[ ORIGINAL ] Ai to Majustu Project

[Aiko-chan]

Minna-san kikimasu kudasai!

 

So here at Pantsuki ( the studio i founded ) we are working on an Original Visual Novel. Yes that's right an original VN. But we seem to be lacking in motivation and artists so therefore I am here to recruit some people.

 

Artisans Needed:

• Artists ( character designs, BGs ) WE NEED THESE PEOPLE LIKE RIGHT NOW
• Co-Writers ( people that contribute ideas to the story ) 
• Composer ( Music makers )
• Animators ( Make pictures move )

To the people that worry that I might drop this project midway... Its been active for 6 months now, we just need to speed up the pace and share this with everyone asap.

 

If you are interested drop me a PM or skype request. Questions should be publicly commented below 

[Yes35]

Minna-san kikimasu kudasai!

 

 

[JeMhUnTeR]

If you want people to be interested with joining the team, you should post something that is actually interesting. Show a progress report of some sort. Post teaser screenshots, CG, or character sprites. Write a short summary or synopsis of what the VN is gonna be like. Make a description for each character that will be involved in the story. And the most important thing of all, specify what genre your VN is gonna be. People tend to have preferences over VN genres, so most people wouldn't join a random project if they have no idea whether they will like the project's outcome or not. It might also be nice to post what your goals are, and what platform(s) you're aiming a release for.

 

Also, question: are you gonna use a custom built VN engine? or will you be using renpy or some other VN engine?

[mdz]

If you're using kudasai like that, you'll have to conjugate kiku (to listen) to its -te form. In this case, it's kiite. 

 

So, kiite kudasai. 

 

Surprisingly, if you google 'Kikimasu kudasai', you never see it in usage. That's astounding. You have a career in innovation. 

[Aiko-chan]

If you want people to be interested with joining the team, you should post something that is actually interesting. Show a progress report of some sort. Post teaser screenshots, CG, or character sprites. Write a short summary or synopsis of what the VN is gonna be like. Make a description for each character that will be involved in the story. And the most important thing of all, specify what genre your VN is gonna be. People tend to have preferences over VN genres, so most people wouldn't join a random project if they have no idea whether they will like the project's outcome or not. It might also be nice to post what your goals are, and what platform(s) you're aiming a release for.

 

Also, question: are you gonna use a custom built VN engine? or will you be using renpy or some other VN engine?

I wish i could post teasers :c but for what we have now its 100% text... ill get to work on the summary and character designs. Its genre is romance and action ( at least thats what i think and had in mind ).

I plan to release for all platforms that doesn't require a costly licence ( i.e Xbox Marketplace ) to publish, PC is a definite must. PC: renpy Everything else: custom.

[Aiko-chan]

If you're using kudasai like that, you'll have to conjugate kiku (to listen) to its -te form. In this case, it's kiite. 

 

So, kiite kudasai. 

 

Surprisingly, if you google 'Kikimasu kudasai', you never see it in usage. That's astounding. You have a career in innovation. 

Its how I was taught though :c

[Dark Ariel7]

I may be interested but like it was mentioned more info is needed. Rough character designs and a short summary would be the minimum I'd say. Would also like to know how much is done so far and the length that you hope to accomplish.

Also your Japanese is off. like it was mentioned should be kite kudasai.

[JeMhUnTeR]

Personally I'd suggest using Unity3d if you're planning to release it on multiple platforms. Unity supports iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry 10, Windows, Mac, Linux, PS3, Xbox, Wii, and even web browsers. Just a little tweak on controls and screen resolution then your VN could be ported to another platform right away. Because if you're planning to make a custom engine for each platform, that would be a huge hassle for the programmer. It's a lot easier to make one engine for one app, then let that app export your game onto different platforms.

 

Ren'Py natively supports Windows, Mac, and Linux, though. If you're fine with those three platforms, it would be so much easier for everyone in your team to just use Ren'Py for everything.

 

I may be interested but like it was mentioned more info is needed. Rough character designs and a short summary would be the minimum I'd say.

And this is what I'm talking about as well. No one would be interested without a little bit of art. And the character design says a lot about the characters and what their personalities would be like. Personally I might just go ahead and make you a custom VN engine with Unity within a week if I fall in love with the story's heroines or if the characters are 200% moeblobs. But without some art to please the eyes and some unique backstory to make one feel excited for the release, it's gonna be hard for you guys to find some motivated people to join.

 

Also, question: will the VN be in japanese or english?

And another question: I don't get what you mean by the position "animator". You mean, animating character sprites frame by frame like anime? Or the simple up, down, left, right motion? Because if it is the latter, I'm pretty sure that the programmer should be in charge of those animations.

[Aiko-chan]

Personally I'd suggest using Unity3d if you're planning to release it on multiple platforms. Unity supports iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry 10, Windows, Mac, Linux, PS3, Xbox, Wii, and even web browsers. Just a little tweak on controls and screen resolution then your VN could be ported to another platform right away. Because if you're planning to make a custom engine for each platform, that would be a huge hassle for the programmer. It's a lot easier to make one engine for one app, then let that app export your game onto different platforms.

 

Ren'Py natively supports Windows, Mac, and Linux, though. If you're fine with those three platforms, it would be so much easier for everyone in your team to just use Ren'Py for everything.

 

And this is what I'm talking about as well. No one would be interested without a little bit of art. And the character design says a lot about the characters and what their personalities would be like. Personally I might just go ahead and make you a custom VN engine with Unity within a week if I fall in love with the story's heroines or if the characters are 200% moeblobs. But without some art to please the eyes and some unique backstory to make one feel excited for the release, it's gonna be hard for you guys to find some motivated people to join.

 

Also, question: will the VN be in japanese or english?

