So, I played through the whole entire game, and I mainly did Victor's route. I got half of a green heart with him. Don't know how to unlock the rest of that heart, but this was a cute but long visual novel to get through. I liked the various art pieces, and the music mostly fit the tone of the story. Maybe because of the way I played it, but the story became tedious and repetitive, and the story beats felt too far apart and spread out. There were moments of intrigue, mystery, and heart in this story that sometimes pulled at my heartstrings. Otherwise, the way the story was set up, I was waiting to finish the VN or waiting until something interesting happened. Even the beginning didn't completely pull me in, as I felt like things were happening in the story without the emotion or motivation behind why the characters were there in the first place. Thus, the beginning felt stilted and boring to me, especially with the slice-of-life-moments. As cute as those scenes were, they didn't invest or grab me into the story or their world. This is because there was no tension or conflict that created reader engagement. However, when things started getting more serious later on, that's when things started getting interesting and emotional. Maybe if I replayed the game and went through various routes at once, the story would be more fleshed-out and fulfilling for me. Otherwise, it was a nice read with pretty art and nice-sounding music. Good job! I give it a 7.5/10.
Thank you for finishing it and for the feedback! I agree that the beginning is unfortunately tough to get through. 😥Maybe one of those "I swear, give it 5 episodes" kind of stories. It's one reason the Bonus Scenes were separated from the main story; I really wanted to write them and I think they add to the lore, but they would've slowed down the story even more. Thanks for letting me know that there are good moments in later parts. 🥰
The green heart is actually the dislike meter. 😅 I think Eidan is the easiest to accidentally annoy, but I remember I wanted Victor to be overly sensitive in some of his choices, so that checks out. The Dislike meter exists because I originally wanted to make a Hate route for everybody, but the game was getting too long, and worse so it was already buggy. 😵
If you're curious about which choice it was, the Advice toggle usually says which choices cause Dislike points. But admittedly, the only changes across in multiple playthroughs are just different character responses. Unless anyone's invested in more dialogue, there isn't a lot of reason to go back. 😓 But just in case, there's a whole guide here: https://papersak.com/zenocelproject/guide
Thanks! The special scenes were cute. I ended up treating it as a dating sim when I forgot everyone was only going to be friends. If the character has already maxed out a stat, then making that choice unclickable would work, similar to how the player couldn’t play video games all day, despite that being a choice.
This game reminded me of Tokimeki Memorial, which was a hit, Japanese, stat-managing and dating sim game back from the 90’s. Although a fan-made English patch exists for that game, I couldn’t get the emulator to work, and I resorted to using Google Translate while using a free web browser for it.
And that game was 5 hours long, but the difference is that the player sees the stats increase, and the player can eventually unlock different cutscenes depending on stats, seasons, or in-game events like yours.
So, I’m assuming you were trying to go for something like that. There are also YouTube Let’s Plays for the game too with English text if you’re interested in checking that out yourself. Although, having played through the game multiple times myself, even that game that pioneered this genre became tedious, repetitive, long-winded, and boring for me.
I think it’s because there is a lack of story in such games, and I’m seeing disconnected scenes play out when triggering events. Yours I liked because the protagonist was a character and not a faceless self-insert, they had a backstory, and I could see how all of the events tied into the bigger, overall story.
The only other minor complaint I have is that sometimes the backgrounds were too close to the character sprites or looked too different from the polished character sprites, or they were at a weird angle, like when they were playing cards and the table facing an aerial position when behind them. I got used to it, but it threw me off at first.
Although, I know backgrounds can be hard. So, l didn’t mind it, especially when other backgrounds looked fantastic and had variety. I especially loved the different classroom settings and CGs.
Nonetheless, I tried different times in creating a game like this and always stopped short. So, I can understand the amount of time and effort it took to build a kind of game like this. So, kudos to you!
This is an interesting and romantic story that includes a mystery hook - I really like it!
I’d like to go through different aspects of the game and share my thoughts:
Art: It’s simple but eye-catching. The game definitely has its own style, and it suits it well. The art reminded me of cartoons on Jetix, which gave me a nostalgic feeling 😊. There’s surprisingly a lot of art! During the game, I noticed scene changes and many CGs, which is not very common in indie visual novels and that's nice!
Story and Characters: The story is in the slice-of-life genre, which is classic for visual novels. But I like that there’s conflict and a mystery involving mutations. This mix of everyday life and monsters strongly reminded me of Coffee Talk. Perhaps this game inspired the visual novel?
Regarding the characters - all four monsters are unique and have their own traits. It’s great when each character represents a different archetype, as it allows players to have varied experiences during playthroughs. I really liked the character Celia - she’s an active and engaging companion to spend time with. I’m not an extrovert myself, but extroverted characters add liveliness to the story and push the main character forward.
