What are your opinions on spotlight?
What does a good spotlight story look like?
What do you not like about it?
What do you like about it?
What can make a spotlight story bad?
I personally love it. The narration has to be done well because you can’t rely on characters moving around the screen. A good spotlight story to me is one with about half narration and half dialogue. One thing I don’t like about spotlight is the amount of badly done stories in this format. I think they tend to make people shy away from the format when some stories use it very well. I love the amount of creativity this format allows. If you can narrate it you can make it happen where as in cinematic it’s harder to make creative scenes because of the problem of only using animations.
I made this because all I hear is people not liking spotlight. I want to know why people don’t like it and how it can be used to make a great story.
I feel like in order to make a good spotlight story you have to be more than good at description… also some people use spotlight for just a scene like in this story I read she used spotlight for the football game and I think that was really smart. But other than that you just have to be really detailed about everything.
A good spotlight story wouldn’t just be
Person 1 “Omg Kaylee look at that”
Person 2 “What is it?”
Person 1 “It’s a guy!”
It would have to be more like this
Person 1 “Kaylee look at that tall, handsome, figurine guy standing by the chocolate Fountain”
Person 2 “Oh my gosh!”
Person 1 (Narrated) “This guy is almost as tall as a tree! I’m surprised he doesn’t have any cats stuck up there. With his Blue spiky hair, and his devilish smirk, and the way his emerald green eyes shine in the light”
Something like that.
Some times there would have to be a lot of narrating which really makes it a little confusing. And also the animations are not really expressive as they would be if you could see full body!
What I really like about it is that it brings out the more descriptive side of people. Especially when describing scenes because in Full Body ones the Author may just be like “Oh I don’t need to describe it they see the background” But with Spotlight they really depend on the describing part which really has a plus side and a negative side depending on the Author!
I’ve already answered this one, but honestly when you don’t know how to make it interesting. Some people just like to use spotlight because they think “Oh this is SO much easier” but then in reality when they start coding it’s harder than they thought so they give up and just go with what they have…
I love it! Spotlight is special in my opinion. I think it just gets a bad rap because a lot of people on Episode are still very used to cinematic and not always willing to give new formats a chance. After all, apps like Choices (which is basically Spotlight) are very popular.
IMO? It’s a story with good writing that takes advantage of the format’s strengths.
I like that I don’t have to spend countless hours on advanced directing, find backgrounds that will work with said directing, so on and so forth. It’s extremely convenient and makes a lot of scenes that would require too many overlays, directing, or both and still not look good… possible.
Note that my stories are generally fantasy-based. A modern story usually requires less in this capacity.
Good narration for Spotlight can be tricky at times, but I just accept it as part of the medium.
Bad narration and bad dialogue, mostly. No amount of advanced directing can cover up bad writing when it’s in Spotlight.
What are your opinions on Spotlight?
It’s fine, I guess, but I usually use Cinematic more because it’s better for displaying outfits. Although spotlight stories are fresh since I’ve seen a lot of cinematic, so kinda between. What does a good spotlight story look like?
Well, first of all, it can’t have grammar mistakes and less detail. The most important for me is that the plot has to be interesting and since you have a limited character appearance display on Spotlight they need to show the character’s personality out as much as possible. What do you like about it?
Spotlight is easier to code and you don’t need to work much on spot directing and transitions, stuff involving character movement. What do you not like about it?
Reducing feet animations and things like swimming in water or running after something just make it look awkward. What can make a spotlight story bad?
Just about anything that makes a cinematic story bad too.
I like spot light as a concept more than cinematic, it’s closer to reading a book and if it’s well done it feels more immersive and easier to get into, the issue is that there are better stories in cinematic. I think people view spotlight as easier because there’s less directing involved but writing a good story isn’t easy period, you have to work at it. I think people could utilize spotlight more in cinematic stories rather than doing things there are no descent animations for that would be better served described not to mention more convincing. Someone mentioned a football game, any kind of sport would work, I think giving birth would be a good example, or riding a motorcycle, horseback riding, there’s a lot of stuff I’ve seen authors try to direct that just comes off goofy because we don’t have the tools yet.
I wouldn’t say I favour it but I do have an appreciation for it
I know a lot of people will probably say that you need to have really good narration for a spotlight story to be good, but I think it’s more so about having the type of plot that works with spotlight - which doesn’t always mean heavy/detailed narration. Idk how to explain what I mean other than to say think of thriller or horror stories where there’s a stalker watching the main character from the shadows. In cinematic, you can direct that scene to really spook your readers. But with spotlight, since you can only have one character on the screen at one time, it wouldn’t have the same effect.
I wish we could change the bubble colour and I don’t like how the swim animations and lie down animations aren’t compatible
I don’t have to put shoes on my characters
No directing at all. Spotlight was pitched as a format you could use that would be easy to learn on because you don’t have to direct but OMFG you still do. You still need to position your characters and face them at the very least and then occasionally you will need to direct your speechbubbles too. Zooms, overlays and weather effects aren’t needed but will definitely enhance story
This is a good point. Even just looking at it conceptually, I think comedy in spotlight and comedy in cinematic for example are completely different beasts. What would work for visual comedy doesn’t transfer over to spotlight or vice versa.
