itch.io

really hoping for a route with howl or the horses <3
AWESOME update, by the by, can't wait for Cotton~

I never meant they were flawless when saying "perfect". I was implying how they were knowledgeable, competent in their field, and usually had control of any conversation they were a part of. Not to mention being considered very handsome. They have very few flaws, I understand they aren't unflawed completely, but they are pretty darn close. There are often some biases people have as writers that they don’t realize in their work.

I apologize the conversation is tiresome for you; If I didn't care about the success of your work, I wouldn't be passionate enough to write so much. We are harder on the things we care about the most and strive to see them grow and become something better. Not every fan can be a “yes-man.”

You can’t blame me for my Adastra comparison. You are a human in a foreign land (check) who quickly falls into a one-route romance with a himbo wolfman (check), have a connection to the creator god of your respective world (check), find yourself at the opposite end of a rude princes ire (check), and an outwardly kind foreign dignitary feline who is rather deceitful and clearly has their own hidden agenda (check). I’m sorry you don’t like it, but the signs are all there.

I’m fine if there aren’t any routes, if it’s meant to be a simple non-branching narrative that’s what it’s meant to be. But, based off past comments, with how it was advertised, I’m not the only person who assumed there would be other routes. I thank you for confirming that things will be corrected, and I look forward to seeing how the story evolves as I certainly am more enamored with your world over that of other visual novels. I greatly appreciate well-done worldbuilding. You do a rather good job at driving my curiosity to see how your vision ends, especially since endings is what a lot of VNs tend to fall short at. 

I don't think you understood the beginning. The main character in Lyre is NOT a "generic white boy," I'm guessing you've not been in the sphere of where these VNs came from. The first big one, Mornatsu, was just that. You played as a generic light-skinned protag who served as a blank-slate surrogate with a pre-existing relationship with most of the cast. Probably until Echo Project came out, most Visual Novels were that. Sure, there are a lot of furry protags now, but that isn't where it began, and there were certainly more times when you were a human thrown into a furry world. It's not new or fresh. It's going back to the roots.

It seems there is also some issue with understanding here, too. I have no issue with things not being fully explained; the game actually always explains things. Mainly through the main character's own words. Again, who knows many things we do not know and pulls them out as trump cards that surprise us as much as the people they are conversing with within the scene.
I want to think that, but the way things are framed, I can't personally put myself in the shoes of such a perfect and competent character, and I'm certain it may feel like somewhat of a power fantasy for some. Still, nothing in the synopsis gives me the impression that is to be the case. Aside from maybe two moments in the game, they fully control every conversation they partake in. That isn't a quality a good surrogate has.

I never said it wasn't neat. I have problems with how it's advertised. It isn't displayed as it is delivered. It never calls itself a linear story in a visual novel format. It doesn't sell itself as a captivating romance about a competent human dignitary in a foreign kingdom who is thrown into an inescapable situation and discovers unlikely allies around every corner who are all seemingly powerless to help them in their plight. It tells me that "I" am a human ambassador surrounded by diverse characters whose motives are left in the dark as they lead me through a political climate they know more about than myself. If you've read the story, that isn't the case. The people who don't outright swear they believe you are seemingly on your side and never once try to deceive you. Even the character who outright hates you flat out tells the protag their intentions, and the reader gets to look into their perspective for a brief bit. The one "deceptive" character isn't even that. They are also very forward and seemingly don't give you the entire story cause they likely can't. There are multiple characters the protag has to put their trust in, and does aside from one thing that doesn't make much sense at the moment.
Spoilers here, but if basically everyone has abandoned a specific religion. Even a member of the kings' court, doctor or not, can't convince people that religion and its gods are real. Especially with how esoteric it was and how difficult an ability like that would be to prove. Looking into past events as a power isn't very easy to make believable in a world where magic isn't widely accepted, especially when the person with the ability comes from a background where they are well-read, and they need to prove it to other well-read people. You better believe that an assassination of a ruler is well-documented. Especially when the king is an eye-witness. Even if people don't commonly know all the details, they are documented in that castle somewhere. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for an ambassador who works for the crown to be privy to that information. If they could look into the past and find an item that someone has hidden that they have no way of knowing about, that would be a way to prove it, but who'd give a felon that time of day? The doctor and the guard captain might, but even if they know and believe, they'd be seen as crazy or enamored. Might even get them locked up too, and labeled as accomplices.
I'm saying that there is no reason the protag wouldn't tell characters of their scrying ability unless it was someone they knew who would assume they are crazy. Not like there is a stipulation where you lose your power when someone figures out you have it. With how intelligent the protag is presented to be, I could see a good excuse being that they are protecting their own allies cause they know telling them about the power might get them locked up alongside them, but that's never stated or implied to be the reason.

