Clarity in Qualia - Old Jam Version
A downloadable game for Windows
Clarity in Qualia is a visual novel I started creating for the Yaoi Game Jam 2018 :3
!!!THIS PAGE CONTAINS OUTDATED INFORMATION!!!
The full game will feature brand new art, pronoun choices for Alyx, and the choice of masculine & feminine voices for the love interests.
This page will remain for posterity.
A brand new page will eventually be created for the full game.
(Old/Outdated page content below)
Alyx is a young man who has allowed his mother to dictate every aspect of his life for as long as he can remember. As a result, Alyx is currently in further education studying subjects that he has no interest in and dating a girl who he doesn't have feelings for. He has known for a while that his romantic urges tend to veer towards other males but is afraid of actually mentioning it to his mother for fear of upsetting her. In fact, Alyx refuses to even accept himself, preferring instead to just let life pass him by. Despite being fairly miserable, Alyx is empathetic to the point that he would prefer to suffer in silence than face the possibility of hurting others. His only solace lies in a chat group he came across online, where he's able to be a truer version of himself around the other members of the group, Alvy, Sio, Elil, and Kagan.
One day, Alyx is involved in an accident that puts him in a coma. As he dreams away in hospital, a mysterious figure called Merrik visits him, claiming to be his spirit guide. Merrik warns Alyx that if he continues to refuse to accept himself then he will never wake up. All hope is not lost, as Merrik offers Alyx another opportunity to live, with the requirement that he makes an effort to be true to himself. There is one condition, however, Alyx must prove to Merrik that he has the ability to change within just 3 days, or face death after all.
With the help of his online friends, can Alyx learn to love himself for who he really is on the inside? The outcome is entirely up to you! Make choices and help Alyx on his journey of self-discovery, deepen friendship with his online companions, and possibly even find true love :3
(Click the images on the side to view character profiles :3)
I suppose this would fall under the category of slice of life, with a bit of fantasy mixed in. I've never even played a yaoi game before as I prefer otome's instead, so I have no idea if I'm even doing this right, or how it compares to all the yaoi content out there >.< But at the end of the day, I just figured it's a story about friendship, love, and learning to accept yourself... and I wanted to tell it, so yeah xD
Because of the time limitations on this project, I decided it would be best to edit some of Tokudaya's sprites to make the characters, so if they seem familiar, that's why! I did my best to edit them in a way that makes them look a little more unique at least :3
Anyway, I hope that someone out there somewhere will get some form of enjoyment out of this project at some point ^_^/
The jam demo
So I managed to release a demo in time for the end of the jam, but it only contains the prologue and common route. Please be aware if you're downloading it that it wasn't thoroughly tested as I was really short on time to submit an entry >.< I imagine it's full of spelling & grammar errors, and probably some little bugs! For one thing, I know that it crashes at the end of the demo instead of taking you back to the title screen xD So yeah, it's a very rough demo, sorry about that.
The full version is currently still in development :3
Contact:
If you enjoyed playing through the demo (or even if you didn't xD), I'd really appreciate hearing your feedback in the comments + ratings are much appreciated too ^-^
If you need help with anything, or just wanna drop me a message about the game, feel free to post a comment, or send me an email: melancholicmarionette@gmail.com
This game will always be available to download for free, if you enjoyed playing it, you're welcome to buy me a coffee, or support other projects I'm working on by becoming a patron :3
Download
Install instructions
There is currently only a Windows demo for this as I haven't ha much time to work on anything :( You should just be able to download the demo zip file from the downloads section on this page. You'll need to unzip it before you can play :3
Development log
- Character Introduction - ElilFeb 05, 2021
- Character Introduction - KaganJan 29, 2021
- Character Introduction - SioJan 23, 2021
- Character Introduction - AlvyJan 13, 2021
- New Art & Voice Acting - Meet AlyxDec 15, 2020
- 1st Full Drafts For The Main Routes Are Finished + More :DNov 30, 2020
- Another Route Down :3Nov 10, 2020
- A Very Late Update x3Sep 27, 2020
Comments
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this was really fun to play the characters seem really interesting i cant wait to see more as time goes on :3
It's so old now x3 I even had a brand new demo with voice acting and new sprite art + UI and stuff all made and ready to release alongside a Kickstarter, but that never happened because I found out I wasn't actually allowed to try and run a Kickstarter >.<
Glad you like the look of this one though :3 I'm actually hoping to work more on the full version in 2024!
