Community VN idea

[Winnie_Pooh]

The other day I saw that hilarious thread about "radical VN ideas", which gave me an idea: Why not put together a sort of community VN, which is written gradually and in small pieces from members of the community, and whose "story" is basically a random mashup of every single VN cliché ever, plus the insane stuff in the aforementioned thread. You know what I mean: Average male highschool student meets mysterious blonde super-strong chick from another dimension.

And before anyone complains, yes, I'm aware that this forum has a Creative Corner board for VN development. I posted this here however as a follow-up to the thread above and because I think there should first be a meta-discussion on whether such a community VN is even feasible, and how many people are interested. Also, please forgive my ignorance if something like this has actually been done before.

Now, some more thoughts on this community VN: Obviously it should be low-effort, i.e. using free backgrounds and sprites found on the internet, and maybe with free BGM or even sound effects added later if this thing ever gets off the ground. I also think not much quality control is needed, as the ultimate goal is to just put together a nonsensical VN parody that can be expanded continuously.

Another thing, I'll have to confess that I don't have time myself to build the foundation for a project like this (due to bachelor thesis coming up). I just wanted to get this idea off my chest in the hope that somebody will pick it up.

Finally, some thoughts on what tools and resources could be used:

(1) Obviously Ren'Py, the well-known free visual novel engine. I hear that it's relatively easy to use; you basically have to enter all the dialog in plain text files, with special syntax for things like switching out sprites and backgrounds.

(2) Maybe GitHub for hosting the source files. Allows versioning as well as branching and merging of different versions. But then, maybe a file hosting site would be better since most potential contributors might not be able to figure out how to use GitHub.

(3) Some sites to get free images from: OpenClipart.org, Wikimedia Commons.

[Silvz]

1 hour ago, Winnie_Pooh said:

The other day I saw that hilarious thread about "radical VN ideas", which gave me an idea: Why not put together a sort of community VN, which is written gradually and in small pieces from members of the community, and whose "story" is basically a random mashup of every single VN cliché ever, plus the insane stuff in the aforementioned thread. You know what I mean: Average male highschool student meets mysterious blonde super-strong chick from another dimension.

https://vndb.org/v945

You're welcome

 

[Winnie_Pooh]

9 minutes ago, Silvz said:

https://vndb.org/v945

You're welcome

 

Katawa Shoujo seems nice, although what I had in mind was more in the spirit of the thread I mentioned, i.e., a comedy made of VN clichés and insanity.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Winnie_Pooh
typo

[Zalor]

A very long time ago, in around the end of 2013 I believe, this idea was attempted. But it never went anywhere, and I don't think it would go much better this time either. The biggest problem that prevented it from succeeding last time was that everyone had ideas that They liked, and wanted their idea to be the VN that the community would produce. Ultimately to make a VN, you need enough people to like 1 idea enough to want to work on it. But you also can't have too many people either, since that will increase disagreement. So a project open to a community is very difficult to achieve, since it requires severely limiting what average members can contribute, and having leaders who make the big decisions in how the VN will progress and be developed. And thats the problem, many people will probably disagree with the leadership, and ultimately choose to completely opt out.

Katawa Shoujo is a rare case, and what helped a lot with that VN is that everybody already knew the idea they wanted to do. A picture of disabled anime girls sparked the motivation for people to create a VN about the idea. So at the very least the community already agreed on what the basic story would be about, which would be very difficult to achieve here. Since if you pick one story idea, the rest of the community might bitch about why "their's wasn't picked". Also, Katawa shoujo's most productive phases of development was when their was already clear leadership and roles that were assigned. Meaning that most of the productive development of Katawa Shoujo was not really a community effort, but the effort of an established team.

The only other quality community made game I saw made was the Fire Emblem rom hack, Fire Emblem the Last Promise (its old name was Fire Emblem Tactics Universe, which was named after an old Fire Emblem forum that no longer exists). And most of the game was made once it fell into the hands of a guy known as Blazer, and it basically became his personal project. The community would submit map, music, sprites to be used, but he had the ultimate pick of what got used or not. 

In order for a Community project like this to work, it requires dictatorial leadership, which communities are fundamentally against, which is why successful Community projects are such an anomaly.

[Nandemonai]

Basically, you want to recreate Atlanta Nights only as a VN this time.  I have to agree with Zalor, this seems unlikely to succeed.  Both the examples I know of fit his pattern of a smallish group that had a specific goal in mind.  Atlanta Nights was a snow job to make fools of a predatory vanity press that dared to attack real authors, and Katawa Shoujo was also based around a particular idea.

Edited January 18, 2017 by Nandemonai
typo

[Winnie_Pooh]

@ Zalor, Nandemonai

Good points. Then I guess only something in the style of an Open Source software project could work, i.e. a project controlled by a core team that decides on what contributions to accept or reject.

[Zalor]

3 hours ago, Winnie_Pooh said:

@ Zalor, Nandemonai

Good points. Then I guess only something in the style of an Open Source software project could work, i.e. a project controlled by a core team that decides on what contributions to accept or reject.

Yeah, my suggestion would be to craft a basic idea of what you want your story to be. Then create a forum topic stating that idea and establishing yourself as the leader, and mention that you would like community submissions to be help make this work. That way you might recruit people to submit some sprites, music, etc. You could even make it a competition of sorts, saying that you will judge the submissions yourself and the ones you liked the most will be used in the project. I'm still pretty skeptical, but it couldn't hurt to try. And to be perfectly honest with you, the potential for this to succeed would increase immensely if you were a well know member in the community (like Tay or Zaka or Solidbatman). Or at the very least if you could get well-known members to support this idea with you. 

The community is more likely to join in on something that active members are enthusiastic about, since those people have already proven that they are committed to this site and community. The fact that you only have 3 posts and don't even have an avatar suggests to everybody that you are not serious about this community. Which would make it hard to recruit support.