First look at Solstice and its animations
As promised, here’s a short video presenting how Solstice actually looks in motion. Not really a trailer — more like a moving screenshot.
We are especially curious if you like the animated characters. It’s a small change, but we think it makes a big difference.
tayete wrote a comment on: January 3, 2013 at 1:35 pm
It looks really nice and it adds some flavour to the speech. Being an artist myself I can see how much effort your artist has put in her work, she must be proud!
Ren wrote a comment on: January 3, 2013 at 2:44 pm
It’s nice how the different poses softly transition from one another. I’d say one thing that looks a bit unnatural to me (but you may be going for a particular feel that I’m just not understanding from this preview) is that the character are talking to “you” but never look at the player.
I’d also leave a bit more space between the little character portrait and the first line of text, personally.
I really like the atmospheric sounds in this video, they somewhat remind me of stuff like The Longest Journey, for some reason. The whole thing feels like it could potentially give a similar feeling, which I’d be enthused by.
TeeGee wrote a comment on: January 3, 2013 at 6:05 pm
You have a good eye
. In the final game, you will actually see both speakers on the screen. That’s why they are not pointing or looking at the player. We just don’t have enough finished character art to show two-people dialogue yet.
Likewise, the character portraits and text box in general are not finished yet. It’s actually just Madame Ghede’s icon from Cinders used as a placeholder.
Glad you like the sounds. Actually, I made them specifically for the video, but liked the effect so much that they are definitely going into the game
.
Ren wrote a comment on: January 3, 2013 at 6:33 pm
Ah, that makes sense.
Well, I’m quite intrigued: most people go for the “looking at the player” approach, so it’s nice to see something a bit fresher in this regard as well. We did something similar-ish for Tristan and Iseult, and I thought it helped in making the story be more among the characters rather than to force immersion.
I’m definitely anticipating this game more and more – here’s hoping it won’t make me go berserk! Nice work on the sounds!
TeeGee wrote a comment on: January 3, 2013 at 6:40 pm
We have two player characters, so making sure that they are always visible is important for avoiding confusion on which one we’re playing at the moment.
And since we also have animations now, it would be a shame to hide the player character.
Cheratomo wrote a comment on: January 3, 2013 at 7:48 pm
I really like the look of the art. The only thing I worry about is that if there are too many movements in one line of dialogue, it’ll be really distracting. You’ll feel like you’re missing something when you’re reading the text, so you’ll either have to keep looking up and down to make sure you’re keeping up with which animations they’re doing at which time, or focus on doing one or the other.
That being said, I feel like the only part where it was initially overwhelming to me was Constance’s second page of dialogue, where she holds her chin, twirls her hair, holds her chin, twirls her hair, and holds her chin again. It seems natural after you see it a few times, but the first time I saw it I was trying to read the dialogue and I missed it because of her actions. If you look just at her, it looks very natural, but it distracted me while I was trying to read. Subsequent viewings made it seem less distracting, but that might be because I was prepared for it. @-@
In other words, just make sure not to overdo the animations. If you were talking to someone and they did those movements while saying those lines, would it look really weird and make you focus on why they were fidgeting instead of what they were saying? (Although making them fidget when they’re lying, if they’re a bad liar, is an interesting idea…)
As long as they’re not distracting from the story (they are supposed to be supporting and enhancing the story, after all) I think they will fit beautifully and help show the character’s personality a lot more. (The twirling of the hair really gives me a feel for the kind of person Constance is, especially when compared to Ghede’s angry pointing.) Overall I’m super super excited, and will definitely be getting this after it comes out! (You’ve made a loyal fan due to Cinders. xD)
TeeGee wrote a comment on: January 3, 2013 at 7:58 pm
That’s precisely the kind of feedback we wanted to get. Very useful, thanks!
Ian Hamilton wrote a comment on: January 4, 2013 at 2:52 pm
There’s no lip synching involved right? In that case there’s something really simple that you could do to avoid the distraction and read time issues.
Reading time is a huge issue, especially as 14% of the population (USA and UK) have a reading age of 11 years or below. It’s impossible to set a good speed for the text to go by at, any speed you choose will be either too fast for some people or frustratingly slow for some people.
The solution is for the text to advance on button press rather than on a timer. Either for everyone, or as an option in your settings. That way people are free to read at whatever pace best suits them.
TeeGee wrote a comment on: January 4, 2013 at 5:28 pm
That’s already a standard in all visual novels, including ours
.
Cheratomo wrote a comment on: January 6, 2013 at 7:36 am
Ah! I forgot to mention– I was going back and playing Cinders and noticed this, although I don’t know whether it was mentioned before. It would be nice if, when you used the “Skip” function, the function only stopped when you got to a piece of dialogue you hadn’t seen or a choice. As it is I keep having to repress skip each time a new scene begins, and each time something happens differently because of my choices. I can see why this was done (so you don’t get lost in the plot and wonder why you didn’t get a certain result this time around), but it makes it very tiresome when trying to replay for different endings.
Hayley wrote a comment on: January 9, 2013 at 8:47 pm
I can’t remembere if you did this in cinders, but did you give the game a log book? In fact, as someone mentioned the longest journey, even that game had a book of script that allowed you to read backwards if you missed anything.
