I got some ideas about improving the money. May I PM? Is Discord OK?

Hum... This one is a very unexpected mixed bag.

SPOILER WARNING

I'll start with the bad because it's shorter.

1. I miss some sort of Background music. Even if just a gentile piano song at some points.
2. I miss some sort of backgrounds. At least, to give a mood of where they are. (but I don't miss ambient sfx)
3. I miss being able to raise volume for voices. I had to boost my speakers to 130% because even at 100% (and the VN already comes with sound at 100% by default) I couldn't hear right.
4. I miss some sort of credits at the end.

With the bad out of the way, here's the good

Alice is so so well done. The voice acting does an awesome job compensating for no BGM. Every VA did a really good job with their acting to portray each character with its own personality and individuality in a story written to allow them to shine through! However, Ciara (Alice) really stands out in how not-human-but-borderline-human she sounds. Regardless, everyone is so so believable. How were you able to find such a good roister of voice actors?!?!

Although no camera work, there's still some nice work put into the sprites that is almost as good as also having camera work. Good job!

I found it funny how everyone is completely oblivious about Alice's weird antics until someone actually touches her or she reveals it.

However, I really like that, if chosen a few of the correct options they tell Alice they like her although she's not human. Way better than so many stories where they go into "you're more human than humans" kind of stuff we are spoonfed by media. Anyway, they tell her she's loved regardless, due to how she is.

(By the way, I really would like if there was a way to get the vending machine taken care of by Alice. It should be fun.)

Alternatively, she tries to execute the alternative way to trying to become human, which is equally well executed and ends up in a well-written tragedy made very real by the voice actors.

The sprite acting is done right and feels a lot like a school play but without as much movement. Bring the actors to the scene. Play the actors and remove the actors from the scene. For that vibe it's done nicely.

Thank you for doing this VN. It was a great experience.

7 out of 10, I'd say.

Praises

After going through the whole VN. I have to say I really like Pippa as a character and I jokingly hope I never meet her in my life. But I quite like how she is and how she interacts with the other characters.

I also like this OST so much. It really brings the mood up when there's no voice acting.

I also like how much the characters and the camera moves. This is a solo-dev writer and artist? Wow! Specially the dogs. So much done and I'd really guess not so many original images were used. I also liked the bird!

That librarian was morbidly funny, to me. Just the way she moves her book reminds me of those strict women featured in movies.

Extra

I have no idea what ATL you had issues with. It went fully smooth for me, except a single animation while on the street where she immediately straightens up in a snap.

The way that homeless just happened to have her book and MC was self-aware of how ridiculous that was really hilarious!

Faults

I really like the concept of the money+magic mechanic but I think it was quite underutilized. It's too easy to have money left and the punishment for doing wrong choices is quite limited. I feel like having tighter money would make it more interesting to the point to, for example, buying steak and giving money to the homeless guy, you only have enough to buy the energy bar near the end and cannot feed her in the intermediate meal.

There are some interesting plot holes I was able to get into... For example, with Mapo tofu and going cheap, I could get high 30's $ left and MC still talks about lack of money.

Ending 2 is interesting because if it was longer, it could evolve into Ending 3 after MC receives his salary no? Or am I seeing something wrong? (I like it, regardless)

That's what staid on my mind after reading. I liked it a lot. Thank you for making this! It made me a very fun morning.

This is a 8.5 out of 10 to me.

You sound like a great person. Here's an offer: If you want, I can give you some examples with some of your work.

For now, you can find me on discord under the same username. You can DM me and I can give some practical help 😉.

Oh... I see... Lack of experience drove those cinematography issues. I thought with so many programmers, you'd be helping each other on that 🙂. Maybe I just overestimated, sorry. Check out https://feniksdev.com/. he has awesome tutorials. There's also lots of youtube videos.

I think I get it... In that case, I think that part of the story suffers HUGELY (and I mean "hugely") from "good intentions, bad execution". You are trying to show that Oto-hime is gaslighting all the time but, in reality, what comes across is that she's right all the time.
There's no content showing the truth. There's no "before" in the story. There's only a hint about shaved ice with Shimako's own rejection. You can only continue fishing or go to your colleagues.... Both are just "go to turtle" without anything else. Then, the first time the reader knows about Shimako's past with her co-workers is about them treating her very badly.
At that time, Oto-hime didn't have any real opportunity to gaslight Shimako into really thinking badly about her co-workers. But, just in the first scene with Oto-hime, I already go through a meaningless choice "move" and a meaningless choice "Why did you bring me here?". That already sets the tone for how choices work and will feel to the reader. Then when choosing what to eat being fully meaningless, cemented that tone. Even if you wanted to make it look like it's a "you don't have a choice because you are being gaslighted", you taught something else to the reader.

