VN Ren'Py City of Broken Dreamers [v1.14.0 Ch. 14] [PhillyGames]

[Walg]

@Huntarr Thank man, that was a really interesting scene to do. A lot happens in it so it took awhile to get right.

Considering that you've only been using AE and AP for a short amount of time, you've done a fantastic job with those scenes and it must've been a pain to get right.

 

[Philly_Games]

@Walg Yeah the color was off. I know what is up with that now though and will probably redo some of them.

 

[Walg]

@Walg Yeah the color was off. I know what is up with that now though and will probably redo some of them.

You're in the clear if no-one else noticed that Oh by the way I haven't used AP but how difficult it is to convert mp4's to webm through AP? Or did you have to use something else for that conversion?

 

[Philly_Games]

@Walg super easy.

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[Walg]

@Walg super easy.

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Ah that makes sense. Thanks! I found that some of the webm's were actually larger than the mp4's or maybe it was the converters I used.

 

[RereiRaRerena]

Just something i just stumbled upon. ^_^ Bullets by Archive would make a great theme song for this game. It fits like a glove. ^_^

 

[Frizzy1923]

I am blown away by the quality of the renders. I hope for the well-written story. Good luck with development. Loving it so far.

 

[tapi]

Hello Philly_Games!

Thanks for your new game - it's awesome. I have some feedback, hope it will be useful. All of it is my personal opinion.

• Graphics is brilliant - very high quality CG
• Animation is good
• Plot looks promising
• Music is great - it reinforces this neo-noir/cyberpunk theme. But it's a little too active and aggressive sometimes. It's disturbing during dialogs - may be you could use quieter tracks for scenes with lots of text and active for exposition/overview scenes without text.
• Clue mechanics is unclear - what player expected to do when he sees "clue hint"? Does "clue hint" refers to a scene? Dialog? Dialog line? Current picture? As I understand it's intended to provide confirmation of a future reward - like look, you've skipped this interesting sex scene, but you'll get a reward later, so you did it right. But for me it didn't work.
• Picture count per playing time rate is too high - i think it could be made lower without worsening the experience.
• Information density is too high - all this world details, corporations, viruses , ex-wives, NPCs are spilled on a player one after another. It's hard to process and remember all of it. I think, it will be much better to stretch this facts to several episodes(versions) - 1-2 new NPCs, 1-2 major world concepts(corporation,virus, ghosts etc) per episode.
• Major world concepts delivery is poor. A rule of thumb i use - if you have a "factbook" in a game that contains information, that you see for a first time there is a problem in games information delivery. I see new MWC as colored text, I see UI element that tells me that factbook is updated and I go to factbook. What for? It's unnecessary clicks. From my point of view, MWC should be introduced step-by-step in small parts via in-world facts. Take this main corporation(sorry - forgot it's name) - instead of just adding an article in factbook I would do this: 1) Mention stock of this corp going up in news 2) Show some branded items - notebooks, mugs etc. 3) Mention that capitalization of that corp is the highest in tech industry in news 4) Show some commercials in the world 5) Mention corp in some rumors by NPCs. After that player already has a good understanding of this MWC - it's a very big tech corp with a shady rumors going around.
• Art direction is great! I love this theme consistency.
• Some scenes could be enhanced a little to generate more emotions. For example scene with yellow girl on a dance floor - it gorgeous, but too short - player feels it for number of seconds since there are not many text lines. It can be turned into small chase with small interaction - girl moves between dancers and player searches and clicks on her to follow. All of it combined with a louder music will feel great.
• Score and Lust mechanics could be improved - it would be better if changes of Score and Lust for NPCs are clearly communicated to player. Since you already show it values in separate screen. Player midterm goals are to increase this values to get more scenes.

So strong point: art, story and world. Weak points: game design and player communications.
Hope this feedback will be useful.
Looking forward 0.2!

 

[rf96]

• Major world concepts delivery is poor. A rule of thumb i use - if you have a "factbook" in a game that contains information, that you see for a first time there is a problem in games information delivery. I see new MWC as colored text, I see UI element that tells me that factbook is updated and I go to factbook. What for? It's unnecessary clicks. From my point of view, MWC should be introduced step-by-step in small parts via in-world facts. Take this main corporation(sorry - forgot it's name) - instead of just adding an article in factbook I would do this: 1) Mention stock of this corp going up in news 2) Show some branded items - notebooks, mugs etc. 3) Mention that capitalization of that corp is the highest in tech industry in news 4) Show some commercials in the world 5) Mention corp in some rumors by NPCs. After that player already has a good understanding of this MWC - it's a very big tech corp with a shady rumors going around.

I agree factbooks looks a bit "lazy". A news app on the phone giving you some context infos throughout the game would look better.

