- Jan 10, 2018
- 2,432
- 3,264
I finally finished 1-02 and wanted to share some thoughts with the dev and fans. I won't do a review because I don't think reviews of games this early in development are appropriate, but this will be "reviewish."
I like what the reviewer has shared with us regarding his vision, and what he wants to do. I don't necessarily agree with his choice of RPGM as the engine, at least yet, but can accept that he thinks that he has made the right choice for the right reasons. Given that his art so far is just pixel art sometimes modified from stock RPGM, I find it difficult to see what a Ren'py version would even have, so the engine shortcomings seem necessary.
Play is very awkward, with dialogue in particular taking far too long. The latter problem has been discussed ad infinitum here, so I will focus on other issues. The biggest issue I had was that time in the game seems far too indefinite. Except in the scripted portion, there are no "days," even when the dialogue and such imply waiting days. In the free-roaming part, when do days end? The dev should add a sleep mechanic to address that. There are quests with objectives that are unclear, such as when the MC needs to go to the "news room" and the player has no idea where that is. It turns out to be on the second floor at the back of the school, but is never identified as such and even if the player has, for some reason, explored the whole school they won't know to go to that room, and will have to do a lot of wandering to see the flashing yellow star that indicates the objective. It appears that the "Golden Gate" quest can't be finished, but there's no indication of that anywhere. The quest log should be more detailed and incomplete quests should be so marked.
There is a very good story here, with interesting characters. None of them, except possibly the father, are really all that admirable. I enjoy the fact that the MC is acting, at the start, out of the selfish desire to be the senior editor and out of pique at the new superintendant. That's a very realistic attitude for a teenager to have. I hope the dev further explores the conflict between her academic goals and her growing realization that the story she is investigating is far more serious than she ever knew. I am hoping the MC reaches a point where she has to choose between finishing high school and finishing her investigation, but can't imagine how the dev could do anything but have one of those choices be a game-over. Having an actual choice there would create two completely different games.
Side characters are pretty good. The possessive boyfriend, the nerd lab partner (I love the touch where he doesn't get a name but stays the generic "LAB_PARTNER"), the girlfriend who cheats with the boyfriend, the principal, etc all add to the story in meaningful ways, and the MC's gradual isolation from all of her friends and increasing identification with the shady characters she is now working with represent genuine character development. That's vanishingly rare in games like this.
There were scenes that clanked with me, such as the shower scene. It is impossible for me to imagine a teenage girl so body-unaware that she'd show herself naked to a bunch of male school-mates to make an intellectual argument. The reason presented for all the characters to be 18 yers old as rising seniors was kind of amusing, but, upon reflection, made no sense at all. There's no possibility that a school district would have all of its students repeat a grade to avoid spending some money, as the cost to give thousands of student an extra years of school would be in the tens of millions of dollars.
The best part of the design is the deliberate eschewing of grinding as a substitute for character development. I was delighted when I saw the dev simply have the MC do three days of dance training rather than make the player take her home, back to the studio, home, back to the studio, etc. There are many unnecessary clicks in the game, I think, but none of them seemed designed to just extend game play artificially. That's also rare and insufficiently appreciated, I think.
The "mom and dad" side of the story was less interesting and coherent, I thought. In fact, I would encourage the dev to consider skipping it entirely, unless it is absolutely necessary to his vision. It jolts us out of the main story and doesn't advance the plot at all. It seems to me that most of what we have seen could be told in flashbacks or journals the MC finds, without interrupting the main game flow. Multiple-POV books tend to be less enjoyable than single-POV books (unless built specifically that way, as in GoT), and I think that that applies to games as well. If at all possible, I'd like this game to focus just on the MC and what she knows and discovers as we play.
In sum, I think that this is a somewhat-flawed execution of a very well-designed game that shows an author who really knows how to tell a story and develop a character. It is sometime frustrating in regards to quests and it was especially irritating to me to find the save feature so late in the game (it's pretty well-hidden and I only stumbled on it by accident), but the basic story, and especially the growing isolation of the MC from all who wish her well, and identification with those who wish her ill, is outstanding. All of the flaws can be easily fixed, and this could well end as a classic of the genre. Well-done, Tino Bambino.
