itch.io

Yeah I agree with the others, the scene with Komoli being all "I want to imprison you and run experiments on you like a lab rat forever, your mother never agreed with me with my unethical experiments. Also side note I tried to ruin Macsen's graduation out of... spite for knowing Killigan? The academy is doing HORRIBLE things even deeper down." get resolved with "Oh maybe you can just run experiments and torture the gigantic monster instead of me, also hire binini!" and Komoli being all "Yeah I thought keeping you down in the depths would protect you like your mother wanted, but now I see the error in my ways" feels like two old scripts accidentally mashed together haha.

Though Killigan could be playing it smart since he has absolutely no power there (considering Binini's comment that the academy has more horrible experiments, the rest could have Komoli's back if he accused her of kidnapping and forced experimentation). Keeping Komoli and the rest cool just to find a way to get as far away from her as possible might be the best option. Though Killigan doesn't seem like the type to think that way. It's a hard plot to resolve to be sure.

Well good luck, hope my feedback helped a bit and I'll be looking forward to your development!

As for my side comments about a western country vn, I wasn't trying to be snarky. I was half serious about that; with how you're going so far, you could easily make new characters with a new setting since you guys obviously have the skill to do so haha. Though now's not really the time to say that. 

Thanks for your response!

I understand that you're in the very early stages of development. I just wanted to give my opinions while it was early, especially since some of my qualms can only be thought about during the early stages if you wanted to. It's pretty useless to complain about sprite changes when you have everyone finished. I agree with nostalgia being a double edged sword, I was kinda reluctant to retry morenatsu due to this but your project was really interesting :). Also with nostalgia, when many people remember the characters, they remember the very serious, heart touching moments. These moments worked because they were built up from the lighter parts of the stories that the first half composed, after the player has bonded with the group and their antics. Much of the frivolity was also toned down to introduce character problems and drama early. I understand that you're focusing more on story, but from my experience, authors can sometimes fall into the trap that because all they remember is the nostalgia of the drama and serious parts, they forget the core lighter, small interactions, details, and moments that a story needs to build up to them. The comical, lighter parts are just as important to a story and I think it would be good to also develop those parts as much as, or even more than, the serious ones. The highs are just as important as the lows. In my opinion, many people liked morenatsu because it was an escape, a fun summer vacation with friends. The emotional connections came later.

I'm also not saying exploring tatsuki's drinking problem would be bad, it's actually quite interesting. It'd be great if that was explored more in depth. It just depends on how you plan on putting in these added developments while keeping the core of the game intact. Proper pacing is also really important for those kinds of things, which as of now the demo seems a bit messy.

I know it's still really early in development but I'd really like to see your project succeed so I wanted to offer my opinions. When I like things and think there's potential I tend to find more things to talk about, so I hope this doesn't come off as too negative. Hope things go well ^^

I tried out homecoming a while ago, and it's pretty well developed. I didn't run into any crashes or anything, and the music was good, though it seems a bit western for the setting. The art and new oc is fine as long as it doesn't get in the way of the story. I do have a few opinions regarding some of the stuff though. 

First, new art is fine, but it seems all the characters have really subdued expressions. I think when you make a VN, character sprites are designed specifically to portray a wide arrange of emotion, but from the finished sprites I've noticed that it doesn't really match the scenes, especially for the more energetic characters like tora. The other characters with a wider array of sprites also suffer from this in my opinion. It may be that you're going for a more realistic approach, but it doesn't really convey the happiness or energy in the scenes.

In relation to this, it seems like in the story you've been offloading a lot of serious problems from the very start. Following Tatsuki's interactions, it seems like you guys opted to remove the more laid back events to instead up the serious parts and turn up tatsuki's drinking problem up to 11. Which I don't really like for some reasons. First is, the emotional scenes in morenatsu, and other stories in general, hit hard because the readers are given the happier, goofier times, making them bond with the characters more before really opening the character's problems. Emotional parts hit HARD when they do since you have other  happier scenes to compare them to. Offloading the drama at the start doesn't really work because unless you've played the first game. You don't really care about these characters, so you don't care about the drama that they're putting you through. Drama should be used sparingly, or similar to the first game, really introduced in the second half once you've been able to bond with the characters. You came back to Minasato to have a good time with your old friends, not listen to everyone's problems. Secondly, why did you bump tatsuki's drinking problem up to 11 anyway? He did have a drinking problem, but he didn't let it get in the way of his work or endanger his life. Tatsuki in the first game was pretty well rounded, he had plans in life, responsible, and while he did have some issues, he was usually just the cheery big brother in the group who carries his heart on his sleeves. There was nothing wrong with that, his route was basically enjoying a summer vacation with him, with enough energy, goofiness, and emotion to match the character. Not everyone needs to be a broken person that needs to be fixed. Broken characters doesn't equate to interesting characters. I wouldn't mind if that was a completely new character, but since you're just revising already made characters, people will be comparing your new vision to the old ones. Adding drunk driving seemed really off character since Tatsuki wouldn't do something as irresponsible as that. In my opinion, you guys didn't really capture the essence of his route, with where you're going. If you're going to really change characters up, I think you would have much more potential making a brand new western country life vn with totally new characters instead of revising these ones.

I think homecoming has potential, but if the story routes go where they seem to be going, it may not be the game for me sadly. It seems really well made though, I'll be watching your development to see what happens next.