I've heard rumors of one... ahem...An ipatch, if it fits the game story.
Edit: It totally fits the story .As a matter of fact the story feels incomplete without it!
To a certain degreeAn ipatch, if it fits the game story.
Edit: It totally fits the story .As a matter of fact the story feels incomplete without it!
Thank you so much for your comment, really appreciate it.
So, most of the beginning of the project, was just me writing the screenplay, and testing out some renders, doing initial casting and customs for all the main characters then producing some initial test renders.
After the game concept was solid, I hired a team to help out, and started working full time - Audio, 2D and Level design.
So the longer the planning and concept stage the smoother the production.
Now that everything is ready I have a pretty smooth pipeline and can get about 1 episode per 4-6 weeks give or take, at relatively high quality. Doing final polish on previous episodes as we get feedback from the community.
But yeah, I can definitely see how it might seem, as you look at it as a linear progression, while in reality its a very long learning curve then it becomes more linear.
Diving into renders right away is a big mistake, I've learned years ago.
Many people don't know, but normal screenplay of any game or movie goes through about 8-10 re-writes before the first frame, and at least 1-2 re-writes after. The first re-writes are usually big stuff, scene changes, character changes etc. The last re-writes are usually, nuance level, like dialogue changes, or edits after we see the final product in action, like hair color or makeup.
That's where we save the most amount of money actually.
Yes the first episode takes longer, but after that it's fairly smooth.
So, expect the next episode in about 4-6 weeks give or take. Then the next after that same amount of time.
According to the research I've done, many other devs, dive right into renders and do changes as they work, which makes production take 3-4 times longer, i.e. release each episode in about 3-4 months.
There are ofc exceptions - like Grandma's House - Moonbox is amazing! But he's the exception.
- Dec 2, 2021
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It's rare to find a VN that stands out amongst the rest for one reason or another. I went into this demo expecting one aspect of a VN (renders, storyline, sexual content) to be high quality, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that almost every aspects seems to be receiving the same amount of attention. It's also impressive to get me invested in a character (Gwen) so quickly to where I felt genuine sorrow for being unable to save her.
A couple of design choices did stand out though for one reason or another. An example is the purpose of the quest book when the story feels relatively linear in terms of what story elements we engage with at which times. This type of content would fit perfectly for a more sand-box approach to telling a story, but I'm under the impression that isn't the case. However, it is fairly useful long term for remembering what happened in earlier parts of the story, especially when coming back for an update after a few weeks/months.
The second design choice that makes me hesitant is time skips. Even renowned writers (e.g. Drew Karpyshyn) introduce plot holes when using a time skip to advance the story in a believable manner. My biggest concern is if they are a consistent theme that the events that happen within the rest of the world will occur in a similar believable manner as with the MC. Time skips aren't necessarily a bad thing, but they are incredible difficult to pull off.
Aside from those points I'm excited to see what the next update offers and to potentially add a new VN to my sub list!
A couple of design choices did stand out though for one reason or another. An example is the purpose of the quest book when the story feels relatively linear in terms of what story elements we engage with at which times. This type of content would fit perfectly for a more sand-box approach to telling a story, but I'm under the impression that isn't the case. However, it is fairly useful long term for remembering what happened in earlier parts of the story, especially when coming back for an update after a few weeks/months.
The second design choice that makes me hesitant is time skips. Even renowned writers (e.g. Drew Karpyshyn) introduce plot holes when using a time skip to advance the story in a believable manner. My biggest concern is if they are a consistent theme that the events that happen within the rest of the world will occur in a similar believable manner as with the MC. Time skips aren't necessarily a bad thing, but they are incredible difficult to pull off.
Aside from those points I'm excited to see what the next update offers and to potentially add a new VN to my sub list!
First thank you so much for your review, really appreciate it!
Now for the two points you mentioned:
1. The journal: It's purpose is for reminding you what you did for sure, but later on you will make choices that will change relationships with different characters, this will help you remember those choices. And as the story progresses you'll have several tasks open at the same time, so this will remind you what you need to do in each task without the need to load an old save, or watch video walkthroughs or anything.
