Terhial
Aug 20, 2011
Anyways I did quite like this game, but one thing stood out every so often during the game and that was the dialog when read aloud. It sounded a little wrong. I wish I could provide more detailed feedback, but it's hard for me to quantify. The phrasing was a little off decently often. I don't think I would have noticed without it being spoken. Also, for reference, I'm American, in case that has any bearing, for good or for ill, on my ear for speech. (Also assuming I'm not an ill informed opinionated idiot, which I assume I'm not, but I am biased.)
I am not an informed person on the side of writing spoken dialog or voice acting, but I do know that a good voice actor does know what's off with dialog they're reading and should be capable of pulling minor corrections on what they're saying.
As for low-budget solutions, the cheapest thing I can think of would be to get one, or several, volunteers to give the script an out loud reading to help spot these kind of issues before having the voice actors record. Kind of like an audio book.
fleetp
Aug 20, 2011
I thought the voice actors did a great job, and I recognized at least one of the voice actresses as a professional that I've heard in other games. Also, for reference, I'm American.
Terhial
Aug 20, 2011
Hmm.. Definitely didn't get that across exactly the way I meant. The voice acting was pretty good to awesome. My comments on the voice actors should have been more geared towards the type of feedback they can provide about anything they're reading.
The main gist of my point is based on the transition from written word to spoken dialog, where I believe some of the phrasing/sentence structure in Bionic Heart came across a little unnaturally from time to time, not constantly, but often enough. Points were I might expect a slightly different phrasing, or a word to be dropped, in a grammatically incorrect way, to make the conversation sound more natural. I don't mean to say it's bad or hurt my gameplay experience. It's just that it stood out to me and I wanted to provide some feedback to point it out in the hopes that the feedback is useful in case Winter Wolves / Tycoon Games goes as far as making another Voice Acted Visual Novel.
Hey, look character based video clips on the website. Recaps without replay, awesome. I could probably give some examples from those, if prompted.
jack1974
Aug 21, 2011
Well, Bionic Heart was one of the first VN games I did, so I wrote it myself (I'm Italian BTW) and used a proofreader. Obviously the final result couldn't be as good as if a native English person wrote the dialogues
That's what I'm doing with all my future titles, so if I understood what you mean, the problem was in the texts, and not much in the voice acting quality. I think the voice actor/actresses involved did a good job for
a low budget indie game.
Bionic Heart 2 will have much higher budget and will have a better quality (both in visuals, audio, content).
MarSel
Aug 22, 2011
Bionic Heart 2!?
jack1974
Aug 22, 2011
Yes but hold your horses, that one won't be done before next summer (or maybe later!!)
OromeAldaron
Aug 22, 2011
Hi all, long-time lurker here...
OT:
WHAT... we have to wait for ANOTHER full year or more? OMG, this hurts...
Anyway, I respectfully disagree with the OP. I'd like to give a slightly different perspective - knowing that me being a non-native English speaker, it doesn't necessarily mean a lot.
The voices in BH1 were the tipping point that put my game experience from 'nice, respect, but probably not 'top-score' to AWESOME! (especially if considering that this was an INDIE game that really showed that many hours of work have been invested).
I saw the icon of the program on one of Apple's website dedicated to games and, thought I give it a try. I bought it and got immersed into the dark, futuristic world, with romantic entanglements, very nice. The voices added a different dimension of sensual quality to the game... you can do so much more with a matrix than with a vector, to use a mathematical analogy. Recently, I bought Planet Stronghold ('because I couldn't wait any longer for BH2'... lol) and the 2nd thing I noticed was the lack of voices (first thing was the nice visuals). I cannot really explain it, but I did not play Planet Stronghold to the end and I think I would have played a lot more if it would have voices.
