ARIEDONUS'S PROFILE

post=150740
Hey, first of all, it means a lot to me that you decided to read the whole thing! I'm glad you really enjoyed it and the town/characters I crafted.

I enjoyed every minute of reading it, so I should be thanking you, haha. As much as I love reading, I am rarely willing to give up my time to read, making the fact that I read your novella a good indication that I loved it.

post=150740
I don't know if it's noticeable but my intention was that the chapters would start off fairly cheery, humorous and whimsical (Sabrina's mask; Rupert and the tree) and they would get much darker and more serious coming to the end (the lonely lantern; the cheating parents), despite the format of each being the same. I guess I was going for a kind of "fairytale" kind of vibe for each story, with the aforementioned format. And I guess I can see how that would disrupt reading in heavy sittings. I guess I never really meant it to be read as a whole, but more like in those Enid Blyton books? But if it's a big problem, I'll look into it. Once again, I appreciate the criticisms!

Looking back, I can definitely see the transition of moods that you wanted to set. I likely didn't consciously notice this, because (as I mentioned) I read it in rather segmented portions. The format, although I did say that it might get tiresome for heavy reading, was still very fitting, especially for the vibe you wanted to achieve. I did feel like each chapter was a fairytale of sorts, and I don't think this is a problem worth looking into (it isn't much of a problem at all).

post=150740
Yeah, this was a stylistic choice. The children, though young, are mostly supposed to be portrayed as well-spoken and intelligent but each having a severe flaw (or a "sin") and still retaining their naivety. Would you mind pointing out any parts where you believe it pushed the boundaries, though?

Honestly, I might have been typing just for the sake of typing there. I just glanced over the novella again and nothing really stood out as pushing the boundaries, especially considering that it was an apparent stylistic choice. The parts where the narrator talks about the differences and similarities between children helped establish this, but I could see where more of these tidbits would help make that clearer.

post=150740
I understand what you mean but this is a flaw I recognize in some of my writing, in which I constantly switch from basic prose to very detailed "emotional" prose from time to time. Maybe it's because I haven't completely found my 'voice' yet but I'm working hard to get there.

Well, you are certainly a lot better off than most writers. You definitely know how to craft a story, and learning how to write in a more consistent style is always a blast, haha. I have faith that you'll figure it out. ;]

post=150740
Once again, I am glad you enjoyed it and thank you for all the comments and criticisms. One question, though: which was your favourite part and which was your least favourite?

My favorite part of the novella was probably "The Secret of the Rose in the Living Room." Just the conditions surrounding it and how the flaw was not in the person telling the secret set it apart from the others.

As far as a least favorite...it's hard for me to pick. If I HAD to pick, it was probably the "The Secret of the Starving Oak." I wasn't a huge fan of the character's flaw, but that's because I would hate to end up like that more than the other flaws, not because it wasn't interesting.

Oh, and I forgot to mention earlier that the last line of the novella is perfect. Perfect.

I just finished Littletown Secrets. Very good work, my friend.

Overall, I really enjoyed the story. Each secret had a bit of mystery to it (as one might assume, I suppose), even when they all had a very similar format in the way they were told (introduction, problem, overcoming the problem). Littletown itself was nearly a character of its own and I loved how certain areas of the town felt bright and cheery, while others had a gloomy, dark, and ominous feel to them. The variation really spiced things up.

One aspect that was pretty awesome was that, despite that every story is independent of the others, there was a feeling of unity between them. This was likely due to your excellent crafting of Littletown, but the tidbits and comments from the narrator definitely helped too.

Now for some of the more negative points. To me, these are somewhat nitpicky things, but with a pretty polished work like this, that's kind of all you can say sometimes. ;D

I mentioned the format that you use for each chapter earlier, and that was kind of a downer sometimes. While it works very well if you are reading the novella in pieces, it made it hard for me to read it continuously. I ended up reading a chapter every now and again when I have some time to kill, but for those that wanted to read it in heavy sittings, the format used might kill the momentum.

Moving on, I also found some of the dialogue of the children to sometimes be a little unbelievable. This is primarily due to word choice in particular situations, and also due to how well-spoken they are at times. To provide an example from April's dialogue "Things like that you cannot plan." does not quite sound like something you would expect a kid to say. If this is intentional for stylistic or characterization reasons, I get it, although in some cases it seemed to push the boundaries.

Finally, the narration. While I loved it, it was somewhat wordy at points and the style did not always seem consistent. I can't honestly gather a bunch of specifics for this, because I wasn't taking diligent notes as I read this (I wish I did so this could be more constructive). Really, just take this comment with a grain of salt (or whatever the phrase is), as this is mainly based on my feelings overall, without some examples to kind of point it out.

Ultimately, I really liked it. You are a very talented author, and if I get the chance to read some of your other works, I bet I will enjoy them just as much, if not more. I hope my comments were helpful; I would be glad to elaborate wherever necessary, if you want.

post=150355
Which maker? If it's 2k/2k3 then you'd probably need a custom battle system to deal with it, if it's XP/VX it's probably perfectly doable with some scripts (not my area though).

No, it's possible to do in 2k3 without the use of a custom battle system. It requires a bit of coding for it to happen, but it is certainly doable.

One of the first things you need to do is keep track of who is in your party at all times, using a common event. This is so you know which party members the game needs to bring back once the summoning is complete. Then, you need to create the skill that activates a switch, along with a battle event page that is activated by the switch. In that battle event page, you will remove all the party members and replace it with the summon character.

This is where things get a smidge tricky. Exactly how long you want the summon to last will affect how you need to code it, but regardless of that, you need to have an event that replaces all the party members. This should probably be a common event for easy access, as you will also have to run it after every encounter, in case the summon was active when the battle ended.

One very important aspect of this system you need to work out is experience. If the summon is active when the fight ends, the party members won't get experience. While I can't come up with the solution to this off the top of my head (I know it exists), you need to devise one.

If you are using random encounters, I have a feeling that it will make things a little more complicated to code. Additionally, I typed this up pretty quickly, so I hope it is all coherent. It's all theory, mostly. I haven't created a system exactly like this before. Ultimately, though, the system is very possible. It'll require a smidge of work, but it's nothing extremely fancy.

EDIT: Dead posted while I was typing up mine it seems, haha.

Yeah, I agree. I love RM2k3 and I haven't switched from it, except to VX for certain projects, due to that fact. Part of that is largely due to the wider amount of resources available for the 2k3, opposed to the more limited resources for XP. Also, I didn't want to learn Ruby when it came out, haha.

That does seem to be correct, as far as I can remember. Completely forgot about that, haha.