It takes a long time to load. But that’s not my problem, it’s that it doesn’t want to start.
It bother me about the color mode. I changed to 16-bit mode, but it still complains.
The new demo version is far more stable then the alpha version I tried earlier. However unfortunately the music is still a bit off. I have no problems with the graphics. I just get some strange distortion in the music like it isn’t playing properly. Is there any way to make it change sound options like move from Soundmax to DirectSound like most games do if there’s a problem?
It’s not actually bothering you about the color mode.
It’s bothering you about your graphics card being crap.
It suggests trying a different color mode to compensate for your graphics card being crap; this is default engine behavior and I’ve asked them repeatedly to take it out because I’ve NEVER met ANYONE whose problems were actually fixed by lowering color depth.
What graphics card do you have and how much memory has it got?
(As I said way back when I was soliciting for testers - my system requirements are higher than you might expect for a game of this nature, simply because of the tools I’m using to make it.)
[This message has been edited by papillon (edited 10-14-2005).]
quote:
It's bothering you about your graphics card being crap.
Hey hey, easy there.
I have a 4 MB graphics card S3 Virge model. Something like that. I could run your other game fine.
Sorry, I didn’t mean ‘crap’ in an insulting way, honest! I’m mixing my language between forums.
But if you look at the System Requirements section, it calls for 16MB. 4 isn’t going to make it, unfortunately. Summer Schoolgirls shouldn’t work with 4MB either - I’m pretty surprised if it did! The other games were made with an earlier release that had lower requirements (and fewer functions).
8MB is a maybe, maybe not. 16MB is pretty safe. 4MB… it’s not going to work.
Compatibility issues are the main reason I keep swearing I’m going to move to a different system one of these days… next project will probably be running something completely different.
One thing I noticed is that S3Virge or anything that hage the S3 mark is generally lacking in graphics and has one flaw or another in almost ANYTHING and EVERY GAME. Good for productivity but lousy for any sort of gaming except probably solitaire and still graphics.
quote:I know the feeling here...i keep telling myself i'll upgrade my memory card next time...
Originally posted by papillon:
Compatibility issues are the main reason I keep swearing I'm going to move to a different system one of these days... next project will probably be running something completely different.
Hold on, people here are still using 4mb graphic cards? I thought those out of date a long time ago? Most people complain about a 64mb card being out of date and my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256mb is slowly becoming out of date.
Erm, there’s a difference between 2D and 3D cards.
Sure, mine is out of date, but I haven’t been able to afford a new PC, and it works for all my bishoujo games.
papillon, Summer Schoolgirls doesn’t start either, but I was talking about Classroom Chaos. That one does start.
[This message has been edited by Benoit (edited 10-15-2005).]
As I said, anything before Summer Schoolgirls was built on a slightly different engine that had lower requirements. (It used something like DX5 or DX6 instead of DX8, and had no alpha-blending.) So it didn’t need as much oomph to run.
I actually bought one of my testers a new graphics card so they could run my stuff. You can probably find a graphics card that would work pretty cheaply, but I wouldn’t demand that you go out and get a new one just for me.
I was stuck not being able to play a lot of games for a long time because the 3d functions on my old card burned out - yes, I know how weird that sounds, but it’s true! the rest of the card still worked - mostly - but it would go insane when asked to do anything 3d. Anyway. That card is thankfully gone now.
I figure if Benoit is still using a 4 mb S3Virge card then I’m going to take a wild stab here…
You’re using a laptop correct? Because most computers i’ve seen with that card have been laptops around 1998-2000
Hey it’s alright. Keep in mind this is Bishoujo gaming and memory should be the LAST thing on your mind when playing this genre for the fact that it doesn’t push ANYTHING. Still pictures and sprite animation? That shouldn’t really push anything but hell.
I still can’t believe that 64 mb graphics cards are considered outdated. They can still do quite a bit of punch in that space.
Then again most laptop graphics cards are stuck in that level so I have to keep my antiquated Geforce 4 440 Go card…
quote:
As I said, anything before Summer Schoolgirls was built on a slightly different engine that had lower requirements. (It used something like DX5 or DX6 instead of DX8, and had no alpha-blending.)
I couldn't run Classroom Chaos properly with a DX lower than version 8.
Why did you change your engine to a more demanding one even though your game itself doesn't ask for such power? That's one of the things that bothers me about today's computers. They ALWAYS ask more than truly needed for what they do.
quote:
You're using a laptop correct? Because most computers i've seen with that card have been laptops around 1998-2000
No, it's a desktop PC from 1998.
quote:
Hey it's alright. Keep in mind this is Bishoujo gaming and memory should be the LAST thing on your mind when playing this genre for the fact that it doesn't push ANYTHING. Still pictures and sprite animation? That shouldn't really push anything but hell.
