Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD41 → Memories ~ of a Gacha Tale
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 795 | 3.26 | 25 | |
| Fun | 1050 | 2.69 | 25 | |
| Innovation | 1121 | 2.50 | 25 | |
| Theme | 1003 | 2.93 | 25 | |
| Graphics | 378 | 3.80 | 17 | |
| Audio | 2.29 | 7 | ||
| Humor | 300 | 3.42 | 23 | |
| Mood | 266 | 3.66 | 23 |
I wanted more time with Arisa :( Interesting concept! I'd like to see the RNG/random mechanic expanded further. It can get frustrating during high-stakes moments (do I open the notebook or not?!?!), but the idea makes me want to see more!
Oh my I had to throw initiative like 20 times to have the resolve to give back the math notebook!
I loved the idea! With some more work you can make this a very interesting game!
Wow love the art here, cool concept and want to see more :D, but i didn't have any sound :/ Hmm my prefered character? Remi! xP
I liked the narrative, even though it was very stereotypical, and the artwork was really good. I just think there weren't enough dice roles, although I understand that it would be hard to implement more since the narrative changes every time the dice roles so you would have to write a lot of narrative. Great work though!
Needs more dice rolls! :smile: I'd like to see more of this! :smile:
Cool game! I played the Windows version.
Stuff I liked: The Ren'Py thing worked a treat for this game, provided a lot of options. The story was engaging and generally well-written. I liked the awkward pauses and emotional tension you built up with the script. The girls were cute. The art was a highlight of this for me.
Things that were ok: The RNG mechanic was interesting but the way it played out basically turned the game into a standard visual novel. There wasn't enough drama over what option might be picked ... I didn't even know what the other options were. The concept is great, but the execution felt like it was missing some tension/drama. Nitpick here: in terms of the story, it helps a lot if the character has a clear motivation / problem to overcome. You sorta tried to set up that he didn't know if he'd fit in, but you need to show that not just tell us. Make him do something awkward or be socially excluded at the beginning. What you showed instead was that he sucked at maths (didn't answer maths questions right), but then later it turns out that he was not given the chance to show he was actually great at maths so that was confusing. Basically what I'm trying to say is that the main character's motivations should be more obvious, but the overall quality of the writing and especially the dialogue was excellent. This also helps in terms of ending the story in a rounded-off way.
Ideas for next time: Sound didn't work for me at all. I just got radio silence no matter what I tried. Made it kinda hard to give you an audio rating. The game was 99% story and 1% RNG. If the RNG is supposed to be a major part of the game it should feel like it and be used often. Make things more humorous and awkward by adding random weird stuff to each encounter, IDK.
For a first LD effort I'm suitably impressed, especially with the amazing art and a solid effort at a story. Well done!
omg thanks for the feedback! Sorry about the audio. There actually wasn't any audio in the game :joy: I didn't have time to add them. I guess I should opt-out from that category so it isn't too confusing...
@lars-dk I'll take notes about the feedback for the story. I do want to improve on my writing, so I'm happy the story was engaging enough! I was most concerned about that since VNs are usually not-so-eyecatching slow-paced experiences :sweat_smile:
@duuuude I'm so sorry for making you do 20 rolls...
AHH This was so cute! I called the teacher taco sensei because I could barely pronounce her name lol X3. Anyways, I was so sad when my favorite ice cream was chocolate because that's my least favorite *cri* I wish we had options between Blonde girl and cheery girl because I went into the game really hoping that I would go out with her. There were a few typos (ex: pumping was spelled punping and Marco wasn't capitalized) But other than that, I have no complaints about the whole gameplay. The sketches were really cute! Also, do you work on your games alone or with someone else? All in all, great game!
That was really fun. This is the longest game I played in this jam. The story was really cute and I love the art style. To be honest, I don't like the dice roll idea since it can be annoying and takes away the enjoyment of making choices (even if the choices didn't affect the story). Otherwise, everything else was great and I hope for an expansion and some audio. Also, these math problems are easy, I wish to see their faces when they start studying integration :laughing:. Great job.
I'm a simple man. I see a derivative, I give 5/5.
Damn, i was waiting for some sick plot-twists throughout the whole game... But just a cute love story is fine with me too. Really loved the development of relationship between Arisa and Marko. And this graphics are too cute for me to be really objective on rating this entry. I just wonder, is there actually some plot-twist and i just got too unlucky, or most of the options are minor and doesn't really matter?
Hmm interesting! There is a lot of writing here, though I think the pacing was too slow for me. I think in a good story there need to be some forward motion, even if it's a slice-of-life genre. I feel like a lot of the story was just the two main characters making idle talk and not really having anything interesting happen. I liked the story about the fox and the grapes though; that was a nice element and was just the right mix of subtle but meaningful. But the rest felt very unfocused. I think concentrate more on how you want to either develop your story or develop your characters; I think we actually learned very little about the main characters considering the amount of text.
For the random number gameplay, I think it's sort of interesting, but not really good gameplay. If you don't really have any choice in the matter, then why do I even have to click "roll" or "flip" in the first place? It could just be a story that didn't have any user prompts and it would end up being the same thing in the end. The only way that the randomness really makes a difference is if I play the game multiple times, but your story is pretty long so I don't feel compelled to do that!
Something more interesting like combining both choice and random element (risk vs reward) might work out more nicely, I think.
Overall this was pretty cute though.
::whispers:: It's not a pop quiz if the teacher tells you about it.
Overall, this was a really good first LD entry! Good job on getting something more or less completed!
I second a few of the comments made above - I felt like the narrative arc could have been a little stronger. I appreciate that you tried to thematically work in the randomness/chaos as a like topic of discussion near the end, but you could have started some of that sort of connection earlier to make it feel more cohesive (similar to what someone above said about how Marco's loneliness plotline could have been more clear from an earlier point).
There were several typos. Given that it seems like English may not be your first language, your grammar was overall good! But I would watch out for consistency things - I noticed a line where 'ok' was capitalized two different ways, and occasionally forgetting to capitalize names. Especially in a VN, the polish on your script is really important since that's a solid 70% of what people see! (other than the cute girls, of course vov). It's also not a big deal, but most VNs that I've seen follow the kind of arbitrary grammatical rule that you spell out in words the numbers one through nine. I feel like it makes things look a little more professional in general?
I also think that some sort of way of displaying what the options were with each roll would be nice. In the game, the tale of 'The Fox and the Grapes' was used. But with the rolling, it often felt we were the fox unable to even see some grapes high up, you know?
It's impressive how long of a narrative you were able to do in such a short span of time though, so well done! You probably could have edited a little bit though and polished some of the really good concepts and ideas that you did have though. I look forward to seeing what you make in the future :smiley:
Nice to see a Ren'Py game! Really cute story. One critique on the dialog display. This may be a personal preference, but I find it easier to read when new dialog is displayed on it's own rather than appended to the current dialog. Otherwise, a really neat idea! Good job!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/super-slime-slasher-ultra/ambysts-daily-recommendation-19
This game had cute art and a cute little story! A really impressive amount of writing. I wish there were more dice roll options, but other than that, a neat little entry!
Cute game! I would have loved some music or sound effects to go along with it. thanks so much for sharing :)
Great game! I had actually played and bookmarked this earlier but I forgot to rate. =) Would be great if you check out mine though - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/123