2. Time skips: That was a tough one for me, I wanted to show that the prince had some time away from his pampered sheltered life, that he became a little bit tougher both physically and mentally. Remember he starts as an emotional spoiled brat, so there's a-lot of room for growth heh. He took the time as he was not ready to re-enter society after the loss, and was ok with becoming a hermit. BUT then the vision came that Gwen is still alive, and it was so vivid and real that it pushes him (again) out of his comfort zone to start the adventure, giving him the purpose he lost.
I bashed my head for a while to find a better solution to get this internal growth, in the initial screenplay writing I had the adventure start immediately after he went out, I wrote everything that happened to him, you go out with him to hunt some deer, and then build some traps, then tan some skins, and do some fishing, but after finishing - it was just too long and way too boring to be honest.
And I wanted the prologue to be tight, introduce the world before the story, and the main plot (story arc).
Then jump as quickly as possible into the story (i.e. right into act 2).
So I cut out all the fat, all the boring, but still had to keep the time skip, even for a little, so that the prince can do a little bit of an internal growth.
Now the amount of time that passed is not specified on purpose - it can be a few days, weeks or months.
However long the player is comfortable of getting over loss. Each one of us is different, but any timeframe where he could rebuild a house, hunt deer, tan skins and make a coat - will be it.
Episode 2 is in the works where things will get much clearer (and more interesting), you'll meet your companions, and start getting to know them and the prince a-lot more, I'm extremely excited for what's to come.
Again thank you so much, I truly appreciate it!
- Sep 5, 2019
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If cutting down the fat speeds up meeting more of the girls, especially ginger snaps, the cut like your life depends on it.
Merry Christmas everyone, and happy holidays!
Thank you so much for all the support.
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Thank you so much for all the support.
slick97 Thank you so much for your wonderful Review the attention to detail was fantastic, you hit the nail on the head many times:
1. The Queen and Jezz are both pivotal for the story, but I kept it vague on purpose, and later on it will be and interesting revealed.
2. It's indeed a growing up story, "man I a hole" like you mentioned, fall from grace and rise again, but also a personal growth from a spoiled sheltered frightened boy, he turns into a true brave leader, "a man among men" so to speak.
3. The next episode will introduce each of the main companions, their interesting personalities along their own "wound" that they would grow out from with the MC's help, and in doing so will create a stronger bond between them.
4. And finally, I thank you for the praise on the art and story.
I've done the screenwriting, coding, rendering, implementing, lighting and camera, myself.
I have an amazing small team that complements me on areas I either need help to save time, or I'm just less good at, like 2D art, level design, and an of course music composing.
1. The Queen and Jezz are both pivotal for the story, but I kept it vague on purpose, and later on it will be and interesting revealed.
2. It's indeed a growing up story, "man I a hole" like you mentioned, fall from grace and rise again, but also a personal growth from a spoiled sheltered frightened boy, he turns into a true brave leader, "a man among men" so to speak.
3. The next episode will introduce each of the main companions, their interesting personalities along their own "wound" that they would grow out from with the MC's help, and in doing so will create a stronger bond between them.
4. And finally, I thank you for the praise on the art and story.
I've done the screenwriting, coding, rendering, implementing, lighting and camera, myself.
I have an amazing small team that complements me on areas I either need help to save time, or I'm just less good at, like 2D art, level design, and an of course music composing.
- Nov 4, 2020
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Hi, I just started the game and i must say the story is nice buuuuuuuuuuuut
Don't create fake choices please, having 5 choices in a dialogue resulting in the same answer and with 0 consequences are useless. Same goes for other choices, if it adds just 1 line of dialogue then switch to the other answer reaction it's not cool.
I hope choices will have more consequences later in game
Don't create fake choices please, having 5 choices in a dialogue resulting in the same answer and with 0 consequences are useless. Same goes for other choices, if it adds just 1 line of dialogue then switch to the other answer reaction it's not cool.
I hope choices will have more consequences later in game
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- Dec 2, 2021
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Chances are these types of choices are for flavor rather than introducing a branch in the story. It's not uncommon for most games - VNs essentially - to incorporate flavor text as a proxy for the audience to really put themselves in the shoes of the protagonist.
