Messages

Hey everyone. I just bought myself an iPad off ebay. The next day, I found out that there are tablets that run windows 8, and I picked up a new Venue 11 Pro for about $350. So since I don't need the iPad anymore, and the seller doesn't accept returns, I decided to just put it back up for auction. Then I noticed something when I was taking pictures for the listing:

There bit of text specifying that it's an iPad, it's storage amount, and it's serial number is nowhere to be found. Does that mean this isn't a legitimate apple iPad? If it isn't legitimate, would anyone be able to provide me with a source to cite? I'd rather be able to open a claim and get a refund than resell the thing, so it would be a great act of providence if I can prove this is a fake If it's not a fake though, would anyone have something I could cite in my auction so people buying from me know it's not a fake?

Oh, I thought those were queens. Ok. Your bedroom is just a little bigger than the master bedroom in my appartment (which I don't sleep in. it's a computer room I've got 5 desktops in here!) And that's a shame. The corner desk was looking perfect in the screenshots. lol

But I think the new layout for your room looks great. Makes it nice and open!

But that corner desk is perfect for a dual monitor setup Though I guess it doesn't leave anywhere to rest your legs on :/ Regardless, it looks like a nice spot to sit lol.

BTW, what size of beds are those (twin, double, full, king, queen, etc)

All I can say is that i want your room It's almost as big as my whole apartment. Also, whoever gets the corner desk is getting the better deal

Can I have Ittle Dew? I saw someone play that and really wanted to try it

Can I haz crusader kings?

My mouse started doing that once. It's only ever happened to the cheap ones that come with my computer though. Try plugging it into another computer and seeing if the issue persists. If it does, then you'll just have to buy a new mouse. You can get another cheap one for about ten bucks.

With how the system works, you'd have to do a bit of work to get that up and running.

First, every enemy you want this to work on would have to have it's event page trigger set to being hit with that skill. Then you have their event page add to a variable. Then in the combo system, at the end of the skill's combo, you check if whatever variable you've had the enemy event pages setting is 10 or greater. Then you have it do whatever you'd like it do in the event the skill hit ten times.

I played the game. I got like...a thirteen. I should be proud lol.

One thing, the rate the game button didn't seem to take me to the app store. I went in and wrote a review (which didn't show up right away, so I assume it's being reviewed by apple or something), but I had to open up the app store myself and go to the floaty hamster page to do it.

It was fun :3 It has the annoying moments inherent with touch based controls, but I can see myself playing this for a bit in the airport or something.

Well I like me some bluehost, as they're pretty cheap (8 bucks a month. that's what netflix costs ), but they are a higher end one and have unlimited space. I'm not really up to date with any other hosting companies. But some google searching might pull up some cheaper ones.

(in fact, it looks like bluehost is having a fourth of july sale, so you're in luck, though you only get the discount if you pay for 36 months at once lol. That discount hardly seems significant with that addendum.)

Kk. I don't  own a large number of IOS games. And this one actually looks fun (as opposed to a good deal of the app store), so I'll get me a copy once it's up :3

I can't find i on the apple appstore :<

Hey it's out I'm gonna download this and try it right away!

Google apps USED to be free. So I have a few domains that get it free forever. Huzzah!

Though I'm rather surprised your host doesn't provide email my default o.o

Awe, that sucks x.x Hope it wasn't spoiled too badly, Arcane.

@gameus, if I remembered to ask you, it was in that long rambley list of stuff I wanted to be done in the coming weeks lol. I was just happy to get the upgrade system and the skill/item ring menus in place before the deadline.

Spoiler: ShowHide

He felt like a solid character even though he didn't have much screen time. I feel that it was a bit unjustified how Lee saw him as heartless and Edmund as cowardly. But that is exactly what makes all of them good characters. Each one of them has their own image of the others and William seems to be the only one who keeps a clear head. I agree with him that helping people doesn't have to include being close to your subjects. While it does help, it's not necessary. And Lee uses this closeness as a justification for his actions. He thinks that being close and helping others is enough to make him a good person rather than the actual intention being the thing that makes it count. There is a really complex relationship between all those things going on and depth is portrayed in a simple but effective manner.