Was I able to explain it better from the POV of the reader? 🤔

IMO, this could gain A LOT from:

1. If the co-workers are actually good to Shimako, show an intro showcasing just that. 
   1. Maybe start with her having fun with her co-workers.
   2. Maybe also include a still image of the stairs and Kanede event.
2. Make Shimako a little bit smarter. I know she has to stay an emotional pushover for the story to work this short but make her intent to do more.
3. Rework the menus/choices. Start more meaningful and make them more and more meaningless over time.

Also, I think this would be a good idea.

1. Make Shimako more distrusting of Oto-hime's advances in the very beginning (she was kidnapped, ffs!). But make Shimako gain trust faster, given how well she's been treated, instead of always in denial and always self-deprecating herself.
2. Don't make Shimako think that the fish are swimming on land... Please... Instead, for example, "Why are fish swimming around me?" or something of sort would help Shimako sound much less dumb (there's more but that one specially staid in my mind)

Thank you for your attention.

I just finished reading this and I have lots to say:

Spoiler alert

Great

Oto-hime is well done. It's a well-done, very tame yandere. She's well portrayed and the voice-actor, most of the time, did an excellent job in showing the soft-spokenness of her in contrast with her actions (when it was not excellent, it was good). I like a lot how the fact she's yandere appears over time and how it's revealed, with hints since very early.

OK

The co-workers were portrayed as fake bastards which allowed an interesting back and forth between wether Shimako was actually telling the truth or not.
They were also a good tool to enhance and diverse Oto-hime's personality.
The ending fits well for the buildup that the story has been bringing.

The bubbles are a nice touch.

Art style is incoherent. BG art, sprite art and CG art are disjoint and, from my perspective, it's as if the artists didn't do any communication to make it more cohesive. It doesn't stand out a lot but specially Oto-hime's detail level vs BG detail level does stand out.

Too bad that the coworkers didn't get to have complete sprites besides a silhouette.

NOPE

Shimako is, in my perspective, quite, with lack of better word, stupid. The actions, the options available, the thought process... If it wasn't for how interesting Oto-hime is and how cutely she's drawn, I think Shimako is really someone I'd avoid because of how much of a non-person she is. Countless times I felt like screaming to the screen for an option that would make sense... But it doesn't exist... After some time, it makes full sense it doesn't exist because it wouldn't make sense to Shimako's personality.

So so many actions narrated and not coded. Camera movements that could have been done, character movements that were not done, a couple more expressions for Oto-hime (is it because of lack of time? I understand if it is... Art takes time). I remember near the end, Shimako runs away but instead of zooming the camera out, Oto-hime is zoomed out. Also near the end, when Shimako is pushed in by the water, Oto-hime is zoomed in, instead of the camera zooming in.

WTF

So many menus asking for a choice. So many not-a-choice. So many seems to be a choice but it's not. It doesn't feel like a design choice. It feels more like to make the kinetic novel not feel like a kinetic novel when only a technicality at two points in the whole text makes it not a kinetic novel.

Overall

I reached the end and, I confess, it didn't really satisfy me. Even though, there are some parts that satisfied me, specially Oto-hime's portraial. Shimako... not really.

5 out of 10

The lib is fixed now

Maybe the image is something that Unity shows as some sort of placeholder while trying to make the video show 🤔? My PC isn't potato slow, though.

No idea why it isn't OK then. I wonder which codec it is. VP9 would be the most universally working nowadays.

Then I sincerely wonder what consumes CPU so much. Since then I tried to limit my CPU but the framerate doesn't change. It stays at 60fps. I wish I could tell what it's trying to do to cause that but I don't know Unity.

I liked Dondon's video too. The story makes way more sense with the videos. No doubt. It's a nice drama I liked. I rated accordingly. I'd say a 8 out of 10. An amazing work for a first release. There are some parts that don't flow so well due to lack of visuals but that's more of my subjective view.

Ah! Makes perfect sense then. I'd have done the same myself. Learning Python and learning Renpy when you already know C# and the Unity platform is backwards thinking. Thank you for sharing that.

Thank you very much for the insightful explanation.

It's ok. I get it better now. It was looking so out of place, makes more sense now. Still, I wonder what that image is from. Is it just a Unity placeholder for a missing or unplayable video? What's the video codec (h264, VP8, h265, VP9, AV1, ...)? I couldn't find the video files themselves. Could it be it requires the codec in the host system and I'm missing the codec🤔?

On second thought about performance. I wonder if you are just using a busy (or eager) event wait loop instead of an event-based loop (for most situations, the event-based is much more efficient)🤔. That would mean the build isn't heavy, it just wastes GPU and CPU cycles 

Just let me know when you update. I'll take a look again then.

Closing and reopening didn't work for me, unfortunately.

