A New and Beautiful World by TKia_

[raw]
made by TKia_ for LD30 (COMPO)
EDIT: A fun little question for people who played through both routes- which one did you prefer? Leave a comment below.

EDIT: As of the 30th of August, 2014, the Post-Compo version of A New and Beautiful World is now available to download at my site! It has music and art, so, unless you really, really like blackness and silence, I'd probably play it instead of the original version. http://paperlance.blogspot.com/2014/08/game-new-and-beautiful-world.html

The story follows two brothers and their father throughout their lives together and apart in the near future, starting in the year 2074. In this future, all of the Earth is governed by a utopian government known only as the Empire.

The family goes to visit the famed Imperial Air Show, a yearly festival put on by the Empire to showcase the latest in spacecraft technology, and, later that night, they see stars in the sky for the first time in their lives. This sparks a desire in one brother to become the pilot of an interstellar colonization vessel, and in the other to dedicate his life to creating 'new and beautiful things.'

The lives of the two brothers will intertwine as the story follows them throughout all their lives and all of time and space.

There are two possible endings for the game.

This is a short (40-60 minute) text-only visual novel that I wrote and developed within 48 hours for Ludum Dare 30.

It was created using the Ren'Py visual novel development engine, available here at http://www.renpy.org/.

EDIT: For some reason, Google Chrome has labeled all the download links to my game malicious for some people; I assure you that this is a false positive, and that there is nothing in the download that could possibly harm you. You can scan every single file with your anti-virus, if you'd like. To download the game, please go to your downloads (CTRL + J) and press "Clear malicious file."

Also, with the post-compo version now available to download, I've used a different file host, so it may cooperate better with Chrome.

Ratings

Coolness 72% 3
Overall 3.08 684
Audio 1.89 905
Fun 2.56 962
Graphics 2.00 1150
Humor 2.32 561
Innovation 2.69 894
Mood 3.49 170
Theme 3.32 514

Feedback

dadman
25. Aug 2014 路 11:21 UTC
Hey there, I tried to download your game to give it a shot but Crome identifies it as malicious and refuses to keep it so I couldn't. I don't know if other people trying your story have had the same problem or not.
PaperBlurt
25. Aug 2014 路 19:10 UTC
ok. a real big game.
impressive how big.
馃帳 TKia_
26. Aug 2014 路 00:49 UTC
@dadman , yes, Chrome recognizing files as malicious is something that has plagued many small software developers for a long time now, as far as I am aware. I assure you that I have no ill intent at all; go ahead and scan all the files with your own security suite. It's Google that's messed up. A link instructing you on how to disable malware detection (make sure you put it back up after you download the game)is available here https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/4412392 .
馃帳 TKia_
26. Aug 2014 路 00:50 UTC
@PaperBlurt, what do you mean by 'a real big game'? Do you mean the file size, or something else? Is there a problem?
Snoother
26. Aug 2014 路 12:04 UTC
Wow, this is an admirably large story. I was initially suspicious at the lack of choices, but by the time the game had reached it's fabulous ending it made sense to me. Well written with some interesting ideas. Congrats. I need to replay it now and try the other path...
馃帳 TKia_
26. Aug 2014 路 21:26 UTC
Thanks a lot for the kind words! I kind of just threw the story together; I wasn't sure if people would like it that much. Thanks for the download, the play, and the feedback
thecolorhacker
30. Aug 2014 路 12:10 UTC
Good take on theme, and fun to read. It is a really nice story and the mood is great.
liquidminduk
30. Aug 2014 路 12:11 UTC
great! There is a lot of story here for the short amount of time you had! great work on that! I love all things with branching story-lines so you get top marks from me!
reheated
30. Aug 2014 路 12:40 UTC
I'm not a big IF fan, but this is a great story, extremely well written. Great job.
Nooner Bear
30. Aug 2014 路 17:55 UTC
Well written!
GrooveMan
30. Aug 2014 路 19:33 UTC
That ending was uh, a little on-the-nose. A good payoff to your setup, though.
slowfrog
30. Aug 2014 路 19:39 UTC
Very good story that touches on the theme. It's really well written and the atmosphere is perfectly rendered.
That's not much of a game though (too little choices).
馃帳 TKia_
30. Aug 2014 路 20:30 UTC
Thanks for the kind words, everyone. And, @slowfrog, you and I both wish the game had more choices in it... Them time constraints, though. Maybe next LD I'll be able to work quickly enough as to make it more interactive; or maybe even, I'll stray from the visual novel / interactive fiction format.
MoonlightBomber
31. Aug 2014 路 05:31 UTC
Good writing, but if you gave one more day, you could have made this visual novel better with some background pics and music.
Tanser
31. Aug 2014 路 06:00 UTC
Nice really well written story. It really is impressive. The problem is that still, it was only a story...
馃帳 TKia_
31. Aug 2014 路 06:07 UTC
@MoonlightBomber, you'd like the post-compo version.
ShadowStryker
31. Aug 2014 路 19:54 UTC
pretty good story-writing in my opinion. I couldn't have come up with that much story in such a limited amount of time.
bluesky
31. Aug 2014 路 20:14 UTC
This is actually very entertaining, well done.
elefantopia
31. Aug 2014 路 20:48 UTC
Good writing.
Shmarah
31. Aug 2014 路 20:56 UTC
I've used Ren'py something like 3 times for Ludum Dare, so I'm totally partial to (and in a way, a little more critical) when it comes to Ren'py games!
With that in mind, I hope I'm not being too harsh when I say that I would have definitely appreciated some more customization instead of the default font/theme/etc. It's really not that hard/time-consuming to include a unique font file and to change some color codes, and I feel it really would have helped give the game its own unique look! You can also define color codes as solid color background images, so even if you don't have time to make background art for the 48hr compo, you could always try making the background color change with the story's mood. I also checked out the post-compo version!

