The Day After by caryoscelus

[raw]
made by caryoscelus for LD29 (COMPO)
UPDATE: post-compo version uploaded. Spelling mostly fixed. You may safely play that one if you keep in mind that the second soundtrack was done after the compo.

My first solo LD project. Also first game finished alone.

It's a really short (what do you expect from LD?) visual novel with very small amount of art (and backgrounds are placeholders). But enough critics, just play it for yourself!

If you'll be wondering how it's related to the theme, make sure to finish it first!

Running should be trivial on any desktop platform thanks to Ren'Py.

PS: if you're tired of listening to single dummy track, just turn it off in preferences..

TIP: if you want to see different endings (or different branches, whatever), you can use skipping feature of renpy: holding ctrl skips through text you've read. There is also rollback by pgup/pgdown and mouse wheel. The rest should be obvious..

Ratings

Coolness 76% 2
Overall 2.98 745
Audio 2.78 559
Fun 2.86 700
Graphics 2.98 671
Humor 2.97 257
Innovation 2.48 984
Mood 3.03 514
Theme 2.81 904

Feedback

eldog
28. Apr 2014 · 10:01 UTC
It's a long game!

I got the bed ending.

Great music. Made it seem quite surreal.

The player should definitely break up with Christy though, that girl is t.r.o.u.b.l.e.
nexust
28. Apr 2014 · 11:01 UTC
I really enjoyed this. The plot was genuinely very enjoyable. I expected a dating sim at the beginning so I found myself overjoyed when the plot took a dark turn. The humour will definitely be appreciated by fellow LD developers. I got the normal ending and I intend to go back and find more later.
Snoother
28. Apr 2014 · 19:39 UTC
Nice graphics and music. And a good shock of a twist.

But the prose was at times weak, with grammatical and spelling errors.
badlydrawnrod
28. Apr 2014 · 19:45 UTC
Five endings? I kind of like the one that I reached.
CDK
28. Apr 2014 · 19:51 UTC
This was actually quite good - some misspellings but what ever, i would have made the same error if i made a story based game ^^ genuinely enjoyed playing it to the end - i got the "true" ending.. what ever that means ^^
somethingsimilar
28. Apr 2014 · 19:51 UTC
Fun little story - I got the most normal ending, it seems. With a little more time and polish this could be really good!
🎤 caryoscelus
28. Apr 2014 · 20:52 UTC
Thanks for comments!
Spelling - yeah, shame on me, haven't checked before publishing. Updated now in post-compo version.

Note that if you want to see different endings (or different branches, whatever), you can use skipping feature of renpy: holding ctrl skips through text you've read.
BlazingFanfish
30. Apr 2014 · 10:50 UTC
Got Bed, Blood and True end. Too lazy to playing it again for searching the remaining two endings. The story has a good potential. I hope you keep continue developing this. :)
bob_fish
30. Apr 2014 · 13:02 UTC
This was awesome. The humour was good. The story was great and the ability to skip text to get to the endings fast is very nice. Also gamepad support is pretty cool! Thanks for making this!
Nichii
30. Apr 2014 · 13:23 UTC
Good plot, i like the multiple choice. In my opinion, maybe you should try to change the visual novel feel abit. as in add more gameplay elements to the game somehow. I dunno how but let your imagination decide :D
skymen
30. Apr 2014 · 13:52 UTC
I don't really like visual novels, but the graphics are quite good. I also liked the music
VictoryGarden
01. May 2014 · 07:49 UTC
You know, I got four out of five endings (True, Normal, Bloody, Bed) and I have to say that none of them explained how Jack's dream is supposed to make sense. I had a hard time understanding how the narrative structure fit together... there were too many pieces that didn't fit with the main plot, and I had little sense of agency or involvement with proceedings. What does the shooting range guy have to do with anything? And so on, and so forth.

I appreciated that you diverged from the standard VN plots--that's great. The concept is solid. Still, I think that some more focus on how you're going to tell your story would help you out.
🎤 caryoscelus
01. May 2014 · 07:59 UTC
VictoryGarden, yeah, there are many parts that weren't worked enough and which are thus look completely unrelated. I'll be working on this when i get back to text editing (right now more busy with gfx stuff).

As for dream making sense - i'm afraid there can't be proper explanation of that unless lots of mystics involved.
🎤 caryoscelus
01. May 2014 · 12:52 UTC
Well, actually i'm gonna make it all have rational explanation ^_^
pvwradtke
03. May 2014 · 00:13 UTC
Another visual novel, it's quite interesting to see that this is a genre that's picking up in Ludum Dare. Liked the plot twits, would love to see it with improved visuals.
Neonian
03. May 2014 · 00:15 UTC
I love it!
trueyomic
03. May 2014 · 20:03 UTC
I got the true ending in the first try! Pretty neat story! I'll checked all of the other endings and the true was definitely the most satisfying. I always love games with multiple endings. Good job!
GrooveMan
04. May 2014 · 17:22 UTC
While I know it's hard to make graphical assets on your own, good writing can make up for that. Sadly you didn't really manage that here.

There were so many spelling errors it stopped me from getting into the story (and some parts just didn't make sense as a result).

While proofreading is boring, it'll make or break anything story-heavy.
🎤 caryoscelus
04. May 2014 · 23:25 UTC
GrooveMan, are there really still that many errors in post-compo version?

Anyway, i'll proofread after finishing extending and rewriting.
GrooveMan
05. May 2014 · 02:12 UTC
Ah, I should have been clear - I've only looked at your contest entry. It feels like it'd be unfair to pass judgement using something made afterwards.

I do appreciate that the post-compo entry would have been proofread, but considering the genre you're working in, I'd argue that a refined script is important enough to have on the first iteration - just as key as good jumping physics would be to a platformer.

Refinement eats up time, yes, but I would enjoy a short or linear VN with pitch perfect writing infinitely more to one with increased content, but roughly-written.
🎤 caryoscelus
05. May 2014 · 07:32 UTC
Well, rules allow fixing typos and i wasn't doing more than that in terms of spelling in that post-compo version uploaded.

Anyway, i don't really worry about LD judgement at this point. I learned from it to do better next time, but more importantly i have something to work on now.
So i'm more interested in people wanting to play final version than having high rating per se.
udo
13. May 2014 · 19:07 UTC
Bed! I liked the minimal graphics, even if you say they're just placeholders it's part of the charm.
Andrei Müller
18. May 2014 · 18:49 UTC
Nice plot twist! The story was short, but it was so interesting that I played the game until I made all 5 endings. Great work! =)

The "true ending" looks kinda like a "sequel hook", in my opinion... I would like to see a continuation of the story! ^^