Hanako Games

Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#1 by hanako - Jun 1 2013

This is completely non-binding. Anything discussed here is NOT in development and may never be in development, regardless of votes. Just getting that out of the way.

Now, that said... do any of these silly concepts tickle your fancy so much that you will now sulk for years because I'm probably never going to have time to write them?

(Anything listed here, I have at least enough notes about that I can answer some vague questions if you want to know. Many of these were sketched out briefly and then dropped with a 'nah')

#2 by Franka - Jun 2 2013

I want three of those, and I will now go to my grave bemoaning what never was...

(Dark lesbian steampunk, Design-your-own superhero, Future LLTQ)

The other three sound too generic/outside my personal interests, and I can die content without ever seeing them.

So I voted for superhero, that sounds outright delightful. And different.

#3 by Karlminion - Jun 2 2013

I voted for the lesbian steampunk; I'm an unashamed les fan, after all.

Makes me sad that this won't happen here, though. But what would it look like if you did do it, Hanako?

#4 by hanako - Jun 2 2013

As I'm not an artist, I can't really tell you what it would look like, it would depend on who I could get to do it! For that game, I have a full story outline already, but it kinda needs an awful lot of very fancy art, for a game that would likely not sell very much.

#5 by Karlminion - Jun 2 2013

I didn't mean 'look like' as in actually what it would look like, but details in general about the thing. Who's the heroine, does it feature romance, will there be naughty bits, why's it all going down, etc etc.

#6 by hanako - Jun 2 2013

Can't say too much as it may still happen eventually, but the gist of it is that the protagonist is a poor Irish-American girl incarcerated in an late-1800s asylum, sort of (it's complicated). And while she's there, she keeps seeing this other girl who may or may not really exist. Ghost? Spirit? Fellow inmate? Figment of her imagination?

So the central story is about discovering the mystery at the heart of the asylum and the truth about the moonlight girl.

As currently outlined there are only two full romance options, but that's actually three paths (one has a Light Route and a Dark Route) plus a strange little partial path. It's possible something else could develop while writing it out properly, but at the moment most other main characters are male and I wanted this game to be pure yuri, which does limit the romance possibilities. A last-minute hookup with some other character's mother doesn't sound terribly fulfilling, does it?


It is also designed to have optional naughty-bits content, which would probably need to be sold separately to avoid getting into trouble or causing people who were not into that to see it by accident.

Sex, death, insanity, and weird machines.

#7 by FantasyFan - Jun 2 2013

That lesbian steampunk idea sounds AWESOME. Of course, you had me at the word "lesbian," but the story sounds so dark and mysterious and all that good stuff. I'd love to see that developed.

The create-your-own superhero and the space one sound cool too.

What would the gender-choose fantasy RPG be like?

#8 by hanako - Jun 2 2013

My most recent half-baked RPG idea is basically playing with the plot concepts from an old and not that well-known fantasy series whose author died right after finishing the first book, leaving a handful of dedicated fans who will never know what happens next. This wouldn't answer that either as it's not quite the same story, but it's got a lot of the same elements, particularly if the protagonist is female.

You're on a quest to learn a rare and powerful magic. You've been following rumors of a wizard from country to country and you think you're getting close, but you've wandered into the middle of a civil war. You try to avoid the battles, but you get cornered by a big scary guy and have to fight - and then suddenly he begs for mercy and swears eternal fealty to you in exchange for his life. And he takes that life debt pretty seriously. He insists on helping you and won't leave you alone.

As the story progresses you keep getting saddled with more party members and more responsibility that you were never really looking for, while trying and failing to achieve your own goals. Circumstances force you back to your home and the past you tried to leave behind you. And of course there's a Great Evil that only you can fight.



Considering that Winter Wolves already has several VN/RPGs out there, it's pretty unlikely that I'd run with this when I have so many other ideas to play with.