I'm glad you thought so. And I'm glad all of that came through. I wanted to spend a bit more time on the family relationship, but only had that one cutscene to do it. I'm especially glad that Lee seeing him as an evil heartless dictator was unjustified, as when most of my friends played it there were completely siding with Lee there

Leave everything as it is. Just because you care deeply for another man, it doesn't make you gay. And I actually like this kind of portrayal of male bonding which obviously involves emotion, but doesn't have to be sexual.

Oh, I wasn't planning on changing it. Lee is definitely straight. And I honestly don't know about Aiden. Of all the scenes in the game, his are the ones I think I'll touch the least (just add some more sprite poses, and make the dialog flow a bit better). I just wonder about him is all (he's the only character that wrote himself rather than me having to think about it)

No, no, not "fix" everything. I was thinking about an ending that portrays some sort of "good ending", but something is off. Imagine if Matrix ended in a completely different way. Imagine that they thought they destroyed the Matrix and everybody's happy, but something's off. And in the last few frames of the movie you see the dark backgrounds from the real world, as if maybe nobody woke up after all. (This is a popular fan theory, BTW, that they never left the Matrix.)

Ah ok. I kind of like that idea. Maybe the tree killing ending will leave it ambiguous as to whether or not humanity is now braindead. After all, none of the characters can go back to our world to find out. So the ending could be them sitting around a campfire wondering about what happened. I wonder if Edmund would be chilling with them, or if he'd be off doing other Edmund things.

I think that it breaks the pacing and immersion if there is a result screen after an ABS battle. But you could display some icon somewhere that indicates that you can upgrade your stuff.

Alright. I'll trust your instincts on that one. I remember the interface for CP being really intuitive, and you've got some sort of masters degree with computer stuff, so you must have taken design or UI classes at some point XD

[Lee's Characterization]

Hey! Your reply is segmented! This is going to be super easy to respond to ^.^

I'm glad you like the music. Both my composers will be happy to hear that Any particular track you liked? (just curious, lol)

As for the presentation value in the beginning, that was just more of me not realizing how much time I was sinking into sprite poses and custom tileset bits. lol. When I started on the second half, I realized I'd have to pull back a bit on that front. But I'm glad the beginning was able to hold your interest even if you waiting for the battle parts

Spoiler: ShowHide

Lee's Characterization
I was getting very annoyed at him. So good job! You know, love or hate, if you're getting an emotional response you're doing a good job with the character. Also, I could sympathize with him and his rationale. I think the only thing that was kind of weird to me was how long it seems he was holding on to it as according to the people of the house. But then again, Lee managed to maintain some amount of this anger all the way through the game, so not too big a deal. Also, the speed in which he jumps ahead to conclusions without much thought does give the impression that he is just a child in a sense. Overall, I don't like the way he behaves at some points, but it's all consistent with his characterization.
I also like the decision he came to. That was very much in line and although I thought  that Fayte leaving him a letter was awkward, the message
itself was a great motivating factor. It was also very astute as I could see myself agreeing with Fayte's opinion.

I can see why you dislike him, lol. I figured I should try and make a main character with enough of a personality that he could at least drive some decent drama. It seemed I achieved that, along with making him understandable and consistent. I tried to show, through the staff's reactions, that not everyone in this world thinks a breakup is licence to act like a total douche to everyone around you. But I wanted to also let the player see through the eyes of that sort of person. I remember what my first bad breakup was like, so I drew on that a lot Makes me glad I've grown up a bit since then. No one likes Lee. No one must have liked me when I was like that o.o Also glad you agree with what Fayte said. I was worried it would come off as her being insensitive and judgmental.

Fayte
She's a fundamental drama factor in this game, and I think that ends up being the problem. I know that you had to make sacrifices in the story telling so in terms of the Game it works; it's not really a fault. The way I'm thinking of it, it seems like a necessary evil.
To me it felt like there was a disconnect between the Fayte herself, the Fayte presented through Lee and the Fayte presented through Ember. It was like all the puzzle pieces were there but I didn't know how to fit them together. I think a lot of it has to do with the tone in which I read and interpreted the dialogues. There were just a lot of little clues when the about Fayte's personality whenever the other characters were talking about her but then there's Fayte's own scenes and how she is presented and a lot of it seems like it doesn't add up neatly. I'm sorry if I'm not being clear, I'm also struggling putting this feeling into words. I think I would have really enjoyed to see Fayte outside of her drama with Lee because then I'm sure you would have pulled it of nicely. Still on Fayte, I felt that a lot of her actions were awkward. Like leaving the letter (seems kind of passive aggressive lol) and her blowing up at Lee saying it's his fault right when the big bad is in front of them. But here's the thing, those actions make sense in the scope of the game, and I could tell your hands were tied when it came to presenting their drama. So yeah awkward, but justified. My overall feeling is that I didn't like Fayte as much just because a big chunk of her character was the drama. Her explanations in the ending however does kind of help clear up her previous dialogues though. I think you executed her very well during the ending sequence although the Fayte at the ending still felt kind of disconnected. But again that's just because of the nature of the game.