Hope you get to have happy holidays! ^-^
Wait why weren't you allowed to do a kickstarter are there weird rules for that or something? ooo i cant wait to see what comes for this project in 2024 then, whats already here has piqued my interest so i bet whatever you have in the works is way better! i hope you have a happy holidays & get to spend time with the cool people you care about <3
It's to do with the stupid rules in my country for people like me who can't work cos of disabilities and stuff >.< Cos I get government aid to buy food and pay bills etc. you're basically not allowed to have a lump sum of money like something you'd get from crowdfunding go into your bank account because they would see it as earnings/income, and then you'd immediately lose your aid and have no money to buy food :(
It really sucks because if I ran a Kickstarter, I wouldn't get any money for myself, it would purely be for funding voice acting and art for the project so 100% of that money would immediately be going to pay other people, but it's still not allowed because they don't care what it's for. There's no distinction >.< They see it's money that you have, so you must not need the aid.
I had this whole big meeting with a guy whose job it is to advise on money and such, and he basically just said to me, you can accept one-off donations of support from people as long as they don't exceed X amount per year, but any crowdfunding would immediately trigger losing the aid. It's the same reason I can't commercialise any of my games pretty much :( Cos he said to me, as soon as they see that you're gaining money from them, it counts as income, so you would lose your aid money, so unless I'm confident I can actually make a living from selling my games and earn enough to pay bills and buy food, then it's better to keep them free for now.
And I don't think I'd get anywhere near enough money to live off of trying to sell my games x3 sooo yeah, I'm basically stuck in this weird kind of limbo where I'm reliant on the aid money and can't afford to lose it, but it means I can also never really make any progress in trying to turn my hobby into something I can survive on >.< Other political parties want to make changes to the system to include a kind of safety net that allows you to keep your aid while you venture into trying to make something from your endeavours, like self-employment, but without the fear of completely losing the aid money if things don't work out, or with getting to keep like half of the aid money while making yourown small amount of money alongside it.
But the current political party we have in charge atm (who have been in power for aaaaaages) basically hate the disabled and anyone who isn't able to work for whatever reason, and so they make it as hard as possible for you to be independent >.< They randomly kick people off of the aid for the tiniest of things. Like there was a case in the news recently where a lady who has 12 different disabilities (including physical ones that mean she can't walk more than a few metres unaided, so she has to use a mobility scooter to get around), and she had the government aid cos she couldn't work due to her disabilities, and they took it away from her after a recap assessment over the phone deemed her fit for work o.O You could be dying and they would deem you fit for work! And they want to introduce new rules next year on the mental health side of things that say you don't qualify for the aid unless you are actively in crisis. Honestly, I don't even have the words to describe how disgusted I am at them as a government for the way they handle mental health in general. It makes me extremely angry and sick to my stomach :( They basically just see you as a liability. They want you working, or dead. But they do nothing to actually help you get better or get into work >.<"
Thank you ^-^ I shall definitely be spending plenty of time with my family! It's pretty much the only time of the year I get the opportunity to game with my dad because it's the only time of the year he gets off of work besides weekends x3 So we're planning to play through all the Dark Pictures Anthology games together, me, my dad, and my brother :D
I'm annoyed that I haven't managed to release my Winter VN Jam project for when I hoped to though cos I wanted to release it this Friday just gone, haha. It's finished in the sense that everything works in-engine. But it's missing a hefty chunk of voice acting cos one of the VAs got ill and won't be able to finish recording until January, and I've been so busy with visiting family and Christmas prep that I haven't had a chance to test exported builds or make a game page for the project yet T_T It sucks cos I wanted it done before Christmas so that I could relax over Christmas week and not have to worry about it x3 But instead I'm gonna have to do testing and make a page and stuff after my family go to bed each night cos if I don't release it by 31st December, I will have missed the jam deadline >.<
Hope you get to do the same and eat lots of tasty noms as well :3 <3
