice and 4 that lead to a dead end makes it predictable, as does no single choice ever leading to a death. So the only way to really make it feel real, is sometimes it being deadly, and you not being able to tell you doomed the timeline because things seemed like a messy success as usual. Balanced stakes keep them vivid in the player's mind (and VNs have the advantage of lightweight navigation, so such dead ends dont hurt in a playtime measure as much as it would in different genres.)

doodlemancy113 days ago (1 edit)

3) hehehehe! i watched it for the first time this year! desperately awaiting season 5, probs gonna start collecting the manga. i've been working on IC much longer but it DEFINITELY had an influence on me to some degree, haha. i aspire to its incredible level of shenanigans vs. excitement and i love the way it rock-tumblers all the characters around.

and hey good luck with your own project! throw me a link sometime if ya want ;D

5) yeah!! i think it's a fine approach depending on one's goals. the big thing i learned from my really old demo (and from playing other narrative games) was that once you prime a player with the idea that their choices could be deadly, they'll do a lot of the work of freaking out about it themselves. even if it goes okay, lots of players will feel like they probably barely scraped by or be afraid they missed an important hint, even if they were totally on the right track the whole time. i'm toying with the idea of maybe having one possible dead end in every chapter.

bashindan113 days ago (1 edit)

3) Now I need Sykes to chitatap on the wild. Seeing the rest of the cast in the main page and they seem like a colorful bunch already (i like the ginger), if you can keep the energy you gave the main cast here across them, I'm sure you'll have as many shenanigans going around. I personally can't simulate Golden Kamuy at all, so I can only cheer when I see people that can do that style of storytelling because it really is fantastic.

And the story itself is written, I'm just producing endless pieces of art for it, so if things go well, I'll be taking you up on that this year already. (the hardest part of publishing is being seen by anyone so i can't refuse this deal)

5) That sounds like a very good idea to do, I think people love the "what if..." timelines, even if just for the morbid curiosity of how things would have turned out if everything went wrong, so it adds spice for sure. (The hint part is one thing I do like to use in my route splitting a lot. even if its a dead end, theres a drop of info that helps solve the overall mystery or plot ahead of time in it, something the correct choice wont say ever, or not this early at least.)

doodlemancy113 days ago (2 edits)

3) he would do it. he would say chitatap. and yeah getting Seen is hard! getting someone to commit their time to look at a new thing that they're not sure if they'll like... it's hard in a world with so many things vying for everyone's attention constantly. i'm always honored when anyone takes the time because i sure don't get as much reading done as i'd like LMAOOOOO

5) THAT'S SUCH A GOOD THOUGHT. DROPPING HINTS IN BAD ENDS. and lore. i'm writing that down on cute paper, i'm putting it up with magnets in my locker, (this is metaphorical i don't have a locker i am 33)

itch.io

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