DOZEN'S PROFILE

author=amarathinee
Hello!

Hello Amarathinee, welcome to the heartache forums. I'm in charge of reviewing and managing custom content.

author=amarathine
I've played this game since it came out, and i'm finally making custom content ^_^ Although, I probably shouldn't... Like the Sims, I have a feeling I'll spend more times making content & stories than playing the game.

Your point being?;) We all arrived at that point eventually. Hell, Marrend never finished the built-in routes.
I hope you'll understand though, Heartache material is far from being handled the same as Sims sites handle theirs, and takes more dedication to finish, which most people don't have(recently I began to doubt I have it). It's not to say your job will go to waste even if you leave; after a while abandonware can be adopted by other people, and only uploaded when the package lives up to, if not better than, the original creator's, so keep it up as long as you can.

We are however required to warn you of the distinct possibility of premature abandonment turning us into sad pandas for an undisclosed period of time.


Now that the formal shit is taken care of, on with the criticism! As you only gave us pictures I'll have space for bashing in depth^^
First is the issue of their race. While we understand the ease of working with someone from your own culture, it's increasingly hard to explain away white people hanging around conservative rural Japan in a reasonable manner without repeating ourselves(and the premise suspiciously resembles OMG's). I give in to Esme being a must with her complexion and build; how about a new name for the other two? Esme could be a distant relative.



And here we are already. Every second time a new dev pops up, eager to please, and then someone points out the character's hair cuts into her breasts(and her neck, to be fair. So are the other characters', while we're at it). Those awkward moments...
Beside the usual, her tattoos and the sharp, sudden changes in her hair color give her a subtly unsettling vibe. Could be intentional for all I know, please say so next time around. Also, regarding the former, I'm not sure if you've done shading at all. In any case it's too subtle to notice.
Otherwise, Angel's tachie is of high standard. Beats our contently incapable majority's patchworks any day of the week.

This is Angel's little sister Celeste... lives in her sister's shadow and sometimes let's it get to her.

Umm... Been done? In a built-in route, of all things?

Should we call the plagiarism police?
Well, not really. I don't think it's stolen per se. Still, we already have that.


Wait, what? Godsdamn, are those low, close-sitting eyes sucking out my soul? Uhh, let's clear things up, when people say wasp waist is attractive, they don't mean it literally. Her head and lap are double the size! I'm fairly certain that never happens during anyone's lifetime, assuming healthy human development. It's larger than her own older sister's, for fuck's sake! Goodness, those hands! She could wrap it around one and a quarter times! And what is her head doing so high up? Did she switch jawbones with an amphibian?
Listen, I understand the definition of the Uncanny differs from person to person. More to the point, I can see how witnessing more than enough woohoo scenes in Sims 2 can train you to bear the depths of the Valley.

I'm personally okay with her after the initial shock. Celeste's a mere fraction of what I see in my feverish, faulty frontal lobe-induced nightmares every night. But the fact I can compare them to her screams "NO".
She's simply too disproportionate. It's like you resized some of her parts to make her look younger and forgot about it halfway through. I could deal with a girl who isn't pretty. No, actually, that would be a terrific change of pace, what with all the cutesy women in the genre. Just make sure she doesn't look like a mutant unless warranted by the plot, okay?
The problem isn't your artstyle. It's your artyle mixed with the palette's that creates something terrible. Either give her a new body entirely so the eyes fit the rest of her, or bid farewell to a few ambitions.



NOW we're talking. Probably the best artwork I've seen on the forum. Damn, it actually deserves to be called art.
Still, I don't get paid to fawn over you. I still have a few objections. First, fill in that little concave bit in her face under her left eye. Her legs have the same problem as Celeste's, tamper with them a bit so it won't look like she doesn't have a pelvis and fix the shades. Her breasts seem to... overlap, their edges use a color different from the rest of her body, her right armpit doesn't have an edge, and her left one makes her strapless dress appear as if it was sewn to her skin to stay on.(A hint, that's not how it usually works.)
The biggest issue is her hair: it gets worse and worse as it reaches her waist. Starts as something out of a high-end doujinshi to become a "drawing" you can whack out of your unmentionables in MSPaint within half an hour.

She's also a rebel who... flaunts the schools dresscode because no one challenges her.

Seriously?


Come on, you're not trying very hard. I'm not even so sure you aren't "inspired" by other content a tad too much. Whereas promiscuity is fine - while we have enough as is, it's more of a personality trait -, the clothing rebellion is the basis for 21 Ways. And nevermind the fact how clea her story made there is, in fact, a strong opposition to violating the dress code, this is Japan we're talking about. Should go without saying. You can't copy whole plot points from other people who created the exact same game. I guess we could possibly work something out(as Esme might be a true rebel, while 21 is faking it) through cooperation, but she will still need other traits to appeal to the audience.

That would be it! Keep up the good work, all of you! Overseer off.

You know, I never thought of "I failed" as an excuse before, but I suppose in the grand scheme of things it is.

Oh, yes it is. I'm impressed by practical honesty, thus I'd like you more when you admit your faliures. Which would prevent me from bashing you enough.

I therefore resolve to do my best to fail less.