yeah disability pay has a loooong way to go, thankfully my disabilities arent so bad that they prevent me from working (in most places at least) but so many people are stuck in that loop and is so gross like why would you cut disability pay anyway just cause they're making some money making a bit of money doesnt make you not disabled anymore its just kicking people while theyre down wich is super contradictory coming from people that supposedly care about disabled people. sorry you're unable to charge your games are really good and you deserve to make money off of them imo ( if you still wanted to keep them free that would be fine too but its sad that you dont really get a choice in the matter:[ ) i hope you have a great time spending time with your dad ive never heard of those games before but going off of pictures and stuff they look really interesting. :3 good luck with the project i cant wait to play it ^_^ and i hope you make the deadline. o7
It does indeed >.< Funnily enough, I had an assessment type thing yesterday that was related to my mental health and autism to do with a benefits review, and the lady asked me if I’d had my autism all my life… and I was just kinda stunned >.< cos like, well, yeah, I was born with it. Just because I was only recently diagnosed doesn’t mean I suddenly caught it like a cold or something o.O They say the people conducting these assessments are trained health professionals and yet it seems they don’t even have a basic understanding of autism >.<
And then she went on to ask if my autism has gotten better or worse throughout the course of my life… and again, I didn’t really know what to say because I didn’t even know I was autistic until I was an adult >.< but either way, what does that even mean as a question?! It is what it is. It doesn’t go away and come back like other mental health stuff can. I’ve had it since I was born and I’m stuck with it until I die x3
And yeah, it’s like they do everything in their power to make it difficult for people with disabilities to contribute and be valued members of society, all while claiming they care when they clearly don’t :(
Tbh, I think I would always want to make them free in some capacity even if I could make money from them in another way because I feel like, yes, it would be nice to get paid for the stuff I create, but I also wouldn’t want a price tag to prevent people from accessing it if that makes sense. Cos not everyone has money to spend on games, and if they weren’t free in some form, it would prevent those people who can’t afford to pay from being able to play, which would just feel wrong to me >.<
It’s kind of a shame that honesty systems don’t entirely work, haha. Cos like with itch, there is always the option for people to donate and give what they can afford, and there are some amazing people out there who do exactly that :3 or they go to ko-fi or something and donate there instead where I don’t lose a chunk of the donation to US tax x3 But I have a bad feeling that those sorts of generous people are the minority >.< I imagine there must be plenty of people out there who play free games here on itch, do have spare money that they could afford to give to devs, but choose not to because the game is free and so they go spend that spare money on something else that they’re forced to pay for if they want it because it isn’t available for free, like a coffee or a sandwich >.< haha.
Which is fine! People are free to spend their spare money on whatever they like. It's just, I think people forget sometimes that if devs don't get enough support, they might not be able to keep making stuff. I've seen several small studios and solo devs have to quit making games because they were forced to go work a 'normal' job to survive, leaving them with no time left to do dev stuff :(
Hey!! I know that you're not working on this at the moment, but I just wanted to say that this game seems adorable, and I love the plot of it!! :)
I'm glad you like the concept :3 Actually, I am sort of working on it in the background :D Well, I haven't worked on anything throughout June since I took a break to participate in the 30 Days Wild challenge, but now that I'm back to working on my projects, I'm working on both DD and CiQ at the same time :3 I just hated how long CiQ had been on hold, and needed to work on something different to DD cos sometimes it gets a bit stressful only working on one thing, haha.
I did have a brand new demo ready to go for CiQ ages ago with the new sprites + full VA, but it was supposed to launch alongside a Kickstarter, and since that never happened, the demo wasn't released >.< Back in April though, I finished off the epilogue stuff for the story and started trying to get the old cast back together for potentially voicing the whole game :3 Not everyone is on board, but some are. I have no idea when I'll eventually finish the entire game to get it released though with it being a full-length one, but someday! x3
i really liked it so far! the story seems really interesting and i cant wait to meet all the characters, i really liked alvy and hes my favorite for now <3 ill keep waiting for the rest of the game!
Oh, man, I'm so sorry I only just saw this >.< The page for CiQ has been dead for so long that I didn't realise there was a new comment!
I'm glad you liked the little demo :3 It's so old now >.< I've actually completely remade it in the new engine I'm using. I don't know if you saw the devlog posts showing the new art or not, but it has brand new sprites, new UI, and voice acting for the whole demo. I just haven't released it yet because of the lack of interest in the game in general :(
I'd hoped to have the entire thing voice acted, but without much interest in the project, it would be next to impossible to raise the funds for that to happen.