What are your opinions on spotlight?
I definitely prefer the cinematic style, but I don’t hate Spotlight as much as I used to. I admit that it’s still hard to get myself to read Spotlight stories, but that’s because I think some authors don’t put much effort into it, they just choose this style because they think it means less directing.
What does a good spotlight story look like?
It has creative directing, well-written and well-placed narration, and a great plot. The plot is extremely important because I don’t think Spotlight fits all kinds of stories.
What do you not like about it?
The bubbles They easily make me distracted, and it takes me time to get into these stories because at the beginning all I think about it is: “Let them out of the bubbles!”
What do you like about it?
That if the author has clever ideas, it can be done in many different ways.
The first Spotlight story I liked was Telvoikai by Corvaena, because it was really unique, something I’ve seen never before. Then I read By The Book by Amberose, and I couldn’t believe how entertaining it was with all the mini-games, and how creative the directing was. I don’t know how she did this, but I enjoyed it so much that I didn’t get distracted by the bubbles at all
What can make a spotlight story bad?
If the author only chooses this style to simplify the directing, but it doesn’t fit the story.
I like spotlight! I definitely agree that a story’s plot (and narration style) needs to be suited for spotlight. I preferred the old spotlight (if it was even called spotlight, I honestly don’t remember ahah) because you could have multiple characters on the screen at once, but I’m gradually liking the new spotlight more and more.
I think authors should choose spotlight if they genuinely think their story will suit it, not because they think it’ll be less effort since there’s not much directing required. (Despite the “less directing” stereotype, while a lot of directing isn’t required for spotlight, I’ve seen some great stories that made advanced directing work with overlays and mini-games, which isn’t a requirement for me to enjoy a spotlight story but really does add to the experience).
I like the idea of Spotlight. It can be a different way to use the medium, focusing on narration rather than character placement. I’ve read full stories in Spotlight, and others that used Spotlight for a scene or two (including my own). I find it great for scenes where the characters aren’t exactly existing in a physical space, but I still want to use the Episode sprites and animations.
What makes me not like Spotlight in practise is that half-second “swoosh” as the character moves on- and off-screen. It’s enough to trigger my motion sickness.
I’ve read some stories where the “swoosh” happens infrequently enough (lots of narration without the character onscreen, and when the character did speak, they spoke in paragraphs). But I’ve also read some where the writer was only using Spotlight for a contest, and used short dialogue, so the swooshes made me have to drop the story.
But yeah, I won’t stop reading a Spotlight story unless it makes me stop lol. And if it was too much swooshing, it probably should’ve been using Cinematic in the first place, so I’m not missing much.
I figure there are 2 reasons people don’t like Spotlight:
Too many people who just use it for the sake of using it, and don’t adapt their story to it
“i DoN’T wAnT tO rEaD aLl ThAt NaRrAtIon” betch go watch Netflix then
There’s definitely a case that can be made for including narration on Episode; yes, this is a visual medium, but we all share the same 200 backgrounds, 150 animations, 12 eye colours… etc. After 100 stories, the visuals aren’t new anymore. Even in full cinematic stories, you have to infer plenty of things that aren’t shown. A format that mixes the narration of books with the Episode assets allows the writer to stretch the Episode visuals in ways that can’t be shown with just spot placement.
Wow, I forgot about the old version entirely for a minute. I miss it too in a way. It would’ve been cool if they had kept it as an option and expanded on it.
I have a friend who gets this with Spotlight. It’s unfortunate.
Gotta agree with the “swoosh”. It’s another reason I preferred the old version of spotlight. I tap through stories pretty quickly, and the swoosh makes it tiring to read.
Also the part about narration. I know lots of people don’t like narration on episode but it definitely has its place and can expand the story.
What are your opinions on spotlight?
I have a spotlight story (but it was for the spotlight contest so it wasn’t completely my choice in a way). I don’t mind it, but I think it works better for some stories than others.
What does a good spotlight story look like?
I think a good spotlight story would have a good balance of narration and dialogue. Look at other apps like Choices and Chapters- they use spotlight but they don’t overdo the narration. Even in spotlight, I don’t think excessive narration is necessary.
What do you not like about it?
Limitations- not being able to see all the animations (like lying down) and not being able to have two people in a bubble.
As people have mentioned, the swoosh can be annoying too.
What do you like about it?
The simplicity. I finished my 3 episodes for my contest entry in 10 days. It usually takes me about that long to write and direct one episode.
What can make a spotlight story bad?
I actually found spotlight harder to write in than cinematic because you can’t rely on directing to make the story better (I honestly didn’t realise how much I did that until I wrote in spotlight lol). Every word basically has to be on point. You need a little more narration, but it also can’t be boring and long winded. So trying to keep things interesting without directing I think can be quite challenging.
They easily make me distracted, and it takes me time to get into these stories because at the beginning all I think about it is: “Let them out of the bubbles!”
It’s enough to trigger my motion sickness.
And if it was too much swooshing, it probably should’ve been using Cinematic in the first place, so I’m not missing much.