[swf src=”http://spiralvortexplay.com/games/ARIA_Arielle_story_.swf” width=1050 height=591]
version 1.1b
link: remember you need to unzip this first
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Apparently comments are disabled by default now on pages so it took forever to figure out how to urn them on.
post questions if you are having trouble, or even story based questions.
This is just a small game that takes place right before the events of ARIA.
Okay! First question: Have you programmed the cannon to do anything yet? I press the button, I see the blue beam, but nothing is getting destroyed.
Second question: Will it be explained why Arielle is in this horrible “relationship” with this Harold person? I imagine it has something to do with power and authority, but to me Ari IS the authority. She doesn’t take shit from people without a fight, not even with Jeo, so why is she being so pliant with this exec guy?
Alrighty then. Game plays well so far. Not TERRIBLY difficult yet. I can’t get past the upgrade part because of that whole cannon thing I mentioned. There was also a moment in that one section where the game went to shit for a second, but that might’ve just been from the graphics being on high at the time.
1. the MLaWs erases lasers and I think small attack ships. destroying the other ships was a bit OP. maybe I can make a password for it later. or she gets it upgraded further, or it can stun them, etc.
2. I wanted to explain it more in the VN. you find out in Luma’s team how the ranks work. but every special agent is backed and approved for special agent status by a GemCo executive that controls the agent’s finances and what assignments they can do etc. They are fully responsible for the Special agent’s actions that are under them. They can also have more than one. Ari just got bad luck with Harold due to him appearing to be not so bad and things to do with her family status.
you have to keep in mind that yes Ari will not take shit from Jeo even thoguh he is the leader for that particular agent group. But when it comes to the execs, they just have to claim something and shit hits the fan pretty quick and agents can’t do much about it. It helps to explain why Jeo is deciding to finally fight back, and why some agents they join him along the way etc. They know there is corruption and selfishness.
Consider the start of ARIA. Jeo is in deep space hiding out because one exec told a lie on him and Harold and few others jumped on board for their own personal reasons. Harold in particular in invested simply because he knows that Ari likes Jeo and wants to keep her all to himself for sex and companionship.
also for Ari a lot of her toughness is a facade due to her emotional issues dealing with her fear of being alone. Jeo know this and is part of the reason he treats her like shit. Same for Harold. Both of her options (she is capable of seeing) are pretty shitty. Jeo the childhood friend who now “punishes” women and has sex at his leisure with anyone, doesn’t really give a shit if she gets raped or falls in combat, and thinks she can change him. Or Harold, the disgusting old fat guy old enough to be her father overflowing with cash and power and using his authority over her to force her to do his fantasy sex. However his power keeps her out of trouble. Part of he purpose of all this is to explain that Ari’s situation is entirely fucked up.
nice game, but you should reduce the number of enemy ships near the last stage, or change their locations (most of the times Ari’s ship spawns next to them or surrounded, and the M.LaWs isn’t reliable here), to give us a chance to beat the game.
it is random but by that point the ship moves and shoots pretty quickly. Starting positions of the enemies shouldn’t matter every time since there are so many of them. It could matter a few of the times but I can’t see it mattering majority of the times. Ari spawning next to ships is part of the challenge. There are a lot of ships, and them being on the other side of screen makes it too easy to kill a lot of them without them even moving towards her. The ending is hard but very beatable if you are effectively killing the enemy ships. you also might be getting hit with Kim’s attack. it has a bit of a aoe that extends past the actual circle.
I followed your advice and I got past that stage, and the last one is quite easy, thanks for making this awesome game!
it’s pretty easy to beat the demo, just the second screen after you take the M.LaWs lag if you not use her correctly VS the ships.
And I need to say I don’t liked Harold, and I think he is not here to be liked hehe.
Thanks for the feedback. Yeah Harold is designed to be a character many would not like.
I hate Harold, but I guess in a good way? I know there’s definitely an audience of people that would enjoy that sex scene.
Regardless, good work. If nothing else, I think it would be nice if you could add an alternative route to get out of headquarters without having to deal with Harold. Maybe punch him in the face…
It won’t change anything, I suppose: seems, Harold screws Ari daily. Moreover, I don’t think it’s a good idea to punch your boss in the face. 🙂
What Neferis mentioned is accurate. I remember someone else mentioning they would like a alternate route. But this is part of the plot. If Ari does something about this, it isn’t at this point in the story.