Since Darling Duality seems to have far more interest, CiQ kinda has to take a back seat. I'll absolutely finish it and release it at some point because the writing for the routes of each character is already complete. It would be a waste of everything I've written + the effort of the sprite artist and VAs who volunteered their time and talent for the demo if it never sees the light of day >.<
So yeah, it'll be released at some point! I just don't know when >.<
I can't wait to see the full game! I'm so glad you're making a BL too! I really love your other games but I hate having to choose between being a boy or dating boys (obviously excluding your games that have a gender-neutral mc which is actually my favourite. I'm a masc non-binary person so I prefer games from a gender-neutral or male perspective because those are the most relatable for me. And I really have no interest whatsoever in dating girls :/) Anyways, seems cool thanks for all the great games
Sadly, CiQ is gonna end up being a long way off now :( (See the reply I typed out to the comment below for more information on why.) Since CiQ is still in development though, I can certainly tweak things in order to make Alex a nonbinary protagonist, because really, Alex being a gay male isn't what the story is about. The story is about friendship and mental health more than anything, and Alex's struggles aren't necessarily related to sexuality. I was going to have BxB and an otome GxB version. But I may decide to only have one version, and instead give the player the option to either choose Alex's pronouns or have them nonbinary by default :3
is this still being worked on we got a few updates out of the blue and now silence again
Hey, sorry for my slow reply, I was away over the weekend >.<
It's a bit of a sticky situation, to be honest! The game is fully written, and the demos containing the new art and full voice acting were finished way back in February this year, but I haven't released them for a couple of reasons. 1 being that I'd like to tweak the UI some more because I'm not entirely happy with it. But the main one is just the general lack of interest in the project put me in a difficult position >.<
When I uploaded the character intro vids on YouTube, there was next to no response from anyone, so I kinda just assumed that nobody really cared about this project in the slightest. And the plan had been to release the character vids, followed by the updated demos, and then try to launch a Kickstarter in order to fund full voice acting for the full game with the cast that we'd chosen for the demos.
The lack of response from the videos sorta made us feel like there was literally no hope in hell of a Kickstarter getting off of the ground, and so the project was just sorta left in Limbo while I worked on Otome Jam 2021. Then a YouTuber played some of my other games, and out of nowhere, there was this huge surge in interest for my other project, Darling Duality. So despite the fact that I had intended to release CiQ by the end of 2021, I've ended up putting it on the back burner because there's far more interest in DD.
It's a tough one, because with CiQ already being written, it wouldn't take more than maybe 3 months to put everything together and release it without voice acting, but I just didn't want to do that, not when the cast we picked for the demos worked for free in the hopes of a KS funding VA. Plus it kinda kills my motivation if I know there won't be any VA, since a big part of what I enjoy about making VNs is hearing the characters come to life >.<
So yeah, I'm not sure what's going to happen with this project. It won't be abandoned completely because I always finish stuff I start, and it would be a waste of what's already finished for the project to never complete it. It's just in a bit of an awkward place at the moment where it's kinda just stuck with no way of proceeding :(
Thank you for caring about it enough to ask! And I'm sorry that's probably not the answer you were hoping to hear >.<
well that sucks that there was that little interest story had me hooked better then outright canceled but that has to be super discouraging hope it finds its way out of dev hell eventually :)
It won't let me download the game it says something about downloading an app with it. I play on windows too. It says this file does not have an app associated with this app.
Hmm, that's strange. It's a very old download, so I've not checked it in a few years, but it used to work. I'll look into it when I get a chance :3 It's a very outdated demo in terms of appearance though, and the new revamped version is coming soon, so you might be better off waiting to play the new one instead. Thanks for your interest! :D
Alright Thank you!
Hey so... It's been SUCH a long time since I've checked this page (not to mention a lot of personal issues that kind of spammed me) that I literally kind of forgot about this project. But that's not bad, I mean, I'm rediscovering the hype haha!
But wait, am I dreaming, or was this project exclusively BL at first? And how does it work exactly, with the two version? Will we get separated download files or a choice when starting the game? And does that change anything during the game or merely the pronouns used by the characters?
Sorry to hear you've been dealing with some personal stuff! I hope you're doing better now :3 I have a habit of forgetting about stuff I was previously following the progress of when I get overwhelmed too, haha.
You're not daydreaming :3 It was indeed originally exclusively BL at first. I decided to work on creating both a BL version and an otome version just so that players have the choice of Alyx being male or female. When I play stuff like this, I tend to self-insert, and so I personally wouldn't play the BL version because I wouldn't get as immersed in the story when playing as a male protagonist. The game is mainly about self-acceptance, friendship, and romance, so I feel like it works both ways, and Alyx is the same person deep down, regardless of gender.