I, again, think there is an issue with how the story is presented versus how it is. Updating the description/synopsis would fix that and lead to it not misleading people any further. It's as simple as that. No story can be perfect, and this one does a dang good job of what it does. I simply wish it wasn't selling me on something it isn't.

They don't have to be a blank slate. I'm sure everyone is tired of the generic "white boy" MC in a furry game who has very quippy dialogue. I understand what you mean, but the type of self-insert character you are going for is usually new to the world or situation they are in. They are discovering it with us or are directly meant to represent the reader/viewer in how they'd think or try to navigate the story they are in. Examples are Johnny Cage from Mortal Combat and Randy Meeks from the original Scream movie. Those characters may not be like the reader, but they still think as we would. An average human with no connections or powers is thrown into a world of magic where the faith of everything they once knew is placed on their shoulders and a bunch of people they don't even know, but hey, now you've got freaking superpowers! Or, a horror movie fan was thrown into a horror movie situation saying everything we are shouting at the screen to the point of even calling out the killer way before their reveal. They can exist, but they are relatable and react to the new situations they are thrown into as the audience or a fan would. I don't feel that with the "player character"  of this game. Yes, all 3 have their own lives before the story we are presented, but your character acts just as their own person. And sure, that could be similar to Randy Meeks, but in his story, he says things fans of horror movies would say cause he's the surrogate. While your character is brilliant and well-versed in the world's rules like he is, we as an audience are not familiar with those rules like how we would be with the horror movie genre in Scream. Almost nothing needs explaining to them, and even when introduced to something you think they'd be unfamiliar with, they know more about it than the reader does. They don't do or react as a fan of these media types would but maybe once, and they are very familiar with their role in the world. Spoilers, when first introduced to what is essentially magic towards the latter half of the current story. They don't act as a vehicle for the audience to it. The character even always knows more than most think they would and is called out on how clever they are multiple times. Like, if they were unfamiliar with how the political sphere of being a foreign dignitary worked and were in the library constantly studying to pass off a feeling of competence or something, or was winging it and having the cast misinterpret their improv as genius by getting something very insightful from it that'd work. Though that wouldn't necessarily fit with the mood at first, with how drastically the tone shifts during the introduction of deities, it wouldn't be a stretch. 

