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.