They will be two separate games so that the download size doesn't end up being too huge. The main difference will be the pronouns used by the characters, yeah + a couple of other little changes here and there. For the most part, though, the story will remain the same between the two versions :3 I'm also hoping to include some R18 scenes (which will be completely optional) but whether or not those are illustrated with CGs and voiced will depend on if the people I'm working with are comfortable creating content like that + if I can actually afford to pay them for their work.
It's great to hear from you by the way! I hope you're managing to stay safe + that 2021 is going well for you so far :3
Yeah, I still have some issues, but overall I'm fine!
And okay, thanks!
It's funny, because I never self-insert! And I prefer games with male protagonist (I'm female too). I like to see myself as a kind of "guardian spirit" to the protagonist of a game, whose aim is to help them in their life.
I also didn't even know SR got finished in the meantime! Gotta play that one!
Well, I'm glad you're doing better now :3
I think that sounds like a really sweet way of playing :D I might try that myself the next time I go through a VN instead of self-inserting!
I hope you enjoy SR :3
I love this concept so much its so unique and I hope its finished sometime soon or after your big project, either way good luck :3
Aww, thanks for your kind words and interest in the project :3 I actually planned on writing an update on the devlog for this today! Now that the otome version of SR is finished, this is back in semi-active development again ^-^ I say semi-active, because I still need to finish the BxG version of SR, but I'm spending time with my family at the moment, and need my partner's PC to work on SR stuff as my crappy laptop can't handle the project load on Tyrano. So while I'm with my family, I'm spending a bit of time writing the rest of the story for this :3 Cos I only made a draft for the jam, now I need to write it in full, haha.
I'll stop rambling anyhow x3 Stay safe! :D
Of course and no rush, enjoy your time with family! Good luck on your other projects and when it's done I'll be there to buy it! ^^ you stay safe too bye e :3
I was so bummed when the scene stopped! Hope you can finish it!
Sorry about that :( I haven't worked on it since the jam ended and I submitted the demo cos I've been working hard on my main project, SR x3 As soon as I finish and release the second version of SR I'll be working on this again ^-^
i was checking this to survey on how i can do this year's yaoi jam with selectable love choices BUT I ENJOY THIS HALDKJSLDKJD I WANT TO SEE THE FULL VERSIOOOOOOON! the dialogues are typical stereotype of most anime stories (when i play game i prefer realistic dialogues but it's a visual novel) and i enjoy it! i was surprised seeing elil's face at the first time bc HOLY heck this guy is flexin'~
i rly like alvy... and prolly kagan... or if he's as choice, merrik. I'M WAITING FOR FULL VERSION LKADJD
Aww, I'm glad you ended up liking the little demo :3 I'm really excited to work on this again properly once I've finished my main project, SR!
Random question for ya, for the full version, would you personally prefer it with, or without voice acting? Haha. I can't decide whether to have it voiced or not x3
Anyways, thanks so much for taking the time to comment and have fun with your jam entry! Good luck :3
Helloooo uwu I am also looking forward for the main project!
For the full version, I think I would prefer it without voice acting? There are more than 5 characters and finding voice actor would be quite hard considering that it is BL.
You're welcome, and thank you!!! <3
Awesome stuff :3 Well, thank you for sharing your opinion, it's much appreciated! I really love voice acting, but you have a very good point about it probably being hard to find voices for all the characters in a BL game. If I did somehow find a suitable cast, it would still be possible to play without voices on cos you can turn the SFX off in config menu :D Buuuut, because I have to put the voices as SFX it means all the normal SFX for atmosphere would be muted too :( haha. I guess I could try making 2 different downloads, one voiced, and one not, then people could choose :3
Hope you're having a wonderful weekend anyways!
ummmm excuse me but umm.... do u have any idea why in Kari's dialogue? (idk how to spell it T^T) why is her line blank? and when it was blank i keep waiting but im stuck on Kari's dialogue idk wut to do T^T
Hey hey! :3
Is it just after Alyx meets Alvy at the hospital and they leave the room together? If so, it's just because that's the end of the demo unfortunately :( I had to rush to submit it in time for the end of the jam and it was supposed to go back to the title screen but instead, it just bugs out and crashes >.< I haven't fixed it since it's the end of the demo anyhow and I'm currently working on my main project at the moment. I will be finishing CiQ properly once I've completed and released SR though :3
If the crash is somewhere else in the demo, please let me know roughly what happened before the crash and I'll try to get it fixed.
