itch.io

Happy Birthday to me! 

...Well, a day late but close enough!

I'll see what I can do. I'd have to replay from the start so might be a bit slow going.

I started a fresh playthrough and got "image 'dormtorio' not found" error when transitioning to Tiger's day 8. There was also another part that launched a script error but I forgot to catch it (sorry) and you can force past it with ignore.

I'm not sure if this is useful at all but there are a lot of peculiar words and phrases in the English version of the game. I assume this is more or less because of direct translation from Spanish?

I've to say this is among my favorite VNs so far. The story, the setting, and the characters are all intriguing so I'm eagerly waiting to see more of it. I specifically like the feel of somewhat bladerunnerish world and "Cyber magic". I wonder if the entire world is actually a simulation what with the "story time" thing. Oh, and the art is terrific, too!

I actually do like the fact that this is a story and not a dating sim. Now my hope is that it's not gonna be 100% black and white with "big corporate evil" vs "edgy criminal rebels good" theme. I very much prefer shades of grey worlds where things are imperfect and good people sometimes do questionable or outright bad things to survive. Introduction of Darek and his view of not wanting to be a pawn gives me some hope about this. 

I specifically like the contrast between Darek and his father and why Darek wants to ally with the MC. I also wonder if MC is going to exploit Darek's weakness of feeling trapped and lonely but he also seems too smart to fall into this - I'm hoping this will be one of those relationships where both really want to be friends but keep getting tangled by a complex web of allegiances that makes it difficult to fully trust each other. *grabs popcorn*

Edit: I also hope I'm not coming off as an insufferable know-it-all in this post. I write from time to time but I don't think I'm particularly good at it. These are just a few things I noticed/thought of when I played through the first part of the game. Since BDD is commenting on spelling here I thought I might as well do the same.

On the opening scene it says "A wolf therian... while heavy rains keeps his travels halted." 

This should be "while heavy rain keeps his travel halted." (present, ongoing)
or "while heavy rains keep his travel halted." (multiple rains have come and gone but his travel is halted nevertheless by all of them ) 
or "while heavy rain keeps his travels halted." (it's continuous outpour that has hindered all his travelling for a long time - a bit prosey)

Given the context I'd say it's the first.

"The rain finally stops, and the timing cannot be more perfect" --> "and the timing couldn't be more perfect."

This sentece sounds a bit awkward but I believe it's otherwise correct. I'd probably reformat it to an exclamation like "The rain finally stops. A perfect timing!" because you have two "and-then" style sentences one after another. Speaking of which...

"Food supplies are running low, and it's time to go out to forage for more." --> He is already standing at the entrance so you can omit "to go out". You could write this as "Food supplies are running low. It's time to forage for more." - and you can even make it an exclamation with a ! but again consider the previous paragraph, so it doesn't become a double exclamation instead.

There are some other natural language and contextual things to consider as well. I'm by no means an expert but to make writing "flow" you might wish to consider how paragraphs are tied to each other through context  - or not. Up to you.

"You can head to the river to catch some fish, and..." --> "You can head to the river and catch some fish. I'll see what..."

"...another, much taller, being." --> "...another, much taller being." 

I realize you aim to have a pause here to place emphasis on "much taller" but you are also splitting a sentence in a point where you have just one word following a comma which is immediatelly followed by a full stop.  Any punctuation mark makes a reader pause. You have a pause, two words, a pause, a single word, a full stop structure here which makes it hard to read.

There are also a lot of small things which you could restructure to make sentences flow more naturally like avoiding "of his" wording. For example "Aside from the unnatural build of his body" could be changed to "Aside from his unnatural build". This however is largely a matter of preference, so I'm just mentioning it here. I'd rewrite that whole Lavadi sentence as "Aside from his unnatural build, a telltale sign of his lavadi nature are his eyes". It makes for a lighter sentence.

"It will be a habit to not call me master before too much longer" --> "It will be a habit to not call me (a) master before too long".

A lot of the potential "mistakes" when a character is speaking can be chalked up to their uprising, mastery (or lack of) of the language so I'm not going to comment much on them. For example if you aim Zandahrell to be a bit more formal with his language it's perfectly fine for him to say "Of course. Do be safe." instead of "Of course. Be safe!" or "Of course. Please be careful!"

Anyhow. This got long but I hope you find  it at least somewhat useful!

Not an english student/teacher or even native speaker but for me "It takes some time of delicate cutting" makes more sense than "It takes some time delicately cutting the mushrooms to harvest them". That doesn't sound grammatically correct to me or at least has a very odd sentence structure.

It would make more sense to say "It takes Lairen some time and delicate cutting to harvest the mushrooms, but he manages to get several pieces for himself and Zandahrell in the end".