So, I am looking forward to BH2, hopefully with voices, whenever it will be released...
jack1974
Aug 22, 2011
Well, I like to have voices in games. However my games have LOTS of texts, so as you can imagine there are several factors that needs to be considered:
- money: you pay VA based on the amount of lines. Even if for BH I used mainly non-pro voice actors, the costs were still quite high for a indie budget game
- time/reliability: since I cannot afford professionals, and the amount of work is big, is not uncommon that people quit, disappear, etc. After Bionic Heart I wanted ALL my next games to be voiced because I liked it. But already with the next title, Heileen 2, I had lots of problems, so that I was forced to release the game without voices, and then 4 months later with the voices except the main protagonist (Heileen) because two voice actresses in a row quit (the amount of lines was really big).
The only solution would be to have much shorter text/stories, but I don't want to sacrifice the length. However, if things keep going like now, next year I might be able to get voices for all my games again. Or at least for the main scenes, like happens in some japanese games, where the main game is not voiced but during important scenes, there are voices.
MarSel
Aug 22, 2011
Why not like for some old game, Grandia 1,2 (which I loved every moment of) just have voices for the important, main plot points. I loved the voice acting but like most of your stories I loved the story and when the voices came on I 1. knew I was about to have an exciting plot come up and 2. Got to marvel in the wonderful story fully voices and all.
No skin off my nose either way as I love to read but maybe an idea to work with.
jack1974
Aug 23, 2011
Yes for Loren RPG that's what I'll do - voicing only the main/important scenes. I think that probably is the best solution for indie games with lots of texts like visual novel or RPG
OromeAldaron
Aug 23, 2011
I can understand the business decision and the associated risk very well.... and I believe you immediately that you wish to have your games with voices. I just wanted to say that even though the persons voicing BH1 weren't professionals (as you said), I really really enjoyed BH1 BECAUSE of the full voices. Of course, as customers, we want long games with full voices at no cost, but, alas, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Personally, I am willing to pay more to get voices, and even to sacrifice (ONLY A TINY BIT) of the game length to have voices added, but it is, of course, your responsibility to find the optimal decisions based on risk, cost, expected revenues and a number of other parameters.
Maybe you could help finding more funding by using a service like
http://www.kickstarter.com/ to get a better financial basis for developing your games and/or for funding voice add-ons.
Anyway, I WILL buy BH2, once it is available...
jack1974
Aug 23, 2011
Thanks for the suggestion and support
What do you think about unvoiced main character? did you try Heileen 2 that uses that "method"? by not having the main character voiced, the amount of lines needed is much smaller (since main character is usually the one with most lines).
OromeAldaron
Aug 26, 2011
You're welcome. I really think you could use kickstarter to get a part of the costs that you need to have voices or something. Kickstarter is specially made for creative projects with no big industry behind.
No, I haven't tried Heileen 2 - I am somewhat sticked to the sci-fi environment.... but I could give it a try, actually. I think having the main char unvoiced might go as well, it might even help with 'identifying' with the main character (because you don't hear a unknown voice)... but I surely have to try this to get some experience. I'm sure that only having the 'official' storyline voiced, and side-stories, branches etc. unvoiced will not get an approval stamp by me, because this doesn't feel 'complete'... and, besides, it would immediately tell the player that he has entered a side quest or drifted away from the main path... well, this is probably not something a gamer should be told while gaming, should it? But, of course, costs are costs, revenues are revenues and you have to pay the bills... I fully understand that.
I see BH1 is 15€ - I am willing to pay more than that for a good BH2 with voices - I guess the pain begins somewhere at 25...30 € for me, but don't we all accept some pain sometimes to get something worthy in return?
jack1974
Aug 26, 2011
You're welcome. I really think you could use kickstarter to get a part of the costs that you need to have voices or something. Kickstarter is specially made for creative projects with no big industry behind.
