Post by dullachan in Olivine Lights comments

Viewing post in Olivine Lights comments

A game I very much enjoyed. I'm going to give critiques, because they may be of use to you, but don't take them too personally.

Writing - The writing is solid. Very relaxing dialogue that makes you smile. I appreciate the casual flirtation between the MC and Cynthia, it suits Cynthia's character. I think there were one or two jokes that I laughed aloud at.

I like theme of having the nature of Pokemon human-relationships contrasted by the player and the Kate. Amphy adds to this, with it being unprotected because it's not "owned" by Jasmine. As well as the haunted house Pokemon's backstory (trying to stay vague here to not spoil).
The Houndoom fight conclusion was very cool and the haunted factory part was great. Both were tense and made you think afterward.

Notably, the events of the game seem to have rather clever problemsolving, which belies writing talent.
I liked the plot, I liked the mystery, I liked the end of the game.

If there's one thing I can give advice on writingwise, it's premise. The game advertises itself with Cynthia. The only problem is, the coolest scenes in the game were the Kate part hunting for Houndoors, and the investigation of the haunted mill with Jasmine. See the problem? No Cynthia!
Now I hardly minded it because the scenes themself were excellent, but I think they would have done well to further develop the connection between the player and Cynthia, via the suspension bridge effect.
Um, this critique isn't urgent at all and may seem trivial, but I think works that revolve around fansa for a character should dump as much fansa as possible in the work, rather than getting distracted with side characters. This is up to you though, as I'd be remiss to say the side characters didn't have weight.

Art - The art direction is very inconsistent. You mix flat pokemon graphics with photo backgrounds and pixellated labels on the imagemaps. I'd recommend looking into consistency across the board in all these, because having a recognizable and pleasant style will draw more people in. Unfortunately, it's understandably difficult, either requiring a budget or a BG slave. But it will propel your game from looking like a Renpy test demo project to it's own visual novel with its own style.
I do think the sprites look very clean and attractive, and the photo backgrounds are also very pretty but the problem for me is they just... don't fit together.

Music - Pretty decent. I hardly noticed it.

UI - Generic Renpy UI is anathema on the eyes for people who have played a lot of Renpy games. If you're looking to make VNs in the future, I recommend updating the menus to literally anything else. Aside from that, the menus in the achievements and the background are fine.
I happened to think the pixelated black and white Pokemonesque labels in the imagemap look nice, and wondered what the game would look like if the textbox used that style.
But they contrast with the menus and the quickmenu, and the time counter, and the photo background. Needs to be less glaring contrast. Perhaps play with filters?
That said, I do see you using filters to make characters darker in darker scenes. I like that you do that, it's the little things that make it more atmospheric.

BGs - Aside from my complaints earlier about consistency, the BG choices are very good. They're consistent with each other and my vision of the town. I... may have used a couple of the same ones lol.

Transitions - It's alright. I like that you have the concierge behind hotel desk, it works well. But when he flips sprites, it happens a bit too quick. For this I recommend a dissolve transition to go along with your xzoom -1. You do this sometimes, but it's not consistent.
Additionally, wouldn't the pixellate dissolve for scene transitions work well for the Pokemon theming? Eh, it's up to you though.

Sizing - Weirdly noticeable. Everything is at several paces away. You change it up a little bit, but there's a lot of focus on keeping everything centered for some reason. There are points where you I wouldn't mind some scenes having characters get up close and personal, or start farther away.

For instance, in the scenes where you're sitting in a cafe or bar with Cynthia, it's still a standing sprite overlapping the table. If you were to zoom into the BG and Cynthia at shoulder level, it could have the appearance of her sitting on the couch without having to show the legs. Am I making sense? I feel like I'm not making sense.
This comes with its own downsides though, like not being to see the full BG. There's never a perfect solution.

Once again, I'd like to compliment your visual novel, and tell you not to take my critiques so seriously. I was been feeling melancholy this week, and this VN cheered me right up. Here's to your future projects! I can't wait to see them :)

Writefuck48 days ago(+1)

I'm glad you enjoyed the game!

With limited art availability and my amateurish coding skills, the writing was really all I had going for me. I cut a lot of corners in the art and the visuals, grudgingly saying "this looks bad but it's the best I have without dumping ten thousand dollars into this" a whole lot, but I didn't let myself wimp out on the writing. I have "write" in my name, god damn it.