The description being overhauled would undoubtedly be a welcome change. As it stands, it feels like it's advertising a different thing, and that cheapened the experience of what I was reading. The entire time I was waiting to see if I'd have any say in how to shape future events. I wondered if I could spend more time with the prince to see the side of him that other characters claim exists. I wondered if I could talk to certain characters to get a better feel for how the world looks through the eyes of someone who sees it as a more hostile environment. Instead, I wasn't given any of that. I was given a rather intriguing story I never once felt like I had entered into. I will not stop complimenting the story. It is delivered very well and certainly got me to read and re-read it, but I never felt any sense of other characters being smarter than the protag. Most seem to trust them and are surprisingly open. After playing this novel twice, the entire synopsis feels like it's only about one person, and you don't interact with them enough to even feel like they are trying to deceive you. It just feels like they never give you the entire story because they don't fully trust you. The romance isn't even unlikely. They are the character you spend the most time with, and never once does the character even question themselves on how they could have feelings for them. The lore even plays it off as if it's natural where they come from, and only in Lyre is it seemingly unnatural. It's self-evident they were meant to be the main romance from the get-go, which is partly why I was hoping to see if there were choices to branch out and get to know other characters. Because, again, the synopsis makes it feel like you can do that.
Honestly, if the synopsis is left as written, literally any other character being a romance option would make it feel more unlikely of a romance than what we end up getting. Imagine the scandal of two foreign dignitaries both befalling tragic events before their trips falling for each other while never feeling like they can ever fully trust one another. Indeed, if word through the court spread that they seemed relatively close, people would feel like their respective countries were trying to pull something shady against Lyre by controlling the crown.
Or imagine the story of the king's advisor who was smitten with the man he worked for, and somehow the king had feelings for someone beneath him whom he knew he couldn't ever be with due to how weak it'd make the crown seem. And to be later framed for their secret lovers' murder. The romance would be unexpected and go to a place you don't see visual novels ever go. Usually, they end when either of the romance options dies after all. Cause that's the fail state, that is the bad ending. But getting justice for the man you should never have loved? That'd be an exciting end goal.
Even if the romance were the prince, it would be interesting and unexpected with how he acts (though he'd likely have to be two years older because if I got the context clues right, he's 16. Even though adulthood in fantasy settings is usually more flexible, it wouldn't work with how most modern societies see things, bar places like Japan, Italy, Germany, Portugal, and some U.S. States). How would he feel if the person he had feelings for was the prime suspect in his father's murder? One of the people he slowly began to feel vulnerable around might've just been using him from the get-go to advance their political agenda in his eyes. That'd be an intriguing story.

I apologize. I lost myself. What I mean is I would have never thought that these would be possibilities if the synopsis were not written like it currently is (as of 1/11/2023).

Could you, at the very least, gravitate away from the whole “you” aspect of things? It’s very misleading. The story is engaging, but it isn’t about the player and would be best not represented as such. The “avatar” doesn't feel like an avatar and clearly isn’t meant to be.

I wish this were an actual game, not just an experience. The game presents itself as something I can actually have agency in, but it's just Adastra in a different setting without the illusion of choice.
It's not bad and tells a good story, but "you" are not traveling anywhere. This story has nothing to do with "you." This story is a story. No choices, no game,  just what I said before. An experience.

the game appears to be broken. doesn't work in browser without causing an error on launch and there is no executable in the download

Downloaded and redownloaded, this game is completely broken.
It's playable, but the crashes happen so much you miss out on nearly all the scenes other than the first few and the newest ones.

Having to spam "ignore" and/or "Rollback" just to get through the vast multitude of broken scenes is ridiculous.

CTRL

does that mean the chance of seeing it implemented in the future is impossible?

is there any mxm available in the game right now?

is this game ever receiving an update? the Trello shows there is still development occurring, but this page and the Twitter page are both dead

Overall, it’s an excellent premise for a game. After all, a lot of people want a lewd PMD. It’s executed decently too. It appears a lot of time and care was put into the game, and that’s admirable. However, while most will gawk and praise it due to the niche it provides, I’m going to point out some potential issues that could do with addressing. This won’t be all-encompassing, but it won’t be entirely negative. After all, there is some gold here. 

NOTE: I am aware the game is still in development and that not everything is implemented yet. However, I hope to use this to address things that might not have been thought of and provide (potentially constructive) criticism.

First off, the game is rather repetitive. Even though there are many different levels to explore, they all feel similar apart from difficulty. The combat & h-scene (Pokémon-Amie) content are both monotonous after you’ve done them enough times. In the end, the game feels like a grind to get anywhere.

