Two languages! Well, I think I’m more used to writing feedback in English than in French, so I guess I’ll stick to writing this feedback in English.
I understood more of the story in English than in French, but that’s because I’m better at English than French.
Writing: The story was exciting and scary, and the characters seemed interesting too. The text that depends on choices in interesting too, although I think it could be even more fun if things you say at one time have an effect on something that happens a while later (for example, maybe the spirit at the end could have said something like “Are you dumb like a clown?” if you’re dressed up like a clown).
And I think I noticed two typos in the English version. And since they were only two, I might as well mention where they were:
- If I set my name to “Laura”, there’s a sentence that says “ThanksLaura!” I think you might want to add a space after “Thanks”.
- In the credits screen, you’re calling the translator a “translater”.
Oh, and maybe you could have mentioned the engine on the credits screen, though I do agree that would probably involve changing the layout.
Audio: There’s some music on the language selection screen and the title screen, which might be a little bit repetitive, but it does have its charm. The music that plays in the first part of the game itself seems a bit more seems more interesting (yeah, leaving the best music for the part of the game where people are likely to spend most time… and if this feedback were itself a VN, this is where you could click “back”, select “put the best music on the title screen” and find that I’d have complimented that decision too: “well, I do often leave VNs on their main menu while I type feedback, so it’s nice to have something interesting to listen to while I do that”). And the music that plays in the more scary part is probably not something I’d listen to for a long time in a row (though I did leave it playing for a while just so that I could see what happened… it does get boring somewhat quickly, but it does fit the scary things that are happening in the story while it plays).
I like the sound effects too.
And there’s no voice acting. Not that there needs to be. And adding it in several languages can be a pain, especially when there’s this many characters.
Art: I like the cute and consistent artstyle, and I also like how the character that’s speaking is shown brighter than the ones that aren’t speaking. The UI with the Halloween decorations and the spider that appears when a text panel finishes drawing is a nice touch too. (I would mention that the orange spider is easier to see than the blue arrow, so maybe the blue arrow on the narration could be a little bit brighter to better separate it from the also bluish background.) And it goes black-and-white-ish when the characters are telling stories, which also works well (and then the spider goes white, which seems like you did make sure it would contrast well with the background).
Fun: Trying the different options is fun, but see what I said about them in the writing section.
I notice the language selection screen wants me to use a mouse. If I could use a keyboard to select a language, that would be nice, but I’m okay with using a mouse. The title screen too seems to expect mouse input. And maybe it could be nice if there were a way to return to the language selection screen from the title screen: it’s not that hard to restart the VN completely and change the language, but as someone who likes trying different options including different languages, I think being able to change the language without closing and reopening the VN would be nice.
The story itself does let me advance it either by clicking or by pressing space or enter. And I don’t have a game controller, but I imagine that would probably also have worked. Sometimes I clicked on the spider.
If I read some text and then read the next text and then for some reason want to re-read what I already read, it seems there isn’t an option to go back.
And since the VN does seem to remember the name I pick and use it next time I play, maybe it could also remember how far into the story I’ve got, maybe even which options I’ve already picked. That way it would be able to show options slightly differently if I’ve picked them previously so that I can easily see which options I haven’t tried yet. (If you ever make a VN where people are supposed to see the same list of options multiple times in a single playthrough, do consider not using the exact same highlighting for options picked in previous playthroughs and options picked earlier in the same one.
Something I liked: The artstyle was fun, and it was consistent across foregrounds and backgrounds. And good job on making a VN in two languages!
Something I’d change: I’d probably add either a back button (to go back to the previous panel) or a history button (to view the last couple of panels all on one screen) in case someone misses some text and want to re-read it without restarting completely.