Previous half-baked RPG ideas have included:

something about fighting twisted alien monsters with the power of rock (was trying to design a kind of rhythm mechanic, it didn't work out)

an all-girl dungeon crawl in Baldur's Gate style

a Torment-style RPG which starts with a library being sucked through a dimensional portal into a weird smashed-together nexus space of different worlds

#9 by Gabihime - Jun 2 2013

hanako:

something about fighting twisted alien monsters with the power of rock (was trying to design a kind of rhythm mechanic, it didn't work out)

I can always put my faith in a loud guitar.

The two half-baked ideas

#10 by ElCantardelaLunaOscura - Jun 2 2013

sound awesome! I'd think they would sell quite well. The one of the asylum sounds pretty exciting (well, I love that king of plots) the only things ofr me is the lesbian thing, not homophobic but I prefer hetero paths.

#11 by Karlminion - Jun 2 2013

If you ask me there aren't enough yaoi or yuri-friendly games out there. If there are, I want to know about them!

#12 by Oki - Jun 3 2013

Not really, I like what you're doing now better.

#13 by Tenarium - Jun 3 2013

For someone who?s not making these games, you?re incredibly descript as to what?s going on with them! I voted for the fantasy one and considering I LP the vast majority of your games, my vote counts as ten right?

#14 by Gabihime - Jun 3 2013

Speaking from experience, there's rarely a dearth of ideas. So Hanako's got to carefully consider what she wants to commit resources to, and part of that is thinking about how well the game will sell -- including how large the potential audience will be.

I'm assuming that MD has the largest player base simply because it's also available on steam, so Hanachu also has to consider -- to some degree -- how likely a game is to be picked up by Steam when she considers beginning development. I'm not saying it's a make or break, but it certainly is an issue to consider.

And although there are a small number of people interested in playing games that focus on same sex relationships (inside Hanako's demographic of people interested in playing anime styled stat-heavy visual novel otome games) the audience is simply not that large in the English speaking world. It's sure bigger than it was ten years ago. Sure, I like to play games like that, and I'm sure many of the hardcore fans that visit this forum and take part in her surveys would too, but frankly, we're probably a relatively small fraction of the player base.

Mostly, what Hanako's players seem to be interested in (based on comments I've seen on Steam, the fandom, and tumblr posts) are F x M romance options. Some of them like the F x F elements, but it's not really what they're there for (and some people complain bitterly about them, naturally). So Hanako has to consider what the large majority of her players may be interested in playing. That's just good sense.

Sometimes that means not working on a project that's really interesting, or otherwise putting on the back burner until she can fund it with the proceeds from a more successful project. Everything costs money to create, because resources aren't free, unfortunately.

I don't make commercial games because I well know I could never sell them. My range of interests are just too narrow to be popular in any kind of mainstream, even the mainstream of crazy girls who spend all their time playing otome games XD (of which I am one, natch).

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I'm interested in playing whatever it is that Hanako comes up with, because I like the way her brain works.

#15 by hanako - Jun 3 2013

Tenarium:

For someone who?s not making these games, you?re incredibly descript as to what?s going on with them! I voted for the fantasy one and considering I LP the vast majority of your games, my vote counts as ten right?

I have ideas all the time, I can't go out for lunch without coming up with a game idea! Most of them get discussed briefly with Spiky and quickly forgotten forever. Some of them get as far as me writing up some notes about them. Some are incredibly silly and get quickly prototyped for the lulz and thrown away (see: RAIN OF SHARKS. it wasn't exactly a serious game plan.)

But I can't possibly do them all. I only manage to finish about one game a year.

Sometimes an idea will sit around in my 'maybe someday' file for so long that it eventually bursts out and has to be made. The Royal Trap was a few years in the cooker before I finally had to write it and get it out of the way. So was Magical Diary... people who'd been around long enough may remember back when the project was called 'Super Charm School'.

Any of these games might be made after Wolf Hall. Or perhaps something else even more awesome will have occurred to me by then. No way to know.

... but the fantasy RPG is extremely unlikely unless Spiky suddenly becomes obsessed with writing a really awesome engine.

#16 by Gabihime - Jun 3 2013

hanako:

So was Magical Diary... people who'd been around long enough may remember back when the project was called 'Super Charm School'.

HDFKILHGFDHGBGKJ

Really? XD That's where Magical Diary came from? XD

I am now officially dead 5evers.