 

[Philly_Games]

@tapi most of what you said i do agree with. As for the information density this will be much more spread out from this point on. Next chapters will only introduce a few things at a time since now the game will start pushing more into the direction of the characters themselves and not as much about the world around them.

When it comes to the major world concepts I decided to go as light as possible on the exposition in game itself, leaving the glossary if you happened to want to learn more. I think that is something a lot struggle with. Like, how much to a say how much I not say. It's a strange balance.

As for the scene in the club, I did want to do a bit more with it but every shot in there was hours of work. That was more one of those things where I had to cut my losses so to speak.

 

[Bolero]

I like how the devs of the popular games (Acting lessons, Dreams of Desire, Depraved awakening) aren´t just saying: ˝Ok we are popular, audience knows us and will support us, so lets just make the same thing again˝. Instead they took one big step forward and improved their new games in every aspect. I mean, the look of this new games is a huge improvement over the previous games, everything looks so much sharper and better, not to mention the animations. So yeah, glad that they are improving themselves and not just living on the glory they earned from their previous work.

And the red haired chick from this game is something else, she reminds me of some actress, can´t really remember which one, but is very familiar.

 

[tapi]

@tapi most of what you said i do agree with. As for the information density this will be much more spread out from this point on. Next chapters will only introduce a few things at a time since now the game will start pushing more into the direction of the characters themselves and not as much about the world around them.

When it comes to the major world concepts I decided to go as light as possible on the exposition in game itself, leaving the glossary if you happened to want to learn more. I think that is something a lot struggle with. Like, how much to a say how much I not say. It's a strange balance.

As for the scene in the club, I did want to do a bit more with it but every shot in there was hours of work. That was more one of those things where I had to cut my losses so to speak.

I agree with you - it's indeed a strange balance. But for game like City of Broken Dreams which has rich world it's not a good decision to tell about the world solely in factbook. Maybe some deeper information can be put in factbook - like story of that corporation, major operation performed by ghosts etc. But most important one should be in main game.

It's sad that club scene had not high enough priority. But resources are limited so you always need to chose and mostly cut things off.

 

[Second_Son]

im relly exited to play this game but Norton warns me when im about to start, anyone else got that waring or is it just a false postive?

 

[DA22]

When files are uploaded here by an official uploader, chances on a real virus are minimal. So almost certainly a false positive.

 

[rf96]

As for the scene in the club, I did want to do a bit more with it but every shot in there was hours of work. That was more one of those things where I had to cut my losses so to speak.

Can you hire some staff to help?

 

[atlas114]

maybe when he doubles his current pledges and sets a new goal.

 

[Nulldev]

im relly exited to play this game but Norton warns me when im about to start, anyone else got that waring or is it just a false postive?

If you got a warning use the

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to check the file with about sixty virusscanner.

 

[FRMC56]

Haven't tried a new VN/game from here in a long while, but man o' man am I looking forward to where this one goes! Of course if one was to look at my current signature it would appear I might be a tad bit biased

Anyhow, I know it's super early in the story, but for me personally I'm really digging Dr. Katie Hamilton. She just really feels like a down-to-earth character that I'll want to confide and trust in moving forward in what will most likely be a dark/grim story. And add the fact that I think she's attractive as hell -- boom, my new favourite character!

I also have to add I really love those short intro animations for the characters (like when Katie turns around from the TV screen in the first scene with her). I don't really know how to explain it through words, but for me they give off an additional "liveliness" to the characters and they mix really well with the static images (which have wonderful lighting that all would make awesome wallpaper ). And the music in this VN/game...very awesome and fits perfectly. Although if I were to critique something about the music, I wish the music wouldn't sound like it was abruptly cut-off sometimes when a scene is transitioning to another. But I'm going to assume that's more of an engine issue (Ren'Py) rather than anything else and I can easily overlook it. Guess it just goes to show, if that was one of my only nitpicks with this VN/game, how much I really enjoyed it

Thanks @Philly_Games for all your hard work (and help you've been giving to other creators) and I cannot wait to see where City of Broken Dreamers will take us next!

EDIT: Ha, ha, ha...I can't believe I didn't notice the names of the Ghosts at first. Bishop, Frost, Hudson...and I'm supposed to be an Aliens fan. And I believe another poster here mentioned it, but I too also enjoyed that little nod to Terminator with the name of the club Tech Noir. Thanks for bringing out these little bits of nostalgia; definitely makes it more fun!

 

[Sam]

im relly exited to play this game but Norton warns me when im about to start, anyone else got that waring or is it just a false postive?

Some AVs can trigger on Ren'Py games, it's a false positive.

 

[Second_Son]

Some AVs can trigger on Ren'Py games, it's a false positive.

okay great thanks!