Virtually Date Crystal

[Arnulf]

pwlkane, WHAT have you done exactly??

[qbv8]

Hi slickster99, I have sent you a PM this morning, did you read it?

[slickster99]

I'm right there with pwlkane.I got the same problem with the original link,the media player problem.The new link won't work for me either,and bad timing too,cause now I know what I'm doing,as opposed to before when I was lost in the dark.But,now I no can play LOL.I'm starting to hate the internet,ALOT!!

[blaman]

First of all - GREAT WORK

its always great to see someone doing something for others, not for money.... really impressed

as for the game itself - I'm not a scrïpt magician like Arnulf but from what I see it is much simpler compared to Ariane. basically - hardly any decisions influence anything else than the outcome of the specific screen. has some good sides (back button, much easier to create, less enigmatic) and some bad sides (back button breaks the fun of discovery )

frankly speaking if I were to change one thing in the game - it would be Crystal... she's just not my type :P but that's personal and yeah - sometimes her face is sooooo creepy on the other side - sometimes she looks truly great !

oh and I found some of the similarities with Ariane entertaining kind of like an easter egg but try to avoid copying it too much, make it your own game, your own kind of experience

one more time - BIG thank you for your effort

[Tjommi]

ok I feel quite stupid here now. What application do I use to play the game now ?

The first link lead to a file that my computer suggest using windows media player to open, but that woun't work.

The second link lead to the downloadable file.. and when I try to open it up in a browser I just get a bunch of gibberish.

[MDK]

@ Tj:

Hi all. Yes the site seems to be temporarily down.

I don't think it's necessarily the bandwidth, so much as the web host doing backups/check/security updates. It's April fools tomorrow and quite a few hosts do this kind of stuff to cope with viruses etc which are released then.

When the site's back up, there'll be a rapidshare link.

This is what Chaotic had to say on the previous page. I would not attempt to play it for a day or 2 until April Fool's Day passes. It's a bad day for the release of viruses.

[IronMark]

Really nice job here - cute game.

We all want more!

[xeris89]

Good stuff!

[MRSuomi]

YES GREAT GAME - HOPE THEY WILL COME MORE

I can´t wait and if you need some one for Beta-TESTING let me know
DanielSchulz@luukku.com

Greetings from Finland Daniel

[TheBrain]

Hmm, am I the only one who dares to give some real criticism? Oh well, maybe I just got a little tired of reading pages of 'great!'/'good'-comments. I think saying what we really expect of such games is much more useful...

Anyway, nice little game, I'd say it's not bad. But for most part it's yet another 'pick the right answer' kind of game. And I say this because this genre lacks one major gameplay element: challenge!
Sure if we weren't able to use the browsers 'back' function it would've taken a lot longer to figure out the right answers, but in my opinion that wouldn't really be fun.

I would love to see someone attempt sort of a mix between for example 'date ariane' and masq. While masq is a great interactive story, I don't think its concept is directly applicable to the date game genre, a date just doesn't have as much possible plot twists as a 'story'. However, I do like the concept of having smaller subplots, where following one or the other has consequences later on. Even if this is done in a very simple way it can add the feeling of actually having an influence on the story: say for example that while in the apartment of the girl you have the option of clicking on a painting and maybe choosing a remark, and in doing so you open up an option later on to check out an art gallery or maybe impress some person with your art knowledge.
More of these 'triggers' can be combined and before you know it you'll have people exploring for hours to find every 'secret' option, especially if some aspects are seemingly insignificant (say, the difference between ordering tea or coffee in a cafe).
While in 'date ariane' I literally spent hours trying to find different ends, this was mostly due to your actions limiting how far ariane will go. This, of course, is not a bad idea, but it does get predictable (in 'date ariane' I fairly quickly ended up with a 'standard' opening).

As for the artwork, I mostly liked it, although in some scenes the characters just appear to be 'floating' or just didn't fit in with the background. But to be honest I have no idea how hard it would be to get it better.

The story (or the setting, or whatever you want to call it :P) was a bit 'out there', although that might just be the premise of these kinds of games... But still, I think the theme got sexual way too quickly.
Remember this: if I want to see naughty stuff quickly I'll download porn :P, I play these games for the 'challenge' (and getting the girl naked in the end, of course, but not too quickly ). And I really hope I'm not the only one who thinks about this.

Oh, and the catchmatch bit, in its current form I think it's totally unnecessary: none of the answers are relevant to the date. I think there are two ways to improve this:
Either change the questions/answers to stuff you might need in the date (for example: favourite colour? black!, I found that bit of info necessary yet not present).
Or there is a more complex thing you can do with it. As Chaotic suggested he might add more girls, how about not picking the girl directly, but have it be a result of how you answer the questions? The simplest way would be to have only one right set of answers per girl and have the others simply result in a 'we can't match you with anyone', but it might be hard to find the right answers that way (not without hints at least).
The complex way, and I really like the idea of this, is basically having no 'wrong' set of answers: you always end up with a girl, but the characteristics of the girl are changed depending on your answers. First of all, this could be a really inventive way of choosing a 'difficulty level' (choosing shy vs. slut, to put it bluntly ). And secondly these could also become 'triggers' (picking black as favourite colour will allow you to buy her the sexiest kind of lingerie).

In the end I guess most of what I'm saying boils down to this: a pick the right answer kind of game will never be really challenging or fun. If you allow for some added technical difficulty you can easily steer away from this (probably in so many more ways than I suggested). I realize that this might not be within your capabilities, but I'm sure there are loads of people out there who would be willing to help out (hell, given a good plan I might be able to conjure up the time myself).

I hope all this wasn't too harsh, it is not my intention to bash at your motivation , I just think the game has potential and it would be a shame to see it wasted.

[Killkes]

Have to admit that I was amazed by the games graphic quality. The animations/characeters and in particular Rachel's body are beautiful. Sorry Shark, hope you don't mind, but the gameplay/ideas visualized in your games combined with VDC graphics would be a hot contender for best game.

Very nice stuff.... Thanks for the entertainment...

[arjayty]

Well done this is areally enjoyable game.

I look forward to being able to date the other girls

[arjayty]

Well done this is a really enjoyable game.

I look forward to being able to date the other girls

[jkast91]

Great game, I was wondering how to got Rachel to come to the pool?
I have figured out the rest, But not how to get Rachel.

[roberttx]

Great game! I'm looking forward to the other girls, too.