Another great animation. I really like when you can see girl’s feet during the action.
But poor Ari. I hope Jeo will kick this bastard’s ass… if he cares, of course. 🙂
Many thanks. Jeo might get even with Harold at some point but it wont be because of anything to do with Ari.
i like the new position 😀
pls more of it^^
i think the space mini game is ok as it is at the moment ( was that right?)
as ari get the big laser and the next batle startet, i was like:” OH MY GOD DUDE, WHAT THE HELL..WHOOA^^ i would change one little thing. i dont like the fact, that you have to block the enemies laser in order to end the level. but thats only my opinion^^
all in all i like the side story so far.^^ pls more of it
i’d like to see some of the other girls in outfits like aria^^
many characters in the VN have the suits. They don’t wear the suit in combat situations though and all of ARIA is when they are all deployed on a mission.
Yeah it is just part of the challenge of it. you have to keep track of you life. Maybe in later stages you can disable enemy lasers.
After getting the cannon, the lag is ridiculous. I can do the first mission after the station, but that second one it just hangs then goes back to checkpoint. Also the cannon needs more power, just erasing lasers is all well and good but as a game lagging feature, nah.
Not sure how you are getting lag tbh aside form having a kinda old PC. The ARIA game has way more lasers than this one. I’ve already reduced the old way I implemented lasers. I get zero lag on all parts of the game even with the screen flooded with lasers across multiple computers both offline and through the site in the browser. So I’m not sure what else I can do here.
The same for me. Something is not balanced right. Lag risies more and more, also when attack ships wiped away.
Strange. I don’t have any lags either.
I’ll look into again, that is best I can do.
I’m also curious what your PC specs are.
Regular ARIA doesn’t lag for me typically until the last two stages. My lappy isn’t exactly a beast of a machine but it’s no potato either. The lag was weird in how it just suddenly exploded, there was no gradual lag increase in ship amount it was just a sudden hard 0fps on a couple missions. If I right click and hit play to advance past, the lag would ease up back to normal. Could it be a small memory leak that builds up?
you mentioned there is no build up thoguh and it exploded, Kalle mentioned it raises more and more, Neferis and myself have none.
The problem here is I’m shooting in the dark just guessing.
You mentioned the laser causing lag but that seems unlikely.
there are a few differences in the last few stages. The stage in particular you mentioned you original post, new ships spawn in on that stage over time because of the reinforcement ship. The only thing I can think of is if you spend a lot of time not killing the ships and instead avoiding laser yes you will have some problems as more and more ships spawn in. maybe I can make it where no new ships spawn in if there are already a certain number of them in play.
Alright this is on me, this should have been done when lag was first being discussed. These are the specs on the PC that lags me out.
OS: Windows Vista 32bit
Processor: Pentium(R) Dual-Core T4200 2 GHz
RAM: 2 GB
I realize that this is an old PC, I’m just using it as a worst case scenario. It might be worth asking other people who have lag what their PCs are running to figure out minimal recommended system requirements.
Breakdown of games on this PC as follows:
ARIA:
Area 8+ are completely unplayable due to the game freezing. If all ships a removed via raids or MLaWS it is sometimes possible to proceed. In 2.3+ any time assault/boss ships are spawned the game has similar problems.
ARIA Arielle Story:
As mentioned by other people, the game lags out in the areas after you get the MLaWS. This didn’t happen in the previous version, though near as I can tell the only difference is sound so idk what the issue could be.
Umichan 3D:
Completely unplayable. If the file even loads there’s too much lag to do anything with it.
UMCH:
The cafe mini game will sometimes lag out and give you 10+ sec on the initial picture. Not sure if this is intentional or not but it makes it way easier to memorize lol.
UMCC:
The guitar mini game lags out the game making it unplayable. ARIA space shooter slows the game down considerably.
No problems running any other flash or MMD.
Many thanks, yeah were talking something around 7 years ago. These all sound like processor issues. Games predating UMCC work because there were designed with slower processors in mind. Also back then I had a toaster to test the games on. But I found designing games to run smooth on slower PCs to be not only was extremely time consuming, but also very limiting. I believe starting with UMCC they all have higher frame rates and larger screen size to even begin with.
Ari story I might have a hunch there. UMCH I should probably look in to even thoguh I don’t want to.
No problems running other flash ? have you tried Daughter of Eve? http://spiralvortexplay.com/svp/2014/07/30/daughter-of-eve/
Got the laser lag aswell, but this is a bit of a potato.
