Get to know! Mado Cactus Fairy Vtuber

A pretty advanced interactive portfolio!

OK, I stumbled on this page from my itch notifications, probably after following you from malViolence (not played though). I tried to run it without any context (the “[Learn more about my history with auditioning for Hololive here.]” had no hyperlink, I found later the link in the Development log but I think there was supposed to be a link in the sentence too).

So I was kinda confused, but since the presentation is lively and interactive with voice acting, I got caught it (only checked Illustrations so far). I’m not familiar with auditions but I did play a few game dev interactive portfolios (you know, the ones where you can actually play and move around to see the dev’s career on your own, sometimes complete with rhythm and beat ‘em up web game), so it was the closest thing I could connect to. But it’s the first time I see one that is voiced!

It’s actually catchier than my own proper Visual Novels - but the character is addressing the player directly so I suppose it’s not something I could pull in my own stories, considering their format. However, I learned a thing or two from animations (the character tilts their head when they say “good taste!”). Audio is also refined (filter on voice coming from behind the door).

The voice acting is very good, I was wondering if I would naturally voice my own character well because I’m actually playing myself and showing my own work. But looking at your post-mortem which shows you actually worked on song covers, etc. I suppose that’s part of the acting work really. Not sure if it’s worth learning proper acting just to be able to voice myself in my own programmer portfolio… That’s probably better to have a clean voice to play an animated character, but if I used live footage then I suppose my normal voice would be OK since it wouldn’t really differ from the usual Zoom interviews.

I have troubles playing web games on my laptop as they take 50-100% of my CPU so I would have liked playing a desktop version, but I understand why an audition/portfolio is better in web format.

Well, I suppose this page is for people meant to recruit you but it was interesting having links to your non-game works which are not displayed on itch.io. I also found your website: https://madocactus.portfolio.site/ (better for me to quickly get the links and save images in my personal notes). Feedback: the carousel doesn’t show left/right arrows, it may be easy to miss for people who are not familiar with the dot selector at the bottom, and they may think that there is only one work. I’m used to it so I pressed left/right arrows but it’s better to offer obvious mouse navigation too.

The VTuber world is a bit obscure to me but I do recognize a combination of skills that indie game devs usually look forward to (unless they prefer hiring other people, as I’m myself trying to do). I wonder how they could put your game dev skills to contribution. Promoting your own game with your avatar would bring more views? Making games for other members too?

Funnily enough, Hololive JP sent me an offer for “Unity engineer” once, but I wasn’t interested as I wasn’t into it (the few VTubers I listen to are part of other crews, and I really just care about their music - I tend to strictly separate channels to listen to music and those to watch Let’s Play, probably due to the habit of working while listening to music in the background vs actively watching a gameplay video to learn about the game). I haven’t checked Hololive EN, maybe I’d have more interest in them, especially if they have a more mixed cast and cool designs (like this one). But, I suppose in the end I just really like seeing characters inside games and movies rather than as avatars. So, I can’t guarantee I’ll be watching Mado on YouTube - except for the song covers.

Erm, it got a bit long, sorry. Plus, it’s not great putting too much personal opinion as comment just below someone’s portfolio. I can trim my comment to the essential feedback if you want.