I guess it's character development? At first he was like "i trust no one" but after getting to know more people like valos and hershel he starts becoming more trustful... ??
Based on build .6 he's really conflicted because of a very obviously SHIT upbringing. But he's still in the mode where he is not able to recognize that his upbringing was bad (something that's often true of abuse survivors who also tend to make decisions and have attitudes reflective of that abuse.)
I love this so much! next thing you know its gonna hit you with a "Dragons have mates, oh and surprise! your Valos's mate!" but you never know and thats what draws me in! please release more soon but no rush!
Hi, just wanted to say this is an amazing story so far. Great ambient music. Awesome drawing style too, quite Bara style rather than yaoi style which is great, loving Valos and the story development. Keep it up :), so excited to see what's next.
I would add a bit more info to the description because it didn't really hook me, but i'll be trying out the vn because of the positive feedback i'm seeing.
Hello, I don't know if you noticed but the Android version doesn't seem to work it always says that the update not installed even though I never installed the game before or have any files on my phone of it from that matter. I would appreciate if u might be able to take a look. If not that's ok. I'll find another way to play the game.
Mhmm still somehow doesnt work on my phone maybe its has something to do with the update version or things like that because it works on an old phone of mine somehow
This is my first time trying to download this game and it is telling me the same thing. Says I didn't update successfully despite this being a first time download. I try a lot of games on itch and none of the other Apks seem to share a name so I'm at a loss.
I know someone has probably asked this before, but what is the name of the theme playing in the main menu? I love how it reminds me of games like Mass Effect!
I love this game so much! That cliffhanger... how can you tease such a sexy dragon! I love all characters, though so far my favourite is Valos. (heavily tied with Hershel he's defo perfect husband material)
So I have 2(3) Problems with this "game", something I suspect it doesn't want to be. So I'm first going to list my problems and then go a little in depth about them.
1. It's boring 2. It doesn't tell you what it wants from you (3). It's rather linear
1. So by boring I mean that it is basically a book with pictures (yeah I know that's basically what a visual novel is) and it is kind of my fault, I kind of expected a story where every few textboxes I could choose from like all the other VNs I played so far. Now this is obviously not what this wants to be, but I just ask for a little bit choice how my character reacts and so on, it doesn't have to be changing the outcome of the story.
2. About that choice of how my character reacts, I also kind of started off whith the notion that I am the main character of the story, not that I should pretend to be a certain character and I think the game does telling you that poorly, maybe start off with a simple exposition of who my character that I am playing is, because I am playing a character designed by the writer not by me. I might also have this problem because I have a hard time to pretend to be someone else who I am not and it's made especially hard when the game kind of starts of with the illusion that you can choose who you want to be.
(3). Well as the creator already stated in other comments it might become a story with branching paths, but even if it doesn't I will still try to give this story a chance. It's just that I absolutely enjoy playing those branching VNs because I love finding all those different endings and what you have to do to get them.
Summary: It's a nice start, could be improved and I really love the story and the character of Valos and the hint as to who he actually most likely is (maybe I'm completely wrong on that one, but oh well) and am looking forward for more of this story.
Hello. Thank you for taking the time to play and provide feedback. We intend to expand the VN with additional options and player interactions in the future. Currently, the VN is planned to be linear with only one ending; however, there may be multiple endings in the future, most likely two or three. Again, thanks for the feedback, it is greatly appreciated.
I don't know if this would sound too strange to ask this but is there any kind of chance that certain kinks/fetishes could be added to this VN some time later down the road, specifically the kind that are known as Vore under the categories of endosoma, safekeeping, non-fatal, and full tour that don't involve death or digestion along with the possibility of Mpreg if that could be allowed to happen in that world of yours?
Thank you very much for saying that do you happen to have any kind of interest in those kinds of kinks/fetishes by any chance if you don't mind my asking?
Just finished reading TToF from start to the end of Build 4 for the first time and would like to offer some feedback for possible improvements and a bit of my opinion.
While I am fully aware of the text that says that this is still in development and stuff is prone to change, I can only judge the project based on what it is now, not on what it'll become.
Minor spoilers may be found in my "review".
Ok, so let me start with the art style. Love it. I am the type of a person who judges a book by its cover first. If the cover interests me, I'll pick it up and read the synopsis on the back. And then check the contents inside.
That is exactly how I got here, the screenshots for this project appealed to me and I clicked. Happy to say that the in game sprites and CGs are, for my tastes, beautiful. Most BGs have a "WIP" aspect to them, but they still do a good job portraying the scene.
I won't talk about the art style further, even though I could cause I truly enjoyed it. So I'll just end this part by saying that I wouldn't change anything about the art direction except to refine what is already there.
