Budacanta Spring Thing Special Edition by Alianora La Canta Contents - Credits - Description - Tags - Accessibility Features - Changelog Credits: Programming, story, backgrounds, arrangement/conversion of music by Alianora La Canta Vocals by Ren'Py Testing by Laurie Shields and the Anonymous Trio. Expert bug finding by mathbrush. Genius feature ideas by Havilah "mwahahavilah" McGinnis. Music (composers given in order of appearance): Alianora La Canta: Intro Extended, They Run To Glamour, Overwhelming Rose For The Skies, Chetin 14 \n\n Gustav Holst: Second Suite in F for Military Band (Dargason), Nocturne from 2 Pieces For Piano, Neptune from the Planets Suite Edward Elgar: Opus 55 (2nd and 3rd Movements), Pleading Jan Ladislav Dussek: Chasse in F Major Leoš Janácek: Mladi Kodály Zoltán Vilmos: Katona vagyok én Karněk Garměryan: Asik Oldum Leyla Saz: Vevki Sevda Duymadim Nimet Hanim: Altin Tasta Belá Bartok: A Barbaro Franz Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 2 (first 4 movements) Antonín Dvorák: Humoresque 1 Description: Seek Szilvia on a voyage of discovery across Europe. Explore, experience, and test boundaries. A story starting with getting our adventurer, who can't stand strong smells,through the airport... Author Statement: (Prompted by a holiday I took to Budapest in 2018, where someone asked afterwards why an autistic person would go abroad on holiday, let alone how they would do so alone). System: Ren'Py (Browser downloadable, Windows, Linux, Mac) Entered in: Back Garden Reason: Excerpt of planned eventual commercial release, including the first narrative arc. Tags: slice of life, travel, autism, autobiographical, limited colour palette, choice-based, polite difficulty Download: https://www.springthing.net/2021/play.html#Budacanta Author contact details: Twitter: @lacanta Tumblr: @alianoralacanta This story was entered in the 2021 Spring Thing Festival of Interactive Fiction. More information is available at http://www.springthing.net Accessibility Details: Input devices supported: Keyboard and/or mouse (player may mix and match freely) Comprehension required to play: Significant Some long sentences with moderate grammar demands are used, Some text passages extend over multiple screens. Reaction speed required: None Gameplay Features Play is at player's tempo; no timed elements Text/speech, with simple backgrounds Replayable text/speech (narrative, instructions and choices) All settings are saved between playthroughs In-game skippable tutorial and hints for tricky sections Skippable scenes (only choices cannot be skipped) Auto-skip feature Auto- and manual saves by default Thumbnails with game saves Choice Features Substantial clickable areas with null areas between buttons Recent choices may be undone and re-done Visual novel choices are merciful (advice appears on all choices with an ending or major state change) All novel-ending choices are reversible Option at all novel-ending choices to return to last position where a good choice would avoid ending the novel (without using the save function) Input Features Same input methods for the whole game Only one input need be provided at a time Image Features Stable images and buttons Mostly black/white images, with blue/white buttons No movement during scenes Text Features Simple, clear text formatting Readable default font size with dyslexia-friendly font Long monologues skippable at choices, not just with skip function Screen reader support for all text (no part of the visual novel depends on graphics or audio) Subtitles on (and cannot be turned off) Visual and speech indicator of who is speaking Adjustable text speed Sound Features Speech (self-voicing) optional All text elements of the visual novel are self-voiced Speech (self-voicing) has different sound control from sound and music (which are not implemented in this version), and these include mutes Limited audio description (and text) of backgrounds Playtest Features Accessibility feedback has been requested during playtests Beta-testers include autists, neurotypical people and people who are hard of hearing. * Note: Many of these features are common to all/most visual novels and interactive fiction. If you create interactive fiction, please consider which of these features your interactive fiction has. People with disabilities like to know about them. It helps them decide if they can play/read/hear the interactive fiction. Changelog: --- Spring Thing Bugfix Version 1 - April 13, 2021 Special thanks to mathbrush, for finding the = / == problem. Also, special thanks to Havilah "mwahahavilah" McGinnis for recommending that the spoon count be displayed. Game-Breaking Bugfixes Two instances of = converted to ==, so that Budacanta correctly checks whether something previously happened or not, instead of getting confused about what its programmer intended. Text in three places was properly enclosed, enabling correct and reliable progression through those options. Logic Improvements Made a choice that was supposed to be dependent on the time actually dependent on the time. Added persistent flags for the endings (mostly these will matter when the next part of the game is written, but one thing does change if the player previously reached a specific ending). Fixed a situation where you were rewarded for a crime report in one situation but not a different, similar one. Fixed a situation where you had your purse returned only if it had not yet been stolen. It is illegal for pickpockets to time travel in Budacanta. Prevented a rare situation where the same item could be stolen 2-3 times (without it being returned in between). Stealing