Also, from what I understand, the story should start opening up at some point in the future. I'd imagine this is where certain choices could have severe consequences (i.e. choosing which character to support and when). The only drawback to a story where choices matter is the insane ramp up in development time as the story would have to account for specific decisions with similar lengths in content. Some devs have cleverly avoided the time requirements by having several branching choices still leading to the same main plot, and others just designate certain choices as instant "game overs".
Of the above approaches for a "choices matter" story, I'm heavily in favor of incorporating slight branching while the rest of the decisions lead to some form of game over scene. It keeps development time reasonable and prevents a dev from burning out trying to keep track of how many paths there are halfway through the story.
This specific instance is to simulate how paniced the prince is, and the many questions running wild in his head.
I thought to use this technique to cause the player to experience that same amount of panic as all of these questions would then be in their heads as well.
Jezz on the other hand, keeps a cool and clear head, and tries to help the prince snap out of it, the way in which you go about it - is branching hehe.
Also as slick97 mentioned, later on the most important choices will be the character choices - i.e. who to romance for instance.
Some of the best techniques for writing branches are
1. opening and closing branches - for instance a choice to help one character or the other, but then it closes as we finish the quest for both characters and move on.
2. choices for unrelated to the main plot, for instance romance options. they will change dialogue and options for that specific character, but the main plot will continue as is.
Then the time (and budget) consuming technique is to give long branches - this effectively means making 2 games.
3. Multiple endings - i.e. to give options throughout the game that will be saved for several endings - or epilogues.
this means the game plot will progress the same, but the epilogue either in text, images or actual renders, will be relatively short giving a summary of different outcomes that happened after the end of the game.
Several games used this successfully, like Pathfinder, Divinity original sin, or Pillars of eternity.
In them they made the epilogue for each character separate and changes according to your decisions throughout the game.
Any rate, the prologue (ep1 or act 1) is fairly linear, I designed it to just introduce the world prior to the story, and the main plot.
So, the next episodes (2-3) will be the beefy main story, (act 2) where we'll meet the companions and start making real choices like like who do you flirt with, date, romance, help, and more.
But I can't go into too much detail as I don't want to spoiler too much lol.
Hope this helps a little.
- Mar 19, 2020
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Damn this game is really good but please I beg you make it a harem. All the girls are great I want to end with all of them so please make a harem path.
- Mar 19, 2022
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This short intro is impressive, not gonna lie. First impulse was, ok: he deserves support, i´ll subscribe on patreon.
But.... the supporter levels are um quite optimistic. I usually subscribe at a 5€ subscription, but that isn´t even an option.
So, nah i will skip this one, sorry dev. I am already supporting more then 50 devs and enough is enough.
Nevertheless, i wish you all the luck in the world with this vn, and if you reconsider the supporter levels i will probably subscribe.
But.... the supporter levels are um quite optimistic. I usually subscribe at a 5€ subscription, but that isn´t even an option.
So, nah i will skip this one, sorry dev. I am already supporting more then 50 devs and enough is enough.
Nevertheless, i wish you all the luck in the world with this vn, and if you reconsider the supporter levels i will probably subscribe.
- Jan 19, 2020
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SanchoMod worthy? Getting some inbound requests for this one... I haven't had time to check it out yet so input is appreciated. Regards and happy holidays to you and yours. Jubei I'm being fed promising info that you have something on your hands here, congrats.
- Sep 13, 2020
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One of the best fantasy vn's I have ever seen in a long time! , my friend
- Jan 19, 2020
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No shit? Ok then, I'll certainly check it out. We'll see how it goes. So many VN's on the stove, only so many fit in the oven... what a crappy analogy, you can tell I'm hungry. This is why I mod and don't author
- Dec 2, 2021
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It's just the intro setup for the rest of the plot atm. The next update is where the story starts to pick up in terms of choices and plot development.
As for whether this is SanchoMod worthy? Absolutely! Your mods are the best developed out there, and Jubei is showing some real promise with this VN. I also enjoy having UI mods that don't break the game when I try to make text legible so I might be slightly biased in my answer
