Hanako Games

My thoughts, suggestions.

#1 by Icehawk - Jun 12 2012

Hi, I am a new customer from Steam, I bought the game yesterday, I am a heterosexual guy. I liked the game, but was disappointed there is no option to play as a guy...and the fact that the guy the game tries to shove you towards, Damien, asks for your soul. In future games, it should be easier to get romantic options with other characters, and I don't think the game should practically throw one particular romantic option at you. I was also annoyed that you can't beat Damien in a fight, even with a character literally named "Mary Sue."

Also, you are a magic wielding character in a world filled with exotic things..but you only go to a mostly normal mall in your spare time, and a normal lake. I wanted a booksmart character who was good at invisibility/seeing through illusions and healing/body modification magic, with a passing knowledge in other subjects- I spent a lot of time studying, reloaded the game to get +3's more often, got more than 20 in all other areas of magic, and used two magic items to increase my red and black magic to more than 50.

I got "Rare Moth Breeder" as a future career while playing as a character with 100 green, 100 blue, and 70 smarts. I think you should choose a career in sequels instead of having one randomly chosen for you, that sounds like a rather boring career. I envisioned my character as a bookworm who studied a lot to gain awesome powers, with a focus on healing people. Which made it all the more wierd that she apparently ended up a rare moth breeder. Also, your magical skills almost never came up in day to day life, so your reality warping powers were generally only useful in tests, which was bit annoying.

All magic increasing items should cost a similar amount, the cost varies too much and makes little sense. I would like it if characters made more references to my skills, and actually were impressed in dialogue if I had a high skill in an area. Also, you should have the ability to visit any student you want after class, just so that you can form friendships with other people.

Using magic more often, and having more magical places to visit, would make the game more fun for me. It is unfortunate that magic actually was a small part of the game. It is still a nice game, especially since you probably have a small development team. I enjoyed it, I look forward to the sequel, and I hope we have the ability to port old characters.


Does anyone share my thoughts on the subject, or have something to add?

#2 by hanako - Jun 12 2012

Just a couple of quick notes:

The 'future career' thing is not your character's real future, it's just the sort of thing people write in yearbooks, where they joke about what people may become when they grow up. Mary Sue's future beyond the end of the game is not set at all. There may or may not ever be later games in the series where you can import this character and play further.

We are hoping to produce a Wolf Hall game next - that will obviously feature a male PC and different romantic options, and pretty much a completely different storyline (consider how much living with Ellen and Virginia affects the Horse Hall PC's plot!) But it's not possible to make all the characters in the school available for relationships in each game unless I take twenty years to write it. Much more practical to do five or six at a time!

(As for Damien - brush him off at Initiation and you'll never hear from him again for the whole rest of the game.)

Some of your other comments are things we're already thinking about, but I can't go into specifics on games that don't exist yet, obviously

#3 by wildwizz - Jun 15 2012

I think that a wolf hall game would be good, possibly being in your second year, so that you can use more advanced magic

#4 by wowchic97 - Jun 20 2012

hanako:

We are hoping to produce a Wolf Hall game next - that will obviously feature a male PC and different romantic options, and pretty much a completely different storyline

I do hope you will at least give the option to be a girl? I really loved the series and though I would still play it if I had to be a male, I would love if you could give the option to be either. Are you not planning on doing so?

#5 by hanako - Jun 20 2012

You can't be a girl in Wolf Hall any more than you could be a boy in Horse Hall. That's not how the Hall system works!

#6 by wowchic97 - Jun 20 2012

hanako:

You can't be a girl in Wolf Hall any more than you could be a boy in Horse Hall. That's not how the Hall system works!

Aww. Though I should of realized that already it's a bummer. I wish I could continue the story as a girl, but alas I do look forward to the new game!

#7 by ferdielance - Jul 7 2012

I'd be disappointed if an option to play as a boy were shoehorned into this game. There are plenty of games where one can choose to play as male or female, but where one sex gets shortchanged. There are even more where you have to play as a guy.

It's kind of nice to have games where the story explicitly assumes your character is female and works from there. It balances the unfairness out just a little.