something that is already stolen is also prohibited in Budacanta. (Those who disregard the law probably didn't care whether it was a law of society or physics that they broke, before this point). Time references updated so that Alianora doesn't get from her flat to a foreign airport instantly at midnight. Budacanta does not start on Christmas Eve, and Alianora is not Father Christmas. Flow Improvements Spoons and time are now displayed in every choice after spoons are introduced. Factual correction Added a note clarifying risk of data theft. Typoes and other text fixes Added ending punctuation to some sentences that lacked it, as well as correcting the grammar of a few words. Changed the start of a sentence that could be reached multiple ways and sometimes didn't mesh well with the preceding choice's wording. Removed a font styling that was incompatible with the selected font. Split and slightly modified some long sections to ensure all text fits in the text box easily (something especially important when Budacanta starts getting translations). Set a description stated by the narrator to be said by the narrator rather than Alianora, and a different one was corrected as Alianora rather than the narrator speaking Removed a rogue adjective that wasn't always accurate. Graphics Fix Improved textbox transparency. Audio Fix Introduced muting in music at two moments that were intended to be silent. --- Spring Thing Definitive Version - April 2, 2021 (coding complete March 28, 2021) Audio Fixes Added music (and credits for music). Most sections now have three pieces of music, appropriate for that area (e.g. the starting area has English classical music, the Czechian area has Czech classical music, and so on). Various typoes in the tutorial fixed. --- Spring Thing Version 0.2 - Not released (coding complete March 19, 2021) Game-Breaking Bugfixes Solve Szilvia bug: Removed excess letter from references Some instances of increasing the hidden "Szilvi" contact stat were spelt "Szilvia" by mistake, which crashed the game on two grounds: it didn't match any statistic I was measuring, and it did match a character name. In Ren'Py, as in life, you can't add +1 to a person. Term Corrections Connecting roads = taxiways My narrator wasn't deliberately engaging in Buffy-speak. Honest. Plane height in metres instead of feet At one point, I described a plane's height as being 28,000 metres. Depending on which playtester I believe, this either put the plane drifting towards the asteroid belt (passenger airplanes make rubbish spacecraft) or at the edge of space with the Lockheed U-2 and Arma 3 (for anyone wondering, neither plane carries economy-class passengers across Europe). It should have been 28,000 feet. Stop doing the Airbus A319's speed a disservice I described the plane as doing over 250 mph. Which is fine... ...but an A319's cruising speed is 515 mph. So now it's doing over 500 mph. Typoes Get "a Still, I'm sure..." onto its own line I forgot to use quotation marks in the correct place for one particular line, with the result that what should have been two lines became one. Complete with the character indicator appearing, and the self-voicing system reading the stage instructions. Turn gs aliahome into gsaliahome Turn bo planefront into boplanefront The naming scheme for my backgrounds has the two-letter acronym for the colour scheme first, then whatever the background is supposed to depict. All one word. When it is two words, Ren'Py interprets that as a different file altogether, which of course matched none of my backgrounds. Correcting the script enabled the backgrounds to appear. Flow Improvements Sort out the spoon explanation In common with several of the other longer passages of writing in my visual novel, I put shortcuts in my spoons explanation. However, some of the shortcuts created inconsistences due to unwarranted assumptions. I have fixed these where I can find them. Make actions needed clear in 1st screen Initially, the first choice was on the third screen. One playtester discovered they did not know enough about how to progress in the visual novel to reach that screen independently. I moved the first choice to the first screen, with the first choice giving specific instructions on how to move through the visual novel. (Yes, there was a Help section with those details and considerably more. Yes, I think the playtester's preference for trying to go through the visual novel intuitively was legitimate, and would rather support that preference in the design than point to the help section and assume "job done".) Tighten tutorial/early section (move story upstream) I had feedback that it wasn't immediately clear what was happening. That's a serious problem in a visual novel, especially one like mine which has high decision density and some decisions made early. I made it possible to go to the story straight from the first screen, and reworked the early phase of the game to provide more story detail. The tutorial is now a bit less wordy, and has more places where skipping part/all of the remaining tutorial can be done. (Most of the tutorial amusement is now optional). Graphics Improvements Icons added I finally have an idea. Enjoy the bridge! Name box fade more linear There were some lumpy bits to the namebox side, which didn't work very well. Linear fade should make it look better. Make sure drawings look like what they're meant to depict Several drawings have been updated to add more detail, so they look like plane doors, for example. --- Spring Thing Version 0.1 - Not released (coding complete February 25, 2021) The original playtest version. Huzzah!