After watching Phil play Love Seat, I decided to get the ending that he never got. This unfortunately has not changed my opinion on the game. But I will start with a positive. I think that the backgrounds look nice, and I like the details of the chairs slowly lowering in numbers.
Unfortunately this is the only positive thing I have to say about this game. Someone else discussed the sound design in a different comment, and I agree with their opinion. Additionally I'm not a sound guy so nothing I say would even be useful.
The character portraits aren't properly proportioned in relation to other characters. Cris looks way too big compared to some of the other characters, especially the bunny man. It feels like they weren't sketched on the same canvas size. Additionally based on your comments, it seems like the art roles were not properly divied up. If I was in charge of this project, I would have one person do the sketches for the stills, another do the ink and another do the flats.
However my biggest gripe is the plot. The structure of the story, and especially the twist, do not hold up to any scrutiny. Characters such as the tripping guy and the south park music guy should have been cut from the final game to save time and to focus on more important characters like Layla, Ralph, Cris and Bunny man. Cutting them from the game would have improved the overall plot, and created less work for the sprite artists. Cris' plan makes no sense. She is clearly stalking and is interested in the player character. Why even bother kidnapping these other people if she just wants the PC? What if the PC fails and dies after Cris "sacrifices" herself? All of her work is quite literally for nothing.
The characters were poorly introduced. All of the players should have been introduced at the start after the PC wakes up. The way that the characters were introduced made them feel like they only came to existence the second they were actually relevant to the plot. It feels like there wasn't any rewriting involved. Someone with fresh eyes would have caught these writing mistakes immediately. I'm sorry I'm being so harsh on the story, but this is a visual novel. The story is front and center in VNs.
Edit: I forgot to mention this earlier but I appreciate your ability to take constructive criticism.
Thanks for taking the time to write this. Sorry my response is coming so late. I admit the stream itself is still a sore spot for me. I think in large part because I can see so clearly that the critiques were right. I only wish it hadn't devolved into ridicule live on stream.
If I might provide a postmortem to this thing, a lot of the assumptions I'd seen in the comments of the stream were right. We rushed and crunched. October didn't start out opportune for a lot of us. If it wasn't our day jobs swamping us, it was medical crises taking some of us out of commission. A lot of the actual work got done pretty close to the wire.
Speaking for myself, I handled the coding and the majority of the writing, which would explain why the writing suffered. The team was impressed with how quickly I churned it out, though in hindsight that might've been an indicator that I wasn't giving it the time in the oven it would've been better off having.
It wounded my pride for some time hearing this thing called poorly-written, given writing is the thing I usually pride myself on. But maybe I need to be more forgiving to myself, since this is the first visual novel I've ever done. I know I'll be taking better care going forward. Maybe not opting for the game jam model of things at all.
I also handled the audio myself, from SFX to implementing the stock shit. Which would explain the issues people take with it, I'm willing to bet. Maybe I put on too many hats under such short notice. Didn't have all the equipment or know-how to make the sound the best it could be. While I certainly felt like a laughing stock once the stream happened, at the time I think I approached it from an unhealthy mindset of I don't want to be the one silent entry in the jam. Though now I feel like Phil would've rather I never bothered.
This game is still something of a sore spot for me. Others on the team want to refine it and polish it, which they've got the right to. But speaking for myself, I think I'm done. I want to do the next thing and do it better this time.
Thank you. I'm glad you responded. Also it sucks that life and your jobs got in the way. I hope things start slowing down for and that you and your team aren't thrown anymore metaphorical curve balls. Sorry that my critique was on the harsher side. Finishing a project of any kind is difficult, and I hope that this doesn't discourage you from creating in the future. As an artist myself, all creatives have created some stinkers in their life, but not all of them have had to deal with the scrutiny of a thousand eyes. Again thank you for your response, and I hope you and your team are doing better now.
I just wanted to say your game was incredibly good for a first game. Don't get discouraged just because Phil trashed it. Especially with the time crunch this was a great feat. Don't stop making games, I look forward to seeing what you guys do next.
Thanks! It was a group effort with a few sprites being made by various individuals, sadly we didn't have the time necessary to swap out every placeholder image so we made do with what we could manage.
We were wanting to do a post-jam update so with that we're hoping to unify things a little better, but I feel that everyone on my team did a wonderful job and gave it their all considering the circumstances.