The overall plot is something that I am currently in the mindset for. The feelings of a grand adventure, exploration, meeting new people who over time grow on you and you start to develop all sorts of emotions for them. All that fits.
Which now leads me to my personal issues with this project.
As a person who only read this now, I don't truly know where each build ended. So I'll be talking about stuff as they happened. First off, the pacing. Especially in the beginning. Was just, to me, bad. In the first 10 minutes of reading we were walking down the road, got assaulted by the Rhino bandit, saved and dragged away by Valos, had a moment with him, spent the night and escaped only to be attacked by the Rhino again and saved again.
I don't know, maybe I was reading that part too quickly or time flew by without me noticing. But there's a whole arc here that could have happened, but it didn't. It mostly felt like a checklist of things that the author knew wanted to happen in the story at the beginning. Wrote the template for that with a plan to add meat/content to it later on. Which never happened and the early part of the game was released in its slightly above template phase.
So many things could have happened here to expand the intro of the story. Especially during the scene with Valos at the campfire. Instead, it felt like we were jumping from scene to scene. As a reader, I didn't feel like I got the time for things to settle in before we were moving on to the next set piece.
And that's a shame, cause for me the intro in a fantasy adventure story needs to have that depth, that intrigue so that the reader is gripped instantly. I personally did not get it here.
This does improve later on, but it takes a while to get there. The ending part of the story, which I assume is build 4 content, is done much much better. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We are at the inn now which I assume was build 2. Things are improving a bit here, but a lot of missed opportunities as well. For example the first three days are just a time skip. I did not like that at all. I thought we'd finally settle down and explore our surroundings a bit, get a bit of world lore, talk to Hershel about humans. I REALLY wanted to have a lengthy chat with Hershel and answer all of his questions. That could have been used to warm up to the character as a reader. But alas, we were only told that he is having a huge craving to know about humans and that's about it. The next following days just happened. Valos was out doing fetch quests and the MC was just sitting in the room occasionally reading the history book.
Ah, the history book. Another missed opportunity. As a fantasy story you create your own world that you have to describe in interesting details to your audience for us to understand what is going on, to get the scale of things and our placement in it all. Sadly I didn't feel like I got any of that. When the MC opened the book I was like "Ok, here we go, time to finally get the answers to all my questions about this universe". Nope. Apparently it was mostly a boring book. I really want to know more about this world, the borders, about the conflict between species. How did it happen, why did it happen, how often does it happen, who is winning, who is losing, are there factions? A few breadcrumbs here and there, but ultimately I was left hungry for more. I probably would have been invested much more in the story if I got the needed world building.
And then the map fell from one of the later books. I was so happy to finally see this world even though the map lacks details. It was a step in the right direction for sure. Maybe games like Pervader spoiled me cause in that fantasy world we get the full world map right from the get go so I can pinpoint where we are and how far away certain establishments are from one another. Get at least some sense about the scale of it all. More of that, please. I understand that the MC doesn't know much of the world either, that's why he started his journey. But that's the perfect way for us readers to learn about the fantasy world, through the eyes of the main character who is also curious to see and learn.
Build 3 I assume was the whole scene where we leave the room and go to the kitchen. Definitely another improvement, especially for character development. Here we finally sit down a bit with Hershel and have a conversation with him. Which should have happened in build 2 in my opinion but oh well, better late than never. Overall definitely a much better section of the game.
Build 4, again I assume, is the scene where Valos helps the MC with some fighting skills and then the hot spring section. So much yes. The quality of build 4 is where stuff should have been at since the beginning. I very much enjoyed the conversations here and the descriptions of everything. Nothing felt too rushed or forced. Things just naturally happened and it no longer felt like we're just jumping from one checkpoint scene to the next.
I think build 4 is where the author of this story is finally settling in themselves. Finding their style and improving as they go. In the perfect world the initial parts of this project would be revamped to the standards of build 4.
And now to wrap it all up with some pet peeves and issues I've seen:
When Valos attacks the Rhino with the sword, his sprite is not properly placed so Valos is floating.
valos--pose--1--edit-2.png is the only sprite that is very blurry. Probably an oversight.
Later in the game Valos is using his shocked sprite every time he talks for some reason. It doesn't fit the type of conversation that they are having and looks out of place. Sure he gets shocked when the MC exposes him for being a noble. But he continues to have a shocked expression during the entire conversation.
Valos gets a nickname too quickly in my opinion. The MC calls him "Val" a few times in the inner monologue. The first time when he wakes up in the inn I believe. And it's so out of place to me. Possibly cause we exchanged like 10 sentences with him prior to that. Would probably be okay if the entire build 1 was fleshed out more as I mentioned above. But as it is now that random "Val" drop had me "slow down horny boy".
