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
Leo 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!