Exactly.
quote:
I still can't believe that 64 mb graphics cards are considered outdated. They can still do quite a bit of punch in that space.
Yeah. It's not memory that matters, but the techniques that the card handles, and in that area, 3D cards haven't evolved much.
quote:
Why did you change your engine to a more demanding one even though your game itself doesn’t ask for such power?
But it does. I’m using many functions that simply weren’t available in the older engine. Most obviously, alpha blending.
Built using the other tools, these games would have taken longer, looked worse, and been bigger in filesize. You might have noticed that the other games are pretty much strictly pixel art. That’s why.
With Kishi, I might be able to at some point produce a version that will run on lower-end computers and not look too bad. The main thing that won’t convert correctly is the dungeon monsters, and no one will care too much if they gain hard black outlines. It won’t look as nice, but it won’t ruin the game. (Tons of other little things would have to change, but again, not enough to make the game unplayable, just making it uglier and clumsier.)
With Schoolgirls it’s much more difficult and not something I would want to try - it would be a lot of work and end up with terrible results. When I first started making Schoolgirls, it was before the newer engine had come out, and I basically gave up because I saw how impossible it was going to be to get the result I wanted… Only when the new engine came out did that project get picked back up again.
I must be one of the few nerdy ones as I can honestly see the huge differences in color and sprite movement. It’s actually quite a bit significant then most people realize. I’d rate this jump as compareable from the regular Nintendo to the Super Nintendo. Some of the regular things I noticed compared to Charm School
1. Charm School did a Forced resolution change to 640-480 and from the color depth I’d say it’s running on as low as 256 colors.
2. Color Depth is far lower then Kishi Kawaii.
3. Sprite animation is just a tad jerky. Just by watching them play I can see that Kishi Kawaii has about double the frames of animation of Charm School.
I must be a nerd to notice this kind of change. I can easy see just by the first few pictures that the jump from Charm School or Even Summer Schoolgirls to Kishi Kawai is significant. The amount of colors skyrocketed the spirtes became more smooth the character portraits themselves are significantly better and a few other changes. Too bad the music on Kishi Kawaii seems messed up on my system. ARGH.
Though a really really gifted programmer could probably be able to get Kishi Kawaii running on a 386-486 level PC with 1 mb of graphic memory “SVGA Card” Though I’m no programmer. Just know what I’ve seen from lots of great programming.
P.S. A S3 Savage card is about Playstation level in graphics with the advantage of very rudimentary Anti Aliasing. I used to have that same chip in a laptop I was using as recently as the end of march THIS YEAR.
quote:I don't. I'm just saying all i have is my onboard video card and i need to upgrade it...it runs Kishi Kawaii fine.
Originally posted by Ksim3000:
Hold on, people here are still using 4mb graphic cards? I thought those out of date a long time ago? Most people complain about a 64mb card being out of date and my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256mb is slowly becoming out of date.
Just curious papillion, what engine do you use for your games? Or did you design one yourself?
Also nice work with Kishi Kawaii.
Now that I got myself a brand spanking new laptop, I got to play the demo.
(posting from my old PC, though)
The artwork is really nice, and the game has a nice design as well. I like the dialogue too.
I only have criticism on the dungeon system, which seems to have been the less worked on.
-The dungeon view behaves rather odd in terms of graphics. I’m in front of a ladder, and when I press right, suddenly I seem to have moved backwards with the ladder having moved to the front but staying left. You also keep at all times a distance from each wall, so when you would think that you can come closer, you can’t. Because of this, navigating the dungeon while looking at the map is best, making the dungeon view almost useless.
-There is some music when you enter the dungeon, but it fades soon enough. It would have been nice to have a dungeon theme. The battles don’t have any music either…
-When in a battle, the choices always obstruct the message window, making it a pain to read.
The dungeon section (the maze generation and navigation at least) was actually the first thing built, since it’s more complicated than jobs (and battles) are. It’s based on really old first-person-perspective RPGs, pre-3d.
There was even a visible compass on-screen at one point, ala Eye of the Beholder, but there just wasn’t enough room onscreen so that had to go away.
Trying to figure out what should go where on the dungeon screen deserves a whole GUI design class someday. It does get crowded.
I’m not entirely happy with the ladders, but I felt it was more important to make sure they were recognisable as ladders at all times than to get the perspective really consistent. I didn’t want people going ‘Why is there a straight line in the middle of my screen? What does this mean?’