Academy of Disaster is out! (29/7/16)

As of today, Academy of Disaster is available for purchase on the App Store, GooglePlay, and Amazon! Thanks so much to everyone who beta tested and generally helped me out in the process! You guys are the absolute best <3

The free part can be found here: https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/academy-of-disaster/

I’d really appreciate any feedback you guys can give me, again. This is my first game, so please let me know if you like something/hate something/found a bug/have a favorite character/have any questions/want a sequel, okay?

<3 thank you <3

13 Likes

Quick question: does “Play as male or female, and enjoy a break from romance options.” mean that there are no romances in this game? I’m thinking so but just want to make sure.

Bought :smiley:

Forum wants 20+chars…

1 Like

Yes, it means there are no romance options.

I enjoyed your story and thought it well written. I’d like to see more installments. It reminds me of a few games out there such as Black Closet but the MC was written well and far above the norm.

Only wish I could have customized the superficial on the MC to connect better at the beginning but I enjoyed her.

Now that I’ve finished it I must commend your writing skill again. You managed to jam out quite a bit between the last of the WIP and sending it for publishing.

Do you have plans for future games at all?

Finished it up, it was a pretty fun read and I almost got a headache trying to solve the mystery before it pointed it out to me. Since you want feedback, I’ll go ahead and write down my thoughts (none of the negatives are dealbreakers, obviously). Also, spoilers.

Things I liked:

[spoiler]The depiction of William Blake and Bloody Peter.

Leo

Choices were interesting and increased the most logical stat (lots of games miss this)

Excellent usage of flashbacks for the main character’s past.[/spoiler]

Things I didn’t like:

[spoiler]Characterization wasn’t very strong on some of the characters. Especially the introductions, they were introduced a bit too fast and there were so many that they each needed some kind of thing to make them stand out. For example, Remiel and Raphael confused me, I couldn’t tell the difference. And when Jet died I had to spend five minutes trying to remember who he was and how he was connected to anyone, instead of being shocked at his death.

Some of the events in the interim were poorly explained. Like at one point it mentioned Alphonse looked down on me, but the only interaction the story showed at that point were us playing chess. It didn’t make sense, and offered no explanation why.

Alphonse felt largely pointless. Most of his role could have been folded into Brother Orpheus, the only thing he actually did was serve as a prop to gt Orpheus out of Ibis.

Speaking of props, in addition to Alphonse there was also the Chess Club plot thread that went no where. It seemed to only serve to introduce the House of Ibis to the player and was promptly forgotten about.[/spoiler]

Minor Nitpick:

If we’re German descent (I assume, our father is called Herr), shouldn’t we have some faint recognition of the language when others speak it? Presumably he spoke his native tongue around the player at some point. I’m willing to give the note a pass, since we may not have been old enough to read.

2 Likes

I just played the demo and I don’t know if I should pay for it or not. My character is not mine to control all is set and each five seconds I have to read how I feel and what my ideas are. Of course, I will never asked about how I feel. The companions used me like their pet with no further option of back Anna off and go mind her own business. She is determined to decide whether or what I go. Your writing skills are great, atmosphere is great. But this is supposed to be INTERACTIVE there is no such interactivity anywhere in demo. All is set and choices are being totally blind with people and have no idea. Or being totally blind with people shy in a corner like a scary rat.

3 Likes

@Eiwynn I’m very glad you liked it! I don’t know what Black Closet it, but I’ll check it out. I’m afraid I completely gave up on customizing the MC in this one (partially because I was learning ChoiceScript on the fly, oops), but I’ll keep it in mind for future projects.

@LordOfLA Thank you so much!! I didn’t want to dump the whole thing on you guys when it was a WIP, so I’m super super glad the parts I didn’t run by everyone pass muster too. I do want to write more games, especially now that I know how Choicescript works and am not getting tripped up by commas in my variables lol. I’d like to write a horror-type game, but that’s way out of my genre.