Twice the MC's inner monologue used brackets to describe something. Which could have just been a normal part of a sentence or something. Specifically:
"The rhino struck me with the handle of his axe (luckily it wasn't the sharp edge), and I fell to the ground..."
and
"I just nod as the dragon squeezes through the door (despite being larger than normal, it's still not quite large enough for him) and closes it behind him."
Near the ending of build 4 Hershel was typed as Herschel. Also near the ending a sentence that starts with "I could use one as well. Take a breather" is repeated twice in a row.
The intro warning has a typo, "This game is contains artistic...". That is, is not needed.
I know that the music will be added later, but I have to mention it. Had to put on an album from CBL in the background while I played TToF cause the silence of it all was not doing the story any justice.
Valos is being TOO good and TOO kind. I get it, it's probably the whole "dragons are very protective of their treasure" trope. But, as I said above, the lack of content and dialogue in build 1 just amplifies his personality to an uncomfortable level initially. He started to grow on me in build 4 finally where we spend some quality time with him.
And that is all. Ultimately a project that has potential but came out before it was done cooking in the oven. Which is a shame cause it does get better later and certain people won't stick for that long if they don't find what they are looking for at the start.
Again, these are just my opinions that are not shared by everyone so no one should take anything I said close to heart. My goal is only to offer constructive feedback so that the project may improve if the developers find anything useful in my wall of text.
Thank you very much for the thoughtful review. The critique is much appreciated.
I'm glad that you stuck with the story until now and that you think the quality has been improving. I hope that this will be the case in the future as well.
As you mentioned, the project is wip, and there's a good possibility some of the earlier parts will be rewritten/fleshed out more.
Typos/programming errors are best reported in the discord server, if you are able to do so.
I actually agree 100% with everything you mentioned. You worded all my issues much better than I could have! After catching up with the current build in one sitting like you did, I walked away with the same feeling of "I want more, but conflicted."
There was just one other thing that I felt should be brought up. The MC reaction to beastmen. He admits he has like zero experience of how the "real world" reacts to things. Its the whole point of him going out of his home town. However he has this deep rooted fear that all beastmen, except for the ones in his town, are completely hostile to humans. He admits nothing really happens to his town because it was so isolated. Yet somehow he has this impression beastmen just continue to raid and pillage human settlements. If his own personal experience with beastmen were those that were non-violent and even likeable in his hometown, when he first meets a beastmen that is of the same mindset (Val)... why is he so distrustful and really an ass to him? Yes the bandit scene happens before hand and thus roots the fear in, but I feel like that shouldn't have been enough to overwrite his own personal experience when meeting his only second person outside of his town. First one is the bandit, second Val. Val being the good guy that aligned with his own experiences... I feel like he wouldn't be so distrustful to have run away? I mean carried him away by basically bridal style run through the forests, hunts him dinner, takes first watch, and listened to and accepted any requests from the MC. That is like soap opera material that would have been flooded with a bunch of meme's saying "I'd ship that".
Something like both interactions with the bandit happens in 1 sitting. before Val takes the MC too far he struggles with being held gets let go and runs away from Val only to run into the bandit who's still chasing them. After that then the campfire scene happens. Granted the MC would be very injured at this point, it would give the story a location on when Val patched up his injuries. It was glossed over with the interaction in the inn, but its mentioned Val did a lot of the patching up and the innkeeper took over from there. The concussion could explain the lack of memories and possible distrust still of Val. But like you said the first 3 chapters were almost rushed.
Now excuse my wall of text as I tried to explain my thinking. I ended up loving the story so I stayed to the end and eagerly wait for more. Such an interesting take of the "human lost in a world of beastmen" genre. What started that fear? It sounded like the MC expected the world to be most human civilization with his deep fear of interacting with beastmen? Since why would he leave the town if he expects all beastmen outside of a few to be so aggressive? He must have expected all major cities etc to be mostly human?
As I said in my OP, the start of the game, especially build 1, felt like a template of a story that the creator wanted to tell. But released it before they sat down and fleshed out the whats whos and whies.
Which lead to the stuff I've commented above and the issue you mentioned as well.
Rotshild said that there is a good chance of a rewrite/fleshing out happening for the start of the game so now we can only hope. That would be a good thing mostly for their sake. Not everyone is gonna stick around with a story if the intro is not that interesting and has glaring issues. The promise of it being better later is not enough for everyone.
I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but my assumption is that TTOF is a mix of a passion project and a learning experience for the dev(s). They are passionate about the story they want to tell, but also use it as "go with the flow and learn along the way". I mean, they are not even sure yet if the story will have multiple endings or not.