With the main mission involving Cynthia, it never really occurred to me that the game should also have sidequests with her too. I intentionally made the evening activities with Jasmine and Betsy and the wilderness stuff with Kate be a little divorced from the main story, to give the player sort of a break from sleuthing with Cynthia. But now that you mention it, the game probably should have had some fun little side-things you go off and do with Cynthia too. I'll keep that in mind for future games. I'm happy to report that the next game has a whole bunch of side missions with the main girl.

You're right that the game might be better if it focused more on Cynthia then on the supporting characters. Kate and Betsy actually weren't planned to be in the game at all when I first started writing it. Betsy sort of arose out of the necessity to have a primary villain, and I wanted the player to be able to run off and join the bad guys so we could see Cynthia as an obstacle under certain circumstances. That means the leader of the bad guys kind of had to become a proper character. Kate I have no excuse for. The existence of the pokemon rangers started as a throwaway joke at the start of the game, and it was only later when I decided it might be interesting to go and visit them. Then Kate's presence in the game kind of grew like a metastasizing tumor. I don't regret her being in the game, but you're absolutely right that there are a lot of non-Cynthia distractions in a game that bills itself as "hang out with Cynthia!"

As far as the game's visuals... yeah, they're all bad. The lewd scenes look okay, obviously, since I had real artists drawing them. For the rest of the game though, this is sadly the best I was able to do with no budget for the game. I can tell you my next game is going to look a lot better because I have a better idea of what I'm doing and I have more money at my disposal to throw at the project. In the future I would like to remake Olivine Lights entirely with better art and graphics for... everything, and maybe add some more content to it. A sidequest or two with Cynthia. More sex. Better pokemon battles. Proper character sprites. Art for characters sitting down. Backgrounds that aren't photos. Et cetera. That won't be for a long time, though, and it will cost money. The fear of legal trouble from Big N prevents me from charging for this game, so unless I find a schmuck of an artist who's willing to draw stuff for me for free, art is probably going to continue to be the weakest thing I have going for me.

One last thing... I'll be honest, I have no idea what you mean by the suspension bridge effect.

dullachan48 days ago(+1)

>I cut a lot of corners in the art and the visuals, grudgingly saying "this looks bad but it's the best I have without dumping ten thousand dollars into this" a whole lot

As long as it's something you're keeping it in mind, I'd say you're good fam. Let me say it clearly too, I think everybody who enjoyed your work is happy you released it regardless (this includes me). A VN with some minor flaws is 100% better than no VN, or a VN that spends forever in development hell.

I actually have a lot of respect for people who work with what they've got and actually release it fully, rather than seek perfection on every work, you know?

>I have more money at my disposal to throw at the project

Before that, I might look toward ways you can make the VN more visually appealing without the use of money. The little things, like UI, or if a character fits into the background. Tsukihime, Higurashi, and Katawa Shoujo all used photo filter backgrounds when they were doujin works like yours, and they became breakout successes despite the industry having visually beautiful, heavy CG works for a time before them. It's possible, but tricky, and requires some creativity, I suppose.

>when I decided it might be interesting to go and visit them. Then Kate's presence in the game kind of grew like a metastasizing tumor.

Hey, sometimes that's the way the writing takes you. It made for a good plot which is why I hesitate to criticize it. But just a tad more attention diverted to the heroine might have been good. Ideally, you'd have both the ranger and cool scenes for Cynthia, but that requires more work in all aspects and this VN is already at a good length.

Also, I may have been wrong here. Looking at the store page now, there's no overwhelming impression that this VN is for Cynthia only. It seems to be be a more general than that. So my B.

>I have no idea what you mean by the suspension bridge effect.

Ah, it's a writing tactic/dating advice based on the concept that a couple undergoing a dangerous trial (such as crossing a rickety bridge together) will grow stronger and trust each other more.

One more thing. I'd be surprised if this was your first visual novel work. If so, it's really impressive. Even if it's your second or third, there's a lot you've done that surpass expectations. Pacing and length of the story, the characters are sprightly, choice structure is solid and useful, achievement system with integrated New Game+ mechanics... It all clearly has a lot of effort and balancing put into it. There's talent there, you know?

itch.io

Viewing post in Olivine Lights comments