Happy to hear it made you happy - or at least gave a laugh! There's never enough of that going around. The deal seems too sweeet to be honest, but hell, gimme! I mean the deal, hopefully not hell... though I guess deals with demons lead to the latter. Eh. Still probably worth it...

If a demon like that appeared to me after something like that I'd sell my mind, body and soul for that deal. No questions asked. Take it all. I'd even offer all my earthly possessions to sweeten the deal.

Even now I'd probably give it only a few feeble attempts to keep even a shred of my dignity before saying "Sold!"

It's enjoyable. Especially towards the end. My only slight complaint is that there are a few steps where it felt a bit rushed and a few times where there was a sense of disconnect. Like it was missing some dialogue.

For example I'd have liked to explore more their relationship in the hazeleaf picking scene. Now it felt like the transition didn't serve much purpose and could have been simply skipped by Hector saying "yes, I did it earlier" when Cadgan asked. It didn't carry the plot and neither did it explore their relationship.

Another example is when Cadgan turns down our badger and it transitions to "For now, apologize to Cadgan" scene. It's quite abrupt transition and the apology and Hector fleeing the scene would be more impactful if it was shown. Instead it felt like it was cut short.

There were also a few steps where I went "huh, are we still 9 years ago or did we already get back to present?" cases for me though these were resolved after a few clicks.

I could dig more of these up but to be honest I'm not sure if they are useful to you and cases like these are often a matter of preference anyway.

Also out of curiosity. Will there be top options for Hector? I know he likes being told what to do and has avoidant personality BUT the backstory with Cadgan also states it sparked something more adventurous and even rebellious in him. I hope this is also explored in the sex scenes, seeing that they are part of the plot.

Yeh, but Hero's Advent didn't have initially one either, and last time I played it, it wasn't used much. Maybe this is something that will be added later but I'm perfectly fine even if it's not.

I thought Aiden's secret would turn out to be something else - and it kind of did but also not really.  The revelation actually makes sense when you consider it's a magical world but I approached it from more mundane perspective.

Starting from the scene where MC's face meets his fist and the reaction of the... well, you know who... I was pretty sure he had some .... head... issues. I was surprised this wasn't the case (even if it sort of is).

I'm ready to guess this is what @MindOfFur intended, too!

I have slowly started to categorize all the VN's I find enjoyable and here's a short (heh?) entry about this one for anyone who might be interested. 

Please do read to the end before you jump into conclusions. This is one of my VN favorites because of the likeable and well written characters and because of the humor - and the use of music. As a word of warning: I have only played Aiden's and Dallan's route.

This is more of a dating sim than adventuring game currently, and despite its name and the backstory, there's actually not much sex at all! You are forced to pick one of the three main NPCs very early on and you can't even flirt with the others. I believe there's some bisexual content in Dallan's route, but I didn't choose to pursue it. There are also a few random sex scenes and one *grr* ... well, not spoiling it... but I want to smash that "#%¤% face for... NoT SPoiLinG It!

There's absolutely no fighting mechanics  but I'm still going to push it into "hero's journey" category of VNs because the MC has the "chosen by higher powers to become something great" backstory. The current iteration covers only  a few days of game time - which is actually pretty substantial amount of dialogue BUT there's a lot of stuff that happens within that timeframe.

It has a lot of funny dialogue (albeit at times bad spelling), and very good use of music to set the mood. I'm not much into the twink types like the MC, but despite this I very much enjoyed being in his shoes, and I actually got emotional over a few things which is rare. The excellent use of music helps here... Oh, and did I also mention I like the game's music and how it is used... ? Yep, music! The best way to set mood!

I also like the way how they show time progressing within a scene with dots. If I ever get around to writing a visual novel I'll totally stea... borrow... that idea. Likeable characters, too. NSFW obviously.

I've been down to the burnout road once about a decade ago and almost a second time a couple of years ago, after which I teetered on the edge a lot until I reached the current phase of apathetic disinterest. Now I just drag myself from one (work)day to another. 

Dunno if your situation is the same but I tend to get a huge bursts of energy when my focus switches to some new thing... and then I burn up all that energy in a flash and end up feeling guilty about failing to keep up with the pace.

What I guess I'm trying to say is... take your time and don't push yourself if you feel like you can't hit the update goals you set for yourself.

Anyhow. You know yourself best so take this advice with a grain of salt...

You might enjoy Hero's Advent. It's thematically "stranger saves the world" but I feel it's pretty well paced. You are still very much a hero in training in current update but there's a decent amount of changes in scenery. I just wish I could choose to boink both Max and Rai in it. Preferably at the same time.

