This is really great so far! It kept me interesting and I really liked Morgan and Lise
AND NOW IT SHOULD ACTUALLY WORK. Unless TextEdit decides my quote marks are dashes and my brackets are spaces again??
Youâve got a variable broken here:
{Mary} was awake as well, curled on her bed with a book in the poor lighting. She looked up when I sat up and made a face.
Right! Thatâll be fixed by tomorrow. Are there any other errors that you could find?
I recall a case of a correctly spelled wrong word and a sentence that looked like you changed your mind while writing it in the new stuff. Will need another play through to find it. Both were early on in the first two paragraphs of a page though.
why is "sir"morgan suddenly a woman? when before he was a man?
there seem too be a lot of that going around âthe man closed the blinds(do not remember the word) too hid herselfâ are there a lot of shapechangers in this story or is that just a mistake somewhere?
Thatâs a variable-related glitch that I still need to fix. The âdefaultâ setting of the story is with female characters, and some of the ${pronoun} variables arenât working right. I thought I got the last of them last time, but I guess not. Mind telling me where sir Morgan randomly swapped genders?
its not just him it all over the place
the students change sex,
brother whats his name is sometime female
the mother of james got called a he ?
its all over the place
Wasnât that bad last time I played through.
well apparently it is now, it some time males are male other times they are female or the other way around its really bothersome
It may be in some of the choice responses, then? Iâm going through the code again, and I canât find the issues so far. It would really help if you could specify the sentences/scenes, because I have over 35k words of code in the files that have been uploaded and specific missed brackets are rather tough to find.
Youâve been asking for specific details, so I took a shot at an actual beta test tonight. I got about as far as the MC reading Morganâs contract before I ran out of time. (I am slow. They donât get much slower than me.)
I found a couple of minor bugs, a missing line, some grammar/style thingies, and some âhigh levelâ stuff. Iâll pm you a link to what I have so far.
This is pretty fantastic. Iâll go through it more thoroughly soon, but I really like what Iâve seen so far.
I understand changing the students genders becomes you seem to be going to a one-gender school
But was it really necessary to change Morgan and the Sibling? To me, they seem just fine as female no matter which youâre playing
Would be odd to have boys at a girls school and vice versa unless they were visiting guests.
if your going too divine charaters as say brother this or sir that would not male pro-noun`s be good stranded?
look if you want to have ether girl or boy school that fine but make sure that whatever variable you have for that is set when you do so?
right not i have ppl with male names spoken to with her or she and a mother called he when âhe is helping her son unpackâ
its a weird switch.
anyway good luck with getting the bugs out of that. apart from that from what i seen so far it looks like an interesting setting at least even if i am not sure what the gameplay is at this point
The story was originally all-girls, therefore male default is wrong. Not quite how you came to a conclusion otherwise.
That said, without reporting each occurrence with surrounding text as context to help locate the bug, your ranting about the issues is unhelpful.
From the first scene:
Am I the only one to find this sentence confusing?
That part they were getting wrong pretty consistently while talking about me.
I reread it twice until my brain started moving the words around. Iâd have comprehended it faster if it was like this:
âThey got that part consistently wrong when theyâre talking about me.â
(I would say another alternative form, that âThey got that part wrong pretty consistently when theyâre talking about me.â was easier for me to understand too until I noticed that it mostly relied on intonation as well. When in text form, itâs not better than the original).
Another typo spotted:
That was not what being a devilâs advocate was, but those who opposed Sir Morgan did think of him a a devil.
I think that was supposed to be âas a devil.â
Next typo:
âHardly,â said Sir Morgan with a smile. âEverything is taken care of. All I need of you is your presence and your reports. Weekly, by the way, would be best. You shall have an address to write to.â He was, I thought, a very efficient woman.
The âwomanâ should be adjusted to switch with the gender.
Current Impressions:
The MCâs incomprehension of the older siblingâs concern was gold. I like that glimpse into how different his/her mind is.
Some style comments:
The paragraph that describes the dorms and starts with the sentence âActually, it was not, really, my room.â is huge. It would be easier to read (certainly when on mobile phones, as someone else had noted) if itâs broken up into two or three paragraphs.
Chose âexploringâ from that page. The first paragraph of the next page (starts with âSo, what could I find that was the truth, rather than a half-formed concern?â) is also on the long side.
Typo spotted:
I littered my bed with crumpled papers, and at half-past-nine, the first of my roommates arrived, carting with his six different suitcases, his mother, and a little brother who looked more like a muffin than a human being.
It uses âhisâ when it should be âhimâ. I supposed the use of hisher there should be changed to himher.
Some style comments:
âOh,â I said, feeling as though I was saying oh a lot more than I was saying anything sensible recently."
I felt the âohâ wouldâve been better served with single quotation marks like I just did or italicised? Itâs just the odd, incongruous feeling that I get.
More typos near there:
âItâs my fifth year here. Mom wants me finished to a full shine and all that.â Him mother made an expression that looked like he was sucking on something sour, and the boy who looked like a muffin made an unpleasant noise.
