Do You Remember My Lullaby

[Reives]

Click Me: Sample from OST - listen while reading thread if ya want. :smile:




Download: Click me. (<15mb)
[*Note: Please do not delete the game folder after you finish, and check back to the thread a few days later.]

Lullaby is a short simple story that takes time during the holiday seasons. No tension, nothing epic, and barely any dialogues - It is a short story told through a complete cut-scene in the form of a semi-music video with its original soundtrack (hence please play with sound on only). The short story itself is non-interactive, and took about 10 times the effort of The Mirror Lied to make. It does perhaps start off a bit slow though, so my apologies, and please hang on.

Due to the shortness and nature of the project, I find it unfit to summarize the story and the like, as you can basically do it in one line and take the whole story away. So if you got a moment to spare, give it a try for what its size and length is worth - but after you finish, do not delete your game folder and check back a few days later.

Oh, just a note on the scene selector,

Each scene will only become selectable once you've played through the respective scene once in normal sequence, so they won't work the first time you open it.

Anyhow, that's that.

Thank you very much for your time in advance, and hope you guys are having a fun holiday season.  :smile:

(Oh, and I'm submitting this to that Winter contest as well; just in case I need to state that here.)


Edit:
After you finish, wait a couple of hours before doing this:
<a class="postlink" href="http://dev.rmxp.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=587515#p587515">http://dev.rmxp.org/forums/viewtopic.ph ... 15#p587515</a>

 

[dadevvtsvre]

This looks great Reives, like the other contest projects. I'll be looking forward to judging this.

 

[miss matcha]

Hiya Reives, I just downloaded it... looking forward to checking it out!

 

[Makasu]

Your work is always so damn good. Hell I didn't even have to read the topic to know that I'd enjoy playing this.

Looks like we've got another banger on our hands. :3

 

[Speedpaws]

This is what I posted on his forums, but I have no problem copying and pasting since it says all I want to say.

This project is beautiful! Absolutely beautiful! The way you told the story without many words, but you still knew what was going on, was ingenious. And you told the story well with amazing graphics and music. Everything meshed incredibly well. The ending was expected, but that just made the moment a lot better because you can see where it's going to lead.

Wow, I would rate this project 5 out of 5 stars.

This piece was perfect in every way. Something an RMXP mini movie should be.

 

[Mirku]

Checked it out, in general I liked it very much, it showed that a lot of effort was put in to this and I like the sad ending.(would've been better if she killed herself but that's just old horrible me) Anyways there's some stuff I don't really like in the clip: the birds(doves I believe) are animated a bit weird, their movement should be more fluent according to me. Also I saw some minor stuff that seemed a bit wacky on some maps like in the café(if it was one, not sure) there are some items that are sitting on the edge totally unbalanced and in the bakery the table foots stood out because of their black outline. There's also a bit too much repetition of some scenes like the one where the boy asks for a cake this year. The fading, though beautifully gets pretty annoying after a while since it fades so often. There was one(or several, don't remember) part(s) where the screen was lit very bright white and I was afraid my eyes were going to melt!(I was watching it on my laptop full screen in the dark abyss I call my room).

But overall it's beautifully done I really enjoyed the music, the story and the graphics even though I'll have nightmares about faceless old people for weeks to come.
I give it an 8.5 out of 10, nice work there Reives(and everyone who helped).

 

[Reives]

Thanks everyone, and thank you for your time.  :smile:  Always looking forward to feedbacks and suggestions and the like; while it's probably too late to implement into this, they always do help with keeping in mind for future projects.

@Dadevster:
Ah, I'm still somewhat confused about the judging process; when a judge (Doctor) was said to be assigned on the thread, I thought it may have came down to 1 single judge instead of the public or whatnot. Well either way, thanks, and aye, I'm sure Zeka, Bruno and others got something great being cooked up. c:

@Miss Matcha:
Hey ey, thanks again for the feedback on the other place. c: Much appreciated.

@Makasu:
Heheh, thanks. Haven't see ya around much lately by the way; Malick from way back, right?

@Speedpaws:
Thanks for playing, and glad ya enjoyed it so. c: I think I might've been somewhat inspired to the little-dialogue thing from WALL-E by the way, hah.

@Mirku:

Spoiler

Hahah, if she did that because of something like that, she probably would've been gone long before the start of the story to begin with. :p

Aye, some of those things like the plates in the restaurant do need some fixing, I must've either missed it or dismissed it due to time. Was rather annoy to see, though. I know what ya mean with the fading - I probably should've used some transition graphics instead at times. I personally found the white-out fade to have an interesting effect, but I can definitely see how it's blinding in a dark room, hahah. And oh, they aren't that old by the way; I'd imagine to be 30-40ish with children of that age.

Thanks a lot for your time and feedback! c:

-------------------

Oh, a very detailed "director's commentary" for kicks is being released in the near future, by the way. :smile:
Thanks again for everyone's time and attention.

