When the Seacats Cry

[SeagullCrazy]

Welcome to my teaparty!

Just in time for Winter Comiket 2011! After a year and a half of working on it, I've finished writing, programming, and most importantly bug-testing my series of Umineko No Naku Koro Ni Chiru fangames. So I believe it's finally time to release this for the public's reading pleasure.

These games contain Episode 8 spoilers, so please read the official Umineko games first! Now that Witch-hunt has translated EP8 in English (which I am very thankful for, excellent work WH) I can release this game without worrying it may spoil some of you.

Installing it is just like installing a Witch-Hunt translation patch. Just place the folder in your Umineko EP8 folder and click "onscripter.exe" to begin playing.

The download link contains a game that has four fangames inside.

Fan-EP1: Forgery of the Golden Witch
Fan-EP2: Trick of the Golden Witch
Fan-EP3: Inquisition of the Golden Witch
Fan-EP4: Board of the Golden Witch

Please read them in order. At the end of each game there is a tea party to be used as an answer session regarding the mysteries presented in each one.

While the first two games are standard Umineko fangames, the third is an interactive adventure game and the fourth, well let's keep that a surprise for now.

I made these games so that people will have fun playing them. If you have fun solving the mysteries, please do your best to solve them. If you enjoy reading fantasy scenes, I hope you like the ones I wrote. If it's romance you like, I even put in a little bit of that too.

Whether it's mystery, fantasy, or romance you like, please enjoy reading these four games.

Old video preview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVJX--z6D30

Download here

Mirror download

Again, special thanks to Witch-Hunt for bringing the original series into the English-speaking community. And special thanks to 07th Expansion for making it in the first place.
Also, special thanks to Jan-Poo. Witches & Woodlands is what inspired me to start making this, so please check out that too!

[Revelation]

Awesome! Playing right away, the fourth wall breaking video preview is enough for me.

...


(lol @ the opening )

[goatkun]

This game sucks, you shouldn't play it.

(no really, give this man a chance)

[AuraTwilight]

I've already read the whole thing, and every Umineko fan should give this a shot! I really love it!

Also, SeagullCrazy you knob, get the F on Yahoo again, I haven't seen you in months!

[risingstar3110]

I plan to download and keep it till i finishes Ep 8 (or the anime equivalent if it's ever released). Is there any problem with my plan....?

[SeagullCrazy]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Also, SeagullCrazy you knob, get the F on Yahoo again, I haven't seen you in months!

I'll do that more often now that I'm less preoccupied.~

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

I plan to download and keep it till i finishes Ep 8 (or the anime equivalent if it's ever released). Is there any problem with my plan....?

No problems at all, although I wouldn't bet on a Chiru anime any time soon.

[VNDan]

Just finished EP1-3 and I've got to say that this was amazing.

This is probably the only umineko fangame I'd ever want to play again.

Anyway just wondering. In EP3 was there anyway to use the telephone? There was so many of them I assumed you would get some numbers by the end but I could never find them. Also, about the chemicals. Is there anything you can actually do with those?

The reason I ask is because I still haven't gone to the EP3teaparty. I'm trying to make a solid theory before learning the answer etc. There is really too much to do in EP3 and I got distracted the first playthrough.

In any case, amazing job.

[SeagullCrazy]

Originally Posted by VNDan

Just finished EP1-3 and I've got to say that this was amazing.

This is probably the only umineko fangame I'd ever want to play again.

Anyway just wondering. In EP3 was there anyway to use the telephone? There was so many of them I assumed you would get some numbers by the end but I could never find them. Also, about the chemicals. Is there anything you can actually do with those?

The reason I ask is because I still haven't gone to the EP3teaparty. I'm trying to make a solid theory before learning the answer etc. There is really too much to do in EP3 and I got distracted the first playthrough.

In any case, amazing job.

Spoiler for Fan-EP3:

There's really no point to the telephones. There's no way an outsider could find the numbers to each room, and it's pointless to interrogate over the phone when you'll be talking to them right there.

There's some interesting things you can do with the chemicals. If you're really not sure just grab everything and eventually a choice might pop up, but those odds are about a quadrillion to one.~

Also, I added a new video to the first post showing more than just the prologue. I think it shows off the rest of the game a lot better than the previous one.

[Mr.Q]

I picked this up a few days ago and I'm enjoying it. Just wanted to drop a line about the opening videos.

They make onscripter crash when they play. This could have something to do with my computer setup, but when I replaced your openings with the original openings, it played fine and everything was wonderful. I reencoded your openings to 640x480 resolution (yours were 720x480) to match the originals and that stopped the crashes as well. I don't know if anyone else has experienced this or not. Why are they encoded so poorly to begin with? Interlace and low bitrate really take the fun out of watching them. =(

Aside from my complaints: I don't know if you made them yourself, but they are pretty hilarious. So if you did, big thumbs up to you!

I'll post a full opinion when I finish reading the series.

[Azule]

I've replayed Episode 3 god knows how many times now. I keep seeming to get myself hurt. >_>

[SeagullCrazy]

Originally Posted by Mr.Q

I picked this up a few days ago and I'm enjoying it. Just wanted to drop a line about the opening videos.

They make onscripter crash when they play. This could have something to do with my computer setup, but when I replaced your openings with the original openings, it played fine and everything was wonderful. I reencoded your openings to 640x480 resolution (yours were 720x480) to match the originals and that stopped the crashes as well. I don't know if anyone else has experienced this or not. Why are they encoded so poorly to begin with? Interlace and low bitrate really take the fun out of watching them. =(

Aside from my complaints: I don't know if you made them yourself, but they are pretty hilarious. So if you did, big thumbs up to you!

