Heartache 101 ~Sour into Sweet~

Okay, you got me on having no proper credits listed for the music used for my characters. However, the main game does have a credit in the help file:

author = Help.html
Music by MusMus (Takeaki Watanabe)
Additional tracks by Giraffe Material

Now that you mention it, LordNight had a text file in Midori's music directory that was something akin to a "credits" file. I might end up doing something like that, though that would mean re-uploading everybody twice (Once for here, and again for the official site). Emiko is somewhere around 13 or 14 MB if memory serves me right, so I don't even know if it's possible to re-upload her to the official site anymore. Might look into FTP options for that. Or let flowerthief handle it.

Okay, this is a serious case. You really need to put some effort into it, if you expect anyone to actually go for her. You said yourself you pulled this off in 8 hours, and it shows. Not a single story in the file is clear of grammar errors. Using 'your' instead of 'you're', the punctuation marks left out and the utter ignorance of the rules for apostrophes make it feel like you're reading a chatlog. This isn't a big problem, though; every video game has gone trough a proofing stage.

But THIS.



This is a big problem. The characters just say random stuff out of context. 'Sure. I forgot to save before I started talking to you.' What the hell does this have to do with anything? The fact that the rest of the dialog is based on it makes it even worse.
Moving on, the player's comments are a mess, and half the time it seems like Emi is the one commenting on herself in third person because you never set the active speaker for them. The game center event is just horrible. It's nice of you to tell the player which stats should he raise, but at least try and come up with a reasonable excuse for it. The fortune teller event in Masako's route is a perfect example.
But the worst of all is not what you wrote, but what you didn't. It's fine if the girl barely says a damn thing, your decision. Considering who she is, this might be intentional on your part. But the player character already has a personality you can't ignore. And even if that wasn't set, doesn't he think of anything? His internal monologues seems to be restricted to brief comments on what's happening at the moment like, 'she laughs'. There are so many times when the situation just cries out for a narrative, but the player remains silent.
The game center event "shines" in this particular regard too. Nothing indicates the time passed. No fading out, no conversation, no inner comments. It feels like they finished both games in milliseconds.

That rant said, there is also a lot to be praised. This event, for instance, is pure gold:



It's hilarious, flows well, and displays bits of both the player's and Emi's personality. If you can come up with something like this, this route of yours has the potential to be better than the built-in ones, if you take your time. You clearly have the storyteller in you, and Emi is is an interesting character. It'd be a waste of your talents not to go on, so don't let my rants scare or piss you off. Just don't share your works with others until they're decent; a lot of people have the tendency to look at only the bad aspects of a game and ignore the good things. I had to learn this in the hard way the first time I wrote an addon. Just saying 'I doubt she is any good but I'll keep trying!' cries out for a*holes to grab into and shun your efforts. If flowerthief was anything like that(he isn't btw) then all your work was for not. In any case, I doubt he'd bother to test/recommend your route if everyone else said it's crap(Even more so since he tested so much already he got fed up by it). Careful out there, not all of the internet is Fluffy Sunshine Land. Trolls everywhere!

So man up, don't let us down! ;) Especially since I wrote so much when it's not even my job...

Hey, don't be so nice and easy going with the new guy who barely knows what's going o... oh yeah, alright, sorry, you have a point. My bad.

@SilentPhoenix, if you can speak English half as good as you write, then you're already more than decent. My classmates would not be able to cry out a coherent phrase if they lived in London and their houses were on fire.

And... thanks for appreciating my wall of text. Gotta love if people like your walls of text:D I will be following Emi's development, just as your progress in linguistics.

LordNight: Also gotta love if people prove me right:) Don't post content early, both of you, things happen! But like you said, it's not that bad in either case. Just don't do it too much, schadenfreude degrades my morals.

LordNight, I can remove it for now then. By all means feel free to continue writing at your own pace.

@Marrend
She does?
I quite literally started Emi about three minutes after I found out about Heartache 101.

Well, I'd probably have to actually look at Emi, but if she's anything like what I think she is, she could be similar to a certain character from either that magical girl game or that character package.

I'm going try to do something unique but I won't be revealing what it is until after my little feature is added to her completely.
Probably going to be finished with Emi sometime late next week.
Just another announcement, Emi will be coming along with a new girl that I'm co-writing with a friend (who is about 200 times a better writer than I am)
MORE CONTENT COMING SOON :D

MOR CHARACTERZ? Bring 'em on!

author=SilentPhoenix
Is it possible to have custom backgrounds?

It is possible, but maybe not in the way you might think. You could look at the profile for Kuwabara Emiko and STORY 21 in her story file too see how I worked it.


*Edit: Or you could just use "OTHER" slots in a character's profile for the custom background. Which is essentially what Emiko did.