Finding Miranda (En, Sp, Fr, It, Ge)

[Ano_nim_20171205]

i am sorry that you feel uncomfortable because i shared my idea with you I made changes just because i like that story (images and text together) and will eagerly wait for new one

[Mortze]

i am sorry that you feel uncomfortable because i shared my idea with you I made changes just because i like that story (images and text together) and will eagerly wait for new one

It is not that we feel uncomfortable. No. We have to feel honored for someone to spend their time and creativity in enhancing our game. We believe it is well intended and thank you for that.
We have no quarrel that you change our game for your private plays. By all means, do what you must to enhance your enjoyment. But at a certain point it won't be a Tlaero&Mortze game anymore.

We do acknowledge your good intention. We do thank you for your effort. We feel humbled that you spent time in your life focusing on our work.
Despite all that, we have mixed feelings about this though.
I'm not sure how I would feel if someone started changing the pictures with Photoshop. It isn't an easy thing to process.

But no hard feelings towards you, rest assured

[BloodyMares]

Now I'm intrigued what the fuss is about. Can you upload a screenshot of your changes and share it under spoiler or something? Curious to check it out.

[tlaero]

There's no fuss. She made a few well intentioned changes to the CSS file to make the game look nicer. Different background color, drop shadow on the image, icons for the buttons, etc. It DOES look better. I just don't want to chase that crowd. No offense taken.

Tlaero

[tlaero]

I've posted a second article about Saving Chloe on our patreon page. It, like the previous one, is free to read. You don't need to be a patron or have an account or anything to view it. Saving Chloe: Points and Choices. The first article is linked in that one.

Again, if you want to discuss it, you're welcome to do so there or here, but the lagoon is better suited to discussions than patreon comments are.

Tlaero

[Incognito]

Hello there, I just registered so that I can comment on how good I think your (Mortze & Tlaero) games are. I've played all your combined efforts, Pandora ( I know you worked on this together too) and the Christine game. I enjoyed them all. Thank you for your work and passion on these games.

[tlaero]

Thanks Incognito!

Tlaero

[BloodyMares]

For now going by articles the game does sound interesting.
The Redemption for Jessica is definitely my favorite in terms of gameplay mechanics so it's nice that something like this is going to return. In my opinion, Finding Miranda's approach to sex scenes wasn't ideal because it made a rift between players and the character they were playing which is okay in linear games (Assassin's Creed's "your synchronization isn't strong enough") but isn't really a good thing in role-playing genre. I still remember the shitstorm from Mass Effect 2's approach to Tali's romance where she revealed her face to Shepard but the player didn't get to see it. So once again I'm happy that Saving Chloe has different mechanics.
Also agree about the last point, "What you say always should have consequence" isn't always true. Not every game has to be a Telltale.

[Tao Dude]

Also agree about the last point, "What you say always should have consequence" isn't always true. Not every game has to be a Telltale.

Apologies if English is not your first language or I have taken the above too far out of context, but you appear to be contradicting yourself. Also, I am not certain in what context you are using the term 'Telltale', as it has a number of different meanings in vernacular English. Do you mean that not every game needs to tell a story, or that not every game needs to 'tell tales' on the player and have bad moral choices by the player lead to a bad ending? Quite a few taboo-themed games rely on poor moral choices for their success, so on that point, i would tend to agree with you.

I think most games, event first person shooter arcade alien bashers need a basic story, even if they don't actually tell it as part of the gameplay. In my view where a game offers a choice between dialogue responses or on-screen actions, each choice should have a different consequence, or the illusory choice adds nothing to the game experience.

If a page in a scene is necessary to develop the story but it does not matter how the player responds, a single 'continue' option is most appropriate (with an appropriate 'lead-in' to the next page, like 'they move into the bedroom'), unless the illusory choices are placeholders for a future enhancement to a demo version of the game where the protagonist's attitude will make a difference out the outcome. To deter people from 'clicking through' to the genuine decision points, the simple device of moving the 'continue' hotspot to different points on the screen for different pages is all that is required if the creator wants to tell a story with their game.

[BloodyMares]

Also agree about the last point, "What you say always should have consequence" isn't always true. Not every game has to be a Telltale.

