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Bloody Chronicles [Demo/Indiegogo]


IGRASILSTUDIO

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Game can be found here : https://store.steampowered.com/app/455310/Bloody_Chronicles__New_Cycle_of_Death_Visual_Novel/

 

 

 

 

Just a thing before we continue, if it isn't too much to ask, we would like to post our project that fuwanovel in order to create more exposure for it; with this being our first project, it is important that we can get people in the community to know who we and what we're making.

Bloody Chronicles - New Cycle of Death

 

 

http://bloodychronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/about-project.png

Bloody Chronicles is a visual novel and Igrasil Studio’s first project. 
The plot focuses on Kazuki, who has lost his parents in an accident. After graduating from the police academy, he was recruited by Igrasil, a non-governmental organization which solves murders the police deem are impossible to explain due to lack of evidence.  
Kazuki’s partners include the crazy and funny Ishikawa siblings, Kaoru Moriyama (the daughter of a millionaire and founder of the organization), and Suzumi, the head of the organization. 

http://bloodychronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/character.png

 

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The whole series will consist of 3 installments; the first part is “Act 1 - New Cycle of Death.” We’re aiming for the length of the entire series to consist of 40 hoursof gameplay, where the player will be able to make different decisions that will affect the ending. Like in most visual novels, the player will be able to establish close relationships with the series’ characters and get to know their personal stories. Please note that our studio aren't fans of "fanservice", so Bloody Chronicles won't be another dating sims game etc.

Our game is broken into several chapters; these chapters are separated into seven days, where “Player Choices” will help or hinder the investigation. Player decisions and choices will affect the ending.

http://prefundia.com/uploads/projects/8099/290b65a65925382fdacc3fc306cfc3e6.jpg

 

Suzumi | Akito A & B | Kaoru |  Aki
oh, we won't tell you how to get the "DARK" ending... it's a secret! φ(゚ロ゚*)ノ


Bloody Chronicles can be classified as a mystery, drama, slice of life, and action; the plot takes place in a modern day fictional universe called Utna

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http://prefundia.com/uploads/projects/8099/6ed32b5031e8e5c8edb4d87bf36a006a.jpg

Each of the character designs will include casual clothes, organization uniforms, unique poses, and different facial expressions. We’re aiming for each character to have 30 fully-detailed CG illustrations and their own original musical compositions.

Casual  / Uniform Clothes

http://prefundia.com/uploads/projects/8099/a74fc2bde69a2ca3c342033600014c26.jpg

http://bloodychronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/platfrom.png

 

PC -Windows / Mac OS Linux

Mobile - Android / Windows Phone / Xbox - pending

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http://bloodychronicles.com/project-status/

Here you can see our project status! The bars below represent what is done and what we still need to do - updated weekly

Meet our Voice Actors
The main characters in the Bloody Chronicles series will be fully voiced.

Skyler Davenport
IMDb | Official Facebook

http://prefundia.com/uploads/projects/8099/af13cb701fea0e9a31bf689c350467e5.jpg

John Archer
Official SoundCloud Official Twitter

http://prefundia.com/uploads/projects/8099/eb2c4125150b81a1ff719dff729c018f.jpg

Sayaka Mashiro
IMDb |Official Website

http://prefundia.com/uploads/projects/8099/8cb310a5a02fda36f38c3c21fe026ff5.jpg

Bloody Chronicles F.A.Q.

1.When game will be released

- We're hoping for a release date of March 2017

2.Will the players establish close relationships with the characters?/ Will the relationships be 18+ or all-ages?

- You can establish close relationships with every member; however, this game is all-ages/teen, so there won't be any H-scenes.

3.Where can we see your progress?

- Here you can check our weekly progress
http://bloodychronicles.com/project-status/

4.Have you decided on a price for the VN

- We're considering a price range of $15-19

5.Will the game be translated for other languages?

-The game is being written in English, with input from our Japanese and polish members. In the future, we plan on releasing it in additional languages.

6.Will you add a Japanese voiceover?

-We will focus on adding a Japanese voiceover once the English version is finished, provided our campaign is funded successfully.

7.Will the soundtrack be available for download?

- We'll release the soundtrack for purchase with the game; alternatively, you can buy the steam exclusive edition which comes with the soundtrack and other extras!
 

8.Will you add steam trading cards?

-Yes

9.How about achievements?.