#17 by hanako - Jun 3 2013

It's hard tracking all the references, but the description in Development Plans - 2007 should make the connection clear... and later in the thread I mentioned it was shifting name to "Little Miss Witch" and had at least eight datable boys... (So I must have already had at least that many characters in the male Halls sketched out at that point!)

#18 by Gabihime - Jun 3 2013

It's great seeing a project evolve like that. Even though I know better, I have a tendency to imagine that games spring from your forehead fully formed.

#19 by biscuit - Jun 4 2013

While I am sure all of these could be well-developed into the kind of interesting, quirky story I have come to expect, I ended up choosing the superhero genre, because it's something I rarely see done with an interesting/new take on it. (While I loved the typical Marvel/DC capes'n villains, their endless continuity snarl and constant reboots have somewhat soured me...)

After that, an expanded LLTQ would be cool. And a fantasy RPG/VN would be neat, but it is also a generic-sounding enough project that without more details, it is hard to get excited over it.

#20 by Blue Rose - Jun 6 2013

While quite a few of those interest me, I have a big soft spot for supers, and I would love to see your touch meet supers. There are a lot of interesting things in supers that rarely get touched on in favor of punching evil things really hard in the face. (Which is still cool, granted.)

#21 by perch - Jun 6 2013

I chose superheroes as I've been obsessed with them for close to twenty-five years now, but the Candy Anime Space and LLTQ IN THE FUTURE!!! also sound adorable and awesome.

*continues to patiently wait for all the Hanakogames forever*




Now I want to install Charm School and try and get Monica her superhero ending...

#22 by Ramidel - Jun 9 2013

Well, as someone who's more a fan of lesbians than steampunk, I want more details on LLTQ in the crystal spires. And Julianna would look really hot in a spandex space suit.

...that was just my thoughts leaking out!

#23 by BesiegedOrange - Jun 10 2013

I like the idea of LLTQ in the future. I think something akin to a Warhammer 40K-style setting would be really awesome.

#24 by Wyvern - Jun 12 2013

I voted for the last option partly because it's the underdog, and partly because the idea of having a Star-Trek-style crew roster, each with their own skillset, appeals to me. Though I'm not sure about the "random" part; methinks it would be more interesting if there were certain fixed challenges with multiple solutions, so you could try different strategies on subsequent playthroughs. Kind of like the exams in Magical Diary, or the battles in Planet Stronghold. Also, I don't know what the "candy" part means; care to elaborate?

My second and third choices would be the superhero one and the future-LLTQ one.

Also, although the "grimdark desert mystery" idea doesn't appeal to me, I *am* curious about what the "desert" part implies. Are you talking Mad-Max style atomic wasteland? Arabian Nights? Victorian/Pulp era Egypt? The Wild West? Modern-day Middle East? Or some fantasy-world desert setting?

Wyvern

#25 by hanako - Jun 12 2013

Wyvern:

I voted for the last option partly because it's the underdog, and partly because the idea of having a Star-Trek-style crew roster, each with their own skillset, appeals to me. Though I'm not sure about the "random" part; methinks it would be more interesting if there were certain fixed challenges with multiple solutions, so you could try different strategies on subsequent playthroughs.

A more-random game was one of the things requested by some LLTQ players, and it works well with the ideas involved in my ideas of space exploration. It wouldn't be 100% random, there would be a little bit of structure to help manage pacing, but unlike LLTQ you couldn't be sure that you will always meet bandits and they will always be hostile.

Also, I don't know what the "candy" part means; care to elaborate?

Brightly-colored. Particularly, bright pastels contrasting with black in the style of a certain kind of lolita fabric. Possibly also with actual candy themes, because I get a childish glee out of mixing and matching style elements.

Also, although the "grimdark desert mystery" idea doesn't appeal to me, I *am* curious about what the "desert" part implies. Are you talking Mad-Max style atomic wasteland? Arabian Nights? Victorian/Pulp era Egypt? The Wild West? Modern-day Middle East? Or some fantasy-world desert setting?

Utah, actually.