Speaking of the monsters, I liked Victor. He has a great design and personality. Overall, I appreciate how the character designs match their personalities. For example, Victor is dark and gray, a quiet introvert; Ravi is represented as a peacock, an extrovert who craves attention - and so on. This is a fantastic detail!
Sound: The music isn’t outstanding, but it perfectly fits the mood and it's good. There’s enough variety in tracks so that the music doesn’t get repetitive. There are also plenty of sound effects accompanying various game actions, which adds to the game’s immersion.
Overall, I can say the project is interesting! It definitely has a compelling concept.
Thank you so much for this first, lovely comment. 🥹
The art has been such a roadblock in finishing the game. 😆 I've had to cut CGs down, since I really want to get to the ending. I think making a few images good will be better than making a lot of images poorly. 😅 But the main sprites already went through a massive overhaul since I started.
I've heard of Coffee Talk, but I never found time to play it. I'm kind of flattered it makes someone think of a big game like that. 🥰 I think Nekopara ~Catboys Paradise~ was largrly what prompted the character designs and the otome-friendship, slice of life spirit. I definitely want to credit Pokemon Masters (Trainer Lodge) and Persona for a lot of the inspiration, too.
At least, for the gameplay. For the story, I wanted to tell something similar to how my friends got me out of my comfort zone, and how I never could've imagined the amazing experiences I would later have after the lowest points in my life. 😅 Meeting someone with a tail wouldn't even surprise me anymore.
I'm glad you liked the characters! I think I know somebody better when they describe their favorite characters (which is why this is the correct choice in Ravi's route 😆). I'm glad they all seem unique. Celia was someone I struggled writing because she's intentionally not like me, and I'm happy that there are people who appreciate how friendly she is. Victor was one of the first character designs, and he went through a big redesign so more of his character traits would be reflected.
It would not hurt my feelings if the player muted the music. 😆 I think, as a developer, I've heard these songs too many times from testing, and I do worry that I should gather a few more songs. Music is where I have to leave it up to people with years of experience, because I have none. 😵 But I'm testing the ending, and once I'm able to update, I promise that that song in the last scene will be worth unmuting. It's another (currently unused) Keys of Moon song that makes me emotional even without the art. 🥲
Thanks for playing!! I hope you have time to try it again once the game is finished. Either way, I'm happy you already found so much to say about it. 🥰 It makes me hopeful that somebody else will like it.
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I also found some typos here.
So, I played through the whole entire game, and I mainly did Victor's route. I got half of a green heart with him. Don't know how to unlock the rest of that heart, but this was a cute but long visual novel to get through. I liked the various art pieces, and the music mostly fit the tone of the story. Maybe because of the way I played it, but the story became tedious and repetitive, and the story beats felt too far apart and spread out. There were moments of intrigue, mystery, and heart in this story that sometimes pulled at my heartstrings. Otherwise, the way the story was set up, I was waiting to finish the VN or waiting until something interesting happened. Even the beginning didn't completely pull me in, as I felt like things were happening in the story without the emotion or motivation behind why the characters were there in the first place. Thus, the beginning felt stilted and boring to me, especially with the slice-of-life-moments. As cute as those scenes were, they didn't invest or grab me into the story or their world. This is because there was no tension or conflict that created reader engagement. However, when things started getting more serious later on, that's when things started getting interesting and emotional. Maybe if I replayed the game and went through various routes at once, the story would be more fleshed-out and fulfilling for me. Otherwise, it was a nice read with pretty art and nice-sounding music. Good job! I give it a 7.5/10.
Thank you for finishing it and for the feedback! I agree that the beginning is unfortunately tough to get through. 😥Maybe one of those "I swear, give it 5 episodes" kind of stories. It's one reason the Bonus Scenes were separated from the main story; I really wanted to write them and I think they add to the lore, but they would've slowed down the story even more. Thanks for letting me know that there are good moments in later parts. 🥰
The green heart is actually the dislike meter. 😅 I think Eidan is the easiest to accidentally annoy, but I remember I wanted Victor to be overly sensitive in some of his choices, so that checks out. The Dislike meter exists because I originally wanted to make a Hate route for everybody, but the game was getting too long, and worse so it was already buggy. 😵
If you're curious about which choice it was, the Advice toggle usually says which choices cause Dislike points. But admittedly, the only changes across in multiple playthroughs are just different character responses. Unless anyone's invested in more dialogue, there isn't a lot of reason to go back. 😓 But just in case, there's a whole guide here: https://papersak.com/zenocelproject/guide
Thanks! The special scenes were cute. I ended up treating it as a dating sim when I forgot everyone was only going to be friends. If the character has already maxed out a stat, then making that choice unclickable would work, similar to how the player couldn’t play video games all day, despite that being a choice.