- Why not? It'll be fun!

For more information visit us:
Official Website with project status
Facebook
Twitter
SoundCloud

Bloody Chronicles Demo

http://bloodychronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/bloodydemo.png

We are excited to present the demo of our debut project, Bloody Chronicles! Enjoy the first prologue scene and some extra footage as well!
This demo version is completely free!

Please be aware that the demo version is an early version in development and the final product will be revised. We thank you for your support and hope you enjoy the demo!

Bloody Chronicles Windows Version | Bloody Chronicles Linux Version | Bloody Chronicles Mac

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Nayru said:

Oh, this looks interesting. :3 For me, it's a big plus that it's not another 'fanservice' game. I'll also give the demo a try sometime soon, I'll be sure to let you know once I do! Good luck with everything in the meantime!

Yes...in our opinion there is just TOO MANY H-Scene and fanservices in VN less good story line. That why we want to show users something else...

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I've played your demo, it was looking good! You might want to edit and proofread a bit better your text though, there were some approximate grammar and awkward sentences that even I could spot as a non native speaker, and people will judge your project heavily on the writing. 

I'm not sure if you're looking for feedback regarding your demo in general, since it's only supposed to be a demo to advertise your kickstarter, it is only natural that there are some flaws. But if you're interested, I can write something.

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7 minutes ago, Diamon said:

I've played your demo, it was looking good! You might want to edit and proofread a bit better your text though, there were some approximate grammar and awkward sentences that even I could spot as a non native speaker, and people will judge your project heavily on the writing. 

I'm not sure if you're looking for feedback regarding your demo in general, since it's only supposed to be a demo to advertise your kickstarter, it is only natural that there are some flaws. But if you're interested, I can write something.

If you can, that will be great help for us

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Alright, sure thing then. While I do have experience in VN development, Keep in mind that a lot of what I'm going to say is purely subjective, so feel free to disagree with me.

  • Like I said, the writing needs a bit of work. It was sometimes awkward to read, and failed to catch my attention. Narration didn't flow very smoothly, and there were a lot of "show don't tell" instances I could notice.
  • You're trying to pack too much information at once, I kinda felt like the whole demo was a big info dump. The issue is that I'm not especially awarded as a reader for going through this info dump: there is no action scene afterward, or no scene that makes use of all the knowledge I forcibly received in the prior scenes.
  • There was a lot of use of capitalization, but I don't think it's a great way to put emphasis on the text. Bold or italics is a more subtle way to do it imo, capital letters tend to be aggressive to the eyes so it tends to be considered much more as screaming. The fact that you do have voice acting really makes it unnecessary to insist visually that much on some words on sentences, since it should be portrayed in the voice over anyway.
  • There are very few in game explanations about what Igrasil is, and what each of the members are responsible for. I thought the first meeting could have been a great place to introduce properly and formally the characters, but surprisingly enough it didn't happen.
  • The biggest flaw is how the narration is handled I feel. Using external third person narration limits you a lot regarding what you could narrate. We don't get to hear the thoughts of Kazuki as much as we should, and you could have switched a good part of the info dumping onto a first person narration. It makes it much harder to empathize with Kazuki, or even to understand him. As a reader, I end up following a character instead of a main character. You're using some internal narration from time to time, but why aren't you using it all the time? I haven't seen any benefit with using the third person narration so far on this demo.
  • Characterization isn't done extremely well in my opinion. We have to guess what is each character's personality based on their interactions solely. And because of the narration issue I stated previously, you have to cram a lot of those interactions into your demo, to the point that it becomes not very natural and makes the reading not flow very well. A good chunk of the dialog lines could have been removed or changed to more meaningful discussions if Kazuki's internal narration was presenting the characters as they were appearing and commenting on them, making the dialog flow much more naturally. What's more, Kazuki's interpretation of their personalities could give more depths to them as well. The restaurant scene felt really out of place especially for some reason, like the game was forcefully telling me "Hey, get to know more about the characters through even more interactions in case what you saw previously was not enough! And of course you won't get to know much more about their personalities!"
  • The main character comes off as very bland and generic. This is even more exacerbated by the lack of internal first person narration.
  • Regarding the voice acting, it was decent / good. Akito's VA is probably the best out of them. Kaoru / Suzumi's VA felt like she was more reading a script sometimes. Aki's VA is trying way too much to be on the cutesy side, and it's really grating tbh. Comparatively, I felt that her natural tone I could hear during the extras was much more pleasant to listen to while still remaining cute. For some reason, it seems like the voice acting is not as fluid as it should be, maybe because it is trying to insist on having perfect pronunciation? I don't know, it just felt that some of the lines were said much more slowly than what they should have been.
  • The music was very nice, it fitted well the ambiance overall. You might want to have smoother transitions between the tracks, cutting abruptly the audio in order to play a new track breaks immersion a lot.
  • The art is beautiful, I like the characters design a lot. Hopefully in the future the characters will have some pose variations, as it makes it much easier to associate the characters with a name and a voice.
  • The GUI is pretty neat, but it doesn't look like I can change the settings in the option menu. Probably that you didn't have the time to set it up yet.
  • Background art is nice and fits correctly with the sprites style, that's always a good point.
  • The cameo of your project leader at the end was a good idea, was actually surprised that it happened^^
  • There were more efforts on the direction than what I would have expected for a demo, so good job on that!