Reading their responses to various comments they seem to be very respectful and capable of taking in both the positive and the negative feedback to improve the game. I even joined their Discord to report the bugs I've seen and was informed that they were swiftly resolved.
Based on that I think the project is in good hands and it'll get refined and improved as they go along. We all have to start somewhere. If they use TTOF to practice this format of storytelling, then so be it. That only means their potential next game will start much better.
Did you know, that on Android your app is conflicting with Lunateria app? And therefore you can't install both of them. Because both of you (developers), haven't changed the name of package (that line in Android Manifest - "com.org.androidset") to your chosen name of package.
Well... Technically you can install both. But is required for you as end user, to change Android Manifest in one of the packages, using tools for viewing and editing *.apks. And you must resign it with developer signing keychain. And Android will definetly say that resulting apk is dangerous (because test signing keys).
(plus I remember to been having a real headache when I was doing it, although I don't remeber exactly how I managed to make it work)
Too much work for such small outcome :)
Oh, and BTW - there is a tutorial for how to make android package with Renpy AND set an actual package name right (under Step 3)
...Meh, losing access to a (somewhat outdated) demo so I can read an on-going VN isn't a big deal and, as an end user, doing what should be the job any half-decent creator(s) should already be doing anyways in order to regain access to said demo I wasn't planning on playing through again (but, admittedly, was too lazy to uninstall, since it wasn't really taking up any space) isn't really worth that much effort ('specially by the end user in the situation) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Small choices can have wide-ranging consequences that aren't apparent immediately. Besides, kinetic novels still have a degree of choice that nudges the story in one direction or the other. For an example, see Adastra.
Different people have different tastes in VN. Personally I really enjoyed Adastra, much like I've enjoyed this, because the plot was absolutely brilliant. You don't need to have complex choice-making mechanics in a game for it to be good in my eyes.
I took your original post as saying 'I'll hate this game because it's linear, despite offering some choices'. Personally, I took 'hate' as a strong word in that context, possibly unsuitable for your intentions - it felt as though you were, to use your own words, 'trashing' the game. Nobody is attempting to 'trash' you, rather they are trying to explain that a story can be good without having complex choices. You're free to have your own opinion on the matter, but please don't attempt to play the victim by insulting the game and then being incredibly shocked when people react negatively.
This VN is fantastic it has a lot of potential, with numerous plots to grow as well as characters and the MC. It already has a complete setting and characters who aren't flat or under development; the artwork is genuinely wonderful and I truly hope that the creator receives a lot of support and that everyone gives this VN a try!
The android version will not work. It keeps saying that it can't be installed or something like that, but I've never downloaded it before now so idk why it won't work.
However, I think it's a shame that we are forced to follow a certain timeline without being able to decide what the character is going to do (even if on rare occasions there are some choices but nothing more). I would find it even more interesting to be able to suggest more often that the player do this or that action.
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I guess it's character development? At first he was like "i trust no one" but after getting to know more people like valos and hershel he starts becoming more trustful... ??
Based on build .6 he's really conflicted because of a very obviously SHIT upbringing. But he's still in the mode where he is not able to recognize that his upbringing was bad (something that's often true of abuse survivors who also tend to make decisions and have attitudes reflective of that abuse.)
Keep up the fantastic work, great update with an unexpected twist that hopefully gets addressed in the future builds.
hey, i'm no expert in the matter but by looking at the ss I think it might just be your device storage but I may be wrong
I’m guessing there will be nsfw scenes in the future but there is also violence which is why I’m guessing it’s currently in the section it is in
It still in early stage, it still have room to grow into good story. So far, I enjoy this VN. Can't wait to see how story unfold for us.
Keep it up and Merry Christmas to everyone and VN folks!!
I love this so much! next thing you know its gonna hit you with a "Dragons have mates, oh and surprise! your Valos's mate!" but you never know and thats what draws me in! please release more soon but no rush!
hello. This is one of the best vns i played so far. Keep it up.
Hi, just wanted to say this is an amazing story so far. Great ambient music. Awesome drawing style too, quite Bara style rather than yaoi style which is great, loving Valos and the story development. Keep it up :), so excited to see what's next.
I would add a bit more info to the description because it didn't really hook me, but i'll be trying out the vn because of the positive feedback i'm seeing.
Edit: it's good!
Love this vn <3 Definitely deserves more attention
I liked it a lot
You can hide the text box by pressing H
Sorry don’t know the controls for android
This is such a hidden gem :)
Hello, I don't know if you noticed but the Android version doesn't seem to work it always says that the update not installed even though I never installed the game before or have any files on my phone of it from that matter. I would appreciate if u might be able to take a look. If not that's ok. I'll find another way to play the game.
