Thanks so much! Yeah we weren't able to get the whole thing finished in time for the game jam, so we decided to take all the time we needed to ensure the finished product was as polished and clean as possible, really hope you enjoy the full thing!
Viewing post in Full Launch of Flowers of Starlight! comments
And I so did ! Albeit - at the cost of my sleep schedule. 3am out here. Curseeee you !
Kinda inevitable tbh; as I’ve lived my best bits of friendship by texting on WoW at the time, I’m very vulnerable to that very setting (couldn’t get back in that zone since, sadly). Of course the fact that I’m a sucker at lesbian romance helped.
Thanks you a lot for the journey! Big thumbs up for the “natural” flow in the chat. The music felt nice (I’m keeping it on while writing this ~). The CGs felt a bit… Loooot more buffed than what I envisioned - from the sprite, but it still felt nice to have moar artwork at hand.
(spoil) If I had one reservation is how the gig was up like… Like… Maybe at 90% at their first encounter. Then the hints piles up onesidedly (bits and phrases are all over the place), and it felt a bit unnatural for them not to pry a little into it. But maybe it’s the writer’s intent, I guess a lot of drama use the obvious quiproco thing.
Aaaaand I would also say that… Well. The first “I love you” made my eyes glisten but. They do say it a lot. They have like. A cartoonish confidence suddenly. May be the hormonal buff. Okay, maybe it works.
Critic fail at criticizing ! Done ! Bruuuh
Glad you enjoyed! 3am is a perfectly reasonable time to be playing games lmao, just ask Mari-
Yeah this game was pretty much designed to be kryptonite to people with really close online friendships, which goes for all the people creating it lmao. The flow in the chat was definitely my favourite part to write it was a lot of fun just having these two goofballs bounce off each other. Thanks so much for the comments on the music! Most of it was composed by Khazumi and she did an incredible job, we'll probably be putting the soundtrack on Youtube in the next day or so, so you should be able to enjoy it more then!
As for the criticism... Yeah it's kind of inevitable with a setup like this that it's gonna stretch disbelief at some point that they don't piece it together. I kinda just accepted that as given and ran with it from there, maybe I should've toned it down a little but I think it's ultimately gonna seem incredulous at SOME point so I decided it was better to keep strong character traits (like Aster calling people angels) rather than try to preserve a "mystery" that every player had already solved. It's a balancing act and yeah I'd probably agree I came down too far on that side but it's kinda just how it be I guess?
I think with the love stuff it was kinda meant to be a mix of adrenaline + the fact they HAVE known each other for so long, so it didn't really feel like there was anything to hide? But then again the audience doesn't really see that in the same way so I could see the argument there's maybe a couple too many? Probably could've come up with a couple more synonyms I suppose.
Thanks for the comment!
Thanks you for the thoughtful answer too - it always mesmerizing to have the luxury to be in contact with the makers of the stuff. <3
As writing goes, I’m pretty sure one has to make such decisions all the time, I get it (the fact it made me tear up in the end just talk for itself). In the end, I was only hinting on my own taste that I’d appreciate to be “along them” in the confusion about betrayal ; and instead was given a chair of a “I know better, silly them to fall for it awwww…”. ^^
Also I had a thought before sleep “I didn’t say anything about the backgrounds, the backgrounds were cool !”, so here you go.
The mechanic that really made it home, was (probably underused because it was hard to do ?) the chat prompt “start writing”, then… Nope, sending something else ! - To me it’s especially cool because it’s one of the few tricks that are exclusive to games (and it may be a first for me to see it used in a VN). Felt huge on the “feels real factor”, even if it was a one-time thing.
There’s also the “flow” in the chat too, but I wouldn’t know how to replicate that. Like how agonizing it can be to “wait” for an answer sometimes. It’s a major point of miscommunication out there, and the “X is writing…” of late made that mind-game probably even worse and addicting :p - it took me decades to chill about it, and I still get that imagination going haywire because X didn’t answer immediately - hence strategies like… The spamming of reassuring smileys sometimes. On the other hand, you were successful at featuring how things can get floody when both interlocutor are taken by the moment - by making it hard to read, pretty good !
Thinking about stuff I’d throw in, I’d say, maybe one ought to have more miscommunication ? Perplexing answers, failed jokes, and need for clarification is paramount in the chatbox ! Dunno if it could have been used efficiently as an addition ^^’
Last edit : now that I think about it, the subtle “desk soundbits” at the very beginning really added something imho, would have been a small plus to use them more as highlight at certain points. And now I feel like an ass for suggesting so much stuff as non-game-maker. Anyway ! Just saying it’s so cool as to make me try to contribute with some rambly thoughts, don’t you dare take it as “could do better”, t’was great and I’m just awkward about compliments !
Ahh, it's great to hear your all your thoughts, all good things to keep in mind for possible future games (who knows?).
I agree, we could've definitely used more of the game-exclusive possibilities, like the "start writing" and the sound effects. (Difficulty is no excuse, once you found out how to program it once, you can just reuse that, haha.) But there are probably even more things one could do in that direction!
Personally I kinda dislike miscommunication to add drama, but then again it often happens in chats that you write one thing and the other person interprets it very differently. There's surely a way to add some of this without making it annoyingly overdramatic. (You know that moment when you wanna shake the characters bc they haven't spoken once in 3 years to solve this one tiny little problem? xD)
Anyway, ty for the long comments and glad you liked the background too! Isa worked hard on (most of) them :)