Basically, your demo was trying to introduce us the characters and the world, but it lacks a hook. There wasn't any action scene that could justify me taking an interest in the plot and the setting, and the characterization was too awkward for me to care about the characters. However, if you only intended your demo to be something where you can display and show your assets, you definitely succeeded.

Hopefully it doesn't sound too harsh, it's just my honest opinion. I'm not expecting you to fix all of those things, but hopefully you will take some of them into consideration!

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38 minutes ago, Diamon said:

Alright, sure thing then. While I do have experience in VN development, Keep in mind that a lot of what I'm going to say is purely subjective, so feel free to disagree with me.

  • Like I said, the writing needs a bit of work. It was sometimes awkward to read, and failed to catch my attention. Narration didn't flow very smoothly, and there were a lot of "show don't tell" instances I could notice.
  • You're trying to pack too much information at once, I kinda felt like the whole demo was a big info dump. The issue is that I'm not especially awarded as a reader for going through this info dump: there is no action scene afterward, or no scene that makes use of all the knowledge I forcibly received in the prior scenes.
  • There was a lot of use of capitalization, but I don't think it's a great way to put emphasis on the text. Bold or italics is a more subtle way to do it imo, capital letters tend to be aggressive to the eyes so it tends to be considered much more as screaming. The fact that you do have voice acting really makes it unnecessary to insist visually that much on some words on sentences, since it should be portrayed in the voice over anyway.
  • There are very few in game explanations about what Igrasil is, and what each of the members are responsible for. I thought the first meeting could have been a great place to introduce properly and formally the characters, but surprisingly enough it didn't happen.
  • The biggest flaw is how the narration is handled I feel. Using external third person narration limits you a lot regarding what you could narrate. We don't get to hear the thoughts of Kazuki as much as we should, and you could have switched a good part of the info dumping onto a first person narration. It makes it much harder to empathize with Kazuki, or even to understand him. As a reader, I end up following a character instead of a main character. You're using some internal narration from time to time, but why aren't you using it all the time? I haven't seen any benefit with using the third person narration so far on this demo.
  • Characterization isn't done extremely well in my opinion. We have to guess what is each character's personality based on their interactions solely. And because of the narration issue I stated previously, you have to cram a lot of those interactions into your demo, to the point that it becomes not very natural and makes the reading not flow very well. A good chunk of the dialog lines could have been removed or changed to more meaningful discussions if Kazuki's internal narration was presenting the characters as they were appearing and commenting on them, making the dialog flow much more naturally. What's more, Kazuki's interpretation of their personalities could give more depths to them as well. The restaurant scene felt really out of place especially for some reason, like the game was forcefully telling me "Hey, get to know more about the characters through even more interactions in case what you saw previously was not enough! And of course you won't get to know much more about their personalities!"
  • The main character comes off as very bland and generic. This is even more exacerbated by the lack of internal first person narration.
  • Regarding the voice acting, it was decent / good. Akito's VA is probably the best out of them. Kaoru / Suzumi's VA felt like she was more reading a script sometimes. Aki's VA is trying way too much to be on the cutesy side, and it's really grating tbh. Comparatively, I felt that her natural tone I could hear during the extras was much more pleasant to listen to while still remaining cute. For some reason, it seems like the voice acting is not as fluid as it should be, maybe because it is trying to insist on having perfect pronunciation? I don't know, it just felt that some of the lines were said much more slowly than what they should have been.
  • The music was very nice, it fitted well the ambiance overall. You might want to have smoother transitions between the tracks, cutting abruptly the audio in order to play a new track breaks immersion a lot.
  • The art is beautiful, I like the characters design a lot. Hopefully in the future the characters will have some pose variations, as it makes it much easier to associate the characters with a name and a voice.
  • The GUI is pretty neat, but it doesn't look like I can change the settings in the option menu. Probably that you didn't have the time to set it up yet.
  • Background art is nice and fits correctly with the sprites style, that's always a good point.
  • The cameo of your project leader at the end was a good idea, was actually surprised that it happened^^
  • There were more efforts on the direction than what I would have expected for a demo, so good job on that!