Hope you're well and staying safe :3
yes its after Alyx meets Alvy that part when Kari's turn it was blank. It's ok I u derstand
Okie dokies, sorry about that >.< I'll fix it one day when I get time cos you're not the first person to ask :3
The plan was to have all of Alvy's route in the demo, but I wound up with very little time to work on it during the jam so it was pretty rushed >.< When I'm back to working on that project properly though, I'll make sure to polish everything up, haha.
I just haven't worked on CiQ since submitting the jam demo cos I wanted to focus on and finish my main project first x3
This game looks so cute and sweet, curse my only having a macbook! Do you know if you can at least run it on wine? I'd love to play through what there already is, hopefully more comes and hopefully its a mac version or at least wine compatible!
Hey hey! Thanks for your comment and I'm sorry it's taken me ages to reply >.< I honestly couldn't tell you if it could run on wine because I don't know what that is x3 I know nothing about macbook stuff unfortunately :( I don't really know anyone with one either, though my partner sometimes uses them in work I think so I might be able to get some help from him! The software I'm using to make the VN supports exporting the game to be played on mac I think, so there's that and I'll absolutely give it a go when I've eventually finished it and it's ready for release :3 I tried to export a demo for mac before but someone told me it didn't work T_T The problem is that I followed all the instructions and I don't have a mac to test on so I was a bit stuck with figuring what went wrong with the process to cause it not to work on mac >.< But I'll definitely try and get my partner's help for that sorta thing in the future! :D Hope you've been having an awesome September :3
I really like the game, the characters are really cute and i really like the story. I can't wait.
Aww, thanks so much, I'm glad you like it :3 Sorry for my slow reply >.< I really appreciate you taking the time to comment! One day it will be finished damn it T_T ... One day!!!
Well, I'm glad I came across this ^^ The uke is really cute. I like the love interests, can't choose my favorite yet, torn between the brothers, hahah. I can't wait to play the game, but you take your time of course ;)
Aww, well I'm glad that you like what you've seen so far :3 I'm just about finsihed with the super busy important stuff in my life for now so over the next few weeks I'm hoping to have more time to actually work on these VN projects I've got going! Haha. Thanks for taking the time to comment ^-^
I'm so happy to hear that! Good luck :3
Your character development feels very human I think you have done a very good job at least with the path I personally went down "Alvy"
I know these projects take time especially with other things in life keeping us busy but if this project does get completed I look forward to revisiting.
Thank you very much for the experience. :)
Aww, thanks so much for taking the time to play through the little demo and to post a comment! It means a lot to hear such nice feedback :3
You're definitely right about things like this taking time, haha, I don't get much chance to work on the stuff I really want to with life getting in the way >.< But I'll get there eventually!
It really gives me a great motivation boost whenever I see something like this, so thank you again :3
Woah seriously for just a demo it's really good!! When the little message for saying that was the end of the demo appeared, i was really surprised, i wanted it to continue a little more, so I look forward to see the game when it will be finish! (I made this account only to say this xD) And Alix is just too cute, my heart is melting :3
Sorry for the slow reply, I've only just gotten around to looking at my project stuff again after what has been a tough few months!
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment, I really appreciate it and it means a lot to me that you enjoyed the little demo :3 I had wanted to finish Alvy's route in time for the end of the jam but because I was so busy I didn't end up getting very far >.< haha, I figured it would be better to submit something than nothing at all! But yeah, I'll be working on this when I finish my main project :3
So, the prologue was okay. Then the game completely freezes at the beginning of Day 1, after Alvy comes to visit, text stops appearing and all buttons become unresponsive. Reloading soesn't help.
I'm very sorry for the slow reply, I've not really been a part of the world these past few months with a lot of crap going on in life >.<
Thanks for giving the demo a go :3 If it freezes up and dies at the point where Alyx is heading outside for some food with Alvy, that's because there's no more content yet and as I was in such a rush to get a demo submitted in time for the end of the jam, I didn't have a chance to wrap up the demo and give the player an option to quit. Sorry about that, I know it's pretty and messy and frustrating >.<
If the freeze happens as soon as Alvy comes to visit then I'm stumped and I'll definitely have to try and figure out what caused it once I'm working on the project again, as when I ran through the demo on my laptop before submitting it, I didn't experience a crash there.
is this still in the making?
