Post by armoredopossum in Interloper comments

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Well this is a fun comment section.

I'm not going to get too much into the AI discussion since I feel like my feelings on that are too complicated to address in the scope of an itch.io comment (which knowing me is probably already going to be way too long). What I will say is that you clearly put in a great deal of effort into making the models and animations for this, and while you're absolutely going to continue getting some pushback, I don't think you should stop making this or stop posting it or whatever. There seems to be a clear difference here in the use of AI in this game and just slapping a quick prompt together and generating a generic anime waifu.

While we're on the subject though, some of the visuals can be a bit rough and there are some errors. A couple that I noticed, for example:

- when Sam is sitting on the bed and his ear twitches, it looks like his face is kinda... collapsing?

- when Sam is walking after leaving the house, one of his feet is plantigrade and the other is digitigrade. In other shots, sometimes both are plantigrade and sometimes both are digitigrade.

While Naho had some really bad takes, I actually do agree with him to an extent on the animations. Having animations for Sam for much of the game is fine, but he does not need to be moving at all times. For example, you can have him be static during the meal scenes where he wouldn't be doing a ton of movement. In seated, static scenes like this, the constant movements can get a bit distracting.

I also think you should be more selective in moving the "camera" for the backgrounds/scenes. I found this very unnerving when first entering the house, but the more you use it, that effect quickly wears off. Where I think it works is as a kind of subversion of expectations for what a VN looks like. Players are typically used to static backgrounds, so having the background shift to move like a first person horror game can quickly increase the tension by taking the viewer out of their "comfort zone", so to speak. So maybe use that for particularly intense scenes rather than just like, looking at a forest.

As several others have noticed, there were lots of spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors, but it seems like you're already working on addressing that.

There is also some really stilted sentence structure going on here, and that may be a translation issue.

Ex. 1: "Sam assumed a very reluctant position of initiative."

You can make this sound much more natural by tweaking this slightly to "Sam reluctantly took the initiative." You can make this sound more natural and much more vivid by using every creative writer's favorite buzzwords, "show don't tell".

Consider something like, "Sam hesitated for a moment, taking a deep breath before firmly laying a paw on your shoulder, then stepped in front of you to knock on the door."

In this revision, we're getting across the idea you were trying to with "Sam reluctantly took the initiative" while providing more details about Sam and letting the reader see more clearly how that plays out.

Ex. 2: "It was a kind of gently prodding emotional negotiation without the expectation of a formal conclusion."

I generally try to propose rewrites when I point issues out, but this one is so esoteric that I'm not really sure where to start. I think this sentence should really just be removed, not only for lack of clarity but also as part of a rework to the intro scene.

As others have mentioned, I think we need at least some initial grounding as to who MC and Sam are before the plot really kicks off. I understand there's supposed to be an aura of mystery and that things will be revealed later, but have some dialogue between the pair as they're walking.

Is there something that predisposes MC to follow the fox from the bus station? Is he lonely? Is he depressed? Is he looking for adventure or excitement? Is he a horny gay furry? If the idea is for it to be totally mystical, A) maybe consider having it not be since grounding decisions in character is almost always more satisfying than having them happen solely for the plot; and B) convey some of that with Sam's responses. Have him be aloof, evasive, cagey, but friendly with at least a hint of charisma. Things that make MC suspicious but intrigued.

Also definitely convey VERY early on that MC is a human and that anthros are not normally present in his world. I did not realize either of these until the house and that really changes how that intro should play out. You should clarify this both for the benefit of the reader and because MC should react SOMEHOW to seeing a real world anthro for the first time.

There are a few other moments where the MC should have a much stronger reaction to what Sam is saying. For example, after Sam tells MC that he was wondering if bringing another person into the other world would make it better, the MC reacts by thinking in bold text "The fox had been lonely."

Like, THAT'S your reaction to this realization? Not that he might have selfishly brought you to this weird dimension where you might have to permanently live your life moving from safehouse to safehouse with no one but the person that brought you there?

Obviously we, the audience, and you, the author, are interested in seeing the relationship with the fox guy play out, but someone who is actually in this situation, contending with possibly never seeing anyone they've ever known again, would likely have a much more severe reaction.

This comment is already going way way way too long so one bug report and I'll get to a conclusion here. While walking after leaving the house, I got a message "Image 'closing mist' not found".

Look, at the end of the day, I think you should stick with it. I know I can be a little heavy with the red pen sometimes but the point isn't to attack you or discourage you. If I thought this game was a trash heap I wouldn't have spent the better part of an hour writing a whole-ass dissertation on my feelings about it and how to improve it. Regardless of the (hopefully interpreted as constructive as intended) criticisms that I have provided, I do legitimately want to see where this story goes and how this world develops. Best of luck to you, truly :)

The Red Levity7 days ago

Well this is a fun comment section.

While we're on the subject though, some of the visuals can be a bit rough and there are some errors. A couple that I noticed, for example:

- when Sam is sitting on the bed and his ear twitches, it looks like his face is kinda... collapsing?