My only criticism (aside from my usual one of needs more sex scenes) is some of the dialogue. It doesn’t really come across that Ari is not enjoying it with Harold. Having Ari be more reluctant with her responses and calling him daddy, Harold taunting her more about Jeo and making it take longer than Ari wants it to that she gives into his kinks so she can go and find Jeo faster.
That is exactly what she doesn’t like about it so she just gets it over with because she can’t really do anything about it. Because she doesn’t resist doesn’t mean she has no issue with it. Also it is reinforced later in the games she meets up with the rest of the team, she tells them outright that she doesn’t like it.
I agree that it could seem that way at first but her true feelings do get shown later on.
I guess maybe there could be some thought dialog for Ari showing that she hates it. But it wouldn’t make too much difference.
I think it is fine as it is because SomeRandom described exactly what trying to portray at the time the event happened. Arielle is not going to openly show some blatant dislike to Harold directly, she needs him and needs his approval on many things. She showed a sliver of resistance in making the excuse the already helped him earlier but that was as far as she wanted to go because she didn’t wan to make him mad and not allow her to look for Jeo. him mad. So she just has to go along with it. But as soon as she is lightyears away in some random abandoned space station talking to her team members she can can be very honest about it.
I think she does does show enough resistance at the beginning. The things that people might have missed is that this is a regular occurrence not just a one off thing. And it is on me for not making more clear. But she is so used to this that she is past putting up some big resistance every time. I tried to show this in how she says daddy very uninspired initially right away. This is not meant to question whether she likes it or not, it is meant to show she has given up resisting. then he makes her say it louder. He knows she hate that shit be he loves it. Also at the end she frustratingly asked to be put down, that should be a big clue she didn’t enjoy any of it.
Yeah, I think you did it just right that way. All those things work to get that information across subtly. So it’s good narrative technique. 🙂
To put it in technical terms, Ari is emotionally fucked up. Jeo/Jinru is a giant dick but she’s hung up on him. For some reason the core of Ari’s being, which is hinted at but not explicitly stated in ARIA, revolves around Jeo so she’s willing to put up with Harold’s shit to help him even though Jeo could give a fuck less. The girl has problems and could really do with some counseling.
When Vortex and I were heatedly discussing the Bri changes awhile back, he said he’s eventually gonna elaborate more on Ari being emotionally unstable. She might even possibly freak out so much that she leaves the group for a period of time. I said I won’t further comment on Bri, but I do like that idea about Ari. Her being a total nut case about Jeo could lead to some interesting game mechanics if she catches him having sex with the other girls.
There is method to the madness that will hopefully be discovered later. I just haven’t explained back story of many characters yet because I don’t like to just type about it in some post. every character across all of my games could be the main character in their own games because they have a deeper level to them than you will find in many flash hentai games heh. Don’t want to just say this character has this personality. This character is very skilled or not skilled. or just quickly summarize their history. I want to explain and show the reasons why they are like this and show how it effects them. In ARIA I have only elaborated a bit on Ari. However the backstories of the other character is hinted at when you ask the question of why they have that personality or why they are in that role.
Bri is a GemCo weapon experiment, something I haven’t gotten to heavy on yet. very shy, quiet, delicate, hates engaging in physical conflict, and can generally sense people’s aura or nature, and has to deal with saboteur Khalei. Hopefully when I get to her story all will be revealed.
Tiffany we know is a defensive strategist and doctor, and likes being free of orders. you have to ask the question of why.
Also we that she is always engaging in some research or experiment, has thing for other women, is the best cook, and very properly mannered. All these thing I want elaborate on.
For Phia it should be fairly obvious she loves sex, but the depth of it is pretty extreme to the point where she is found molesting other people around her. There is history there also. that is joined with the fact that she is often shocked when she is even so much as takes damage in a battle. She is a great sniper, like getting things done quickly, is very vulgar in her dialogue, totally willing to use her body to get what she wants, and is very shitty at cooking food. All these things I want to explain in detail at some point.
I think you might have misunderstood what I meant slightly, I didn’t mean her openly resisting or saying no but more subtly or with thought dialogue. Her saying daddy for the first time is supposed to be uninspired but that doesn’t really come across in text. The line is just Ari – I love your dick daddy. whereas if it were something like Ari – I…love your…dick….daddy. it shows more that she is hesistant to say it and not enjoying it. Then when he tells her to shout it she could think to herself about blaming it on Jeo or dammit before shouting it.