And proving my point about "cannot sit down without thinking up game ideas", today's walk tossed around discussions of "space opera setting, ragtag group of aliens band together to form a team for the Grand Quest Competition, travel across hostile planet in RPG mode seeking macguffin"

#26 by FantasyFan - Jun 12 2013

Oooh, that idea sounds Star Wars-ish - I'd love it!

#27 by zex95966 - Jun 13 2013

What I really love is to really get down with customizing my character and the environment they are in. Everything from their personality, to their relationships or even their living situation.

#28 by wloff - Jun 14 2013

hanako:

A more-random game was one of the things requested by some LLTQ players, and it works well with the ideas involved in my ideas of space exploration. It wouldn't be 100% random, there would be a little bit of structure to help manage pacing, but unlike LLTQ you couldn't be sure that you will always meet bandits and they will always be hostile.

That sounds extremely cool to me!

I voted the sixth option, but I guess I'd mostly like something like a mix of the 5th and 6th one. I loved the concept of LLTQ and the whole intrigue / politics idea is awesome, but I feel LLTQ was a bit too linear to pull it off perfectly - the way it plays out, you are totally confused your first couple of playthroughs / attempts and only start getting into it once you kind of remember when things will happen and can prepare in advance...

But that's not perfect either, since a lot of the fun of the idea itself would come from not really knowing what will happen and trying to adapt to the different situations, which is only really possible in the first playthrough.

A bit more dynamic story and world, preferably with the design goal from Magical Diary that in most situations, there would be several different solutions (using different skills), and I for one would be sold.

And the space theme is pretty great too.

#29 by Gabihime - Jun 14 2013

A bit more dynamic story and world, preferably with the design goal from Magical Diary that in most situations, there would be several different solutions (using different skills), and I for one would be sold.

Well, LLTQ does usually have multiple solutions to each problem. Different skills are checked one after another to see if Elodie will miraculously avoid death. In that way, apart from the examinations, I think generally LLTQ does have more freedom in its choices than say, Magical Diary. Examinations in MD rarely affect the story at all (maybe for an extra line or two of dialogue) but various skill checks in LLTQ can put you on a substantially different path.

Sure, some choices are more efficient than others, but it's not like the game forces you to make those choices if that's not the Elodie you want to have.

I can see how you might want a changing story in a new LLTQ game, but I wouldn't really look to Magical Diary as a model for freedom, although I do love it desperately. It is extremely linear without a huge number of choice points apart from exams, which really don't influence much of anything in the long run, apart from pass or fail. That's fine! I enjoy games like that quite a lot. I never use the word linear as an indictment. It means the game has a cohesive story. (Not saying you do either, I just wanted to be clear I'm not ragging on MD, since I love it everso).

Anyway, in terms of games with a great deal of randomness, obviously I like them! I'm very much looking forward to Black Closet. I enjoy extreme customization in games, even simple cosmetic customization that has no effect on anything, like being able to change your title, or having a relationship board (as Cladun x 2 has) that has no effect on anything at all, but lets you 'set' whatever relationships you like between your party members.

#30 by RosesandAshes - Jun 16 2013

I picked the lesbian steampunk VN but am really split between that and the fantasy VN/RPG with a choice of protagonist.

#31 by Karlminion - Jun 20 2013

...Rain of Sharks.

...that's so stupid it's hilarious. It would have to work by default! Go next-gen!

#32 by Blue Rose - Jun 25 2013

hanako:

Also, although the "grimdark desert mystery" idea doesn't appeal to me, I *am* curious about what the "desert" part implies. Are you talking Mad-Max style atomic wasteland? Arabian Nights? Victorian/Pulp era Egypt? The Wild West? Modern-day Middle East? Or some fantasy-world desert setting?

Utah, actually.

Okay, I admit it, that actually made me lol.