Let’s start with the combat. It’s PMD with 2 moves skinned with different typings and (occasionally) effects. That’s not a bad thing, but the combat becomes annoying to the point where I personally avoid it most of the time unless I see a Pokémon I might want to turn into or if I need a level potentially. The controls for it are simple enough but aggravating at the same time. The targeting aspect is probably the worst part of the combat experience. It’s easy to miss, and though combat is forgiving with a heal option, constantly running around trying to hit a moving enemy becomes tedious. Especially when there is also a chance to miss upon landing a “hit.” There shouldn’t be two types of miss mechanics in the game. If the goal is to reward players for timing their attacks against enemies that have never heard the concept of a chill-pill, don’t then disregard their skill by having an opportunity for their attack not to do anything. I’ve personally not encountered any range of attacks in the game, so I assume (correct me if I’m wrong) there are none at the moment. I certainly hope this changes in the future to accommodate more diversity in moves. The “hold ctrl for AOE” idea is also not very intuitive. Aoe could potentially be moved to another key or even turned into a type of move instead. There seems to be a get-out-of-jail card for getting mobbed by enemies, but the SPACE attack works just as well, is easier to hit, and grants the ability to change positioning. It just always seems like the better option when surrounded, in my opinion.

H-Scene time, or the Pokémon-Amie mechanic for those who prefer. Frankly, it is nice to see Monster Mind had some influence. There are not many Amie-style h-games anymore, especially ones with males and Pokémon ones. They are always a welcome sight. However, the relationship-building mechanic relies a lot on the grind (which will be covered later). The includes grinding through the combat and the h-scenes. I’ve noticed that throughout playing, every character only has one pose for their scene, doesn’t talk much during it, and has the same conditions every time. I believe all of the jess elements need addressing. Never have I ever seen porn so repetitive. Don’t get me wrong, the Amie scenes are very well animated, and the characters look amazing but doing the same thing every time gets boring. My suggestion would be that there are multiple different poses/positions for each character's Amie (maybe 3 or 4 to be a bit more ambitious). These would obviously be unlocked by progressing the characters' relationship if there could be 2 or 3 randomly set conditions for the character's preferences. The example being, maybe the character wants to have their head rubbed more than usual during this mini-game, or maybe they want to try something new instead. The most vital thing to make these scenes feel less relative, however, is the dialogue. Monster Mind excelled at its dialogue. Though this game’s dialogue is not bad in the slightest (I will cover that later), it should have dialogue during the scenes. For instance, upon the mini-game starts, they should say something (that could potentially hint at the above-mentioned mechanics for them having randomized preferences for where/how they are touched). This will make the scene feel more intimate. This also applies to the characters' idea of saying things during the scene aside from “F***,” moan, or “More.” Lines that could potentially add more character and uniqueness to them would be nice. Lastly, Monster Mind was rather inclusive with the option to change the sex of every character with an options menu. I think this game would benefit greatly from such a mechanic in the future. They can even keep their preferred genders; it would only change their genitalia. Such a thing doesn’t have to be mentioned via dialogue; characters being transgender can easily be normal in the game setting that doesn’t need to be announcing. So long as the options for changing the character's sex are clear and easy to find.

Now let’s cover the grind overall. This game turns into a slog really quickly. The combat makes leveling up feel tedious. Even having to grind for gold becomes annoying due to the combat and prices. If the combat had more varied options and the enemies weren’t constantly whipping around the map, the prices might not be that big of an issue. Sure, gold becomes easier to obtain in more difficult levels, but obtaining it is less than optimal. The combat is the core issue with the grind. It even makes the fights with the pre-h-scene bosses feel like a trudge with their large health pools. Until combat is adjusted, perhaps temporarily lowering gold requirements (and/or increasing gold’s drop rate) and slightly increasing the relationship gained via Amie would help wrap things up nicely.

Now let’s drown out some of this negativity with some positive things about the game. The pixel art is fantastically done, and the characters overall are a joy to see. Even the w.i.p emotes manage to be adorable enough to keep me excited for the potential as to what they might become. Overall, the characters have interesting personalities and certainly, make me want to spend more time with them platonically. The shop has many options and seems like a good backbone for something more; I certainly look forward to what will come of it. I look forward to what will come of this game in general. I think, barring its flaws, it’s fantastic and has great potential. I truly hope that this will be completed to what you fully envision, if not even reaching a little higher.

i'll admit to being somewhat saddened all the larger characters get to have their spotlight up first

Thank you for the reply, I have a few questions/concerns:

1) Will the darker themes of the original still be present?