Apologies if English is not your first language or I have taken the above too far out of context, but you appear to be contradicting yourself. Also, I am not certain in what context you are using the term 'Telltale', as it has a number of different meanings in vernacular English. Do you mean that not every game needs to tell a story, or that not every game needs to 'tell tales' on the player and have bad moral choices by the player lead to a bad ending? Quite a few taboo-themed games rely on poor moral choices for their success, so on that point, i would tend to agree with you.

I think most games, event first person shooter arcade alien bashers need a basic story, even if they don't actually tell it as part of the gameplay. In my view where a game offers a choice between dialogue responses or on-screen actions, each choice should have a different consequence, or the illusory choice adds nothing to the game experience.

If a page in a scene is necessary to develop the story but it does not matter how the player responds, a single 'continue' option is most appropriate (with an appropriate 'lead-in' to the next page, like 'they move into the bedroom'), unless the illusory choices are placeholders for a future enhancement to a demo version of the game where the protagonist's attitude will make a difference out the outcome. To deter people from 'clicking through' to the genuine decision points, the simple device of moving the 'continue' hotspot to different points on the screen for different pages is all that is required if the creator wants to tell a story with their game.

Oh, sorry. I meant the games of the developer studio called Telltale Games as an example of "direct your narrative" kind of games where supposedly every decision and conversation matters. I assumed everybody knows of them as their games are quite famous. Life is Strange and similar games also belong in this group.
My point was that not every word spoken should always have narrative consequences, good or bad. Sometimes what you pick for a protagonist to say can be used to define his personality (RfJ style) instead of influencing the story, even if said personality is just your imagination. In games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, there are moments where your words/actions affect the story but there are also moments where they don't and the events play out the same way but the choice is still given. And I don't think it's bad to give 'meaningless' choices as they still offer a player role-playing opportunities.

[tlaero]

Even in Telltale games, the conversation choices don't really affect the outcome. The overall story goes along the same way, though some minor details may change.

In the end, there are only two ways to make every choice have significant consequences:
1) Have there be a small number of choices.
2) Spend years (decades?) developing the game.

But even in reality, every choice doesn't have significant consequences. If you get up in the morning and or you say to your wife, "Hi sweetie" or "Good morning" or "I love you," chances are, the rest of the day is going to progress pretty much identically. If the alarm goes off and you hit snooze once or you don't, they day is pretty likely to go the same. Yeah, in a fictional narrative we could have some random thing like a car crash happen to you because sleeping an extra 10 minutes put you in the right spot at the right time. But most people go to work every single day without getting into an accident, whether they snooze or not. At lunch you go to the food court. Do you have Chinese or Pizza? Four hours later, is anything really going to be different? You see your coworker, who you've worked with for years, and he got a haircut. Is there really going to be a change in the world if you say, "Hey Frank, nice haircut" or you don't? Yeah, there may be a local change. He may say, "Thanks, Bob." But it's not like he's going to change his outlook on life or you because you noticed his haircut.

We get away with assigning more meaning than is appropriate to choices in dating games because, often, you've just met the person. If Sally doesn't know you and you compliment her haircut, it's going to help her define who you are to her. But people make these character judgements in really short order. And real people are nowhere near as critical as dating game characters are. In most games, you'd get more "points" for saying, "Hey Sally, I love the way your new hair cut shows off those cool earrings you're wearing," than "Hey Sally, nice haircut." And more points leads to sex. And, if you're right on the edge of the number of points needed for sex, THAT dialog choice can be the deciding factor. But, really? In what non-porn world is Sally going to have sex with you because you didn't only compliment her hair cut, but also her earrings?

And a lot of these games (mine included) have had 3 options: A good answer, a neutral answer, and a bad answer. "Hey Sally, that hair cut makes you look fat." Okay, so there's a gameplay choice, but it's kind of insulting. How stupid does the player have to be to pick the obviously bad answer? So, really, there's no choice. You just pick the nicest thing to say and keep clicking.

Now, say you've got a story about two people who have known each other for a long time, and who like each other. Is there benefit to be had in giving the player the option to say three different nice things? Maybe one of them is charming and the other is supportive and the other is self-confident. Sally is going to enjoy hearing any of the three choices. And she may respond slightly differently depending on them. But she's still going to have sex with you by the end of the game regardless. Is there really no value to the player to be able to say, "This one is most like what I would say in this situation"?