Basically, your demo was trying to introduce us the characters and the world, but it lacks a hook. There wasn't any action scene that could justify me taking an interest in the plot and the setting, and the characterization was too awkward for me to care about the characters. However, if you only intended your demo to be something where you can display and show your assets, you definitely succeeded.

Hopefully it doesn't sound too harsh, it's just my honest opinion. I'm not expecting you to fix all of those things, but hopefully you will take some of them into consideration!

Thank you for valuable tips! :)

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9 hours ago, Diamon said:

The biggest flaw is how the narration is handled I feel. Using external third person narration limits you a lot regarding what you could narrate. We don't get to hear the thoughts of Kazuki as much as we should, and you could have switched a good part of the info dumping onto a first person narration. It makes it much harder to empathize with Kazuki, or even to understand him. As a reader, I end up following a character instead of a main character. You're using some internal narration from time to time, but why aren't you using it all the time? I haven't seen any benefit with using the third person narration so far on this demo.

I'm assuming you mean 'omniscient' when you talk about external 3rd person.

Third person omniscient narration shouldn't limit you at all, all it does is create more distance between the reader and the characters. 3rd person limited and 1st person are limiting because the narrator can only reveal what the character knows, 3rd person omniscient is exactly that - omniscient. The narrator can reveal any information they wish, and dip inside the heads of any character they wish provided those thoughts are narrated by the omniscient narrator and not by the character thinking the thoughts (otherwise this is known as 'headhopping', and is something of a no-no unless you know what you're doing.)

Also info-dumping in first person is as bad as info dumping in omniscient (the narration style doesn't really make a difference.) A lot of Japanese VNs and LNs info-dump in 1st person, and it's incredibly dull to read most of the time. It sometimes done well, but not really in the VN and LN industry (I find.)

9 hours ago, Diamon said:

The main character comes off as very bland and generic. This is even more exacerbated by the lack of internal first person narration.

The worst thing you can do when you have a boring main character is write in first person. When writing in first person, one of the key rules is that the person be charismatic enough to provide an interesting narration. A boring character will provide a boring narration (just one of the reasons certain 'self-insert' VNs are dull to read.)

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1 hour ago, Rooke said:

I'm assuming you mean 'omniscient' when you talk about external 3rd person.

Third person omniscient narration shouldn't limit you at all, all it does is create more distance between the reader and the characters. 3rd person limited and 1st person are limiting because the narrator can only reveal what the character knows, 3rd person omniscient is exactly that - omniscient. The narrator can reveal any information they wish, and dip inside the heads of any character they wish provided those thoughts are narrated by the omniscient narrator and not by the character thinking the thoughts (otherwise this is known as 'headhopping', and is something of a no-no unless you know what you're doing.)

Also info-dumping in first person is as bad as info dumping in omniscient (the narration style doesn't really make a difference.) A lot of Japanese VNs and LNs info-dump in 1st person, and it's incredibly dull to read most of the time. It sometimes done well, but not really in the VN and LN industry (I find.)

The worst thing you can do when you have a boring main character is write in first person. When writing in first person, one of the key rules is that the person be charismatic enough to provide an interesting narration. A boring character will provide a boring narration (just one of the reasons certain 'self-insert' VNs are dull to read.)

Unfortunately, no, the narrator is not omniscient here. Maybe it's because of the language difference so I don't know how are they are exactly called in english, or maybe my memories are rusty, but I was taught that there were 4 different type of narration in my litterature classes : 

- 1st person (pretty self explanatory) : "I opened the door slowly, and was praying silently that the noise wouldn't wake up my mother."