And again, don't delete the game folder yet.

 

[Luthur]

Amazing, as always. You definitely get my vote. Well done.

 

[Cirras]

Downloading now. I'll tell ya what I think about it when I'm done.

 

[regi]

Played through it, Reives, and I have to say it met (and even exceeded) my expectations.

The atmosphere and music was well-done. You put so many nice details in there: from the soaring birds and walking NPCs to the sparkley Christmas tree, they all added a nice touch to the project. I liked the storyline overall, how you told it in a few words. It went by really smooth.

A couple of minor things, though; I felt the movie was somewhat repetitive, and the dialogue was a little too childish. A couple of scenes were repeated for effect, but I thought it went by a little slowly. Also, I didn't like the children's speech, just the way it sounded/looked felt a little awkward.

Otherwise, it was pretty solid. Graphics and music were amazing and the eventing was nice too (haven't checked out the scene-selector, but I imagine it must be pretty cool). All in all, great job, I'm sure the other contest projects will have a tough time competing with this one!

 

[Despain]

looks really pretentious congrats :thumbsup:

 

[rexxzecutioner]

please stop doing these games

your hero,
rexxz

 

[dadevvtsvre]

looks really pretentious congrats :thumbsup:

please stop doing these games

your hero,
rexxz

Oh, come on guys. Reives put a lot of work into this-don't you think he deserves to be proud?

Anyway, just finished the game-well, I wouldn't call it that, but I dunno, movie maybe? There were a few things that kind of irked me-the constant panning of the screen, and it was a little slow at times-but overall it was fantastic, especially the music and the story. I guess we'll just have to wait and see who wins this contest!

 

[rexxzecutioner]

Oh, come on guys. Reives put a lot of work into this-don't you think he deserves to be proud?

He can be proud all he wants, doesn't mean I have to like it.

 

[Reives]

Thanks for your time guys!

@Regi:
Yeah, that's true. I was having some trouble expressing some of the parts there, and some of the repetitions did become very slow albeit their intentions - I probably should have utilized some transition graphics too instead of fade for all of them, heheh. I can see the problems with the children's dialogues at parts, and I was a bit uneasy about them as I was making it. I suppose I was partly trying to find a way to distinguish the speeches, as whenever the mother speaks in present time, there is no dialogue box.

@Dadevster:
Heheh yeah, it's not a game. Aye, I suppose some of the panning was a bit over the top, I think I was trying too hard to create some motion in a rather boring environment. The slowness overall was my biggest concern, especially at the beginning. I ended up cutting a lot of the beginning's length off, but it still felt a bit too prolonged - Perhaps making the intro loop music to be more than one chord would've helped, hah. Thanks for the feedback.

---

Again guys, do not delete the game folder yet. c:

 

[Delmaschio]

Honestly, even though I consider myself a Writer, I'm not much of a fan of this kind of storytelling in a game, however, I find this short quite enjoyable, the detail you've put in every aspect of the game is incredible.

Congratulations.

 

[miss matcha]

I thought this had a very decent story; it was a little long-winded at times (I felt that I could have done without the multiple repeats of random town scenes faded in and out towards the end... it made parts of it feel a bit "over-dramatic"), but overall it was nice. I noticed all the little touches you put in that must have taken forever to do! Things like how the lady turns around to greet folks on the street, how she has a different sprite for each item she picks up while she's cooking, etc.  I also enjoyed the lighting effects and music.

I was a little sad at how it ended; but I suppose that it would be rare for a boy that young to have his mother's feelings in mind when presented with the constrasting riches provided by his father. It really made me angry at the father because I sort of filled in the gaps with things like "oh, he probably cheated on her and left her for that lady with the eyes... took all the money, and left her to care for their son in a shack in the woods... what a jerk!" I also thought, "wait... I can't remember if he called the lady Mom or not... could that have been his grandmother?" Hehe...

Anyways, good luck with the contest, I'm sure they'll love it. I kept my save file, so I'm ready to see what this is all about Maybe you're going to reveal some backstory that will surprise us all!

 

[zealex]

A very emotional little story... Beautiful. :')
The ending was so sad and I hope that 'surprise' you've got cooking up for us is going to change that. Well, what can I say.. Another great project from Reivy. ^_^ At the start, I had a feeling like "Yay, another chapter of Quintessence!" lol, with the quintessence music, mapping style and the 'color overlay thing' you're using. About the project itself, sometimes it feels a bit slow and a few clips seem unnecessary. Also the places without music are a little strange since well, the music is an important part of the project. =p
But nonetheless it's a nice little piece and I'm sure you'll nail that contest. The best of luck!

 

[Link in Pink]

I almost cried :3

This was beautifully done. And the music was so touching as well, it fit the mood perfectly. This is a brilliant piece of work, Reives, you'll have an easy shot at winning that contest. Good luck to you ;D

 

[monkeydlu]

Beautiful, I've got nothing to say that you haven't heard a hundred times already, but beautiful.