If you like FBTW pacing you might also like the Taste of Fire. The human character is native but pretty much a tabula rasa. I almost skipped it because of the slow start, but I feel it gets better as you go. You still have a situation where the MC is stuck in the same room for a long time and then turns from pushover to competent pretty much overnight, so a bit of disconnect there. It's way slower than the Hero's Advent.

Orveia is also a human in strange world themed but the game is more like adventuring/exploration game. A bit like the Outland Wanderer  where the MC is a goat... I mean dragon offworlder. There's story in both but it's not a 100% linear and it puts a lot of focus on exploration.

Then there are tons of others I like but don't fit into the theme at all. Some more like adventuring games, others story focused, and a lot of sex romp ones.

I think that if someone becomes that invested into fictional characters, they should maybe look into getting some sort of counseling. 

It's great if a story and its characters invoke strong emotions but in the end storyteller is at the helm and not the reader.

There's a difference between escapism and obsession - and it's not even that fine line. If the story and its characters are no longer enjoyable then the right move is to walk away from it, not to get obsessed over it...

This looks very promising. I'm sucker for stories where you travel to different world as it allows you to learn things about the world itself without it feeling shoehorned. Plus I always enjoy what if scenarios.

This feels a bit like Far Beyond the World but so far it feels like this has better pacing and less mewling from the protagonist. Yes, he is frightened and upset but the story is still carried forward and he is not stuck into single room for months, so me likes.

I'm just hoping it doesn't devolve into a situation where the whole plot is centered around the protagonist as some sort of mythic savior. I always enjoy more the "unfortunate sod getting pushed into events beyond his control for laughs of some trickster figure" stories - and the beginning with the old witch felt like this might be one. 

I'm looking forward to more updates. It will be interesting to see him adjust to being a lion and explore the town and the world... hopefully there will be more updates!

Yep. You can talk to the "gray guy" even twice to get the armor delivery job even if you haven't talked with Hubert first. He delivers the I don't want to talk to you line but puts the armor into your inventory after second click and then asks you to take them to Hubert.

Actually I tended to stumble on a lot of stuff in reverse, too. I got artemis as my first bow upgrade because I ended up stumbling on all the necessary companion power ups before getting the lower tier bows (Tapio was the only better bow I got after Artemis).

Eh. I kinda like beards but he looks more youthful without one. Could maybe do a soul patch but again my preference and the new Tenki looks good.

I honestly am still not getting a dragon vibe because he looks more like a goat... I mean the head and horns are more goaty than dragonic and he has fur instead of scales. He also doesn't have any wings (which aren't nececssarily a dragonic marker but he doesn't have plenty of others either).

I think this is largely because  there are some specific elements which are ingrained into image of dragon.

When I think a dragon I think something more like this:

Even if we go the chinese dragon route which can be depicted with more hair (I guess) I think something more like this:


Fyi: I pasted only links but it embeds the image.

Not that I mind the design, mind you. I really like it. I just sort of fail to see the dragonic elements. He isn't even snorting fire or anything. I guess you could add dragonic wings or more aggressive horns or sharp teeth to emphasis the separation from the goats if you don't want to go the scale route?

I mean if you want to. I'm perfectly happy with him being the protagonist as is even if I probably forget he is a dragon.

I'm not 100% sure why my defense is regularly in negatives. After I level up it suddenly switches from negative to positive (i.e. from -43 to 47). It stays up for a long time but then goes suddenly to negative again. I thought maybe it has something do with character being tired but I think not?

Everyone has their own preferences and mine is more on the mid point or towards left on that dragoon to cartoon line, instead of the current right one, but it's more important what you as the creator feel happy doing. You know, because it keeps you motivated.

Still, I've to say the art change took me by surprise, and I feel like there's a bit of a loss of detail when the characters are more cartoony as opposed to having a more stronger linework. For example when you present expressions you have to exaggerate them more which further increases the cartoony effect - I think.

It's not like it's going to stop me from playing the game and it's by no means bad. Just different. I'm here more for the story than the art anyway so the art is just icing on the cake.

I still want to stress the art is very good, so no complaints about the art itself. You do you.

Maybe the fights are now a bit too easy since I can defeat them without any risk of defeat. Actually usually before they get more than one of their "songs" off... though I guess the satyrs themselves are supposed to be buffbots for the other critters.

It's just that the plant-thing dies on first round and in the catacomps it's maybe one more turn more before the  critters protecting the satyr are down.

Could you please add the LGBT tag or similar just in case. I lost track of the game and tried to find it with "gay" and "lgbt" tags. No wonder I couldn't find it because it doesn't have one! I just found it by accident again when I checked Gryphbear's followed games.

Normally it would be easy to track games but since this instantly launches browser I never ended up downloading it or following you. I started following you just now though so should be easier to track it in case I lose track again.