I'M SO SORRY IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO FINALLY PLAY THIS. Between being busy and traveling and sick and generally not being in a great headspace it's been hard to catch up with stuff.
BUT I HAVE PLAYED IT NOW.
And I have to say, this is just gorgeous! I'm in love with the way you handled the NVL format—it really radiates this sort of animated storybook vibe, with the way the illustrations move. And the way you set up the UI with the text on one side and illustrations on the other adds to it even more. It feels like opening up a book and turning each page to see new images come to life. Some of the effects in particularly I found really neat—for instance how you animated the veins on Vanessa's mother neck.
Story-wise, I loved seeing these initial little snippets of each character. Even though they left me with even more questions than when I started LOL But I did start to feel like I felt them more as characters and was slowly getting a vibe of how their stories and arcs would play out. To me, it felt like the biggest takeaway from each different snippet was the overarching feelings and emotions that connected everything to help form each character's path—from the loneliness and heartache of River's, to the panic and guilt of Cyen's, to the happiness turned tragedy of Vanessa's. And then how they all shared a similar purpose towards something because of their past experiences.
I'm very intrigued and looking forward to diving deeper into their stories and seeing how they do all connect in the end heheh.
Also loved the bit where once you played all three you got like a super-sekrit ending sequence of all the chars and illustrations and sneak-peeks for future stuff—that was a nice touch and was a nice sense of completion.
Overall just really lovely! I enjoyed the NVL style a lot, especially with the way you handled it and the use of animation. I think it also could be really cool to add music to it, even if it's just more ambient-type tracks, to really hammer in some of the overarching emotions of the scenes??
JHGFHJFJH NO WORRIES!!! Stuff happens and traveling places and doing family stuff and not being in a good headspace really does take a lot out of you so I get it!! Better to do things late than when you're not in a place to, after all ^^
I'm glad you enjoyed my take on the NVL format! It's something I've toyed with before and works best with my writerly style (albeit it's a pain to code and hard to do image transitions with haha). The animated storybook feel is definitely what I want to aim for!! I really like that aesthetic and the parallax animations are so fun to do for them haha. The veins on her mother's neck was very fun to draw!! I tried to get it as close to the descriptor/the image in my head and i had fun manipulating those dot-like particles :Dc
"...left me with even more questions than when I started" >:3c this is very good. A lot of the things I bring up here, whether touched on tangentially or not, will be reiterated on and provided further context to in the actual story! Consider Glass, Shatter as kind of a weird way of setting up the mystery of each character's pasts as an "experience" - something I won't get to do much of in the actual story! For various reasons (*coughs* memory issues and the like *coughs*) the protags won't allow for much of a interactive look-in to the mysteries of their lives in "Hologram" so I wanted to allow for an idea of the trauma they experienced in their pasts here ^^
The secret menu!!! Glad you enjoyed it!! I want to have one of those in the actual game for ~reasons~ and so I thought it'd be fun to code one in here and create illustrations for the other relevant cast members for it. I'll be using it for much more different purposes in the game itself but it's nice to have the code handy for use when i need it again :Dc
and yeah!! I'm kind of the type who prefers to play VNs without sound/music (bc i tend to get fatigued real easily for some reason if i have it on? idk, it's probably a weird adhd thing i think) and i was rushing this so i didn't add it in for Glass, Shatter. But!!!! ill definitely try and add that stuff in for the actual thing because you're definitely right! It helps with the mood and it'll probably make the story more enjoyable that way for others (esp considering the length of this product wheeze).
Thanks for the feedback! I definitely appreciate seeing your thoughts on this little thing and it means a lot to me that you'd take the time to enjoy playing it ^w^
It was a cool read! The little bits and pieces of mystery got me intrigued about the world and I'll be sure to check out the whole thing when it comes out. ^^
I think I liked Vanessa's story the most, with the mysterious illness and clues hinting at some dark (?) family secret? (I'm also very curious about the father wearing that clip lol)
AHHH I'm happy to hear this was a cool read! I know it's still a very small peek into the actual story but it makes me delighted to know that you're intrigued and are looking forward to more \^0^/ I'm glad you enjoy the character art too, especially because it gives me confidence in my art skills to hear this :Dc
Oh!! Vanessa!! She's definitely got a neat mystery going on with her family and she probably has the storyline I'm most excited for!! Her mom's mysterious ailment and the thing about her family is something I can't wait to get to in the actual story! Especially because the answers to those questions will also act as set-up for something else...>:3c (and gfhjgfhj one day maybe ill have to draw him wearing that hairclip haha)
Thank you again so much for the comment! I appreciate it a lot <3 <3 <3
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I'M SO SORRY IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO FINALLY PLAY THIS. Between being busy and traveling and sick and generally not being in a great headspace it's been hard to catch up with stuff.