As far as I know, Kickstarter doesn't work yet for people outside US like me
I'm sure that only having the 'official' storyline voiced, and side-stories, branches etc. unvoiced will not get an approval stamp by me, because this doesn't feel 'complete'... and, besides, it would immediately tell the player that he has entered a side quest or drifted away from the main path... well, this is probably not something a gamer should be told while gaming, should it? But, of course, costs are costs, revenues are revenues and you have to pay the bills... I fully understand that.
Actually, ahem, is ever worse: only the main cutscene would be voiced, so really 5-6 scenes of the main plot, not the full main plot
I see BH1 is 15€ - I am willing to pay more than that for a good BH2 with voices - I guess the pain begins somewhere at 25...30 € for me, but don't we all accept some pain sometimes to get something worthy in return?
Well that would change everything - I mean if I knew that a good amount of people would be willing to pay even only 5 eur/dollar more to get a voiced version, I think would cover the costs. Problem is that I cannot know this before, unless I do pre-orders when the story is fully written offering the option to have voices at extra price and see how it goes. I might even do that, after all.
OromeAldaron
Aug 31, 2011
Yes, I just went on kickstarter and read it there as well... sorry, I didn't know this. It s***s!!!
Concerning the added costs for the voices - I think it would be nice to have preorders, possibly even have 2 options, unvoiced game (reduced price) and a voiced game (higher price).... people could then choose whether they would be ready to pay more. However, I would not sell two separate versions, this might not cover the added costs of the voices.
I'm looking forward to news about BH2...
jack1974
Aug 31, 2011
Heh, for BH2 will be a while - not before next year for sure. Also, have to find an artist. Rebecca said would come back to draw Heileen 3, so she might be able also to work on it next year, but it's not sure. Meanwhile, I'll probably try to have voices in some part of Planet Stronghold sequel which will feature some hot scenes
fleetp
Sep 01, 2011
Heh, for BH2 will be a while - not before next year for sure. Also, have to find an artist. Rebecca said would come back to draw Heileen 3, so she might be able also to work on it next year, but it's not sure. Meanwhile, I'll probably try to have voices in some part of Planet Stronghold sequel which will feature some hot scenes
Hot scenes? I have my attention.
jack1974
Sep 01, 2011
Well so far I have only two finished by artist, but the Joshua/Shiler one is quite hot. Poor Joshua seems almost powerless in the hands of that alien Queen!!
OromeAldaron
Sep 12, 2011
Hot scenes? What about "voice acting" in these?
And you can download the material 'for free' from the web.... lol!
Anyway, I always wondered why we cannot have more 'erotic parts' in games.... There is no problem slicing up innocent people showing blood guts, brains and other yummy things, unleashing swords and bullets to victims in high definition and everything (even though you can sell the game to adults only) but a female breast is.... gasp.... what sodomery! How dare you to even think at this particular feat of women's anatomy? Help, someone is destroying our beloved innocent children! OMG we are doooooooomed!
But wait, didn't you show some early sketches for BH2 on another thread? Is that artist gone or scheduled for a different game now?
jack1974
Sep 12, 2011
Anyway, I always wondered why we cannot have more 'erotic parts' in games.... There is no problem slicing up innocent people showing blood guts, brains and other yummy things, unleashing swords and bullets to victims in high definition and everything (even though you can sell the game to adults only) but a female breast is.... gasp.... what sodomery! How dare you to even think at this particular feat of women's anatomy? Help, someone is destroying our beloved innocent children! OMG we are doooooooomed!
Heh, don't tell me. It's mostly americans who have problems with nudity/sex, here in Europe we're much more tolerant. But in any case, I need to make also games if not family friendly, not excessively sexy for commercial reasons. I think I'm splitting fairly between "normal family friendly" and more "sexy/spicy" games right now.
But wait, didn't you show some early sketches for BH2 on another thread? Is that artist gone or scheduled for a different game now?
Well he is working on another game first, but honestly is quite slow so I don't know if I'll be using him for BH2, might re-use same artist of Loren RPG (if you check the images in forums you see he is quite skilled too drawing women!)