#33 by ark99k - Jul 13 2013

I liked LLTQ because of the politics and trying to always be one step ahead, so if you did another one of those that would be amazing! I love your intrigue games! Fantasy VN/RPG sounds cool because really, when have you ever made a fantasy game that we hated?
A steampunk VN sounds cool except for the lesbian part because: 1. What about the guys who love your games. 2. Well, I am so sorry if anyone here is a lesbian but well I find it a little strange to have it not be a few straight choices and maybe 1-2 gay choices. Sorry but it is just my opinion. Well then again I would still play it no matter what, I would probably even play one that was about a rock named Rocky because I would know for sure the storyline would still be incredible! Hanako games makes the best VNs ever............ just saying.
Anyway most of the time when you do this you make a few of the game ideas that you proposed, eventually.

#34 by marunero - Jul 21 2013

A design-your-own superhero game would be AWESOME! Although I've already played Heroes Rise by Choice of Games, which was good, I still felt like I was missing something. With graphics and sound, such a game would be like a dream come true to me. Maybe then the plot can be darker, like Watchmen or something, complete with mystery, suspense, romance, and a gigantic plot twist! >:D

Any of Them

#35 by TheBetterStory - Jul 23 2013

I ended up voting for the desert mystery because grimdark angst is exactly my cup of tea, (especially with, ahem, attractively snarky and competent girls), but I would probably instantly buy any of these.

Superpowers are tremendous fun, and LLTQ is the only game that's ever made stat-raising feel entertaining to me, so that game gets an easy pass. (Obviously so does LLTQ in the future, because complex politics are awesome.)

A steampunk world is also almost guaranteed to make me love something. That, and it would actually be a pure yuri game? <3 We need more of that, although I imagine it doesn't sell half as well as your typical F/M game.

And then of course, we have your very intriguing description of the fantasy RPG. I love how the hero/ine sounds so unwilling throughout the entire plot.

Candy space adventures probably interest me the least, because of the randomized element, but I'm sure you could pull it off. Also, Lolita-inspired graphics cannot go wrong. ^o^

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#36 by _SE_ - Sep 1 2013

Would the Candy Anime Space be something like Faster Than Light? Or would it be more RP and VN like and less sim?

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#37 by hanako - Sep 2 2013

Less real-time actiony than FTL; more about decisions and less about reflexes. Which makes it Sim/RPG in my head.

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#38 by Hesquidor - Oct 16 2013

My favourite choice would be the superhero one. I've also read Choice of Games Hero's Rise and it's sequel. I enjoyed it, but I feel something about the characterisation and writing was a bit off so I was presented from every truly liking it. Not something I'd ever complain about in a Hanako game. Plus I love stat-building, something very satisfying about balancing progress bars

Second choice would be future LLTQ. Again loved the gameplay and plot of the original (my favourite Hanako game so far). Would love a continuation. Plus instead of learning magic we could learn psyonics instead.

Tied for third would be Candy Anime Space. I liked FTL and would love to see a more RPG variant. The randomized element in that game really capture my attention for a long time.

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#39 by Leondre - Nov 9 2013

I don't see how anyone could say no to a "Dark lesbian steampunk VN."

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#40 by Ramidel - Nov 10 2013

Because it's steampunk, which isn't especially my cup of tea. (Heresy, I know.)

I'd still buy it if Hanako made it, because of the darkness and lesbians, but my preferences in sci-fi lean towards LLTQ with crystal spires, rayguns and a green-skinned Alien Princess Elodie.

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#41 by Blue Rose - Nov 10 2013

hanako:

Less real-time actiony than FTL; more about decisions and less about reflexes. Which makes it Sim/RPG in my head.

Reflexes? What are those?

*So wore that pause button out in FTL.*

I've done some outright evil schemery while pausing that game, stopping the action to suss out how I'm gonna space the boarders while setting the enemy crew on fire and focusing my normal weapons on their oxygen recyclers so I can maximize scrap collection.

Maybe the evil empire was right to be hunting me down?

Anywho, when you compare the supers idea with LLTQ, do you mean just in the lots-of-stats department, or would we get to die over and over again in dozens of different, gloriously tragic ways?

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#42 by hanako - Nov 10 2013

Too nebulous to know right now really. I suspect that as a superhero, YOU could only die in a suitably heroic or tragic manner in climactic confrontations with whoever the big bad happened to be. But all kinds of things could go terribly wrong before then.