You don’t really find out how she feels about it until she is with the team which on the first time through could be confusing, you could think she enjoys the sex but hates Harold (possibly because its SO good). He propositions her for sex and she just goes with it no problem and is shouting I love your dick by the end. It is supposed to be forced but again it doesn’t really come across that way. It doesn’t take alot to make it playful or flirty.
Ari – Again? I gave you a favour this morning. So this was your plan all along 😛
Harold – Yes, we can continue to help each other, just as it has always been 😛
Ari – …Yes Sir 😛
Yeah, he’s holding Jeo over her head but I think he could/should be worse to show how much power he has over her. Having him rip her clothes off or deliberately fucking her slowly until she reminds him Jeo is getting further away then making her beg him to go faster. Toying with her and making her give in. Basically I think Harold should be the absolute worst fucking scum.
My point was that things mentioned in the comments like Harold loving toying with her because she hates it/him and her emotional state aren’t really apparent in the games. They are mentioned briefly but with this being Ari’s story there could be more of a focus on that when compared to ARIA which is from Jeo’s uncaring perspective. Hope this clears things up.
While I do understand what you mean more clearly, I still I think it is how it want to to be as it is. I am not trying to jam too much into one scene and some things I leave kind of open to interpretation and discussion. so it not being totally clear until later is intentional. There are more parts to the story I haven’t touched yet where it will be more obvious. Again, Ari is unresistant because this is something she has gotten used to. They way you described dialogue by putting … between words assume she not used to it, which is not what I’m trying to do. She it not hesitant, she is more like uninspired. She hates the entire situation but the sex physically doesn’t feel bad, also she is putting on a facade to make sure Harold is pleased. Also Jeo has nothing to do with her being in a situation with Harold. It is not in any game yet so it is why I explained to Selvira about how special agent status comes about. Again, I think what you see what I intended.
Also it is not typical in my writing style to add pauses like that, nor to include smiley faces or what the character is thinking about. I think I have done a few thoughts in UMCC for Maiko. But that is because you play as Maiko.
also the dialogue you mentioned works because the are in the context of the the game. It is easy in many cases to change the meaning of sentences when you remove the context they were original placed in.
Yeah, I knew what you intended from the start. I wasn’t trying to say change it, make it exactly like this or anything. Just that if you thought it was valid criticism, it could give you an idea of how to alter it.
My criticism was that (like myself) it was a little unclear in the way the dialogue is written. I thought it was too open ended, too easy to misinterpret. Hence the taking lines out of context. A few 😛 can change Harold manipulating Ari into sex, to a quickie with a fuck buddie type situation, and for someone who doesn’t know the way it is intended that could be confusing later on. I know she has resigned herself to it because it happens so often, but it just doesn’t feel that way, to me atleast.
If the scene were voiced I would expect Ari to be kinda monotone in the delivery because she doesn’t care as much, which would be harder to misinterpret. The way it is currently seems a bit like sarcasm on the internet. Alot of people take it as genuine unless you put /s.
I’ll stop now.
Looking forward to the future parts. Although I now have a headcanon of Harold NTRing Ari.
Thanks for the feedback I will keep what you said in mind for the future. While I do find your thoughts valid, minus the smiley faces and taking the lines out of context, I’m convinced I want to leave this as it is. It is certainly not perfect, but it is the way I want it to be. And I still think you are interpreting it correctly. Or maybe not correctly, but it is as obvious as I want it to be. The general idea here is to show the scene as it is then later on when Ari says she hates it. You go back and look for clues as to why she said that. After know Ari hate it the clues becomes more visible to spot.
just look at Brigma’s post. Ari is not presented as a emotionally fucked up character however the description is accurate. Ari is presented a tough leader character with a strong will who is a bit irritated with Jeo. similar to what Selvira was taking about. You only start to realize she is crazy as you see her in different scenes and after to taking a close look at the guy is crazy for then start to put pieces together. This is what I actively try to do. even taking parts from one games and applying them to another game. UMCC has a lot of ARIA related book in the book store and I plan to do the same for UMCH. My point is that I’m not trying to make thing totally obvious to begin with. The intent is that you realize things as you go along.
Since I have been making story/lore heavy games for a while now I know that everyone doesn’t pick up on clues the same way, so if a person misses the hints in the first pass I’m certain it will becomes clear later at some point. It is why in this case, it is stated plainly later on in this game. But it will be reinforced in the future.