I totally agree with what you said! I wanted to have some more cutscenes showing how she was outside of all this drama. But I wasn't able to squeeze in the time. So all in all, she comes off more as fragmented than complex. That's something I'm hoping to fix as I polish up the game. I also agree with you that her blowing up at Lee during the final confrontation feels outta place, but I didn't know where else to stick it at the time. I was doing the final cutscene, and realized "oh crap! We don't know why Fayte became a Reaper yet. That's kind of important!" And I didn't have much time left, so I stuck it in there.

Also, in the scene after the credits, I was going to have Aiden and Ember come in and offer a less dramatic perspective on Lee's motivation ("That's how some see it anyways, but those who know better understand that he figured out she didn't hate him." and she'll be like "I appreciate the sentiment, but you did just kinda ruin the ending." or something It was going to show that Aiden realized that the best way to get more Reapers is for them to have a hero. For the Reapers to be seen. So they spend more time in the real world now.)

Other Characters
I really liked Ember and Aiden. On Aiden, thanks to the way you framed and portrayed him through Lee at the beginning (showing how they met and Lee's general opinion of him) I was led to believe that I was going to dislike him, but I'm so happy that wasn't the case. Good job on that. I really like Aiden's character. I was sad I didn't speak with him more during the first playthrough. His execution during the ending sequence was perfect. I liked what he had to say, and his motives made sense. I felt that he was the only one who had a right to spill about their motives and feelings during that last sequence even lol! Very well done, I totally understood Aiden's drive.
Ember was fun, and I think one of her selling points is how aware of herself and her thoughts she is. I don't have much else to say about her because it is hard to put good feels into words . =]

I'm glad you liked Aiden He's my favorite character, and I had the most fun writing him. I also figured that Ember was needed so we could have at least one sane/well adjusted person in the story (even if she has her own baggage that she hasn't managed to deal with yet). So I'm glad she fullfilled her purpose :3

The Grandfather
Thank you so much for making him the threat. It made so much sense, brought the story together, I didn't see him coming, and you presented a unique perspective through him. Really, it's great that it wasn't just some nightmare because it added more to Lee.
I understood his thought process, if I had to sum it up, he was a man that stared into the abyss and came out with a half-truth. What do you think about him and his motive?

I'm really glad you liked it! I came up with it a few days after I finished writing that scene where Lee's father is like "I hate this painting.". I was struggling to come up with a decent reason for there to suddenly be a super powerful Nightmare outta nowhere. And I thought that if Lee has special powers that let him harness the energy of Nightmares, maybe his grandfather did too. And then I wondered what sorts of things it would do to a person to have absorbed hundreds of other minds into your own. And the idea just kinda fell into place :3

I'm still worried that it feels a bit contrived, but contrived is better than disconnected eh? And I actually kind of agree with Edmund. They live in a universe where ideas have actual power over reality. Humans are slowly developing powers (though they currently only manifest when certain people become Reapers), so I think the threat to the world is very real if the human mind continues to grow in power in reaction to continued exposure to Reverie. But I still think lobotomizing the human race is a bit of a...ill conceived plan.

The World
Your explanation of how the worlds work made sense. I thought it was really clever. And it is a statement of how powerful a person's concept of reality can be. Sucks for the Nightmares. Overall, it reminded me of some writing from an eastern school of thought.