Hello, there was an issue with the Android version, but it should now be fixed. Please let me know if it still doesn't work. Thanks
Mhmm still somehow doesnt work on my phone maybe its has something to do with the update version or things like that because it works on an old phone of mine somehow
We haven't had any other reports of Android issues, and since the game works on your old phone, it's possible that it's simply your current phone.
Yeah... Sad face TwT...
Well thx for checking again ^^
Now I atleast know
This is my first time trying to download this game and it is telling me the same thing. Says I didn't update successfully despite this being a first time download. I try a lot of games on itch and none of the other Apks seem to share a name so I'm at a loss.
nice update keep up the work
You forget to hide the pervious Valos🧐
Fixed*
Thanks.
Two Valos' are better than one?
I know someone has probably asked this before, but what is the name of the theme playing in the main menu? I love how it reminds me of games like Mass Effect!
The game definitely deserves more popularity than right now, this is great stuff right here. <3
I love this game so much! That cliffhanger... how can you tease such a sexy dragon! I love all characters, though so far my favourite is Valos. (heavily tied with Hershel he's defo perfect husband material)
Cant wait for the next build, I love it!!!
I understand that Valos is supposed to be the main bae, but did Hershel had to be such perfect husband material? 😳
So I have 2(3) Problems with this "game", something I suspect it doesn't want to be. So I'm first going to list my problems and then go a little in depth about them.
1. It's boring
2. It doesn't tell you what it wants from you
(3). It's rather linear
1.
So by boring I mean that it is basically a book with pictures (yeah I know that's basically what a visual novel is) and it is kind of my fault, I kind of expected a story where every few textboxes I could choose from like all the other VNs I played so far. Now this is obviously not what this wants to be, but I just ask for a little bit choice how my character reacts and so on, it doesn't have to be changing the outcome of the story.
2.
About that choice of how my character reacts, I also kind of started off whith the notion that I am the main character of the story, not that I should pretend to be a certain character and I think the game does telling you that poorly, maybe start off with a simple exposition of who my character that I am playing is, because I am playing a character designed by the writer not by me. I might also have this problem because I have a hard time to pretend to be someone else who I am not and it's made especially hard when the game kind of starts of with the illusion that you can choose who you want to be.
(3).
Well as the creator already stated in other comments it might become a story with branching paths, but even if it doesn't I will still try to give this story a chance. It's just that I absolutely enjoy playing those branching VNs because I love finding all those different endings and what you have to do to get them.
Summary:
It's a nice start, could be improved and I really love the story and the character of Valos and the hint as to who he actually most likely is (maybe I'm completely wrong on that one, but oh well) and am looking forward for more of this story.
Hello. Thank you for taking the time to play and provide feedback. We intend to expand the VN with additional options and player interactions in the future. Currently, the VN is planned to be linear with only one ending; however, there may be multiple endings in the future, most likely two or three. Again, thanks for the feedback, it is greatly appreciated.
Just finished it for the first time. Omg I need more. Lol but seriously it was really good.
I don't know if this would sound too strange to ask this but is there any kind of chance that certain kinks/fetishes could be added to this VN some time later down the road, specifically the kind that are known as Vore under the categories of endosoma, safekeeping, non-fatal, and full tour that don't involve death or digestion along with the possibility of Mpreg if that could be allowed to happen in that world of yours?
Definitely not strange at all
Thank you very much for saying that do you happen to have any kind of interest in those kinds of kinks/fetishes by any chance if you don't mind my asking?
Bruh, this guy has been doing this everywhere, get out of here.
It was just a simple question asked for curiosity's sake, after all, there's no telling what the creator will or will not add later on in the future.
really enjoyed the new build! keep up the good work
Just finished reading TToF from start to the end of Build 4 for the first time and would like to offer some feedback for possible improvements and a bit of my opinion.
While I am fully aware of the text that says that this is still in development and stuff is prone to change, I can only judge the project based on what it is now, not on what it'll become.
Minor spoilers may be found in my "review".
Ok, so let me start with the art style. Love it. I am the type of a person who judges a book by its cover first. If the cover interests me, I'll pick it up and read the synopsis on the back. And then check the contents inside.
That is exactly how I got here, the screenshots for this project appealed to me and I clicked. Happy to say that the in game sprites and CGs are, for my tastes, beautiful. Most BGs have a "WIP" aspect to them, but they still do a good job portraying the scene.
I won't talk about the art style further, even though I could cause I truly enjoyed it. So I'll just end this part by saying that I wouldn't change anything about the art direction except to refine what is already there.