I can’t seem to fire with the .swf version. I tried running it on firefox and safari but neither worked. The site version works fine for me here.
For the game itself it’s solid, I like how you took most of the aria mechanics and transposed them in this type of game. The one thing I had trouble with is keeping the nodes safe from the boss ships you can’t shoot. They tend to keep the nodes from gaining at the exact rate it goes up by itself and the only way I can find to stop it from getting hit is to take the hits myself. Is that how it’s intended or am I missing something?
Also were you planning on having the other girls in as alternate characters? Or maybe assists for Ari? I think seeing TT dropping shields and Bri freezing bullets would make for cool mechanics here.
I read this earlier but I seemed to have forgotten to reply. Yeah taking laser hits so it wont hit the node is intentional. I might build up separate stories for them them with their own mechanics then have a game all of them together in it.
Playing on macbook pro and can’t fire later in the first level with the node. can move but can not fire.
I don’t have a mac so it can’t really test any changes. also not sure if you are using a mouse or touchpad. I would imagine you need to be using a mouse.
I might try to make lasers a keyboard option also.
Using touchpad. By the way, love your Aria content.
Thanks for the feedback.
yeah I just can’t build a effective game around a touch pad. I had trouble with that is the past because it is very limiting. I will make shooting a laser also available with something on the keyboard. maybe rebindable. Will try to do that his week.
when ever i get to the part where i am able to use the mlaw the game freezes up. im not sure if its just my computer but it might be something you want to look into
I will eventually
Is there going to be a download for this? My browser gets close to crashing every time I play the first level that has a lot of enemy ships. The one where the cannon can be used.
Wow, I’m blind…
So, the download at least doesn’t have to worry about a browser crashing but it still has crippling lag/freezes on the level after the cannon level. It freezes but apparently you still take damage because as soon as it unfreezes it brings you back to the dialogue before the cannon level.
yes it is a issue I still need to look into. But I missed to begin with because I don’t have this problem. so hunting it down might be a bit tricky when I get around to it.
much better but after the scene (the whole staff, the girls) it is harder…and because of particles, pc slow down.. I have got up
Thanks for the feedback
Hmm, in the later battle scenes the lasers that fire on all friendly nodes (from the enemy) can tank the game hard, especially if you have trained your combatants>>harder battles. No, its not because of a crappy computer, got a quad-core with 6Gb ram and nvidia grafics card. (Running on firefox)
oops,wrong place 🙂 this was meant for the ARIA game
it is less lasers in 2.3
Thanks, quite exciting, although can;t get throught it, for some reason i can’t shoot with left mouse button (or with any button really) when it asks me to cover the node. Any help?
Thanks for that great visual novel. Arielle is looking so fantastic!
However I have serious performance issues, especially in the second fight with the MLaws. I couldn’t make it through that one after like 10 tries, because it froze for 2 seconds after every few seconds, the frame rates going up and down. Eventually it’s pretty fluent, and then it starts to freeze again.
If you found a way to improve the game on that, it’d be awesome! Because I really want to find out what happens next, and if there will be a nice scene with Arielle 😀
Btw: Did I mention Arielle looks terrific?
I’m not totally sure what the problem is since I can’t seem to replicate the problem. But I have guess at a few things and it be better playing it from the ARIA download.
http://spiralvortexplay.com/svp/flash/advanced-rogue-intelligence-assault-aria/
I tried it and it worked like a charm. Not a single frame rate drop.
I’ve played the main game quite a while back then and I love to see how you kept adding things.
Just wanted to say that especially your art is really amazing. I don’t think I’ve seen so good looking
girls as in ARIA in any other flash game or visual novel. Animations are perfect.
Keep it up, hope you still enjoy it!
I’m glad you like it, I do also. The character art and animations were made by pinoytoons.
you can find his blog here:
http://pinoytoon.blogspot.com/
Should have known that a professional artist is involved. Didn’t catch that somehow.
Anyway good job!
Please take the rape scenes off. Am I the only one that doesn’t like it?
Hi Gade, I can’t just turn off a part of the storyline because you miss especially atrocious but important information about the character(s). I want everything to be in there both good and bad.
This game is good but you have to tone down the difficulty for the ship battles since I cannot get passed the ship battle after you meet the other girls.
I’ll see if I can come back and edit this game a bit.