Oops, your house burned down. Oops, city hall blew up. Oops, you're now on the Most Wanted list by mistake. Oops, your date dumped you in favor of your nemesis/your alter-ego. Oops, your family is dead. Typical superhero angst.

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#43 by Mad_Scientist - Dec 20 2013

I voted for LLTQ IN THE FUTURE, but here are my complete rankings.

1) LLTQ IN THE FUTURE:

LLTQ seems very neat from what I've played so far, and a future setting would have a lot of potential for interesting things.


2) Dark lesbian steampunk VN

The more detailed description posted in this thread sounds cool, plus I love yuri.


3) Candy Anime Space

I like the idea of managing your own starship.


4) Fantasy VN/RPG with gender-choosable protagonist

Mostly just going here by virtue of not standing out among the other options. It would be fun I'm sure, but it feels like a premise that has been done more often than some other options.


5) Design-your-own superhero

I'm not normally a big fan of superhero things. They're ok, but it makes me less interested in this option.


6) Grimdark desert mystery with murders and pixelhunts and angst

As much as I might have nostalgia for old adventure games, seeing "pixelhunts" in the description doesn't exactly inspire excitement from me.

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#44 by Anonymous - Jan 1 2014

LLTQ in the future, hands down. Complex politics is an under-explored, under-developed genre of gaming.

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#45 by pinkorchestra - Jan 2 2014

I'm amused by how what posters are favoring matches up very poorly with where the actual votes are going.

Anyways, I'd also favor LLTQ in the future. Especially since I suspect it'd be a lot more LOGH than Star Wars. I'm not actually sure if the setting would make the game better; I just selfishly want more LLTQ. I'd be curious as to what kind of sci-fi we'd be talking about though. Hard sci-fi? Space opera? Fantasy in space? A lot of different things could come out of this. I'd probably gag a little at WarHammery "in the grimdark darkness of the future there is only grim darkness", but I'd still probably get it.

Dark desert mystery sounds fun (especially since I just put 100 hours into Persona 4), but I'm not sure what kind of replay value it would have. Probably some, but I'm not sure there would be any way to relive the fun of the 'reveal'.

Also, why does the idea of a superhero game remind me so much of Magical Girls (this is good)?

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#46 by hanako - Jan 2 2014

Well, when looking at the vote you can probably completely disregard the RPG option when it comes to likelihood of me EVER doing that, considering the number of games going that way already.

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#47 by Ayanni - Jan 5 2014

Aww, but your games with RPG elements were really fun (Magical Diary, both CK, Charm School), their only problem was the art (specially the older ones).

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#48 by Blue Rose - Jan 7 2014

hanako:

Too nebulous to know right now really. I suspect that as a superhero, YOU could only die in a suitably heroic or tragic manner in climactic confrontations with whoever the big bad happened to be. But all kinds of things could go terribly wrong before then.

Oops, your house burned down. Oops, city hall blew up. Oops, you're now on the Most Wanted list by mistake. Oops, your date dumped you in favor of your nemesis/your alter-ego. Oops, your family is dead. Typical superhero angst.

Oh~ Lovely.

Not enough horrible, horrible stuff tends to happen in superhero games, if you ask me. Supers characters should totally suffer, if you ask me.

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#49 by SilverBloodIllusion - Jan 10 2014

Could you explain the "Candy Anime Space" one a little more?

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#50 by hanako - Jan 10 2014

I think you'd start off on some sort of space station, with a set amount of money, and from there you'd have to choose what kind of space ship to buy and what crew members to hire, and then set off on your Adventure. So along the way you'd run into various challenges and encounters, and your skills and stats would determine how well you could deal with that. If you suddenly had to fly through a debris shower, then things like shielding and piloting skill would be really important.

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#51 by guest - Jan 15 2014

The only Hanako game I've played is LLTQ, so my vote is a little biased, but... I was torn between the two choices for LLTQ-like game, and LLTQ in the future, and couldn't vote for both, so I went with the future one (at least a little because the choice was in all caps).