Some H games or otome games I’ve played allow you to go back a few lines of text. If cinders allowed this then I apologise because it’s been a while, all the interfaces melt into one after a while. Ooh, even voltage games on my mobile have a log book, it comes in handy from time to time.
Another thing, and merely a suggestion, I never know if most visual novels do this, I know some do, but maybe after a first playthrough you could offer a hints mode for people. Or maybe after a 3rd playthrough because by then working out which path is which is going to be harder and many many hours down the road. So basically once you’re at your wits end and can figure out no more, and you think- I’ve had it, I’m going to go play Kira kira instead (for example) you could go BAM hint mode, you give a certain sound that indicates one of the 3 main routes and I remember from cinders it was pretty obvious from there for me to go back and get about 8 different endings all on the same end route. Or something simpler- flash up on screen- this a turning point in your characters life-after their third playthrough let them know if they’re about to tip her scale into bee-otch.
I know it’s a lot harder with how you present her speech tree which must look insane, but it’d make me play longer, I still didnt really win the prince in cinders, he married me once but didnt love me, I need the will to try again.
The game above looks lovely btw, I don’t know if I like the girl who has the petulant look but I suppose it depends on why she looks so distasteful and if the place looks as wintery as the picture you keep using WHERE’S HER CLOTHES? :p
TeeGee wrote a comment on: January 10, 2013 at 10:35 pm
Cinders allows you to read back through the last few lines. It’s a standard feature for almost all VNs. Will be present in Solstice, of course.
I’m not sure about the possibility of a hint system, even if I like the idea. It’s mostly because choices in Cinders and Solstice are pretty complicated. There’s almost no defining points — it’s a combination of what you did throughout the entire game that pushes you into one path or another. And when we have defining points, we are pretty clear what the choices are.
The city is protected from the harsh weather (see that dome in the sky?), and it’s actually pretty hot in there. Hence the Middle Eastern architecture and Constance’s skimpy clothing.
Ian Hamilton wrote a comment on: January 11, 2013 at 4:19 pm
Ahh good stuff, looked from the video like it might have been progressing automatically.
Was it you that was having the twitter conversation about VN standards for text formatting – line length etc? Hard to tell from the vid but looks like the font size might be a bit small and the line length a little long, upping the font a bit would solve both issues.
TeeGee wrote a comment on: January 11, 2013 at 4:27 pm
Yeah, font sizes and line length. But I still hold my opinion from the twitter conversation that these standards came out naturally, through tweaking things until they are the most convenient for the readers. Larger fonts and shorter lines would make it a bit annoying to read, as you would have to click a whole lot more. “Have more text in a single box” was the first feedback we got back when we tested Cinders. This is what we came to after several iterations.
In general, the font size should be similar to what you can see in paper books, adjusted for the distance from the screen.
We do have our doubts about the font itself, though. We may use something less ornate and easier to read in the end.
Ian Hamilton wrote a comment on: January 12, 2013 at 4:32 am
The book reasoning is absolutely right, no need to try to reinvent the wheel. It also applies to the line length, though, there’s a well researched optimum that’s used as standard in books.
You should aim for around 70 characters per line. As you go smaller than that the eyes have to work harder flicking back and forwards more, and as you go longer than that the eyes have to work harder to find their way back to the start of the next line.
It’s pretty close to optimal as it is, I think you’re at around 85 characters? So it wouldn’t need much of a tweak.
If you wanted to go all-out with the legibility you could have it configurable.. an easy-read setting with larger line spacing, larger font size (but still the same characters per line, so the box would need to be scaled up), and a dyslexia-friendly font such as OpenDyslexic.. lots of interesting potential!
Ian Hamilton wrote a comment on: January 13, 2013 at 3:27 am
or actually if you wanted to take it further still and invest some money there are some better fonts than OpenDyslexic available, better typographically and aesthetically:
http://www.studiostudio.nl/project-dyslexie/en/
http://www.fontsmith.com/fonts/fs-me.cfm
You could even go all-out and offer a couple of different combinations of text and backgrond colour, as that can make a huge difference to people with dyslexia, and also people with impaired vision too.
Despite impaired reading ability being such a huge demographic, no one, and I do mean no one, in the games industry is really aware of it, so if you were to do some nice stuff around legibility and get some feedback from people with dyslexia etc it would make for some fantastic blog/conference material, I’m sure other developers would be extremly interested to hear about it.
Britt wrote a comment on: January 13, 2013 at 1:20 pm
Just adding – I know my friend Carolina would really appreciate that feature. So would many people, of course, I’m just letting you know of a specific fan of yours that I know who would LOVE the ability to switch to a dyslexia-friendly font. C:
Can’t wait to see more about Solstice in future!
Britt wrote a comment on: January 13, 2013 at 1:22 pm
Oh, forgot to specify – when I said “dyslexia-friendly font” I meant a font like OpenDyslexic in this case. My friend’s main issue with reading is the gravity of the letters.
TeeGee wrote a comment on: January 28, 2013 at 2:30 pm
Thanks, guys. That’s very interesting. I don’t know if we’ll specifically add a dyslexia friendly mode, but it looks like we’re going to tweak fonts and their sizes a bit more.
yaoi huntress earth wrote a comment on: February 6, 2013 at 11:44 pm
The problem I have is the heads and faces are in the same position no matter where the body is turned that it’s distracting.