BUT I HAVE PLAYED IT NOW.
And I have to say, this is just gorgeous! I'm in love with the way you handled the NVL format—it really radiates this sort of animated storybook vibe, with the way the illustrations move. And the way you set up the UI with the text on one side and illustrations on the other adds to it even more. It feels like opening up a book and turning each page to see new images come to life. Some of the effects in particularly I found really neat—for instance how you animated the veins on Vanessa's mother neck.
Story-wise, I loved seeing these initial little snippets of each character. Even though they left me with even more questions than when I started LOL But I did start to feel like I felt them more as characters and was slowly getting a vibe of how their stories and arcs would play out. To me, it felt like the biggest takeaway from each different snippet was the overarching feelings and emotions that connected everything to help form each character's path—from the loneliness and heartache of River's, to the panic and guilt of Cyen's, to the happiness turned tragedy of Vanessa's. And then how they all shared a similar purpose towards something because of their past experiences.
I'm very intrigued and looking forward to diving deeper into their stories and seeing how they do all connect in the end heheh.
Also loved the bit where once you played all three you got like a super-sekrit ending sequence of all the chars and illustrations and sneak-peeks for future stuff—that was a nice touch and was a nice sense of completion.
Overall just really lovely! I enjoyed the NVL style a lot, especially with the way you handled it and the use of animation. I think it also could be really cool to add music to it, even if it's just more ambient-type tracks, to really hammer in some of the overarching emotions of the scenes??
At any rate, looking forward to seeing more!!
JHGFHJFJH NO WORRIES!!! Stuff happens and traveling places and doing family stuff and not being in a good headspace really does take a lot out of you so I get it!! Better to do things late than when you're not in a place to, after all ^^
I'm glad you enjoyed my take on the NVL format! It's something I've toyed with before and works best with my writerly style (albeit it's a pain to code and hard to do image transitions with haha). The animated storybook feel is definitely what I want to aim for!! I really like that aesthetic and the parallax animations are so fun to do for them haha. The veins on her mother's neck was very fun to draw!! I tried to get it as close to the descriptor/the image in my head and i had fun manipulating those dot-like particles :Dc
"...left me with even more questions than when I started" >:3c this is very good. A lot of the things I bring up here, whether touched on tangentially or not, will be reiterated on and provided further context to in the actual story! Consider Glass, Shatter as kind of a weird way of setting up the mystery of each character's pasts as an "experience" - something I won't get to do much of in the actual story! For various reasons (*coughs* memory issues and the like *coughs*) the protags won't allow for much of a interactive look-in to the mysteries of their lives in "Hologram" so I wanted to allow for an idea of the trauma they experienced in their pasts here ^^
The secret menu!!! Glad you enjoyed it!! I want to have one of those in the actual game for ~reasons~ and so I thought it'd be fun to code one in here and create illustrations for the other relevant cast members for it. I'll be using it for much more different purposes in the game itself but it's nice to have the code handy for use when i need it again :Dc
and yeah!! I'm kind of the type who prefers to play VNs without sound/music (bc i tend to get fatigued real easily for some reason if i have it on? idk, it's probably a weird adhd thing i think) and i was rushing this so i didn't add it in for Glass, Shatter. But!!!! ill definitely try and add that stuff in for the actual thing because you're definitely right! It helps with the mood and it'll probably make the story more enjoyable that way for others (esp considering the length of this product wheeze).
Thanks for the feedback! I definitely appreciate seeing your thoughts on this little thing and it means a lot to me that you'd take the time to enjoy playing it ^w^
It was a cool read! The little bits and pieces of mystery got me intrigued about the world and I'll be sure to check out the whole thing when it comes out. ^^
I think I liked Vanessa's story the most, with the mysterious illness and clues hinting at some dark (?) family secret? (I'm also very curious about the father wearing that clip lol)
And the character art is really cute 💕
AHHH I'm happy to hear this was a cool read! I know it's still a very small peek into the actual story but it makes me delighted to know that you're intrigued and are looking forward to more \^0^/ I'm glad you enjoy the character art too, especially because it gives me confidence in my art skills to hear this :Dc
Oh!! Vanessa!! She's definitely got a neat mystery going on with her family and she probably has the storyline I'm most excited for!! Her mom's mysterious ailment and the thing about her family is something I can't wait to get to in the actual story! Especially because the answers to those questions will also act as set-up for something else...>:3c (and gfhjgfhj one day maybe ill have to draw him wearing that hairclip haha)
Thank you again so much for the comment! I appreciate it a lot <3 <3 <3