- 3rd person internal : third person narration that will distance itself from the character but will only give us the internal thoughts of one character. You could describe it as a narrator that has access to all the thoughts of only one character at the time through telepathy, and describes what he sees while supplying the reader with this additional information he obtained : "John opened the door slowly, fearing that he might wake up his mother. Fortunately, it didn't look like the noise would wake her up."

- 3rs person external, third person narration that completely distances itself from the character, forbidding itself to narrate anything that might be a thought of one of the character. It's basically narrating from the viewpoint of an invisible human presence: "John opened the door slowly as the creak sound resonated through the room. "I hope that didn't wake my mother" he thought. His mother wouldn't budge, still snoring heavily on her bed."

- 3rd person omniscient, which is as you described it: "John opened the door slowly, silently hoping that his mother would not wake up because of the noise. Little did he know that she was actually pretending, and purposely ignoring the night strolls of her good for nothing son".

While I won't deny that an omniscient narrator in a VN could definitely be interesting to read, the demo I read definitely used the narration I called "3rd person external". It had some first person narration mixed in the flashbacks, and from time to time used first person when the main character was alone. But everytime there were people dialoguing on the screen, there was presence of external third person narration. Because it is very descriptive by nature and ends up being awkward in a VN (there were quite a few extracts where the narration was somehow similar to "Kazuki opens the door to the room and walks in"), dialog was heavily prioritized over narration. Which brings us to the info dumping issue.

I agree that info dumping should not be left to the narrative only, it makes it very indigest and hard to read. Ideally (imo), when info dumping is a necessity, it should come through character dialog and discussion, while supported by additional details from the narration. And my issue here is that the info dumping was made uniquely through the use of dialog. And not only it makes it indigest as well, it also really deteriorate the flow of the conversation, the characters being forced to add those details to give more info to the reader, while in universe it feels totally unnatural and superfluous. Kinda like "Hey, we've been friends for years now. It's about time you stop obsessing yourself with the crimson thief, you know this incredible guy that steals from the rich and give to the poor and that you met when you were 10." (I'm exaggerating, but I sometimes had this impression when reading).

And regarding the character being bland, I'm mostly saying that he is not as developped as he should be precisely because they've been using this kind of minimalistic narration that allows them to not give us any meaninful insight about what and how he thinks. If they had used first person, or even omniscient narrator, that would have forced them to give more depth to the character, because they would most likely notice that something is missing, for example, what does he think of the other characters? How does he view them? After the demo ended, I still don't know what his personality is. I still don't know through whose eyes I should interpret the world : a pessimist? An optimist? An angsty teen? A delusional fool? A sarcastic and bitter assh*le? A sociopathe? You might argue that it might be something interesting to play on as a writer, and I'll definitely agree, but in our case it's really an issue and not a litterary trick to enhance the experience.

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5 minutes ago, Diamon said:

- 3rs person external, third person narration that completely distances itself from the character, forbidding itself to narrate anything that might be a thought of one of the character. It's basically narrating from the viewpoint of an invisible human presence: "John opened the door slowly as the creak sound resonated through the room. "I hope that didn't wake my mother" he thought. His mother wouldn't budge, still snoring heavily on her bed.

Omniscient objective tends to be used. So omniscient tends to be split up between subjective (narration of thoughts) and objective (no narration of thoughts.) I've actually seen 'external' used synonymously with all forms of omniscient (probably because the narrator is 'external' or something,) so I gave up using it. With people using it in different ways it got too confusing

14 minutes ago, Diamon said:

And regarding the character being bland, I'm mostly saying that he is not as developped as he should be precisely because they've been using this kind of minimalistic narration that allows them to not give us any meaninful insight about what and how he thinks. If they had used first person, or even omniscient narrator, that would have forced them to give more depth to the character, because they would most likely notice that something is missing, for example, what does he think of the other characters? How does he view them? After the demo ended, I still don't know what his personality is. I still don't know through whose eyes I should interpret the world : a pessimist? An optimist? An angsty teen? A delusional fool? A sarcastic and bitter assh*le? A sociopathe? You might argue that it might be something interesting to play on as a writer, and I'll definitely agree, but in our case it's really an issue and not a litterary trick to enhance the experience.