Himher use versus hisher use again. And I think the pronoun for his mother should be âsheâ? The same type of typo exists in the next sentence:
Jamesâs mother left as quickly as he could.
Style comments:
The paragraph that begins with âIâll just go get the Sportsmaster!â feels too long to me. That might be relative for other people, but thatâs the feeling I get.
More pronoun issue here:
The first boy had taken him younger brothers along, and one of them had picked a fightâŚ
Mistaken himher usage when it should be hisher. Same as with this one:
ââ a life full of regrets, you see,â he said. him friend with the eyebrows hummed assent but kept looking past me.
And that should be capitalised too after âhimâ is exchanged with âhisâ.
Another style comment:
On the far side of the tennis courts, one of the boys who had been there before hurried back to collect a bag he had left.
This sentence is clear when in spoken form, with the emphasis put on âwho had been there beforeâ to show its appended to âone of the boysâ.
More typos:
Onyx seemed like the sort of person who was difficult to miss regardless of what he was doing, but his brother was harder to pin downâ I didnât, couldnât forget faces, but hers seemed like the sort people forgot.
hers? Since Iâm playing as a guy, I think that should be his.
Thereâs a loose double quotation mark here:
And then he turned and hurried off to catch up to"him friend with the high-pitched voice, who was walking by as if he was on a mission.
âŚas well as a himher when it should be hisher.
More pronoun issues:
But the boy who stepped out, the boy they called Bloody Peter Morgan, was not a princess or a vampire bride. He was small and slight, with his motherâs sharp nose and a tousled mop of auburn curls. I didnât know much about fashion, but his clothes looked expensive and ⌠different from the norm.
Iâm pretty sure Peter Morgan would find it insulting to know the MC had expected him to look like a vampire bride, and would like to express his disageement eloquently in the form of the MCs broken nose. Or leg.
More blocky paragrahs:
The one that starts with this sentence,
At the other end of the long table, the boys I had seen at the tennis court were sitting together again, whispering behind their hands.
could definitely stand to be divided into two or three smaller ones. Also, Iâve just noticed that you prefer using long sentences with multiple clauses? My two pence on that is that itâs alright for books but unwieldy for interactive fiction. Especially if one is reading on the go, on the phone.
Another typo:
I wondered if Alphonse Cambert had his cousinâs beautiful eyes and if he knew who him future classmates were.
himher usage when it should be hisher. Same as this one:
David could call me a child, adults could call me a child, but Alphonse Cambert could not, no matter how radiant his smile was or how all-knowing â that was the thing, the thing he and Brother Orpheus seemed to share â him gaze
Style comment + programming error:
Anneâs friends from the other dormitories arrived that day, and he went off with them after some quick introductions, because Jean, Seamus, and Sam all wanted to play doubles tennis, and Peter went off on his own and I didnât much want to follow, so I holed myself up in the library with Alphonse.
Whoâs Anne? Also, I didnât realise that was a single sentence until I reread it. Felt a bit on the too-long side for me.
Another genderflip issue:
âYes, sorry.â A long pause, wherein he did not move the knight or any other piece. âThat girlâŚâ he began.
Since Iâm playing as a guy, I think that should be âthat boyâ.
More of the same typo:
â⌠I suppose. My fatherâs brotherâs boy. He doesnât count." He said that part with finality. At my questioning look, he rolled"him eyes.
First for the himher vs. hisher use, and second for the stray double quotation mark.
When asking Peter about Wiliam Blake:
âHim parents died in a fire, right? And people thought he wouldnât come back to Saint Dominicâs.â
Another example of wrong-gendered nouns:
Alphonse seemed to be as wellâ though I could only see the back of his head, he was facing the headmistress and sitting much more still than he had before.
Maybe you should try searching the text files for words like âheadmistressâ, âwomanâ, âgirlâ and the like that is preceded by a space or that is followed by a space? It would flag a lot of those words that are baked into the text as opposed to being variables that can switch.
Name typo:
Alphonse looked baffled for a moment. Anne gestured over him shoulder in what I assumed was a questioning manner.
Wait, so James is the reverse-gender version of Anne? Anne comes up again a bit further in the scene here. Thereâs the familiar himher vs hisher typo again there:
âYouâre being foolish,â said Michael loudly. Alphonse frowned and returned him gaze forward. Anne made a face.
Another Oddity:
Further speculation on the matter was cut off, however, when a teacher breezed into the room, high-heeled shoes clacking.
Iâm pretty sure Iâd notice if guys started wearing high-heels too. You could mention the sound of heels clacking against the floor and it would be gender-neutral, though.
The mysterious Mary drops in yet again:
a) in Peter and the MCâs search for Blake
We pulled him from the waterâ Mary tried to make him breathe again while I yelled for a teacher, an adult, anyoneâ I almost yelled for David , honestly.
b) The chapel:
Maryâs hand closed on mine again, and I shifted closer to him. James had said he had minions.
Another stranger pops up:
Though in all fairness I havenât seen her before. Whoâs Ruby?
