Always Remember Me - Trick and tips!

Otome dating sim with life simulation gameplay: http://www.winterwolves.com/rememberme.htm
reader
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Re: Trick and tips!

Post by reader »

Not sure where the proper place was to post this. First, am still enjoying the game after several plays. And absolutely love amy. Tend to have a difficult time trying to determine from a demo if I will like a game enough to purchase it. Always is a game that I was fairly certain I would like. Amy's spirit and her reactions are a wonderful way to create a character. Her I'm awesome reaction is my favorite. Would have liked a few more comments included since they are used so often. But this is a small point. Also like her name and how she doesn't actually use her full name. Would be interesting to hear what her take on this is.

Game wise, I've played a number of dating sims and this strikes me as dating sim light. There is no true dating actually in the form of selecting places. To get the basic ending, only relationship level is required. At least it seems this way to me from playing. Morale is important to get good results as well as energy. But does the other stats factor in? Seems it is only necessary to get relationship to a certain level with visits and then visit various places to get the events to occur for the rest of the relationship points. Don't see where creativity, discipline, etc tend to mean anything for a standard ending. And only one of these is needed for the best end. Not 100% certain since I don't know what drives the side events. But it seems to be relationship level. Plus various locations aren't needed depending on who you are trying to end up with. Going for Aaron means the gym isn't much use except for the side event there. This is rather disappointing, as the game is spent building stats that don't seem to be needed. Plus relationships other than the ending character aren't needed either. It would be more interesting for me anyway if the other stats were a factor. That you would need say a good relationship with the love interest as well as say a friend character of the love interest. Plus a character be interested in more than just the one stat. Didn't discover a lot of use for the items. When I bought the relaxer to sleep, still had problems with noise that there was no product to address. The dress would have been nice as say for a formal date at the end but only seems to be needed if you are going for the character who has the creativity stat I believe it was.

I enjoy the game as I said, but think addressing the above items would make the game better. The length of the game may need to be increased to make the suggested endings possible. But extra days under the current format do not appear to be that difficult to address. Hope you will consider these suggestions for this game. If not feasible then consider them for a future similar project. Thanks for the game.
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jack1974
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Re: Trick and tips!

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There are indeed two different endings for each character based on a statistic: if you get only max relationship you get the "Normal" ending, but if you max the character related stat, you get a different one called "Special" ending. If you go in the "Extras" menu from main menu you see a gallery with tips on how to obtain each ending :wink:
reader
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Re: Trick and tips!

Post by reader »

jack1974 wrote:There are indeed two different endings for each character based on a statistic: if you get only max relationship you get the "Normal" ending, but if you max the character related stat, you get a different one called "Special" ending. If you go in the "Extras" menu from main menu you see a gallery with tips on how to obtain each ending :wink:
I think you misunderstood my point. To summarize: The game ignores all the other relationship points you have earned other than just the one boy who you need 100 points for. Also, the game ignores all the other stats except say romance if you are trying to get aaron's best ending. It is frustrating to build up all these points and have them not mean anything. I would find the game to be much better if they did count for something. I have made suggestions in my previous post how this could be done. I do not have access to the mechanics behind the scene, but they at least do not appear to do anything.
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jack1974
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Re: Trick and tips!

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Ahh ok I see. Yes for future games might do that - Winter In Fairbrook which is currently available in beta preorder uses two stats for example. So for the two stats, sure. As for having different outcomes based on other character relationships, that could be done, not in a full CG scene art at the end since the combinations would be too many and they're expensive, but using normal text/sprites, that's surely possible!
I might even do an update to Always Remember Me with your suggestions. If I didn't do that is because from what I know, usually not many people play the games many times to get all the various endings, especially if what changes is not the "main" ending but only small events (hope I managed to express what I mean).
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Re: Trick and tips!

Post by reader »

Yes, not all players will try to get the various endings. Perhaps 3 endings per character good-1. relationship over 69 but less than 100. Main stat for the boy over 50. better-2. relationship over 89. Main stat at least 80. Second stat at least 50. best-3. relationship 100. Main stat 100. second stat at least 70. Other stats say over 30 so nothing is left out. Relationship with his friend say above 40. He could be the best man for the best ending wedding.

The stats wouldn't need to include any additional artwork. Extra relationship wouldn't even have to have new text until the ending to mention the friend giving his blessing to the union of amy and his best friend. The length of the game will most likely need to be increased. Don't see that this would require much change either. Either a long game or shorten the length of time some of the choices take so more could be done in a day.

I create my own games actually so I can appreciate the amount of work it requires. As far as endings go, my own project is somewhere near 30 different endings if that tells you anything about my liking of various endings.
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jack1974
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Re: Trick and tips!

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reader wrote: I create my own games actually so I can appreciate the amount of work it requires. As far as endings go, my own project is somewhere near 30 different endings if that tells you anything about my liking of various endings.
Yes, I also need to hire writers so that takes time, and beside test everything so that there aren't mistakes. But adding extra endings as you described shouldn't be too much work, so will definitely think about it (even if currently I'm doing lots of proejcts).
The game I made with biggest amount of endings was Bionic Heart, 24 endings, though wasn't a dating sim but a visual novel.
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Re: Trick and tips!

Post by reader »

Also wanted to mention that I really enjoyed the silly extras. Especially amy loves everybody. The ab one was good too.

Couple of more game suggestions:
1. Would it be possible to have the option to decline the bonus when you get the solo ending? Prefer to get the endings legit without the assist. Especially since there are only so many endings anyway.

2. Actions that say they increase creativity for example should actually increase creativity if they are successful. Don't know how many times I've done an action and had a stat not even listed increased. This is misleading to the player. Unless the action is a failure, the listed stats should all increase by one.
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jack1974
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Re: Trick and tips!

Post by jack1974 »

Glad you liked the silly extras :lol: I made them as last minute thing when finishing the game because I wanted to reuse the chibis :)
1. I never thought about that, since you get the bonus only if you play at Easy/Normal level, but wouldn't be a problem to let player decide
2. Yeah, I know :( the problem is that if I do that should rebalance the whole game. In the end, it seems that most players were more pissed by the "fail" outcome, than by the fact that not all stats are raised. Really I should display a sort of summary of which stats can be increased and by which percentage. In practice is random with a precise amount: like jogging has 10% of chances to get determination increase on success, and so on.
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Re: Trick and tips!

Post by reader »

Haven't tried the hard mode yet. Only managed to get all the endings on normal level.

Can appreciate the balancing issue as have experienced it a great deal in building my own games. Just when you have a limited time and need to max out a certain stat, one needs to be able to rely on that action to produce a stat increase of what it is labeled to improve. Now failure of course would not produce a stat increase. And there is also a random factor in how much an increase there may be. It seemed in playing that doing an action multiple times in a row decreased the results of the act. Is that just me or is there a factor for this? Believe a good answer to this would be to increase the number of stats that are needed for an ending as I mentioned earlier. When you are trying for just one stat, doing an action and not getting it are a big deal. If you need two stats and get one of them, you are at least making progress.
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jack1974
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Re: Trick and tips!

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Yes a solution would be either to require two stats, or have a bigger scale, not from 0 to 100, but from 0 to 500 for example, and have the failure raise it a bit, and success raise it a lot. Even if in gameplay terms wouldn't change much, it would be less frustrating for the player :)
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