Here's a point to think about - if you can't develop a character's personality using an objective or external viewpoint, what that means is the best case scenario for your novel is you have 1 developed character and a host of undeveloped and paper thin ones. Or you can use 3rd person multiple and have 2 or 3 semi-developed characters, and the rest is paper thin. If you can't develop a character using an objective viewpoint and you want to write in 1st person or 3rd person limited, you are dooming every character but your main to be a paper thin caricature.

In this instance switching perspective is a crutch. It shouldn't matter which narration point you use, you should be able to develop your character without a problem.

Also more developed does not equal less bland. Self-insert VNs typically have a very developed yet bland, generic, and boring main protagonist.

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1 hour ago, Rooke said:

Omniscient objective tends to be used. So omniscient tends to be split up between subjective (narration of thoughts) and objective (no narration of thoughts.) I've actually seen 'external' used synonymously with all forms of omniscient (probably because the narrator is 'external' or something,) so I gave up using it. With people using it in different ways it got too confusing

Here's a point to think about - if you can't develop a character's personality using an objective or external viewpoint, what that means is the best case scenario for your novel is you have 1 developed character and a host of undeveloped and paper thin ones. Or you can use 3rd person multiple and have 2 or 3 semi-developed characters, and the rest is paper thin. If you can't develop a character using an objective viewpoint and you want to write in 1st person or 3rd person limited, you are dooming every character but your main to be a paper thin caricature.

In this instance switching perspective is a crutch. It shouldn't matter which narration point you use, you should be able to develop your character without a problem.

Also more developed does not equal less bland. Self-insert VNs typically have a very developed yet bland, generic, and boring main protagonist.

Right, the terms are subjective / objective omniscient, my memory is very rusty. 

It's really interesting indeed, I never actively thought about the fact that you need to characterize and develop the characters that are not the main through narration even when the narration is objective to them. Basically you're saying that unless going with an omniscient subjective narrator, building and developing your characters will always require to be done through the use of narration that will not allow itself to go in the head of at least some of said characters (main character included if you decide to go with omniscient objective) ? What are the differences you could see between using first person and omniscient objective third person to develop non main characters if that's the case? The presence of narrator bias / unreliability? And is it possible to get the same level of character developement between an objective and subjective viewpoint regarding the main character in your opinion? The demo seems to be favoring objective narration, which is somehow unusual in VNs. What advantages do you think it could have over subjective narration, in terms of character development and depths at least? Or even what kind of advantage in general? (Hopefully I didn't misunderstood what you meant)

And yeah, I took a shortcut with vocabulary here, I felt that the little of what was introduced to me regarding the main character was generic in the premise, but it still lacked a lot of development as well, those are two different issues indeed.

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I think we can agree the third person objective/external is done badly in this instance, where we disagree is what to do to fix it. Imo, if you shift to first person you're just masking flaws which will be apparent in other aspects of the novel. The problems can be fixed without shifting perspective, and to be honest too many VNs rush into 1st person perspective thinking it's the best.

2 hours ago, Diamon said:

Right, the terms are subjective / objective omniscient, my memory is very rusty. 

It constantly changes, imo. It's not our fault we can't keep up with the correct terminology >:c

Last year I realised what I called '3rd person close' was being called '3rd person limited' and had to change my way of speaking. And you call it '3rd person internal' so ... hard to keep up.

2 hours ago, Diamon said:

Basically you're saying that unless going with an omniscient subjective narrator, building and developing your characters will always require to be done through the use of narration that will not allow itself to go in the head of at least some of said characters (main character included if you decide to go with omniscient objective) ?

Well, the question you should ask yourself is 'how well can you use "tell"?' Because that's what internal narration is. Some people can 'tell' the reader things very well, in an entertaining way and with an engaging voice, but if you can't ...

A character’s personality can be shown, or can be told. Internal narration like: ‘Mmmm peaches, my favourite.’ is tell. The reader is being told the fruit in question is the narrator's favourite. On the other hand, if a person neglects picking his child up from school because he sees a sign saying ‘peaches on sale’, or is forever seen digging into one, the reader is shown that it is his favourite (or at least one of his favourites.)

‘Allison and Amber don’t get along, not since Allison stole Dave away in the infamous Ski Resort incident of 06’ is the reader being told what happened by the narrator. Like an info dump. On the other hand, having Allison glare at Amber while viciously carving up meat, with a whispered conversation going on in the background mentioning how ‘Allison is still holding a grudge’ gets the same point across in much more of a visceral fashion. The reader is shown what is going on, complete with atmosphere.