For note: BBWitch did pretty much all of the backgrounds, with some minor assistance from Carni Carni did the sprites for Bunny, Cris, Sean, Ralph & Layla, plus intial concept designs for every character! I did the placeholder sprites for Elijah. Came out looking better than I expected, honestly. Cass did the sprites for Lacey. She did wonderfully at matching Carni's sprites, I think
Thanks for the nice comment. I admit I was feeling mega discouraged after the stream last night, losing what pride I had in it. But all the same thank you.
Hey Kon, don't feel down. If something gets criticized, then it means that there is something that you should look into and try to fix it. Keep what worked and rework what didn't.
The main complaint people have was the writing, it's dull and the characters are not interesting. There should be more of a dilemma going on with the cast in response to their situation; maybe have each of them have their own hang ups and trauma that has them bounce off with the other members? You as the player are just out of the loop as they are, so there should be more involvement with you and your choices. Maybe have you try to help someone but it gets them killed? Do something bad that might help them out instead but at the cost of hurting them more? It's something to ponder on.
My personal complaint is that the sound design is bad. Maybe the tracks could be reworked to be more easier on the ears and unsettling at the same time. Try studying music theory, it helps.
You know, if Phil's interested, he can do a sequel to the stream where he replays the lower ranked games and see how much they improved since.
Hey there, thank you for the constructive feedback. It's a breath of fresh air and very much appreciated! We have already begun discussing plans for how to move forward and do better, whether it's with Love Seat or with another project entirely, and will definitely take your suggestions into consideration.
As for a follow-up stream, it's a neat idea, but doesn't sound like something our team wishes to participate in. Respectfully, we've been given the impression that this particular community is not a welcoming environment for beginner game devs. It's fine if that is the case, we just wish that was made clear from the beginning, since the game jam's overview suggested otherwise.
Regardless, we have a lot of ideas that we hope people will enjoy, so we'll still be around!
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After watching Phil play Love Seat, I decided to get the ending that he never got. This unfortunately has not changed my opinion on the game. But I will start with a positive. I think that the backgrounds look nice, and I like the details of the chairs slowly lowering in numbers.
Unfortunately this is the only positive thing I have to say about this game. Someone else discussed the sound design in a different comment, and I agree with their opinion. Additionally I'm not a sound guy so nothing I say would even be useful.
The character portraits aren't properly proportioned in relation to other characters. Cris looks way too big compared to some of the other characters, especially the bunny man. It feels like they weren't sketched on the same canvas size. Additionally based on your comments, it seems like the art roles were not properly divied up. If I was in charge of this project, I would have one person do the sketches for the stills, another do the ink and another do the flats.
However my biggest gripe is the plot. The structure of the story, and especially the twist, do not hold up to any scrutiny. Characters such as the tripping guy and the south park music guy should have been cut from the final game to save time and to focus on more important characters like Layla, Ralph, Cris and Bunny man. Cutting them from the game would have improved the overall plot, and created less work for the sprite artists. Cris' plan makes no sense. She is clearly stalking and is interested in the player character. Why even bother kidnapping these other people if she just wants the PC? What if the PC fails and dies after Cris "sacrifices" herself? All of her work is quite literally for nothing.
The characters were poorly introduced. All of the players should have been introduced at the start after the PC wakes up. The way that the characters were introduced made them feel like they only came to existence the second they were actually relevant to the plot. It feels like there wasn't any rewriting involved. Someone with fresh eyes would have caught these writing mistakes immediately. I'm sorry I'm being so harsh on the story, but this is a visual novel. The story is front and center in VNs.
Edit: I forgot to mention this earlier but I appreciate your ability to take constructive criticism.
Hey, this is KonquerorWorm from Closing Shift.
Thanks for taking the time to write this. Sorry my response is coming so late. I admit the stream itself is still a sore spot for me. I think in large part because I can see so clearly that the critiques were right. I only wish it hadn't devolved into ridicule live on stream.
If I might provide a postmortem to this thing, a lot of the assumptions I'd seen in the comments of the stream were right. We rushed and crunched. October didn't start out opportune for a lot of us. If it wasn't our day jobs swamping us, it was medical crises taking some of us out of commission. A lot of the actual work got done pretty close to the wire.