@Sylfaen Oof, I may have forgotten I had a Remiel and a Raphael in the same set. That was possibly a bad idea, yeah. Sorry. ^^; Funnily enough, I seem to get more complaints about Alphonse’s lack of relevance from people playing as guys than from people playing as girls. The poor kid is absolutely just a plot device to get Orpheus into the school and give him someone to talk to for the MC to overhear. But it is pretty important to get Orpheus into the plot, so… idk. Anyways, too many characters, too little space, duly noted. I’ll try to do better on the next project And as for the German-related nonsense, uhhhhh waves hands magical amnesia? :stuck_out_tongue: Jokes aside, it was supposed to be because MC forgot his entire childhood and stuff, but I probably could have done that better. Thanks a lot for your input! (Seriously- I know things sometimes come across in the wrong tone in text, but I really am grateful for critique and nitpicking. Everything makes perfect sense in my head, but that doesn’t a good game make.)

@poison_mara Yeah, okay, fair enough. I was a big fan of Samurai of Hyuga, which sort of set the MC’s personality for you too, so I was trying to go along those lines somewhat. And yeah, this MC is absolutely lacking in people skills (and most of the people around her are jerks). I think your choices matter more the further in you go, what with trying to solve the mysteries and whatnot, but I’m not going to try to pressure you into buying it to prove it. Thanks for playing the demo, and I’ll keep your suggestions in mind for my future projects :slight_smile:

1 Like

No problem, I was afraid you’d see me as overly critical which I’m definitely not. I enjoyed the game quite a bit, I just figured you’d want to know any criticisms someone had.

For what it’s worth, the characters became much more manageable after Jet’s death, and even moreso once Onyx/Jasper were taken out. Remiel/Raphael were still confusing but I got a decent lock on them by end-game, while the rest of the characters were well characterized. While I personally didn’t enjoy James, even he felt like a real person.

One question, where and what time period does this take place? The mention of radio and telegraph make me think 1900s, and I’d guess the location as the UK. It gives more a British feel than a American one, and they aren’t in France because the MC can’t speak it.

It had a Japanese oteme feel to me, especially since it was taking place in a private school with uniforms etc.

@Sylfaen That’s the trouble with fictional murders, tbh– you need to have a full cast of suspects and then the victim(s) on top of that, and you can’t quite open with an out of context corpse. (I mean, you can, but you have to be really good to pull that off and I am not.)

WRT setting, I was aiming in the general direction of the 1920s in the US, actually. Not sure if that’s a target I hit even remotely, but that’s where I was aiming. Can I ask what gives it a British feel, if you can think of something specific? Not that I’m complaining, mind you, because it could totally be set the UK, I’m just curious.

@Eiwynn That’s not what I was planning but I’ll take it~! :smiley: Otome games are cute! (And possibly more of them should involve murder mysteries.)

It was a toss-up, honestly. The UK because they were bigger on the boarding school thing in the 1920s, and the Families had hints of aristocracy. I was thrown off because of name of the investigative organization, that was the main thing pointing me towards the US.

Ohhh okay, yeah, that makes sense. Boarding schools are just such convenient settings though! There was a fair smattering of them in the Northeastern US, back in the day, I think, but yeah, they’re more a British thing I see what you mean. (And Morgan would be pleased that you think he’s aristocratic lol)

“Oh, April is a genius!” my sister retorted. I grinned to myself. Yes, yes I was a genius. But really, I would have done better to have started eavesdropping earlier; I really had no idea what it was that my sister didn’t think I was up to doing. I was sure she was wrong, of course, but I had no idea what she was wrong about.

“A genius?” said Madame Morgan flatly. “That’s even better. I daresay we could use a genius.” Whatever Madame Morgan wanted couldn’t possibly be that bad if she appreciated talent, I thought. My sister apparently thought otherwise.

This makes me deeply, deeply amused. XD Being made of such win, I am now compelled to buy this game at earliest convenience.

2 Likes