This game reminded me of Tokimeki Memorial, which was a hit, Japanese, stat-managing and dating sim game back from the 90’s. Although a fan-made English patch exists for that game, I couldn’t get the emulator to work, and I resorted to using Google Translate while using a free web browser for it.
And that game was 5 hours long, but the difference is that the player sees the stats increase, and the player can eventually unlock different cutscenes depending on stats, seasons, or in-game events like yours.
So, I’m assuming you were trying to go for something like that. There are also YouTube Let’s Plays for the game too with English text if you’re interested in checking that out yourself. Although, having played through the game multiple times myself, even that game that pioneered this genre became tedious, repetitive, long-winded, and boring for me.
I think it’s because there is a lack of story in such games, and I’m seeing disconnected scenes play out when triggering events. Yours I liked because the protagonist was a character and not a faceless self-insert, they had a backstory, and I could see how all of the events tied into the bigger, overall story.
The only other minor complaint I have is that sometimes the backgrounds were too close to the character sprites or looked too different from the polished character sprites, or they were at a weird angle, like when they were playing cards and the table facing an aerial position when behind them. I got used to it, but it threw me off at first.
Although, I know backgrounds can be hard. So, l didn’t mind it, especially when other backgrounds looked fantastic and had variety. I especially loved the different classroom settings and CGs.
Nonetheless, I tried different times in creating a game like this and always stopped short. So, I can understand the amount of time and effort it took to build a kind of game like this. So, kudos to you!
This is an interesting and romantic story that includes a mystery hook - I really like it!
I’d like to go through different aspects of the game and share my thoughts:
Art: It’s simple but eye-catching. The game definitely has its own style, and it suits it well. The art reminded me of cartoons on Jetix, which gave me a nostalgic feeling 😊. There’s surprisingly a lot of art! During the game, I noticed scene changes and many CGs, which is not very common in indie visual novels and that's nice!
Story and Characters: The story is in the slice-of-life genre, which is classic for visual novels. But I like that there’s conflict and a mystery involving mutations. This mix of everyday life and monsters strongly reminded me of Coffee Talk. Perhaps this game inspired the visual novel?
Regarding the characters - all four monsters are unique and have their own traits. It’s great when each character represents a different archetype, as it allows players to have varied experiences during playthroughs. I really liked the character Celia - she’s an active and engaging companion to spend time with. I’m not an extrovert myself, but extroverted characters add liveliness to the story and push the main character forward.
Speaking of the monsters, I liked Victor. He has a great design and personality. Overall, I appreciate how the character designs match their personalities. For example, Victor is dark and gray, a quiet introvert; Ravi is represented as a peacock, an extrovert who craves attention - and so on. This is a fantastic detail!
Sound: The music isn’t outstanding, but it perfectly fits the mood and it's good. There’s enough variety in tracks so that the music doesn’t get repetitive. There are also plenty of sound effects accompanying various game actions, which adds to the game’s immersion.
Overall, I can say the project is interesting! It definitely has a compelling concept.
Thank you so much for this first, lovely comment. 🥹
The art has been such a roadblock in finishing the game. 😆 I've had to cut CGs down, since I really want to get to the ending. I think making a few images good will be better than making a lot of images poorly. 😅 But the main sprites already went through a massive overhaul since I started.
I've heard of Coffee Talk, but I never found time to play it. I'm kind of flattered it makes someone think of a big game like that. 🥰 I think Nekopara ~Catboys Paradise~ was largrly what prompted the character designs and the otome-friendship, slice of life spirit. I definitely want to credit Pokemon Masters (Trainer Lodge) and Persona for a lot of the inspiration, too.
At least, for the gameplay. For the story, I wanted to tell something similar to how my friends got me out of my comfort zone, and how I never could've imagined the amazing experiences I would later have after the lowest points in my life. 😅 Meeting someone with a tail wouldn't even surprise me anymore.
I'm glad you liked the characters! I think I know somebody better when they describe their favorite characters (which is why this is the correct choice in Ravi's route 😆). I'm glad they all seem unique. Celia was someone I struggled writing because she's intentionally not like me, and I'm happy that there are people who appreciate how friendly she is. Victor was one of the first character designs, and he went through a big redesign so more of his character traits would be reflected.
It would not hurt my feelings if the player muted the music. 😆 I think, as a developer, I've heard these songs too many times from testing, and I do worry that I should gather a few more songs. Music is where I have to leave it up to people with years of experience, because I have none. 😵 But I'm testing the ending, and once I'm able to update, I promise that that song in the last scene will be worth unmuting. It's another (currently unused) Keys of Moon song that makes me emotional even without the art. 🥲
Thanks for playing!! I hope you have time to try it again once the game is finished. Either way, I'm happy you already found so much to say about it. 🥰 It makes me hopeful that somebody else will like it.