Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Biweekly Poll - Art!


Another two weeks gone, and another poll down with 216 votes. MAN, a lot of you guys have Photoshop. I...don't. D: Yeah, I use Photoshop Elements, and occasionally SAI, GIMP, and Manga Studio. But hey, cool! Photoshop! I'm still working on the VN tutorials. They're progressing pretty well, but they're really, really long. I write too much. XD

Photoshop
110 (50%)
Photoshop Elements
32 (14%)
SAI
85 (39%)
GIMP
41 (18%)
Manga Studio
30 (13%)
Other
36 (16%)
Not an Artist
49 (22%)

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New poll is similar to a previous poll, but the question is more focused this time. The context this time is Kansei. I've been working on a few puzzles in include, but I don't want to overwhelm everyone with a ton of puzzle minigames if it makes the overall story less fun.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think skippable minigames... are pointless. Because I mean, they're skippable. xD A well-made minigame should be correctly integrated into the game, so that it's a part of it. If it's skippable, that just means it can be totally forgo, right? And I don't mind it forgone completely, because well, I play visual novels for the... visuals... and novel. Not gameplay. And so far, I've only seen minigames done wrong, never right, in VNs, unless you're talking Phoenix Wright.

But if you want, maybe you can make it Tokimemo style? Have several minigame choices... or, perhaps, give several different tries, and make it passable after, say, 3 or something. Just a few ways to do it.

green like the colour said...

Well, I think they should be skippable simply because there are certain types of games that I'm no good at, and there's nothing worse than a minigame stopping one from being able to progress. Some people don't have the same ability for spacial visualisation, for example, so a spacial sort of puzzle could be dead easy for some but impossibly hard for others. As for me, I'm no good at those picture games where you have to slide the tiles, even though many find them quite simple. But I do see above's point, if people are just going to skip it, why bother having it there at all? So maybe if you're going to have them, make them not essential for completeing the story, but still have some incentive for finishing them? Like, I don't know, some extra art at the end or something unlockable or something?

Deji~ said...

I personally like puzzles and minigames very much!
I agree that sometimes they can be frustrating, though, especially if you need to solve them in order to progress and you just fail at them, so I think you should give the players the option to cheat on them or a way around them after the third try or something, so they don't get frustrated and can progress.
Now, people may say 'why do you have the puzzles/minigames at all if you can get around them anyway?", well, you can reward them with extra information, extra scenes or other bonuses if they actually solve them by themselves! And of course, eventually offer a walkthrough for the puzzles/minigames for the ending/extra hunters/collectors if they want to get everything :P

Anonymous said...

Honestly, I'm not sure how to answer this poll because, well, my first thought was:

"Mini-games should be actually entertaining!"

Seriously, that's really the only important thing. I don't care if they are frequent, happen only sometimes, or are a one time event. When they come up, I should be happy that I'm playing them. Mini-games need to be fun or they shouldn't exist at all.

That being said: I don't usually like mini-games because they are some find-it game or the like. I don't find those fun. They are a task you have to complete before you move on. Really, unless you are willing spend time developing your mini-games into something complex and worthwhile, I wouldn't bother.

BUT! If you do have the time and will to bother, make it integral to the story or at least not in place where it interrupts the story. Otherwise, in a VN, it'll just feel like an unnecessary annoyance interrupting a good read.