(mainly speaking for the rape scene. i personally didn't agree to it, but the writer seemed to do it to add some consequence, considering Shin's route was the hardest to get a happy ending in. )

2) Will the different routes have their own varying difficulty ? Like will not answering the timed answers quickly/ correctly with Kouya automatically lock you from an ending in his route? If so, would other characters have something like that as well?

3) By "issues" with Shun and Kouya, am I correct in assuming that the artist is still ditching cell-shading?

4) Is there (or will there be) an invisible "affinity" meter/counter or something to help avoid the issue most of these games have with only being able to pick specific choices to get endings with specific characters? Meaning if you just so happen to pick a "wrong" choice, you just got locked out of a specific ending with that character.

Opening -

Overall, I went into the game with a negativity in mind. Having voice my concerns previously with the development team. Being basically told, “I like the way this is progressing, I don’t care what my audience thinks unless they agree with my opinion” is not a good way to address the audience. If this game isn’t for the fans, and only for one’s self, why release it? Why let other people see and play it if this isn’t for them? Despite going into this with that, after playing, I still have hope for this project. I mention everything I’m about to say in a greater depth below. The music is excellent, it fits very well. The backgrounds are a good fit, though the background doesn’t compliment the characters well, enough. Instead most of the cast just blends into the background. This is not a fault of the background art, it’s an issue with the character art being too dark and not standing out. The character art just doesn’t compliment the background well enough, and overall isn’t consistent with the idea of more “realism”. There are sharp edges, different types of shading, and some cartoon-ish designs which contrast with others which seem dark. The quality of writing mostly reminds me of the original. Though in the original, you could tell different people wrote certain characters fairly well, here it isn’t as clear. That’s great if there are multiple writers, if not, it shows the writer is consistent. The dialogue is not gripping, the game seems to not celebrate Japanese culture as much as the original, but that is not a bad thing and the writing is by no means bad. I won’t go into writing any more than this because it’s what I’d expect out of this game. As a retelling of the same story, it doesn’t do enough for it to receive high praise, but it is better than the original. It explains more and has consistency.

The Protagonist -

The very first thing I noticed was the image that popped up at the bottom right of the screen showing the protagonists face. In the original, you pick the protagonists name, and never actually see their face. This is to help the player better put themselves into the protagonist’s shoes, by throwing themselves into the situation. I don’t know if the feature will be added in later to at least change the name, but taking away the features that made the player able to project onto the protagonist, while keeping their personality mostly the same doesn’t fit. Morenatsu has always been a game about its cast and their story, not the protagonist. If that is to be changed, that’s fine, but it has to be done well. If the protagonist is to be a character the player sympathizes with, but does not project themselves on, there is a checklist of things that have to be done. They need their own look and personality to set them apart from, or to compliment the rest of, the cast. They also need to have their own interesting story and character development. This is the hard part. How can you have a unique story for the protagonist in a game that is suppose to be focused on the story of everyone but? You’d have to literally redo the entire story of the original game, rather than just alter it slightly. This has not been done. Hiroyuki’s look is as bland as it was when he was in the original, except he has fur. His personality hasn’t seemed to have been altered at all, and he doesn’t really have his own story at all. If you took away all the other characters in the game minus him, there is nothing there, just like the original. Only, now he isn’t the player, he’s another character the player is suppose to be as interested in as the rest of the cast, and frankly, the game would benefit if he was just never changed. The only reasoning, I can think of why the team changed him at all was because they “insert name here” was too difficult to code in, and that it would be cool if Hiroyuki was also a furry, like that cast. Note, the main reason in the original game that all the characters flocked to him was hinted that it was because he was different from them, being the only human in their age-group in town.

The Music -

I don’t have much to say about the music, but it’s enjoyable and I have, on occasion, just left the game open to have some music running while performing tasks on my computer. In fact, I listened to it for a majority of this demo.