I'll post a full opinion when I finish reading the series.

Hm, that's interesting. I know someone else who had a similar problem, but I don't know what caused it.

As for the videos... my friend Genji made them, and gave them to me as some other video format. I did the converting to MPEG, with one of those free video converter programs. Can you send me the re-encoded versions?

Originally Posted by Azule

I've replayed Episode 3 god knows how many times now. I keep seeming to get myself hurt. >_>

Just to be safe, you do know that, until you read the entire EP3 tea party, you can only go down the same route you took in your original playthrough of the main game?

In other words if you got a bad end you'll keep getting one no matter what until you solve the mystery. This was done to prevent cheating by going back and making other choices. EP3 is by far not an easy mystery to solve, although it can be done if you make the right choices.

[F. Velvet]

OH MY BEATRICE! You totally convinced me of reading this by only seeing the opening! It was astonishing.
I'll start it right away after I completely finish "Witches & Woodlands" from Jan-Poo, I still have to solve the riddle of the chest.

By the way, did you make it all by yourself? (Not only the plot, but graphics and ONScripter use overall).

As soon as I start reading I'll give you my opinions about it c:

[Mr.Q]

Originally Posted by SeagullCrazy

Hm, that's interesting. I know someone else who had a similar problem, but I don't know what caused it.

As for the videos... my friend Genji made them, and gave them to me as some other video format. I did the converting to MPEG, with one of those free video converter programs. Can you send me the re-encoded versions?

I'll do that if you want to but I'd rather talk to you about how to reencode them to MPG properly. If the original files are nice quality you can keep them looking nice and not have all the hardcoded interlace and macroblocking.

I'll send you a PM with links when I upload my recodes somewhere.

[SeagullCrazy]

Originally Posted by F. Velvet

By the way, did you make it all by yourself? (Not only the plot, but graphics and ONScripter use overall).

I did all of the writing and programming, for the most part. There was one part in the third game where Jan-Poo helped me out, but aside from that it was all done by me. I wrote everything up until the fourth game, that's when I took the story in a different direction where I actually couldn't write everything myself to convey the story properly. But credit is properly given where it is due.

For the sprites, I did all of the image editing myself up until the third game, where a few sprites were drawn by some friends of mine, although most of the custom images were still made by me. The fourth game, again being vastly different, was when a large amount of custom graphics were used, most of them made by my friends, not me.

[Drifloon]

I'm in the middle of Episode 1's tea party and I'm really loving this, but I have noticed quite a glaring glitch: whenever I load the game, everyone's profile status reverts to default and all the TIPS disappear until someone's status changes or a new TIP is added. Is there any way of fixing that?

[SeagullCrazy]

Originally Posted by Drifloon

I'm in the middle of Episode 1's tea party and I'm really loving this, but I have noticed quite a glaring glitch: whenever I load the game, everyone's profile status reverts to default and all the TIPS disappear until someone's status changes or a new TIP is added. Is there any way of fixing that?

Hmm. Well I'll probably be able to figure it out but for right now there's no way for anyone else to fix it. It's definitely a programming mistake on my part, but this one isn't as bad as it could have been.

[rogerpepitone]

Also, your usage of probability is poor.

Spoiler:

The card trick actually has a ~49% chance of working, and the argument you give for the probability of winning Inquisition is completely off. That may be deliberate, though.

One other thing. I put a "gameid" line at the very top of 0.txt, and that seemed to fix the "profile status reverts to default" bug.

[SeagullCrazy]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

Also, your usage of probability is poor.

Spoiler:

The card trick actually has a ~49% chance of working, and the argument you give for the probability of winning Inquisition is completely off. That may be deliberate, though.

One other thing. I put a "gameid" line at the very top of 0.txt, and that seemed to fix the "profile status reverts to default" bug.

I never liked probability, lol.

Spoiler:

Yeah the card trick might not have made much sense, but I just quickly looked up some stuff on the net and gathered the probability from that. And the whole "one in quadrillion" thing isn't supposed to be a real probability of solving Inquisition, just a repeated phrase used throughout the story.

That "gameid" thing is interesting; I see why that would fix it now. Thank you.

[rogerpepitone]

Regarding the problem of videos not playing, start by gathering raw information. I suggest:
1) Operating system
2) Does the game crash when it tries to show the video?
3) Will Windows Media Player open the file?

For me:
1) Windows 7.
2) op1 and op2, yes. (Haven't seen seacats_ending.mpg)
3) op1 and op2, no. (seacats_ending.mpg, yes).

[TheWitch0fDivinty]

Spoiler for PLEASE A TRANSLATION!:

Anon-kun's and Zefur's conversation

I haven't finished itBut I really love Meta-Battler, difficult but truly great I've yet to finish the game yet.... Since it talks about life (In the 'endless sea') I can so relate... I've never loved a (fan)games as much as I have now.

Of course W&W game is well-done in every way possibleBut hardwork should always be apprecaited... I can relate with ever single person.

Though From episode 2 you went from okish to decent. I wish I could understand proigramming DX But it's useless if one doesn't know how to draw. Then you have to find 'dummy spirites' and 'backgrounds' and niether of them are easy tasks.

It's worse when you don't understand math D8

Anyway I hope to see more work from you.

PS: Forgive my crappy spelling :\