They didnât say his name for a long time, because they had to take the Collins twins awayâ Ruby to the infirmary, Onyx somewhere else, away â and take charge of Williamâs body and his, but eventually, before anyone hustled me and Peter away, I managed to ask my police officer, the one who had talked to me before.
Also, thatâs one heck of a long sentence. Maybe split it up? Also wrong mention of a mother here:
Peter only stopped clinging to me to demand information from his motherâs men, but they had nothing much to tell him or any of us, except that Special Agent Eriman was probably allowed to do what he was doing.
âŚ
Thereâs probably more, but I think I just got a bit crosseyed at this point so this is it for now. Hope itâs useful.
And now I have internet again, so thereâs an update! I think I maybe possibly have gotten all the random his/him glitches this time. Hopefully. (Please let me know if I havenât as usual.)
Also, thereâs more plot! Somewhat. The comprehension stat is starting to be useful, unless Iâve lost a chunk of code again.
Just finished my first playthrough since this was originally posted
So yeaâŚall that happened
Have to say, you really cranked up the intensity. I expected murders to start occurring mid or late game, but not after the third day of school. Kinda took me by surprise, especially when the murders justâŚkept happening. Like, so many murders in such a short timeâŚ
Ok, so on to the criticisms (that is the point of a beta tester, after all)
While I did enjoy being shocked, as that rarely happens, in all seriousness you should probably work on the pacing a bit. Maybe it was intentional for you to go from 5 to 100 in a short time frame, but itâs hard to keep going at 100 for the entire story. If a story isnât building up, itâs slowing down.
I still donât like the âterrorâ meter as I donât like games telling me how scared I am. If you want me to feel âterrified,â then give me a reason to feel terrified. Iâll admit, you did this pretty well; when the murders started happening, I was legitimately fearful for the lives of all the characters because at that point, you established pretty much everyone can die. I was slightly less scared when I looked at the stat screen and the game told me âyou are 30% scared, assume the scared face.â
And of course, I also still feel like the âcomprehensionâ meter doesnât do a good job of gauging how well the mc comprehends everything. That still needs some tweaking
Also, while at the beginning weâre told that the mc is going to be some sort of spy, Iâm not entirely sure what exactly weâre supposed to be doing. I mean, who are we spying on, exactly? Did she just want us to report the school as a whole? Why would she want âa day in the life of a schoolgirlâ and not give us a bit more specific instructions like âkeep an eye on this group of peopleâ or âfind out what all the families are up toâ or âon the off chance everyone starts dropping like flies, find out why.â It feels weird that Morgan would drop us off without any specific instructions beyond âbe a spyâ
More about the mc; it feels like after the murders start, she loses a bit of her awkward, semi-insane personality and comes across as more of a dolt. I can understand if this is what other people think of her as itâs stated pretty early on that she has trouble getting her words across, but the player should know how smart the mc is and feel smart while playing as her; let the mc make a few deductions without someone telling it to her, or let us go through her mental reasoning when she figures stuff out, or just have her know a lot more than what she verbally tells people. Just, convince me that sheâs âa geniusâ
Also, a consequence of losing her personality, was a lot of the things we learned about the mc at the beginning lose all importance. Weâre told that she has eidetic memory, and we see it in action a few times in the beginning, but after the murders it just ceases to be important. Sure itâs still there, but because we never see the mc make big deductions or explain things to other people, it doesnât have any impact on the story and might as well have not been there at all. Same with her awkward personality, since she rarely contributes to conversations or give input we donât get to see the amazing personality established in the beginning shine. You have a good thing in the story; show more of it cause at a certain point, I wasnât even convinced she was all that smart. Thatâs the real crime
And my biggest complaint has to be that after the murders start happening (things just really went downhill when everyone started dying), it kind of feels like the mc losses all will of her own as well as any impact she made on the story. She just starts going along with everything people are doing, and agreeing with the last thing that had just been said (with a few exceptions). I felt a lot of relief when the option to âdo my jobâ came up, but then that led to just another instance of the mc listening to other people tell her stuff and her not being able to do much with it. This isnât even a matter of lack of character choice (which is also a really big problem, please fix), itâs just the mc seeming completely pointless in this whole scenario. At a certain point, I thought to myself âwould this be playing out any differently if the mc wasnât in the story?â and tragically, the answer was mostly no, the mc has little impact on anything thatâs going on. She doesnât make any big deductions, she doesnât advance the investigation all that much, she doesnât appear to be giving Morgan any insight into whatâs going on, the fact that sheâs a spy pretty much never plays a part that couldnât be filled with âsheâs just nosyâ, her relationship with other characters never change them or her, sheâs never asked to fill a role that only she can fill. Thereâs never any point in which the main character makes a difference; we would have been just important if we played as a goldfish one of the actual characters carried around
So, in summery; fix pacing, fix or scrap the comprehension/terror bars, explain our job a bit better, and make the mc more impactful that a goldfish
If I seem like a bit of a bully, itâs because I see a lot of potential in this game and donât want it to go to waste. Youâve got a good idea here and I think it should get the attention it deserves. That attention being ruthless criticisms until it becomes the best it can possibly be