Character Art -

From the moment this project was announced, I was against the idea of redesigning the characters. Especially from seeing the example given, which was Torahiko’s new design. I even talked to a very talented artist I am friends with to get their opinion, and also reached out to the artist of the project to give my opinion and the advice my friend wanted me to deliver. However, in the end the entire conversation felt pointless, despite the fact the artist was very kind and appeared open, it seemed clear (at the time) that everything I spoke about was ignored. In turn, I went into this game with a negative opinion on the quality of the art. And in the very beginning, I kept it. Seeing nothing had changed in Torahiko’s design at all. Upon meeting the rest of the cast, my opinions began to differ with almost each character. While Torahiko looks like a sick cat, and Juuichi’s chin could cut diamonds, Shin, Kyouji, Soutarou, and Kounosuke’s designs were all welcome. I didn’t see a problem, I appreciated the more “realistic” approach of their designs, and they were executed well enough in this art style. I’ve addressed my problem with Juuichi above, he’s supposed to be a strong guy, and strong guys have strong chins, sometimes. His body is more grounded in realism, but his head is entire ridiculous. I’ve met plenty of people, and have seen a few bears in real life, and no human or animals head is quite as hexagonal. I hope to see this fixed by the end state of the game. The two characters that don’t seem to fit in at all based on realism, which was the excuse for the redesigns, are Torahiko and Tatsuki. Let’s start with Torahiko. He is almost the exact opposite of his original design, which was overexaggerated, but it told you through art that he was big and tough. His current design does not show that, he looks small and sickly. He does not look athletic. Taking a closer look, it seems like his skin is wrapping around is bone and muscle, meaning his body is lacking in fat, meaning he’s possibly starving himself and his body has already burned away its’ fat. While this would be an interesting way to go in his story, if he were hurting himself to make himself seem more presentable to his long-time friend, who he’s secretly loved, that’s not the case. The line from the original game even says that Torahiko has gotten much bigger than he previously was, which seems to greatly contrast with his art, unless he was originally smaller than Shun, even. It also seems to be a reoccurring theme that the faces aren’t quite up to par. As his just adds on to the fact he looks unhealthy. Moving onto Tatsuki, he’s a big guy, yes. I’ve known plenty of people his size in my line of work, and none of them have a sell defined chest. If this “realistic” take was so prominent in the characters redesign this should have been considered, as his character isn’t an athlete, he’s a drunk. He’d have no chest, and a beer belly. His arms make the most sense, and I think they fit very well for what his “realistic” design is supposed to be. If there is concern that making him fat would make him weak, that’s not true at all, he can still have muscle and be very strong, it just wouldn’t show like it does now. Also, yet again the face also comes into play. It just doesn’t fit in at all. It doesn’t fit the style of the other characters, and just seems cartoon-ish and almost cutesy. Now comes the two characters I’ve yet to mention, the cell-shaded duo Shun and Kouya. It is difficult to tell if they are drawn by the same artist as the other characters just due to the fact they contrast so heavily from the rest of the cast. Which, I personally love. The art used for these characters set the standard on how the entire cast should look. I’ll admit that Shun’s complete redesign threw me off. He seems out of place in a town that’s suppose to be out of touch with the rest of the world. It just doesn’t make much sense, even if he’s part of a wealthier family. Let’s just come to the conclusion that he can enjoy video games without being a hardcore gamer in a town where it doesn’t quite make sense. Now Kouya’s sorta new design is probably my favorite. Which is strange because, aside from Kounosuke, he was my least favorite character in the original. Overall the cell-shaded characters are a better fit for the game, not just due to preference. They help instill a lighter tone to a game that’s supposed to be lighthearted. The current art of all the other characters give the vibe of a murder mystery or a horror game, while the music and setting go completely against the vibe.

Background Art –

Lastly, the background art. It’s hard to tell if the art is painted or Photoshopped, which is a great thing. It looks good. I don’t know if this is the final product or not, but if it is there is no disappointment to be had. It’s not too detailed, meaning that it won’t distract form the character art. Though, a few of the characters art make them blend into it, when it’d be better for them to stand out instead.