If anything like this ever gets made, my only suggestion is more randomness in the events. Some, maybe completely random, and some, maybe random with skill checks. Good and bad random events, e.g. random political events that you can ignore or take a chance to get a bonus (or penalty) of some kind, game history/lore random (neutral events)

In LLTQ, after dying a bunch of times (:D) you eventually more or less figure out which skills are important to train at which points in time, so unless you're specifically trying to train other skills just to see what happens (or as I did a couple times, specifically try to make a fail-Queen), it becomes something like a math problem and the novelty wears away after 30 or 40 playthroughs (that's probably the number of times I've played so far, anyway).

What I'd like to see is greater reward for thinking and planning how to respond to those random events in combination with trained skills. When I played through LLTQ the first couple of times, I was thinking, "Okay, what skills would be good for me to know?" and I'd train skills that sounded really useful for a Queen that I knew was going to be subject to assassination attempts, but as it turned out, those skills hardly mattered at all.

I think I saw an RPG choice, maybe something like a cross between the two? RPGs generally reward you for planning out your battles like that, with some kind of learned power or received item as you win and grow.

Long story short, LLTQ+extra stuff and mechanics+a bit of entropy+different setting I think would be the game I'd want to play next. If something like this ever gets made, you can be sure I'd buy it. :)

e: Oh, my mistake, that other choice was a superhero game that was "somewhat" LLTQ-like. That sounds pretty fun as well. I stand by my split vote, lol

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#52 by SilverBloodIllusion - Jan 19 2014

I've always been a huge fan of Fantasy/RPG type game (and they're just about always my first pick), but since it sounds to me like you're not planning on choosing that one due to Winter Wolves - my next pick would be a futuristic LLTQ. Then Superheroes. Then Candy Anime Space.
Of all of the games you've made (and I've played most of them), I've defiantly spent the most time playing LLTQ and its tied for my all time favorite (with Magical Diary: Horse Hall). So, more games that are similar in game play style to LLTQ sound really appealing to me. And since I love Sci-Fi almost as much as I love Fantasy, an LLTQ of the Future game just about sounds like the best thing ever.
I'm also a super huge superhero fan, and I haven't found a superhero game yet, a superhero game that functions somewhat LLTQ like sounds awesome.
And the Candy Anime Space game is Sci-Fi! Which makes me happy, but it also sounds like it would have the "I'm-going-to-screw-up-a-lot-and-have-to-start-over-twenty-million-times-to-get-anywhere" factor of LLTQ. Which is awesome.

Personally, I LOVE games that have GxG options (I'll ship anything regardless of gender so long as its cute/hot/ridiculously funny). And I love steampunk, and I love darkness, and the whole idea sounds great. It just sounds... time consuming? The art seems like it would take forever, and I don't know that I want to wait that long for a game... (I'm so impatient and self-centered. XD)
I keep trying to envision the Grimdark Mystery with Pixelhunts and the more I think about it that more I think I have no idea what that actually means.

Re: Games I'm NOT making (but might someday)

#53 by wendymarlowe - Feb 20 2014

Okay, I *think* I've played all of Hanako's games now (I kind of went on a bit of a splurge right around Christmas . . .)

My interest in a game has a lot more to do with the writing than the setting. Things that will make me more likely to buy a game:

- female (or gender-choosable) protagonist - I won't always play as a female character, but it's something I really support.

- LGBTQ romance as an option - again, I won't always choose it, but I want to support more LGBTQ visibility in gaming.

- the more romance options, the better

- a reasonably branching storyline, "choose your own adventure" style. It gives the game a lot more replay value.


Things that will make me LESS likely to love a game:

- speed-based combat. I can deal with turn-based, or pausable combat, but I've got plenty of other games available if I want to work on mouse-clicking speed.

- sexist art. By which I mean "female characters are all in skimpy outfits and back-breaking poses for no reason." This eliminates a lot of games in the genre, unfortunately

- sexist writing. I don't mind a few broad sterotyped characters, especially for the sake of humor, but I hate when every female character is a stereotype. This is a reason I've bought all Hanako's games and haven't found all that many other VNs I love