Hanako Games

Early release

#1 by hanako - May 22 2010

Now available on the Date Warp homepage.

http://www.hanakogames.com/datewarp.shtml

PLEASE let me know immediately if you have any problems with the downloads!

#2 by Koori Odoriko - May 22 2010

No problems for me with the windows version! Just played through one of the endings. The Game is really fun, and really pretty. great job!

#3 by biscuit - May 23 2010

I like it so far. Very pretty, fun, and interesting story.

Just one question out of curiousity: Why the lightbulbs to make each decision? It's a unique game mechanic and kinda neat, but drags me out of the story immersion.

#4 by hanako - May 23 2010

Because I personally get tired eyes reading long stretches of VNs without a break and like to have a little bit of minigame to mix it up - but did not want to go as far as Fatal Hearts did with the varied puzzles and challenges.

It also makes the choice feel a little more significant if you had to work a bit in order to make it. And it's a game about making choices... sort of meta that way.

At one point we were thinking of making the minigame harder as the game went along, but decided that making the puzzles get head-scratchingly hard really would break immersion too much.

#5 by Koori Odoriko - May 23 2010

I personally liked the light bulb mini games, it kind of made me feel like I did when I had played Yo-Jin-Bo and you had to make significant decisions in a short amount of time. In other words it just added to the story rather than taking away from it for me anyways. Making you work for your decision just made you think harder about what you really wanted to do.

Think you might put out a short strategy guide to get all the endings? Or am I just the only one kind of confused about how to get a few endings? Cause I believe I've gotten about 7 of the eleven endings. *Somewhat of a spoiler? * I just hope the other four are somewhat happier. There is more then one happy ending in the game right? As the only real happy ending I've gotten is with Rafael. I'm going to be quite sad if there isn't.

#6 by hanako - May 23 2010

I may eventually but I'd rather get people talking about the endings amongst themselves, and figuring out what they have and haven't gotten.

I'll fork off a thread for ending discussion to help keep spoilers segregated.

#7 by Cerberusia - May 23 2010

I throroughly enjoyed it; I tried the demo, bought it and within a few hours I'd found all 11 endings (through methodical working and judicious use of the skip function for already-seen text). I really liked the lightbulb-thingamajig for the choices, although I'm not sure why - the puzzle aspect, maybe? I found the characters engaging as well - lovely designs, by the way. Also, the Fatal Hearts-esque story setup; the underlying story events are still basically the same, but your actions affect the other characters which affects the ending.

Now to post more detailed, spoilery thoughts in the endings thread...

#8 by Riviera - May 25 2010

I loved it, definitely worth the $20.

My only niggling bother was... no CG gallery??

I've been so used to having those with VNs that it felt weird not to have one here.. plus I really liked those CG scenes. I'd like to see them again!

#9 by Koori Odoriko - May 25 2010

Riviera:

I loved it, definitely worth the $20.

My only niggling bother was... no CG gallery??

I've been so used to having those with VNs that it felt weird not to have one here.. plus I really liked those CG scenes. I'd like to see them again!

I'm actually quite glad that I wasn't the only one confused when I saw that there was no gallery, I thought that it might have been hidden somewhere, and/or unavailable until you got all of the endings. There are some CG's that I wouldn't mind looking at once again as well. XD

#10 by Spiky Caterpillar - May 25 2010

I'm quite pleased to see people enjoying the game! And I'll be adding a CG gallery in the next update (not sure exactly when that will be yet, but Soon!)

#11 by Koori Odoriko - May 25 2010

Spiky Caterpillar:

I'm quite pleased to see people enjoying the game! And I'll be adding a CG gallery in the next update (not sure exactly when that will be yet, but Soon!)

Yay!