Hey there, super sorry for my slow reply, life has been getting me down lately and so I've retreated from the world for a bit >.<
It is indeed still in the making :3 However, it probably won't be finished until late in the year because I really need to knuckle down and finish my main project first which is much closer to completion than this one. This will definitely be finished at some point though!
Great Visual Novel!
I really felt for the protagonist. Alyx is so incredibly adorable that you just want to give him a hug in every scene. Coincidentally, a guy I know and like has a lot of similiarities to him, including an almost identical name...so I'm maybe a bit biased. Nevertheless, Alyx has earned a spot as one of my favorite VN protagonists.
The artworks are cute and the expression do a great job at conveying the emotions the characters are having at the moment.
The story is told in a way that really touched me. Without a few elements it would be a typical slice-of-life/coming-of-age story, but I was way more entertained than these kind of stories usually do. The chat room messages including emojis were a nice addition as well and seemed pretty authentic.
Solid BGM as well.
What really surprised me was the animated background in the main menu. That is something you definitely don't see every day.
Some technical stuff was a bit of a letdown. While the text moves across the screen, you can see the markup tags for text, before it is rendered in italic. Not sure if that's a usual problem of your engine, but it would be great if you could fix that.
Also, after reaching a dead end and the true ending, the game froze both times and wouldn't accept anymore inputs, so I had to quit it with the task manager. That was a bit frustrating.
Still, I'm very impressed with this VN. Can't wait to see the full version!
I'm very sorry that I'm only just replying to your comment now, I meant to ages ago but I've ended up just totally sucking at life lately T_T
Thanks for taking the time to play through the little demo ad to comment, it's much appreciated :3 That's adorable that you know and like someone who is similar... you never know, it could be fate :P
I can't take much credit for the artwork since I'm just using some of Tokudaya's free sprites, I did re-colour them and tweak the style though x3 I was thinking of possibly making new sprites sometime down the line so that they're more unique, but at the same time I kinda like how they've come out and to me they already look like how I see the characters in my head!
I didn't really know if I'd be able to pull off a slice-of-life type story because it's not really a genre that I read myself as I'm much more into fantasy and stuff like that, so I wanted to have a go at just squishing a little bit of fantasy into a slice-of-life type story x3 Hopefully it will all work out in the end. I'd like to figure out a better way of working the chatroom messages but I'm not very savvy when it comes to coding stuff so I have lots to learn, it's definitely a feature that will remain throughout the game though.
Adding BGM and video stuff is one of my favourite parts of making things like this, haha. I adore finding the right BGM for a scene/mood and I'm trying not to use too many tracks in this since I went a bit wild with BGM in my main project, I want this one to have a soundtrack where themes are recognisable by what's happening and stuff.
As for technical stuff... this is where I let out a cry of anguish and go bury myself underground xD I know very little in the way of coding stuff and so when things like that go wrong or wonky with the engine, I don't really have a darn clue how to make them right >.<" I will try to learn more at some point or at least get some help from someone with more experience, as I realise little things like that can be pretty jarring x3
If the demo freezes up and dies once you get to the end of the content, that's entirely my fault as I didn'thave time to jump the player back to the start screen or make a proper exit button when I was rushing to submit it for the jam >.< And of course, the other crash on a dead end is also my fault and I'm sorry that slipped through as I thought I'd caught all of those, darn thing T_T I'll definitely get it fixed at some point though because it's not supposed to, haha.
I like the story so far and I look forward to the finished game! I liked the group chat messages, they felt real, like the messages I would send friends.
(I did notice a bug where at the end of a playthrough, I was stuck on the last screen, none of the buttons worked and I had to exit and restart to get the game to work again.)
I'm so sorry it took me this long to reply to your comment >.< I meant to reply to all comments pretty fast and I should have gotten back to you ages ago but I've been overwhelmed by life unfortunately.
I'm glad that you liked the little snippet that I managed to get out in time for the jam :3 And yeah, sorry about the freeze, I was rushing so much to get it done in time to present something for the end of the jam that I didn't put a proper exit button on anything so when the content stops it just kinda dies, haha, >.<
Interesting cast and story, I look forward to it!
Thanks :3 That's great to hear! Are you interested in any character in particular? I'm not sure whose route to work on after Alvy's is finished, haha.
Ooh I gotta say I like Sio and I'd most likely be friends with him in real life, but Kegan seems like someone I'd also go after for run 1!
That's interesting and I really appreciate hearing what you think :3 it's super helpful so thank you for letting me know!
Thanks, good luck with the project!