'Allison hates Keith' is tell. 'Allison emptied Keith's bag on the school lawn, then turned the sprinklers on' is show. You don't need to be told she hates Keith, it's fairly obvious.

Important information should be shown, imo. Or shown first, and told later. Telling restricts information, while showing offers more information, so if you’re looking for atmosphere or if you’re looking to convey important character information, showing is preferred (my opinion here. I realise some authors do ‘tell’ and do a rather good job, but I think if we’re offering advice to people just starting out I think this should be a basic piece of information and they can expand from there. 'Telling' in significant quantities effectively requires conveying a story to the reader using limited information while still being engaging. Hard.)

Anyway, you don’t need an internal thought process to develop characters. In fact, too much ‘internal dialogue’ in 3rd person is viewed by some as ‘lazy writing.’ That’s just an opinion, but if there exists such an opinion logically there should also exist an alternative. TV shows, for example, exist fine without internal narration. True, internal narration adds a nice flavour or tilt to standard narration. 'The Bastard feigned shuffling folders around his desk. I know what you're doing, you're not busy you just want to make me wait.' But once again it can be done in 3rd person 'Karen tapped her foot, watching Steve slowly move folders around his desk. Her eyes narrowed as she watched those folders slowly drift back to their starting position. When he licked his thumb, flicked a folder open and started to nod and murmur his approval at an official looking form requesting pets be allowed in the office, Karen took two quick steps and slammed her palms onto his desk. "I will stab you," she said.'

Not written well, but I think the point gets across? It's not the perspective which is deficient, but the application.

2 hours ago, Diamon said:

What are the differences you could see between using first person and omniscient objective third person to develop non main characters if that's the case? The presence of narrator bias / unreliability?

That's one advantage of 1st person, for sure. An unreliable narrator, or viewing the world through the narrator's eyes. Having narration filtered through all the prejudices and opinions of the narrator.

2 hours ago, Diamon said:

And is it possible to get the same level of character developement between an objective and subjective viewpoint regarding the main character in your opinion? 

It really shouldn’t matter which narrative technique gets across the most amount of information. You can get across a massive amount of information by listing bullet points down a page, but that isn't looked upon favourably: 

‘Hi, my name is Kelly, I’m 6 foot 7, have red hair, hate math, love dance, and want to kill my best friend.

And I know exactly how I’m going to do it.’

As you can see, you'd have to do something really outrageous for it to be even semi-interesting. The first part of the above is mind-numbingly tedious. The objective of a story isn’t to pack as much information into the story as possible, even if we all want to (fantasy authors are guilty of wanting to go on and on about the world they created cause they spent so much time developing it xD.) The question shouldn’t be ‘which offers more’ but rather ‘can I write a sufficiently developed character’?

When choosing voice, 1st person grants immediacy and you can write more effectively in an engaging or conversational style. 1st person 'present tense' grants a hell of a lot of immediacy, but is hard to pull of which is why it’s usually only seen in young adult novels (young adults are more forgiving.) 3rd person is good for large scopes. But the amount of development the main character can have shouldn’t really be a part of the process here. Rather 'how much the novel requires' or 'how much do I want.'

2 hours ago, Diamon said:

The demo seems to be favoring objective narration, which is somehow unusual in VNs. What advantages do you think it could have over subjective narration, in terms of character development and depths at least?

The usage of objective narration is weird, for sure, but Telltale Games uses an objective narrative technique and it uses it really well. I think it would require a different style, but sufficient character development should easily be achieved, and there's other considerations for choosing objective (not that I'm a fan. I prefer 3rd limited/internal personally.)

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Glad to see you made a thread.

Ok, I really like were you're going with this VN.

I have one thing stopping me from backing it. I dislike 'flexible funding', because if you only raise part of the amount you're asking for then the quality will suffer. I wouldn't want to give $60 for something that might only raise $5000, I would be receiving an inferior product which would not be worth $60 most likely.

I think the "all or nothing"  of the 'fixed funding' would give a better result in the end. I would glad to pledge more than $60 if I saw that it needed to get over the line to be funded.

Just my thought.. and concern. I would love this project to be a success.