I think there IS a benefit to being able to say the things you want to say. The game isn't just about getting to the sex scene at the end. If it was, you'd just watch video porn and get a better sex scene without the fuss. The game is about enjoying the journey to the sex scene. And, to me, being able to smile and say, "Oh, I'd totally say that!" is enjoyable.

We'll see if others agree when the game finally releases. (-:

Tlaero

[Tao Dude]

In short, Tlaero, that is why you and Mortze produce a number of good games every year and why i am still collecting ideas about how my first game should pan out.

[arkath]

Hey Tlaero/Mortze, I must say this game is pretty great.

I did play RfJ, but that was at least a year ago so I can't remember too much of it, but if I'm not mistaken it was the first entry in the Elsa-verse series so I didn't know what to expect (I didn't feel like the game made it clear what to expect in the beginning, either). I certainly wasn't expecting the supernatural-ish nature to things so when I came across that I think that detracted from my experience a little. The ending certainly was a little too dark for what I thought the game would be, haha.

Didn't play Elsa for some reason, maybe I'll try that some other time, but the moment I saw Miranda I was like "hm, I think I definitely need to try this", so good job Mortze. Miranda definitely floats my boat and is my fave among the three girls so far. DD

Now I'll try to form coherent sentences about what I thought of the game, maybe spoilers for others reading. There might not even be a point to some of the thoughts I have.
Right at the moment Miranda steps up to the board to write the code I thought "great, she's a Mary Sue" (and I did roll my eyes at this point). I did read your comment about how Miranda isn't a prodigy coder, just someone that saw the problem with her ability. But even after learning about her ability being problem solving and her condition as a result of the incident in playing the rest of the game, she was still very much a Mary Sue to me. It did make me appreciate her Skype call and ice skating scene a whole lot more, though.

I loved the menu, save and restore options. Those are fantastic functions that I would like to have had in something like GtkC, and the Miranda renders for the buttons were also 10/10. I just realized I forgot to export my save, and my saves are gone now. Well nevermind, that's besides the point. Good menu.
I liked the whole choosing your backstory thing, I felt it was a nice touch. But on occasion I felt it hindered speech options (and the speech option differences are usually small, sometimes hard to tell) because you had to remain 'in character'.

The date choice scenes were a little weird for me. I think I recall 2 of them supposedly being harder than the remaining 2, but having gone through all 4 of them, I didn't really see where the difficulty was at. Perhaps it was thanks to the save system. But yeah, I didn't really come to a point where I felt something was difficult. I did like the dates, but it did mean for shorter individual dates and also shorter, context-based sex scenes, which can be a hit or miss. I remember liking the lowkey and motocross scenes, but not so much the ice rink and motorbike scenes. But this is a highly personal opinion.

The casino scene. Holy shit. That's a pretty strong 9/10 for me, and I can only wish that more sex scenes played out that way with the freedom of choice during and finishing given to the player. I really liked that.

Getting a bit long so I'll try to end it quick: I liked having the conversation with the bouncer, it was a pretty bro moment
Xara in that one scene was well, surprisingly endearing and cute. Her sunglasses really don't do her justice
Skype call ended very abruptly, I thought it might be an expanded strip scene if I recall but all of a sudden boop, it's the next day
I was a bit lost on the alliance between Xara, Elsa and Miranda and the "I'm in" thing, I thought they were always working together
Still sad can't name the character you're playing as, but I realize that it's a story/universe that you're trying to create and so can't really allow for that
All story, no sex scene in bonus LOL

Yeah, that's it. Thanks for reading and making the game, hope my thoughts made sense. Looking forward to your next project, and wouldn't mind seeing more Miranda

[Brocho]

@arkath

Dreaming with Elsa is the first game in the series, hence why the story's universe is named after her. I'm sure it's not necessary to play it, but I think you'll understand the universe and the characters better if you play them all in order.

[JFR]

... I was a bit lost on the alliance between Xara, Elsa and Miranda and the "I'm in" thing ...

That is partly because you played the games out of order. The entry into this world is via "Dreaming with Elsa" and some of the more "unusual" aspects of the situation are introduced there. You learn a little in DwE, a bit more in RfJ and then it starts to make sense in FM. The upcoming "Saving Chloe" should tie up loose ends and complete the story.

If you haven't already found them, the short stories that have been publicly released also add to understanding the whole story.