[VN] The World Is Made of Paper (Demo)

[ganonfrog]

Many thanks to Auro_Cyanide for the beautiful logo!

Windows: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QAJSOLIO

Mac: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QON0DTQ4

Linux: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OXI3K15J

The demo is just over 37,000 words in length, with three full demo endings, and one bad end. It should take somewhere around one and a half to two hours to complete one playthrough. Quite a bit of the game changes depending on your choices, so I encourage you to play through it again if you like it.

A few notes on the current demo:

1. The default menu doesn't fit in the screen properly, and the return button gets covered up because of this. You can still exit it with the escape key, however. The only time it leaves you stuck is if you accidentally go into the loading screen from the title when you don't mean to. This should be fixed in the final version, once I have a custom menu.
2. I tried to include as many art assets as possible, but a couple things are still missing, such as a few sprite poses. It shouldn't really take away from the game.
3. Everything in this is colored with a mouse. I'm so, so sorry.
4. The age rating for the demo is probably somewhere around 15+, due to some strong language, and a bit of violence.

Finally: Critique, critique, critique! I want you all to tear this thing apart. Tell me everything I should improve. I want the full version to be as likable as possible.

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The World is Made of Paper is a modern fantasy, psychological whosawhatsit that also happens to be a visual novel. It's an idea that I've wanted to get down for ages, and I think ren'py may be the key to making it actually happen.

Hurrah!

I don't really want to bore you too much with introductory ramblings, so I'm just going to get straight to the stuff people actually care about.

Being a bored college dropout with nothing better to do, Dion Nagi had read a lot of books in the past few years. Far, far too many of them.

Contrary to popular belief, this is not a healthy practice. At least not for a young man already prone to over analyzing things.

After a certain point, the lines between reality and fiction started to blur, and it became increasingly easy to interpret even the events of his own life as if they were written in a book. Everything from the people he knew, to the problems he suffered from, started to seem like nothing more than plot devices intent on bringing him to a meaningful conclusion.

Dion didn't really mind this, however. To him, that part was really nothing more than a new way of looking at the world. No, what really made him snap was, in fact, the most simple of book related thoughts.

"What is the genre of my life?"

It didn't take long for him to realize the answer: he was living in an underdog story. He was the kid left at the bottom rung with nowhere to go but up. It would be sappy, heartwarming, and incredibly cheesy.

He hated that kind of story.

So he did the only thing he could think to do. He left his home, his town, his job, his belongings, and just about everything even closely related to his life as it was. He did everything it took to throw away the novel he had already started.

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Stuck in an unknown town without gas, a place to stay, or any immediate goal to speak of, Dion found himself starting a new story. A story that he realized began with him being a complete and total idiot.

Hit with a car on the way to find a gas station, his story continued. A story that seemed to want nothing more than to kill him at every given moment.

A story that, upon him waking up in the hospital with a head injury, started to get a bit weird.

Over time, Dion's reality started to fall apart around him, and the more he attempted to take control his life, the stranger it seemed to get.

In his attempt to simply start a new life, he found himself looking at much, much more.

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When given the opportunity to change the world at it's very core, would he be willing to take it?

How would he do it?

What would he turn it into?

And what will he do when he realizes he's not the only one who can?

Spoiler: Characters

(More coming with new updates)

Spoiler: Screenshots

 

[mouse_std]

:shock: this is amazing
i dont really think it has any major flaw at all , the flow of the story is intriguing the more you progress, the pause (moment) in the story is perfectly arrange , each character is consistent to what they do.
the only flaw is its still demo :haha:
well maybe theres some other flaw (according to me) like:
- the story only gets interesting when&after car accident :blank: dunno y but i yawn(sorry) at the start of the game when theres a lot of .....words XD.
-im not a novel person (someone who read novel),i just wish it has some action picture/ artistic moving picture (like moving leaf in a tree,blinking eye,etc) so i dont get bored, but its interesting in its own.
-maybe tell the player that they need to use left mouse to progress/action and right mouse to save , i saved after passed 1/2 story i think :biggrin: , maybe just put small icon/pict in the corner.
-the game use mouse, maybe make some easter egg (bonus point if u click something) to make the player not bored completely.
but overall its already move towards perfection :thumb:

 

[regi]

It's an interesting premise, and though it starts out a bit cliche (wake up in the hospital with no recollections?), the fact that it doesn't star tweenage swordfighting heroes gives it some promise. Is the entire thing done with custom graphics? The artwork looks nice, though lineart could use some cleaning up. Otherwise, it's definitely a breath of fresh air from regular RTP games. I'll take a look sometime!

 

[Ellie]

Looks pretty great to me. It's unique, which is an instant plus. Added this to my long list of "games I need to download and play after coursework" :crazy:

 

[bacon]

Your idea is very interesting to say the least. Yeah it maybe starts out a little cliche but i really do like your premise and I think it provides a nice twist to the game. I really like the idea of the visual lit idea and the whole theme of this a lot. Its going to be interesting to see where you take it and what you do with it.
The art could use some touching up. Some of the bodies are awkwardly bent/shapes and it looks sketchy. This may or may not be intentional but I think you would be better off using an ink brush.
Again this looks super neat and I want to definitely see the finished product. Good luck.

 

[ganonfrog]

Sorry for not responding to any of this in a forever.

Thank you so much, all of you. The support means so much to me. I'll be sure to make the final version as nice as possible.

@mouse_std: Wow... really? I'm really flattered that you like it so much. I wasn't expecting such a positive response out of anyone. Thank you.

As for keeping things more visually interesting, I'm thinking of including comic-style CGs for important scenes in the full version, possibly with some movement in them. Kind of like the ones in Trauma Team: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDxVkykOBKo . They wouldn't be as fancy, of course, I'm only one person, but it would have the same basic idea.

@regi: Thank you! More specifically, you wake up in the hospital with perfect knowledge of what happened to get you in there, but I can still see the cliche. I... would normally consider getting rid of something if it stood out as a cliche, but I can't really do much about that one. Hopefully anything else I do with the story makes up for it.

@macon: Uuuuugh, yeah. I'm really not pleased with my art at all. The sketchy look is intentional, yeah, but a lot of people have been pointing it out as a problem, so I should probably clean it up a little. I'll probably wind up redoing a good bit of it once I get my hands on a tablet. For now, there's not much I can do while I'm still stuck using a mouse for everything, sadly. Can you point out exactly where the bodies look off, though? It will really help me once I'm able to do edits.

Much thanks to everyone, again. I'll keep working on the full version, and be sure to give the best final product I'm able to.

 

[leppy]

So far, this game is excellent! I'm really amazed. I love the focus on the story, and I'm so annoyed that it was just a demo! I wanted to learn the full story so bad!! I think the theme of it all being a novel is really interesting. It catches my attention a lot. I especially love the text box and the backgrounds! At first I didn't care for the appearance of the characters, but it grew on me when I realized that too was just a part of the style. The music also is really fitting. It does so much for the environment. Keep up the great work, and I'm going to be so confused until I get the full version! The Muse in particular is amazing. She really does have the right creepy aura about her. Here's a random complaint... I noticed a couple of minor grammar issues. Nothing big or noticeable at all, but I'd assume you wanted Dion's narration to have proper grammar since he's a writer. If I replay the game soon I'll find the sentences and ask you about them. XD