The overall plot is something that I am currently in the mindset for. The feelings of a grand adventure, exploration, meeting new people who over time grow on you and you start to develop all sorts of emotions for them. All that fits.
Which now leads me to my personal issues with this project.
As a person who only read this now, I don't truly know where each build ended. So I'll be talking about stuff as they happened. First off, the pacing. Especially in the beginning. Was just, to me, bad. In the first 10 minutes of reading we were walking down the road, got assaulted by the Rhino bandit, saved and dragged away by Valos, had a moment with him, spent the night and escaped only to be attacked by the Rhino again and saved again.
I don't know, maybe I was reading that part too quickly or time flew by without me noticing. But there's a whole arc here that could have happened, but it didn't. It mostly felt like a checklist of things that the author knew wanted to happen in the story at the beginning. Wrote the template for that with a plan to add meat/content to it later on. Which never happened and the early part of the game was released in its slightly above template phase.
So many things could have happened here to expand the intro of the story. Especially during the scene with Valos at the campfire. Instead, it felt like we were jumping from scene to scene. As a reader, I didn't feel like I got the time for things to settle in before we were moving on to the next set piece.
And that's a shame, cause for me the intro in a fantasy adventure story needs to have that depth, that intrigue so that the reader is gripped instantly. I personally did not get it here.
This does improve later on, but it takes a while to get there. The ending part of the story, which I assume is build 4 content, is done much much better. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We are at the inn now which I assume was build 2. Things are improving a bit here, but a lot of missed opportunities as well. For example the first three days are just a time skip. I did not like that at all. I thought we'd finally settle down and explore our surroundings a bit, get a bit of world lore, talk to Hershel about humans. I REALLY wanted to have a lengthy chat with Hershel and answer all of his questions. That could have been used to warm up to the character as a reader. But alas, we were only told that he is having a huge craving to know about humans and that's about it. The next following days just happened. Valos was out doing fetch quests and the MC was just sitting in the room occasionally reading the history book.
Ah, the history book. Another missed opportunity. As a fantasy story you create your own world that you have to describe in interesting details to your audience for us to understand what is going on, to get the scale of things and our placement in it all. Sadly I didn't feel like I got any of that. When the MC opened the book I was like "Ok, here we go, time to finally get the answers to all my questions about this universe". Nope. Apparently it was mostly a boring book. I really want to know more about this world, the borders, about the conflict between species. How did it happen, why did it happen, how often does it happen, who is winning, who is losing, are there factions? A few breadcrumbs here and there, but ultimately I was left hungry for more. I probably would have been invested much more in the story if I got the needed world building.
And then the map fell from one of the later books. I was so happy to finally see this world even though the map lacks details. It was a step in the right direction for sure. Maybe games like Pervader spoiled me cause in that fantasy world we get the full world map right from the get go so I can pinpoint where we are and how far away certain establishments are from one another. Get at least some sense about the scale of it all. More of that, please. I understand that the MC doesn't know much of the world either, that's why he started his journey. But that's the perfect way for us readers to learn about the fantasy world, through the eyes of the main character who is also curious to see and learn.
Build 3 I assume was the whole scene where we leave the room and go to the kitchen. Definitely another improvement, especially for character development. Here we finally sit down a bit with Hershel and have a conversation with him. Which should have happened in build 2 in my opinion but oh well, better late than never. Overall definitely a much better section of the game.
Build 4, again I assume, is the scene where Valos helps the MC with some fighting skills and then the hot spring section. So much yes. The quality of build 4 is where stuff should have been at since the beginning. I very much enjoyed the conversations here and the descriptions of everything. Nothing felt too rushed or forced. Things just naturally happened and it no longer felt like we're just jumping from one checkpoint scene to the next.
I think build 4 is where the author of this story is finally settling in themselves. Finding their style and improving as they go. In the perfect world the initial parts of this project would be revamped to the standards of build 4.
And now to wrap it all up with some pet peeves and issues I've seen:
When Valos attacks the Rhino with the sword, his sprite is not properly placed so Valos is floating.
valos--pose--1--edit-2.png is the only sprite that is very blurry. Probably an oversight.
Later in the game Valos is using his shocked sprite every time he talks for some reason. It doesn't fit the type of conversation that they are having and looks out of place. Sure he gets shocked when the MC exposes him for being a noble. But he continues to have a shocked expression during the entire conversation.
Valos gets a nickname too quickly in my opinion. The MC calls him "Val" a few times in the inner monologue. The first time when he wakes up in the inn I believe. And it's so out of place to me. Possibly cause we exchanged like 10 sentences with him prior to that. Would probably be okay if the entire build 1 was fleshed out more as I mentioned above. But as it is now that random "Val" drop had me "slow down horny boy".