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19 minutes ago, kingdomcome said:

Glad to see you made a thread.

Ok, I really like were you're going with this VN.

I have one thing stopping me from backing it. I dislike 'flexible funding', because if you only raise part of the amount you're asking for then the quality will suffer. I wouldn't want to give $60 for something that might only raise $5000, I would be receiving an inferior product which would not be worth $60 most likely.

I think the "all or nothing"  of the 'fixed funding' would give a better result in the end. I would glad to pledge more than $60 if I saw that it needed to get over the line to be funded.

Just my thought.. and concern. I would love this project to be a success.

No No No! Please dont donate for Indiegogo. In few minutes we will announce our partnership with MikandiJapan. Thank to they help we will run KickStarter under they leadership so please stay tuned...

Sorry for broken English!

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1 minute ago, IGRASILSTUDIO said:

No No No! Please dont donate for Indiegogo. In few minutes we will announce are partnership with MikandiJapan. Thank to they help we will run KickStarter under they leadership so please stay tuned...

Sorry for broken English!

YES! This is the perfect way for it to be a success! Mikandi have done a superb job with their Kickstarter, you couldn't be in better hands.

When do you plan to put it up on Kickstarter?

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1 minute ago, kingdomcome said:

YES! This is the perfect way for it to be a success! Mikandi have done a superb job with their Kickstarter, you couldn't be in better hands.

When do you plan to put it up on Kickstarter?

Right now we need to rebuild whole campaign and its late here but I will try my best! So wait for us tomorrow!

Sorry for all problem...and yes we couldn't be in better hands!

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The demo is an excellent introduction to Bloody Chronicles. I like it very much. I do agree that the story does attempt to cram too much information at first, but I rather have a good understanding of where the story will be heading off to right away, then have a typical slow build-up of the story. 

1st person narratives are always the best solution in telling a story or presenting main character's motives/personality traits. An setback with 1st person narrative is that doing so can lead to seeing how the main character perceives the other characters. That alone can bring a narrow perception and understanding of the other characters and just how important their own movies/reasoning/etc. plays a key role in the development and grown of the MC. I personally find 3rd person narratives much more useful and less restrictive.

As for the voice-acting; strangely enough, my thoughts are opposite of Diamon's. I happen to think that Aki's and Akito's voice actors are the  stronger points here. And I don't understand what is it about some individuals automatically attacking characters with cute voices as grating and "too cute". Aki's VA sounds natural in her deliveries and I don't find her trying hard on the cute here. In fact, it fits the character perfectly. Akito's VA sounds great and has some really nice deliveries, but there are times I feel like he put too much emphasis/stress on getting the point across that certain lines sound odd to me. Not to mention, his mic qualities seems to be the lowest of the entire voice crew, which some lines sounding as if his voice is going in and then out. I am listening with headphones, so that is what it sounds like to me. Suzumi and Kaoru's VA is good, though I have to agree a bit with Diamon that she sounds like she is reading rather than acting sometimes. Overall, I still really like the voice-acting here.

The GUI, art, etc. are all superb. Your team just needs to touch up a bit on the script and fix some grammar issues. Great work and I look forward to more of the game.

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I've tried the demo and loved it. I've been following the development of Bloody Chronicles since Lyra from Prefundia recommended it to me. The gui, art, music, voice-acting is superb! I would just be mindful to go through and make sure any grammar errors are fixed. I like how there is a good solid story to this game. I am guessing that Kazuki is one tough, anti-social guy who has trouble expressing himself. :lol: 

As for the voiceovers; I have say you've got a solid cast here. I really enjoy the performances so far. Sayaka is super adorable and lovely as Aki (I don't think she overdoing the cuteness. I can name so many others that is definitely forced in official funimation dubs it kills), John is great as the tricky and laid-back Akito, and Skyler is nice as Suzumi/Kaoru respectively. I know this game is still in the development phase, but hopefully you will level the voices out more. Akito's lines tends to be overpowered by the BGM. I really like the voiceovers; it really adds a nice touch to the game!

Why not leave the indiegogo page going at the same time as your kick-starter? I would love to back your project, but I believe kick-starter does not allow Paypal... and I don't have a credit card at this time.

P.S. Diamonit - I would be a little - for lack of a better term, "less harsh" when giving feedback on the VAs.  As I know some of them will also be providing voice work for the very game you are developing...

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