Guess all the years I studied Buddhism shows, eh? I think western ideas in fantasy are well and good, but we need to draw inspiration from other cultures too. Though that was all unconscious A lot of how the world works came from me trying to explain to a friend (who doesn't play a lot of video games or read fantasy) how "stabbing a nightmare in the face kills it." Either way, glad you thought it was clever :3 I should probably have just came up with some sort of vague response that makes me seem brilliant, but that's no fun

Other Misc.
I can't comment on battles reliably, because my computer can not handle lots of things happening at once. One thing though, I had a glitch where Lee got stuck on an enemy. Then when he got knocked out, two enemies were locked on top of two knocked out allies. They were pretty much sitting ducks and I proceeded to brutalize them.
Error wise, I think I might have seen only one spelling error. I think it was 'soemthing'.
Oh also this might just be me, but it was tough to read the tutorial dialogues when you have the pink tiles behind it. Just kind of blends together when I'm reading it.

Yeah, I need to go back through and have it change the tutorial dialog to black. That was more a lack of time thing. And wow o.o I've never had that happen with the battles XD The glitches I run into usually are when all the AI just...stop for some reason. They all just go on holiday for about 5 seconds every once in awhile, then get back to fighting Makes it easy to kill of those freaking swords in the final boss. I hate them

Final Thoughts
I liked this. It was really well put together. I personally enjoyed the characters the most. I'm looking forward to any additions you might make.

Glad you liked the characters Since my game is basically a glorified dating sim, it would kind of suck for me if you didn't end up liking the characters XD

Thanks for commenting These long posts really help me know which parts work and don't. I especially appreciate your feedback about which parts of the characters seemed off or awkward to you, as that will help me know which parts to tweak or show in a different light when adding in a bit more story content (along with putting a bit more combat into the game to help the gameplay-story ratio be a bit more even).

I know the feeling o.o I've been addicted to the same...3ish smilies since I first entered the internet.

they are o.o and XD

lately, I've been switching it up with a bit of :3

But I don't know how not to use them! They're just so ingrained in my typing pattern! Even in typing the sentence, I really wanted to use o.o and

How do I stop! XD

Spoiler: ShowHide

On the contrary. I went through a similar experience. And I really had to get over that shit. xD This is one of the reasons why I didn't like him as a person. In a way he reminded me of my own mistakes which I had casted off myself a long time ago.

Ok, so you dislike him for the same reason I do XD Because I didn't have time to come up with a personality for him, I just wrote a slightly exaggerated version of myself from a few years ago. So seeing what a little brat I was after I got dumped ticks me off a bit At the time, it felt totally justified. But now it's just like "GAH! Stop it! You're not the only one that matters, idiot!"

Ah, ok then. I thought you misspelled "toyed" since T and Y are close on a QUERTY keyboard. xD

I see how you see that lol. I DID write yold instead of told once, so I see why you'd think that (Especially when toyed works in context) BTW, what did you think of his father? I tried not to make him a total douche. I was just going for...I dunno, stern? It's not a huge deal, because his only role in the plot is as a catalyst to get Lee to become a Reaper. I just wonder how he came off to people. I watched all of Tyrion Lannister's talks with his children to get inspiration on how to write that kinda character XD

I guess it shows that you put the most effort into him. When he asked who I thought was the sexiest, I picked him, lol! Bros gotta stick together. xD

You picked the best option XD Whenever visual novels give me that option, I ALWAYS pick the guy Gives the best reactions. And i'm still debating whether or not Aiden is actually gay or not. Because particularly with how he reacts to Edmund at the end makes me wonder. I'm leaning towards more of him being desperate for someone he can connect with (as he hasn't had much real human bonding), but I'm not sure XD Guess I'll leave it up to the player what they think he is.

So originally there was going to be an ending with destroying the heart, but you changed it to be just the same ending? As I said, I didn't expect everybody to be dead if I shoot the heart. I expected a plot twist there. Like a bit of a melancholic ending. Something in the lines of "they lived on, but things would never be the same". Not all endings have to be either good or bad. xD

Well if shooting the heart fixes everything AND is the easy way out, then it just makes Lee an idiot rather than a hero if he sacrifices himself for the world But man, do you know how much of a shift it is for me letting people choose what they do? I'm used to writing novels. It already makes me cringe to leave the ending to the end user (reference your awesome gif to see why XD)

Either that or maybe switch things around a bit. You could make it so that Fayte triggered it, because she was in contact with Lee, but without Lee it wouldn't have worked.
Or that the process of transformation starts earlier than actually agreeing to do it. That people make up their mind way before they are presented with the actual choice. That would also fuck with the concept of choice and free will which is a bit of a theme in the game and give players even more food for thought.