Overall, pretty cool, so I hope I wasn't too critical; nice music choices btw!
馃帳 TKia_
31. Aug 2014 路 21:01 UTC
More customization? Hm, that's definitely something I was interested in, but I just didn't bother to look into it over the course of the development. I think, though, I'll look into all that for an update to the post-compo version. Thanks for bringing it up!
KingBolonzo
02. Sep 2014 路 06:43 UTC
I hate google no virus guys game works great nice game Like someones gonna take the time to build a game and a virus in 48 hours do you think Tkia is chinese for superman lol
SketchyGalore
03. Sep 2014 路 03:42 UTC
Impressive writing! Very nice work and a great way to stretch out the theme into multiple meanings.
Traumendes_Madchen
03. Sep 2014 路 16:51 UTC
The story was just so well-written, I couldn't help but sympathize with the characters. I played the two routes and the first one (when I let him do what he wanted) was really heartwrenching and ultimately more powerful than the "happy" one. It was a bit sad that preventing Nicholas from becoming an artist had that kind of impact actually, I guess it's a pretty down-to-earth lesson...

The music of the post-compo version was good and helped set the mood. Now I really really want a full visual novel version with art assets *__*. Do you plan to make one?
馃帳 TKia_
03. Sep 2014 路 23:55 UTC
@Traumendes_Madchen Thanks a lot for the praise! To be honest, I prefer the second path myself, but I'm a sucker for happy endings and I have poor taste in stories; so I don't really know. To each his own, anyway.

And, it's funny that you asked if I was planning to turn this into a full visual novel; while I'm not sure if I want to do more with this game itself, I've actually been working on a separate VN project with about 25 other guys on the Internet. We all met together and decided to start working on one, and, hopefully, in a few ones, we'll have made it. So, wish me luck with that! I guess, if anything, if you keep a tab on my website or my Twitter, you'll catch if I decide to revisit this or if I make anything new!
pvtroswold
06. Sep 2014 路 05:25 UTC
A page-turner (does that work for Ludum Dare games? It does now)!
Crowbeak
06. Sep 2014 路 06:35 UTC
This is really well written.
Lokarunith
07. Sep 2014 路 01:56 UTC
Overll it was very good but I really couldn't agree less with the moral of the story, nevertheless it has good characters, a solid story and an intresting setting, It was a fast and fun read that was really worth it.
Natrium729
07. Sep 2014 路 20:20 UTC
The story was really well written and beautiful. It is not really a game, but I liked it very much.
I prefer the first choice, because it is more moving (the other one is too much "happy ending".
The only thing I do not like is the pixel art in the post-compo version. I find it does not do justice to the writing.
I had a great time overall.
hbocao
08. Sep 2014 路 21:39 UTC
Excelent writing! I really enjoyed the story, and even cried a little at the end of the first choice. It was really touching. Good job!
IamAcoconut
15. Sep 2014 路 23:49 UTC
Great game! It was really well-written! I liked the second choice better, go happy endings!