Stop impressing me! Geez. If your fad catches on we might end up with a group of decent human beings. That would force me to change according to demand! Brrr. Gods preserve us as the nightmarish madmen we are.

Edit: OK, I decided to upload another new version of Noriko. I really want to get that roof event (now numbered as stories 607-610) written properly. Not much else has changed other than some dialogue cleanup as I mentioned above, but I want to make sure I'm headed in the right direction now.

I'll be glad to chew through the new version. Can it wait for a bit though? I watched Futurama, and by the end of an episode I end up thinking in the voice of Professor Farnsworth for three hours. (that also explains the change you may have noticed in my speech style.)
On an unrelated note, does anyone have a movie starring Morgan Freeman I could borrow?

I wonder what does that have to do with the hemisphere you live on;|

author=belewar
It's now in there for the express purpose of being a cheesy joke, so they can laugh about it later.

I liked the stories based on it, however. How about this: you use the cheesy joke as the failed check dialogue, to not waste the amount of work put into it's development.

...Definitely needs more fleshing out.

^^^My point exactly.

Once she meets the player, the other side of the coin comes out and she discovers her artistic side (or, as she puts it, her "romantic" side). The Knight In Shining Armor thing speaks to that. You can say that nobody buys into it any more, but then I might have to go all Freddy and Sammy on your ass.

Hmm... I wonder if Noriko speaks flower language, and Iwao was turned off so harshly because he 'said' something gross? It would make sense seeing her areas of interest. But I'm off topic...

Plenty of people buy into it. I never said romantic knights are out of style. I based a quarter of Ryoko's route around it. And even if they were too old for comfort, I wouldn't care. It's your story, your opinions are none of my business.
But here's the thing: While knightly behavior is acceptable, the weakling female helplessly laying in the hands of the villain, just waiting for someone who might possibly care to rescue her has been done to the death, and in this context, it doesn't make a lot of sense, either.

It doesn't matter how much stronger Iwao is(as a member of a debate club, my estimate is 'not a lot'), Noriko's uniform is not exactly restrictive. She could just kick him in the ankle, elbow his sternum, knee into his side, claw into his arm, spit on his face, or thousands of variations thereof, and make a run for it herself. No self-defense training is required for any of that. It's just common fucking sense.
Yet, in spite of sporting an impressive self-esteem throughout the rest of her story, and being uncharacteristically harsh compared to how a Japanese person would act in the situation mere seconds ago, Noriko just stands there, struggling like an idiot, the idea of reciprocating bodily harm never entering her mind. And are the more mind-blowing is, when help doesn't come and she finally manages to get herself free, she weasels out. Noriko doesn't say a word.

I'm sorry if I'm mistaken, but I assumed Noriko had, among other things, social skills? Because she absolutely missed a chance to disarm him once and for all. This is a Japanese setting, not only the smart, the expected behavior is to shame Iwao in front of everyone present after being wronged. Their entire society is based on their convoluted honor system. Bullies in Japan literally have to warp their strategy around, sometimes going so far as betting their tactics on it, lest they become outcasts. Half the Visual Novels on the market have heroines who's plot is rooted in them being too shy/nice/foreign to stand up for themselves despite the favorable odds. And if the over-abundance wasn't a good enough reason, Noriko is not that. Are you telling me she is not capable of at the very least taking part in what she was exposed to from birth? To take advantage of the defensive measure pre-built into their communities for this exact purpose that regulates petty crime better than law enforcement? Bullshit.

And hell, with all the poetry she has read and written, she should be more averse to being knightED, if anything, romance be damned. The player can help out without doing the whole job while Noriko is a helpless observer of her own life. I'll give in to her trying and failing, but failure because she never bothered to win in the first place? Is this what she learned from the poems she cherishes so? Does she think anything related to knights is automatically fantastic for the sole reason of being related? If she likes knights, why not act like a knight? She may be a damsel in distress, but why, for Gods' sake, would she, or anyone with half a brain, think of herself as one?

I'm perfectly okay with people taking the role of the observer while the hero saves the day. But not an intelligent, strong, worldly and open artist. She may not be brave, but she doesn't have to be. She's smart enough to know that. She should look like it.

Aa. says hi, Marrend. And so do I.

Dewelar, since you've read through the archives(Good going! Up top!:D), you know what's coming next is me mercilessly butchering every piece of dialogue I come across. You are free to take it personally.

I'd like to say for starters, there are precious few issues to be found regarding the heroine herself. She's positively captivating, in fact. The mistakes lie in everything else. You shouldn't forget the love interest is only one part of the game. Tunnel vision will do you no good in the long run.

Rants

author=dewelar
...I made it a point to read through all the threads on this board, and your posts were ones to which I always made it a point to pay attention. ..

attention
attention
attention
attention

... If this was intentional, you're a genius.

Hey again, everyone, the crazy is back on board! And I'm to stay for a long while! (HAHAHA I'm going to regret this so badly) who missed me?^^

Now let me see what I can do with Noriko here... full review by tomorrow night.

As for my becoming caretaker of this project

That's Custom Content Overseer for all of you punks! Just so you know, you're still heir apparent!;)

Anyone who sees Nekochi, give her a friendly middle finger! Overseer off.