Speaking for myself, I handled the coding and the majority of the writing, which would explain why the writing suffered. The team was impressed with how quickly I churned it out, though in hindsight that might've been an indicator that I wasn't giving it the time in the oven it would've been better off having.
It wounded my pride for some time hearing this thing called poorly-written, given writing is the thing I usually pride myself on. But maybe I need to be more forgiving to myself, since this is the first visual novel I've ever done. I know I'll be taking better care going forward. Maybe not opting for the game jam model of things at all.
I also handled the audio myself, from SFX to implementing the stock shit. Which would explain the issues people take with it, I'm willing to bet. Maybe I put on too many hats under such short notice. Didn't have all the equipment or know-how to make the sound the best it could be. While I certainly felt like a laughing stock once the stream happened, at the time I think I approached it from an unhealthy mindset of I don't want to be the one silent entry in the jam. Though now I feel like Phil would've rather I never bothered.
This game is still something of a sore spot for me. Others on the team want to refine it and polish it, which they've got the right to. But speaking for myself, I think I'm done. I want to do the next thing and do it better this time.
Thank you. I'm glad you responded. Also it sucks that life and your jobs got in the way. I hope things start slowing down for and that you and your team aren't thrown anymore metaphorical curve balls. Sorry that my critique was on the harsher side. Finishing a project of any kind is difficult, and I hope that this doesn't discourage you from creating in the future. As an artist myself, all creatives have created some stinkers in their life, but not all of them have had to deal with the scrutiny of a thousand eyes. Again thank you for your response, and I hope you and your team are doing better now.
I just wanted to say your game was incredibly good for a first game. Don't get discouraged just because Phil trashed it. Especially with the time crunch this was a great feat. Don't stop making games, I look forward to seeing what you guys do next.
Thank you for the kind words!
Love your character art omg
Thanks! It was a group effort with a few sprites being made by various individuals, sadly we didn't have the time necessary to swap out every placeholder image so we made do with what we could manage.
We were wanting to do a post-jam update so with that we're hoping to unify things a little better, but I feel that everyone on my team did a wonderful job and gave it their all considering the circumstances.
For note:
BBWitch did pretty much all of the backgrounds, with some minor assistance from Carni
Carni did the sprites for Bunny, Cris, Sean, Ralph & Layla, plus intial concept designs for every character!
I did the placeholder sprites for Elijah. Came out looking better than I expected, honestly.
Cass did the sprites for Lacey. She did wonderfully at matching Carni's sprites, I think
Very cute game!! Loved Mr. Bunny Man and the different endings!
Thanks for the nice comment. I admit I was feeling mega discouraged after the stream last night, losing what pride I had in it. But all the same thank you.
-KonquerorWorm
Hey Kon, don't feel down. If something gets criticized, then it means that there is something that you should look into and try to fix it. Keep what worked and rework what didn't.
The main complaint people have was the writing, it's dull and the characters are not interesting. There should be more of a dilemma going on with the cast in response to their situation; maybe have each of them have their own hang ups and trauma that has them bounce off with the other members? You as the player are just out of the loop as they are, so there should be more involvement with you and your choices. Maybe have you try to help someone but it gets them killed? Do something bad that might help them out instead but at the cost of hurting them more? It's something to ponder on.
My personal complaint is that the sound design is bad. Maybe the tracks could be reworked to be more easier on the ears and unsettling at the same time. Try studying music theory, it helps.
You know, if Phil's interested, he can do a sequel to the stream where he replays the lower ranked games and see how much they improved since.
Hey there, thank you for the constructive feedback. It's a breath of fresh air and very much appreciated! We have already begun discussing plans for how to move forward and do better, whether it's with Love Seat or with another project entirely, and will definitely take your suggestions into consideration.
As for a follow-up stream, it's a neat idea, but doesn't sound like something our team wishes to participate in. Respectfully, we've been given the impression that this particular community is not a welcoming environment for beginner game devs. It's fine if that is the case, we just wish that was made clear from the beginning, since the game jam's overview suggested otherwise.
Regardless, we have a lot of ideas that we hope people will enjoy, so we'll still be around!
LOVED IT!!! Really liked the twists and (of course) the wonderful
Haha! Thanks Hertz!