Hey man,
My review of your game wasn't my best work I will admit. I was having a lousy couple of days and so was more negative than maybe I shouldve been. I'll have another go at your game over the next few days, try and get further in, and update my review accordingly.
The one big point I will stress is that, like you seem to realize, first impressions are everything. There are a few simple things you could do to improve upon those for next version that might not take a ton of work.
First, I would make your menu a bit cleaner. The, perhaps intentional(?), misspellings in the menu itself send a REALLY bad message to potential players. It might be that you are trying to give off a carefree vibe similar to your game's tone, but given the number of Engrish games out there it immediately sets off alarm bells when the menu is riddled with errors. The player hasnt played your game yet, they won't get that the menu reflects the tone of your game if they close the game at or just after the menu screen.
Second, I would get your proofreaders to go over the wtfpedia section. They are very, very difficult to read. Obviously fix up the spelling and grammar stuff, but you might consider cutting the information back a bit. Having like 20 full pages of text thrown my way before even starting the game was a MASSIVE turnoff. Personally, having such an in depth glossary for me belies bad storytelling. If it is important it should be in the game, if it isn't then why would I care as a reader? But if you are going to have it just cut it back a little and make it legible.
Third, I'd tidy up the graphics of the menu and wtfpedia. The wtfpedia having just scaled down versions of each of the text pages to click on looks bad. Maybe just have a picture of the characters face, or a picture with a name under it. Having a scaled down page made it impossible for me to know who the page was about without fullscreening the page. Also the main menu screen changing graphics when you move the mouse is really jarring. Maybe make it cycle through a few different renders. It'd be a lot cleaner than what youve got right now.
And last, and this one would be more work, but I think itd definitely be worth it in the long run, I would tie the wtfpedia and the cg gallery to in game progress. When I meet a character in game unlock that glossary page for the player. Before that its just information the player doesnt need that creates clutter. The amount of clutter in the menu alone is overwhelming.
Anywho, thanks for your detailed replies and more good luck on your game!
Well I read your comment after typing all this up. I'm glad I didn't read it earlier because I might not have typed all this if I had. But the dev hasn't been antagonistic so I'ma post it all anyway. Sorry for not using apostrophes in a forum post to save time. Sarcastically comparing a forum post to a released game just to shame someone somewhat undercuts that high road you spoke about. It also makes the multiple smiley faces seem sarcastic as well. Good on you for helping the dev out, that's honestly really good of you, but that little bit of intentional antagonism at the end - even after saying it was good we avoided flaming - is discouraging.
hmm ok, i try to answer lol
1- i dont really understand what you mean by "the menu"... if you talk about the main menu with all the option (start,load,wtfpedia,setting ,etc..) , then i changed it randomly in a grotesque way to fit the game. Thta's why it say "fap fap fap" and else.. i could perfectly have just let the menu as it, or modify it a bit tosomething better. but meh, its just the menu. i will redo it, but its clearly not my first priority right now. i want to say, its just the menu... its not like a player gonna stay 3 hours on the menu just top watch a static screen with options on it XD. i must concentrate more into the game itself than the menu. it maybe show a bad first imporession but.. let's be honest... the simple banner in this thread show an even more bad first impression of the game sooo... yeah, clarly my game scream and big "THIS GAME IS NOT GOOD!" .. imho, its good like this, at least, peoples who want to play it can expect some bad stuff in it. its better than creating an wonderful banner, wonderful menu, that lead to an shitty game (i saw that happening too much).
2- the wtfpedia section is NOT readproofed at all... reasons behind that is my own stupidity
, i put myslf the text directly on the renders without giving a chance to he proofreader to check on it. and soo obviously, the files end with extra shitty english.
i put that on my "to do" list for next release. i have no excuse for that. but at the time i started it, and created a small bunch of these wtfpedia files.. i didnt having any proofreader at all, soo i did it myself and i still continu to do it myself. shame on me ...
3- for the wtfpedia menu, i could easily "lock" the files until the player meet with the char. i canalso create an small portrait icon on them wich lead to the wtfpedia file (text) for each chars. but that would require to implent even more script into my already super messy script, at the risk of broking the whole thing. As you know, i m not a pro at DAZ or ren'py. i trytodoall the shit by myself and for a noob, its hard. i can do that, but again, like for the main menu, its not an priority. i prefer make the game complete and stable, before attacking script that can easily broke the whole thing or add errors.
its maybe a shitty move, but i think its better, for me because it avoid me too much error/broke in the script, and for the players because its better to enjoy the game in priority than having the game broken by something "secondary" like the wtfpedia or menu. ( i hope you understand my point of view)
as for your last point... i could put the gallery and wtfpedia directly in the game via a Phone interface or similar. i worked on my own phone interface, sadly it appear to have some incompatibility with some others script,soo i took it out for time to fix it, before implenting it in the game.
the phone interface is definitly planned into the game and will give access to multiples things, such as minigame, internet (fake), photos, wtfpedia, gallery and much more.
but again, my priority right now is the game itself, story first. i dont want to waste too much time doing optional stuff at the risk of breaking the most important part of it. i can say for now, the game is far..far away from his final style. lots of stuff need to be implented. But yup, like i say it too much already in this comment. that will come in time.
here my point of view of the development of the game in global :
game (until completed or amost) = optionalstuff in it = menu,UI and else
instead of :
game (progress) > optional stuff > UI > game (to the end)
it also feel less scam for who patron me. i cant just make a update just to fix Ui and small things without adding anything in the game progress. and sadly, i CANT do both due to my shitty pc. soo i prefer sacrifice the UI/optional for doing the game progression first.
(its also a better % of chance to not have bugs, once the game is finished an stable, i can take all my time to fix everything up without stressing.)
you dont need to change your review. giving an opinion is important, whatever it say in it. as long its not just some "its bad", "its shit" or else without any points mentionned.
receiving your review boosted me to try doing even better, wich is good for everybody
(but well, i m still a noob, doing a crazy game with super shit materials, i m not gonna make some miracles suddently XD )