For now, I'll look for a video on youtube with it. I saw that DonDon did a comment, I'll hope he also did a video.

Don't fret too much about it 🙂. It has significant issues related to these stuff but I think this is a really well done attempt for a first try 👍.

Just makes me wonder why Unity and not Ren'Py or LightVN. May I know?

First: When I try playing it, it uses max CPU and max GPU. My PC fans roar LOUDLY. Is it really that heavy?

Second:

I don't get this VN. The story is nice and slightly melancholic but the music is a bit too repetitive. It would be better if it was a longer song. However, the song is a very good choice for the mood.

Unfortunately, routs just unsatisfying end abruptly with an image that looks like a signal test from a TV and then sent straight to the title screen.

I tried playing and choosing options a little different. I'll try the walkthrough after this but I don't get why the story ends so suddenly.

👍. Understood. Makes sense. Good luck on your next one!

Thank you for this VN.

I read it now. It's very complete. Lots of ways things can go. Many options to succeed and fail. Except for the money, the arcs are inconsequential which helps making a story like this with so much branching.

The art is a mixed bag for me.

The background and sprites art style don't match by a little bit too much for my taste, specially the helper. There seem to be lack of expressions. E.g. looking at the ball not just in narration but also visually.

There's barely any camerawork (none in the code). I miss zooming in when analyzing something (E.g. zoom in onto the object of attention while analyzing Pepe's pocket or Connie's bird pin, etc...)

The lack of BGM is also a suffer for this VN. Which is a bit sour to me too...

Now the good

Very well done. I like the mix of scum and genuine need of MC. I like the scavenging for money vs tricking people (tricking takes priority)

I like how the story progresses and how complex things can go based on how truthful or skillful or plain dumb you are. Can be the difference between a tip, a generous tip or being left with a door slam.

I like the reasons why the characters went. It adds up very well together and adds up beautifully (story-wise) all-round. I liked how much Pepe liked her and how skeptical to non-skeptical back and forth of Connie.

Good job! Entertaining although lacks camerawork.

Quite interesting story. I liked it much. I just wish there was more visual but I guess it's part of the whole vibe this went with.

Good job!

I see. In that case, it's a bug with the Glitch Script and nothing to do with your code/VN.

Thank you for the link, I'll send them a pull request to fix this issue.

As for the solution, look for this code:

theights = sorted(randomobj.randrange(cheight+1) for k in range(nslices)) # y coordinates demarcating all the strips

Then replace it with this:

theights = sorted(randomobj.randrange(int(cheight+1)) for k in range(nslices)) # y coordinates demarcating all the strips

Unfortunately, I report that I had a crash.

ValueError: non-integer arg 1 for randrange()

File "game/glitch_ren.py", line 55, in <genexpr>

    theights = sorted(randomobj.randrange(cheight+1) for k in range(nslices)) # y coordinates demarcating all the strips

If you need more info, I can give more info in private (PM, for example)

I did a quick test using skip feature and it doesn't crash and I didn't see any errors.

I added to my directory of spooktober VN to read. Thank you!

Yeah! I liked it! I Didn't know you were unable to work on it during the whole month. That explains it.

Thank you for making this VN. Thank you for clarifying 🙏.

Quite interesting VN. I liked how it's read and the personalities of the characters are very consistent and amusing. The specific dialogue for the choices is short-lived but I don't mind.

I's have preferred much more if there was more animation. The characters rarely do anything besides changing the expression to give the hint of their mood.

Also, navigating with the keyboard to select the option to proceed isn't straightforward. Maybe some key shortcut to jump to select the menu options or some mechanism to make it straightforward how to reach to select the first option when they appear would be nice.

It was a good read. Thank you for making this VN.

Linux version please (it's just 1 checkbox)!
(after the unlock)

Thank you!

More is already in the pipeline for 0.4. I just paused that to solve this issue. If you find these kinds of unexpected behavior, let me know. I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't got a private message with it.

This is a rather nice VN. I really liked the soundtrack.

My main request is please put sfx in sfx channel. If you don't know how, I can help.

Also, seems like the audio is taking a lot of space. If you didn't I recommend using ogg. If you don't know how, I can help too.

Graph is from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/16jeox6/i_made_a_comprehensive_visual_...

Renpy has Live2D support, so I suppose that it shouldn't be too hard.

Not this specific one but some existing ones may become

I also confirm I can run natively on linux just fine

BDH is also dark skinned but still not tanned.

From what sun? It's always dark!

You can mimick 8 by buying the skin part addon and then color it however you want.

I think what could be added is the ability for mods to add such functionality. If I were the dev, that's how I'd do it.

These are all already suggested on discord

Discord

It's in the credits. It's ren'py. But definitely not stock ren'py.