Twice the MC's inner monologue used brackets to describe something. Which could have just been a normal part of a sentence or something. Specifically:
"The rhino struck me with the handle of his axe (luckily it wasn't the sharp edge), and I fell to the ground..."
and
"I just nod as the dragon squeezes through the door (despite being larger than normal, it's still not quite large enough for him) and closes it behind him."
Near the ending of build 4 Hershel was typed as Herschel. Also near the ending a sentence that starts with "I could use one as well. Take a breather" is repeated twice in a row.
The intro warning has a typo, "This game is contains artistic...". That is, is not needed.
I know that the music will be added later, but I have to mention it. Had to put on an album from CBL in the background while I played TToF cause the silence of it all was not doing the story any justice.
Valos is being TOO good and TOO kind. I get it, it's probably the whole "dragons are very protective of their treasure" trope. But, as I said above, the lack of content and dialogue in build 1 just amplifies his personality to an uncomfortable level initially. He started to grow on me in build 4 finally where we spend some quality time with him.
And that is all. Ultimately a project that has potential but came out before it was done cooking in the oven. Which is a shame cause it does get better later and certain people won't stick for that long if they don't find what they are looking for at the start.
Again, these are just my opinions that are not shared by everyone so no one should take anything I said close to heart. My goal is only to offer constructive feedback so that the project may improve if the developers find anything useful in my wall of text.
I'll definitely come back for Build 5.
Hello!
Thank you very much for the thoughtful review. The critique is much appreciated.
I'm glad that you stuck with the story until now and that you think the quality has been improving. I hope that this will be the case in the future as well.
As you mentioned, the project is wip, and there's a good possibility some of the earlier parts will be rewritten/fleshed out more.
Typos/programming errors are best reported in the discord server, if you are able to do so.
Again, thank you for your thoughts!
Thank YOU for taking the time to read my wall of text.
I actually agree 100% with everything you mentioned. You worded all my issues much better than I could have! After catching up with the current build in one sitting like you did, I walked away with the same feeling of "I want more, but conflicted."
There was just one other thing that I felt should be brought up. The MC reaction to beastmen. He admits he has like zero experience of how the "real world" reacts to things. Its the whole point of him going out of his home town. However he has this deep rooted fear that all beastmen, except for the ones in his town, are completely hostile to humans. He admits nothing really happens to his town because it was so isolated. Yet somehow he has this impression beastmen just continue to raid and pillage human settlements. If his own personal experience with beastmen were those that were non-violent and even likeable in his hometown, when he first meets a beastmen that is of the same mindset (Val)... why is he so distrustful and really an ass to him? Yes the bandit scene happens before hand and thus roots the fear in, but I feel like that shouldn't have been enough to overwrite his own personal experience when meeting his only second person outside of his town. First one is the bandit, second Val. Val being the good guy that aligned with his own experiences... I feel like he wouldn't be so distrustful to have run away? I mean carried him away by basically bridal style run through the forests, hunts him dinner, takes first watch, and listened to and accepted any requests from the MC. That is like soap opera material that would have been flooded with a bunch of meme's saying "I'd ship that".
Something like both interactions with the bandit happens in 1 sitting. before Val takes the MC too far he struggles with being held gets let go and runs away from Val only to run into the bandit who's still chasing them. After that then the campfire scene happens. Granted the MC would be very injured at this point, it would give the story a location on when Val patched up his injuries. It was glossed over with the interaction in the inn, but its mentioned Val did a lot of the patching up and the innkeeper took over from there. The concussion could explain the lack of memories and possible distrust still of Val. But like you said the first 3 chapters were almost rushed.
Now excuse my wall of text as I tried to explain my thinking. I ended up loving the story so I stayed to the end and eagerly wait for more. Such an interesting take of the "human lost in a world of beastmen" genre. What started that fear? It sounded like the MC expected the world to be most human civilization with his deep fear of interacting with beastmen? Since why would he leave the town if he expects all beastmen outside of a few to be so aggressive? He must have expected all major cities etc to be mostly human?
As I said in my OP, the start of the game, especially build 1, felt like a template of a story that the creator wanted to tell. But released it before they sat down and fleshed out the whats whos and whies.
Which lead to the stuff I've commented above and the issue you mentioned as well.
Rotshild said that there is a good chance of a rewrite/fleshing out happening for the start of the game so now we can only hope. That would be a good thing mostly for their sake. Not everyone is gonna stick around with a story if the intro is not that interesting and has glaring issues. The promise of it being better later is not enough for everyone.
I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but my assumption is that TTOF is a mix of a passion project and a learning experience for the dev(s). They are passionate about the story they want to tell, but also use it as "go with the flow and learn along the way". I mean, they are not even sure yet if the story will have multiple endings or not.