Those are some good ideas. I'm gonna have to mull over them when revising the script. (which I need to write down somewhere so I can revise it outside the textboxes It's hard to read through the event window)

O_o I just checked. Level 9 and I have 6 of them. I had no idea. xD Yeah, a "new skill learned" notification would have cleared that up. Though, I think that I did once make the skill menu appear later in the game with SHIFT+O and there was only one (level 3 or 4 maybe?).

I think at level three, you learn "refresh" (weak cure). It's green, so it probably blended into the background a bit XD I'll make sure to have a bit more fanfare when you learn a new skill. In the final version of the game, you'll get to choose what to put your points into (increase HP by 20,increase SP by 20, increase HP regen rate, increase SP regen rate), so I think I'll have the level up not do anything until the player is out of battle (killed all the enemies on screen). Then it will bring up a little box that says "one or more members of your party are ready to level up. Are you ready to allocate their skill points?" or something, after which it takes you to a level up result screen that tells you who leveled up, what they learned, etc. Then it takes you to the point allocation screen (which will be layed out similarly to the upgrade screen)

Ooooh, that's actually a pretty good idea. Yeah, maybe you should have mentioned that somewhere. xD I don't think any other besides status needs explaining since you kinda already did explain all of them.

lol, glad you like it. The idea came from when I was playing persona. It bugged me that I had to go to the "time will pass if you hang out with them" to check my relationship status. I wanted to be able to see a quick overview in the menu.

They actually didn't interest me that much. I'm more interested in this whole "everything is thoughts" thing. But that's just me. I'm sure other people would appreciate it.

Finding out about them would be part of "investigating the world" option. They're a bit less bland if you know more about them, XD What makes them interesting is a certain implication of how everything in Reverie is basically the same thing.

Actually upgrading the original to upgrade the copy sound like a pretty good idea. It also makes a lot of sense since it's supposed to be a mental copy.

Alright sweet! That shouldn't even be very hard to do.

Or maybe some little plot extras or foreshadowing as well. Or just general lore.
Yeah, I'd recognize "Endout's head" anywhere. xD

Ah, so that's why it stuck out to you XD I forgot you used that sprite in CP And ok. I was going to have you able to examine the stained glass windows to get little bits of trivia about each Reaper (aside from the one on the bottom left, as that's actually a magical girl from my favorite anime >.> I was just going to have it make a little reference to the show, or have him be like "I've never been quite sure who this is. But she looks...familiar somehow.") So I guess my plans were in line with what you were hoping for XD If only I'd just had more time, eh?

If you were just out of time to implement them, then I forgive you. xD

<3

No problem, man. I enjoyed the game so that's the least I can do. I'm glad you found my feedback useful. Happy

That you enjoyed the game makes this month of two hours of sleep a night all worth it XD

It would definitely make it more interesting. 3-4 maps should be enough.

KK. Glad you thought so. I figured it would help with the story-gameplay ratio, as aside from the mandatory battles, you can spend a maximum of ELEVEN MINUTES battling I went with the system I did, because the game isn't supposed to be much longer than an hour. That and the fact that I didn't have time to do much else (I was REALLY strapped for time at the end). Having a dungeon with only a few enemies on each screen will definitely help the battles be more interesting. It usually ended up with me switching to Aiden, cueing up tremor and dew, and spamming the spell while refreshing my SP. MAN you can get a lot of nightmare essence that way

BTW, as for plotholes, you know why I noticed them? I've watched a bunch of "Everything wrong with XYZ movie" on Youtube this weekend so I started seeing patterns. xD You should check them out. They're funny, entertaining and help you recognize plot holes in your own works. And they're not too serious either (e.g. lots of time you hear "scene does not contain a lap dance" as a movie sin xD).

Well I'm glad that you did As much as I like hearing praise for my game, hearing the things you didn't like is infinitely more valuable. Having both is best, because you know which parts are working and shouldn't be touched much XD So This has been super helpful. And I'll check out  everything wrong with ___. I've been meaning to look at them anyways

I see what you did thar

You've got them in backwards.

You have it as

BlizzABS part 3
BlizzABS part 2
BlizzABS part 1
main

it should be

BlizzABS part 1
BlizzABS part 2
BlizzABS part 3