And another question: I don't get what you mean by the position "animator". You mean, animating character sprites frame by frame like anime? Or the simple up, down, left, right motion? Because if it is the latter, I'm pretty sure that the programmer should be in charge of those animations.

I havent learned c# and I dont know if the main coder can do it or not. I guess we can just start with renpy and branch out to other platforms later on.

PM me your gmail, ill show you what we have so far because like I mentioned its 100% text so far :c

It will be in English as for my Japanese isnt that great ( as mentioned in previous posts... jerks )

every VN needs an OP :3 gotta have some animation on that one

[Diamon]

I suggest you take a look in here if you're looking for new members : http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewforum.php?f=38

Also, as other people suggested, even if you don't have art, try to get an interesting synopsis to hook people!

And a link to a blog dedicated for your project is always a good idea! From experience, the hardest people to find are BG artist and good free music composers.

[Narcosis]

It takes a lot more than just a synopsis and a bunch of written scripts, or perhaps concepts to start making a game. Amateur projects tend to have issues mainly because the lead creators, who will be in charge of the whole project and it's team are often either way too ignorant, or don't have enough actual starting knowledge to begin properly.

 

First endavours should always be very simple and unless you already worked as a professional (meaning you have some ammount of knowledge and skill regarding the field of your work - be it programming, writing, art or music/sfx), there's no chance you will ever create anything highly polished straight from the very start. Your work will be shit and that's actually how it's supposed to be - even though it won't look anywhere near like the "project of your dreams", it will be yours, it will get finished and might not even be as bad as you'd expected it to be in the beggining - people may even like it. Commited devs, who are skilled enough to pull most of the work by themselves have the highest chances of actually finishing something as amateurs/begginers.

 

A lot of people expects that others will hapilly jump into the work with them and do that for free. In fact, it does happen, but VERY, VERY RARELY. In most cases no one will ever want to work with you seriously and even if you will find someone motivated as you, you can't expect anything exceptional out of them, because only other amateurs will be willing to give such work a spin, as they are mostly looking for experience and won't expect any payment in most cases; professionals are out of the question. In the end, everything revolves around money. If you're willing to spend it on the development (in other words, do it in a legitimate "business" way), you can even hire those professionals (as long as payment will be satisfying), but projects of low overall quality have a very weak chance to garner their attention (they have their own standards as well and often need to keep them; they won't work for amateurs in most cases). In overall, that's the same as simply buying out studios and making them work for you.

 

Art and music remain very important factors in visual novel development. In best case, you will have an artist who's willing to work from the very beggining to the end and keep the overall artstyle consistent. Same goes for the music, although there's a bit more freedom available in it. Getting those two things perfectly is extremely difficult for begginers. Developers who tend to be artists have the highest chance of pulling it off properly; otherwise, it's hard to expect the artwork to be both of high quality and consistency with your own concepts.

 

The best idea to start is to write a short GVD (game vision document) where you simply put a short synopsis of the game along with any major features/points the game will have; Imagine you're trying to sell your game as a product - what things does it have, that would make it special/stand out among other visual novels? Is it a deep, involving storyline? If so, is it branched? Does it have beautiful character designs/graphics? Lots of event cg's? Does the storytelling method involve the text to appear in a typical fashion, or is it somehow different? Maybe your game has some additional gameplay elements mixed in? Simulation, or strategy perhaps? It's a bit more harder in case of visual novels, since they are all about the same thing - conveying a story to the reader - but that's the best part as well, since it actually makes things a lot easier to manage.

 

To sum up, if you're really serious about it, treat it with equal respect. Game designing isn't some sort of a child's play. If you're commited enough, you might actually get somewhere in the near future; otherwise it's best to stop wasting your time on daydreaming as it will only lead you to nowhere.

 

It's much more complicated on the other side, but let's just say this remains a bare minimum for anyone, who wants to make visual novels:

1. Being at least a writer with a bunch of published/finished works or scripts; it's much easier to create and plan a visual novel from scratch, when someone already has a finished manuscript, or at least a first draft of it.
2. Being a productive artist with some sort of a project summary and finished concept art - character assets, event cg's, backgrounds, etc. bonus points for someone who's willing to take the lead, or work on the whole art department by itself (though it can become a real burden in overtime, especially when the project tends to grow much bigger than expected).

• Some sort of funding. It's not necesarilly needed and higly dependable on the overall scope of the project; small "dojin" projects are capable to get finished without any sort of funding.
• The lead creator/designer must be a reliable person with a broad range of different talents and at least minimum knowledge on game design and team management; it's not even a joke, if you want to actually finish something and do it in an "acceptable" ammount of time. It will take you years otherwise and you will have a very huge chance of failing.

 

TL&DR:

Don't even try to dream about making vn's, unless you're prepared.

[Aiko-chan]

Thanks for the helpful information, but im dead serious about this project. I invested 6 months worth of time into this and im sure as hell im not going to drop it any time soon.

 

As for my personality, I have never been the ignorant type nor a straight up dumbass. I am asking for help because I truly need it and not because I want to make you my slave. Even if it turns out to be " a not what i expected thing ", I still plan on polishing it until its as best as it can be. 

 

Can you link me an example of a GVD? It might help with my organization.

 

Im the lead writer c: + im working on scripts at this very moment.

We need an artist as mentioned above ( my drawings arn't consistent )

Funding? Well I may not be bill gates rich, I can throw a few hundreds into the project.

 

I suggest you take a look in here if you're looking for new members : http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewforum.php?f=38

Also, as other people suggested, even if you don't have art, try to get an interesting synopsis to hook people!

And a link to a blog dedicated for your project is always a good idea! From experience, the hardest people to find are BG artist and good free music composers.

Ill get started on the synopsis or the GVD c:

 

As for a blog I had that set up a while ago ( http://pantsuki.net )