Reading their responses to various comments they seem to be very respectful and capable of taking in both the positive and the negative feedback to improve the game. I even joined their Discord to report the bugs I've seen and was informed that they were swiftly resolved.
Based on that I think the project is in good hands and it'll get refined and improved as they go along. We all have to start somewhere. If they use TTOF to practice this format of storytelling, then so be it. That only means their potential next game will start much better.
how to be not hroneh in front of a dragon
Do the choices matter or is this vn linear
The vn is currently linear, however this may change in the future.
quick question how many route are in this game
only one love interest so far
Really enjoyed this visual novel, can’t wait for the next update! Keep up the amazing work
Did you know, that on Android your app is conflicting with Lunateria app? And therefore you can't install both of them. Because both of you (developers), haven't changed the name of package (that line in Android Manifest - "com.org.androidset") to your chosen name of package.
OMG, this worked! Uninstalled the Lunateria (demo) and it let me install TToF! :)
...Now if only the creators of both games would update the names, this wouldn't be an issue... :-/
Well... Technically you can install both. But is required for you as end user, to change Android Manifest in one of the packages, using tools for viewing and editing *.apks. And you must resign it with developer signing keychain. And Android will definetly say that resulting apk is dangerous (because test signing keys).
(plus I remember to been having a real headache when I was doing it, although I don't remeber exactly how I managed to make it work)
Too much work for such small outcome :)
Oh, and BTW - there is a tutorial for how to make android package with Renpy AND set an actual package name right (under Step 3)
https://lewdpixels.com/features/building-your-own-android-a-renpy-howto/
...Meh, losing access to a (somewhat outdated) demo so I can read an on-going VN isn't a big deal and, as an end user, doing what should be the job any half-decent creator(s) should already be doing anyways in order to regain access to said demo I wasn't planning on playing through again (but, admittedly, was too lazy to uninstall, since it wasn't really taking up any space) isn't really worth that much effort ('specially by the end user in the situation) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm getting the impression this is a kinetic novel. Why do you have choice menus at all?
Small choices can have wide-ranging consequences that aren't apparent immediately. Besides, kinetic novels still have a degree of choice that nudges the story in one direction or the other. For an example, see Adastra.
"see this game that you hate because it is exactly like what I just described"
k so you're saying I'll hate this game, got it
Maybe it's just not for you then :)
Different people have different tastes in VN. Personally I really enjoyed Adastra, much like I've enjoyed this, because the plot was absolutely brilliant. You don't need to have complex choice-making mechanics in a game for it to be good in my eyes.
Just my opinion, feel free to have your own.
That... doesn't differ at all from my opinion.
I have a feeling everyone who's trashing me didn't actually even read my post.
I don't know why this happens so often... no one seems to have any clue what I'm saying no matter how many times or different ways I say it...
I took your original post as saying 'I'll hate this game because it's linear, despite offering some choices'. Personally, I took 'hate' as a strong word in that context, possibly unsuitable for your intentions - it felt as though you were, to use your own words, 'trashing' the game. Nobody is attempting to 'trash' you, rather they are trying to explain that a story can be good without having complex choices. You're free to have your own opinion on the matter, but please don't attempt to play the victim by insulting the game and then being incredibly shocked when people react negatively.
Hey look another troll to block
A kinetic visual novel can still have choices regardless if it has an effect on the story or not.
It certainly can. Except, that's utterly horrendous design unless it is clearly stated that it is a kinetic novel.
This VN is fantastic it has a lot of potential, with numerous plots to grow as well as characters and the MC. It already has a complete setting and characters who aren't flat or under development; the artwork is genuinely wonderful and I truly hope that the creator receives a lot of support and that everyone gives this VN a try!
Sorry for the inconvenience, the files have been updated and all errors should be resolved.
I just download it on android and it always crash
The android version will not work. It keeps saying that it can't be installed or something like that, but I've never downloaded it before now so idk why it won't work.
I tried to download the game for windows and it worked at first but then it deleted itself
Some reason, I can't install you game in my phone. It says it wants to update but it's not installed. Even if I say yes, it says "app not installed".
Delete the old version
I know. But the problem is it's not there.
The old version is not installed. I tried to find in my folders, through my PC, nothing.
I really love this VN!
However, I think it's a shame that we are forced to follow a certain timeline without being able to decide what the character is going to do (even if on rare occasions there are some choices but nothing more). I would find it even more interesting to be able to suggest more often that the player do this or that action.
This was a great. The story was intriguing and has a degree of mystery to it.
Looks promising
Ill wait for future update!