- So fun. But there are a lot of useful comments as well. I did put a lot of work into it. It will not be perfect, there's no way around that. Sam has sometimes done things that frightened me, and I will ask him to behave for future chapters. His face needs to stay intact, I very much agree.

- when Sam is walking after leaving the house, one of his feet is plantigrade and the other is digitigrade. In other shots, sometimes both are plantigrade and sometimes both are digitigrade.

- Fuel for the AI haters, I'm sure. This is a very common AI problem right now. I'm left with either reducing the animations a lot, sticking only to the very few that work well, or spending a lot of money (spoiler, I don't have a lot of money).

It's not for lack of prompting, both in Stable diffusion, and in the animation process. The process is pretty much this:

- Generate the wanted image through prompting in Stable diffusion. Typically with a ratio of 1/10 or 1/20, meaning 1 out of 10 or 20 is a useful picture.

- Import to Photoshop to correct errors, cut it out and place it on a green screen background.

- Animate it with KlingAI, which again often does not succeed.

- Import it into Premiere Pro for chroma/color keying, and add a transparency layer to it, tweaking the loop.

- Import to Visual Basic script and give it a name etc, ready for the game.

It takes time. That's completely fine, I think it mostly works.

While Naho had some really bad takes, I actually do agree with him to an extent on the animations. Having animations for Sam for much of the game is fine, but he does not need to be moving at all times. For example, you can have him be static during the meal scenes where he wouldn't be doing a ton of movement. In seated, static scenes like this, the constant movements can get a bit distracting.

- If I let him be static for certain things, I can add a LOT more variety, and produce much faster. It's a creative direction I've taken to have him be animated at all times. I want him to feel as real as possible. I understand how it might be distracting when you actually need to read the story. Feedback received.

I also think you should be more selective in moving the "camera" for the backgrounds/scenes. I found this very unnerving when first entering the house, but the more you use it, that effect quickly wears off. Where I think it works is as a kind of subversion of expectations for what a VN looks like. Players are typically used to static backgrounds, so having the background shift to move like a first person horror game can quickly increase the tension by taking the viewer out of their "comfort zone", so to speak. So maybe use that for particularly intense scenes rather than just like, looking at a forest.

- I don't want the backgrounds to move at all. That is to say, I want them to be living, but I don't want any perspective shifts at all. I currently have a ticket with KlingAI (finally, I've complained about it since mid November)

It simply happens, the AI won't listen to me, so I've had to work around it. In my opinion, if the background perspective is shifting, the characters should follow, which they don't - it would be an insane amount of work and I might break the engine.

Again, I could use static backgrounds, that's just not what I wanted. The very first scene in Chapter 2 (not released) has a static background with parts of it lightly animated. I may do this more, I may not.

As several others have noticed, there were lots of spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors, but it seems like you're already working on addressing that.

There is also some really stilted sentence structure going on here, and that may be a translation issue.

Ex. 1: .....

......"The fox had been lonely."

(shortened quote to save space)

- Yes I'm working on the writing, fixing the many mistakes, as well as changing things that are not realistic, or not good enough.

I'm going to look closer at your examples. I will work on it, but you should probably still expect some things to be a little weird going forward. It won't be perfect - hopefully, the world as a whole will be appealing.

- This is definitely one of the weaker parts of the story. As I wrote in another reply, some of it is intentional. I'm trying to keep the framing of the MC and their motivations, to a minimum, so as to suit any reader. In this, I may have missed the mark, and ended up making him one-dimensional.

Of course, you would expect a reaction from the MC when he meets an actual humanoid fox, and I can understand the disappointment when there is none, or when it is not properly explored. I had reasons, but yes.

- I absolutely appreciate you taking all this time, and giving me this feedback. I'm going to take it as a compliment that you found it worthy of writing a feedback comment this long. I will take it all into consideration.

armoredopossum5 days ago(+1)

Very interesting insight into the AI generation process for this game. Hopefully clarifying the effort involved will temper some of the arguments that using AI necessarily equates laziness. (probably not, but it would be nice)

I'm not going to focus too much on this because I think I, at least to some extent, made my point in the original comment, but if a static image or background works for a particular scene, just use it. I think if you get caught up in making animations for everything whether the scene needs it or not you might end up burning out. Sometimes it's okay to work smarter, not harder.

I understand what you're going for with the "blank slate protagonist" thing, and to that I have a couple comments:

1. While this concept works sometimes (Twilight is probably the most notoriously commercially successful one, but that's an... undesirable comp so let's throw out another FVN like Adastra), character motivation, reactions to scenes, and agency is still important. Maybe another way of looking at it is there's a difference between leaving things open for players to graft motivations or characteristics to and having the MC do things that practically no player would do without explanation.

2. I don't think you should necessarily be averse to providing a more concrete MC in general. Not necessarily saying you need to go into super deep detail about his background or anything, but I think people may connect more with defined protagonists than you might think. People will find similarities to latch onto, which can often be more powerful than trying to paste your personality onto a blank slate.

It's your story at the end of the day though. One of the best parts of creative writing is that there's no answer key; I think there are plenty of ways you can make this story work.