I like what the reviewer has shared with us regarding his vision, and what he wants to do. I don't necessarily agree with his choice of RPGM as the engine, at least yet, but can accept that he thinks that he has made the right choice for the right reasons. Given that his art so far is just pixel art sometimes modified from stock RPGM, I find it difficult to see what a Ren'py version would even have, so the engine shortcomings seem necessary.
Play is very awkward, with dialogue in particular taking far too long. The latter problem has been discussed ad infinitum here, so I will focus on other issues. The biggest issue I had was that time in the game seems far too indefinite. Except in the scripted portion, there are no "days," even when the dialogue and such imply waiting days. In the free-roaming part, when do days end? The dev should add a sleep mechanic to address that. There are quests with objectives that are unclear, such as when the MC needs to go to the "news room" and the player has no idea where that is. It turns out to be on the second floor at the back of the school, but is never identified as such and even if the player has, for some reason, explored the whole school they won't know to go to that room, and will have to do a lot of wandering to see the flashing yellow star that indicates the objective. It appears that the "Golden Gate" quest can't be finished, but there's no indication of that anywhere. The quest log should be more detailed and incomplete quests should be so marked.
There is a very good story here, with interesting characters. None of them, except possibly the father, are really all that admirable. I enjoy the fact that the MC is acting, at the start, out of the selfish desire to be the senior editor and out of pique at the new superintendant. That's a very realistic attitude for a teenager to have. I hope the dev further explores the conflict between her academic goals and her growing realization that the story she is investigating is far more serious than she ever knew. I am hoping the MC reaches a point where she has to choose between finishing high school and finishing her investigation, but can't imagine how the dev could do anything but have one of those choices be a game-over. Having an actual choice there would create two completely different games.
Side characters are pretty good. The possessive boyfriend, the nerd lab partner (I love the touch where he doesn't get a name but stays the generic "LAB_PARTNER"), the girlfriend who cheats with the boyfriend, the principal, etc all add to the story in meaningful ways, and the MC's gradual isolation from all of her friends and increasing identification with the shady characters she is now working with represent genuine character development. That's vanishingly rare in games like this.
There were scenes that clanked with me, such as the shower scene. It is impossible for me to imagine a teenage girl so body-unaware that she'd show herself naked to a bunch of male school-mates to make an intellectual argument. The reason presented for all the characters to be 18 yers old as rising seniors was kind of amusing, but, upon reflection, made no sense at all. There's no possibility that a school district would have all of its students repeat a grade to avoid spending some money, as the cost to give thousands of student an extra years of school would be in the tens of millions of dollars.
The best part of the design is the deliberate eschewing of grinding as a substitute for character development. I was delighted when I saw the dev simply have the MC do three days of dance training rather than make the player take her home, back to the studio, home, back to the studio, etc. There are many unnecessary clicks in the game, I think, but none of them seemed designed to just extend game play artificially. That's also rare and insufficiently appreciated, I think.
The "mom and dad" side of the story was less interesting and coherent, I thought. In fact, I would encourage the dev to consider skipping it entirely, unless it is absolutely necessary to his vision. It jolts us out of the main story and doesn't advance the plot at all. It seems to me that most of what we have seen could be told in flashbacks or journals the MC finds, without interrupting the main game flow. Multiple-POV books tend to be less enjoyable than single-POV books (unless built specifically that way, as in GoT), and I think that that applies to games as well. If at all possible, I'd like this game to focus just on the MC and what she knows and discovers as we play.
In sum, I think that this is a somewhat-flawed execution of a very well-designed game that shows an author who really knows how to tell a story and develop a character. It is sometime frustrating in regards to quests and it was especially irritating to me to find the save feature so late in the game (it's pretty well-hidden and I only stumbled on it by accident), but the basic story, and especially the growing isolation of the MC from all who wish her well, and identification with those who wish her ill, is outstanding. All of the flaws can be easily fixed, and this could well end as a classic of the genre. Well-done, Tino Bambino.
