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Starting a small VN-development group, looking for a team.


Zodai

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It seems a lot of people are making threads like these, I'll cut to the chase.

 

I'm looking for a small group of people (3-5 preferably) to get into the VN industry with.  Priority is gaining experience, so that the group may be able to continue onwards to make a second project afterwards.

 

We're going for a small scale project, taking place over the course of a single night.  Something that can be put out to market with a fair level of polish in two to three months.  This does not rule out episodic releases or sequels.

 

Must be narrative-based, if not a standard Visual Novel.  Engine will be Ren'py, although I'm considering RPG Maker if everyone owns it and if the project would be better with it.

 

I don't intend for us to stop here - priority for the first project is getting it finished and out to market, so that we'll have the skills, experience and small fanbase to do this well into the future.

 

If you need any more information, please let me know.

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I wish you the best of luck on this. I would offer my help, but the only thing I can really offer up is the fact that I speak English natively. I can't write worth a damn when it comes to dialogue or personality, though I'm decent at settings, and I have no experience with Ren'py.

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Zodai - I'll be making a VN myself (as you already know since you commented on my last thread) so I won't be able to commit to working on your VN with you; however, our fanbase will undoubtedly be similar and marketing contacts will be similar too, so I'd love to do cross promotion with you (that is, advertise via my channels towards your game so you get more users, and vice versa). What do you think? :) 

If you need any advice on the iOS side of things, I've also released a few apps (albeit by hiring a programmer) so I can tell you a few things about the app store if you don't have experience there. I'll let you know that for a cross-platform game, I will most likely be using Unity instead as it ports easily to iOS, Android, PS Vita etc. Plus, there's no native way to use Ren'Py on iOS except for whatever thing Dischan has developed (which is proprietary). 

 

I'll PM you my Skype/Facebook address if you want? 

 

EDIT: Also, when do you want to release your game by? My current date is May of 2015 but it'll depend on how much capital I can raise from a side business. 

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re: Unity:

 

Free VN toolkit at http://u3d.as/content/sol-tribe/visual-novel-toolkit-free/53G

Pro version of the same thing at http://u3d.as/content/sol-tribe/visual-novel-toolkit/585 

 

I haven't tried it personally though; I may be developing my own engine or make a modification of that one. By all means, lots of devs use Ren'Py though, so that's your executive decision. ;)

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@Laiktail

 

As I haven't exactly released a commercial game as of yet, I don't quite have an audience to take advantage of using something like a cross-promotion thing.  It might be interesting to check out a few years down the line, though.  Feel free to PM me your Skype, and we can keep in touch.

 

Estimated release is late September to early October, at least for the first installment.  I intend to finish this, as opposed to it languishing in development hell for a few years.  It's important to get the product finished eventually.

 

I'll probably be sticking with Ren'py, as I believe for a first project working with something we already know is more efficient than learning a new engine.

 

Of course, some of it depends on how things are with the rest of the team as well.

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Great. :) hmm, even a small audience either way is great in cross-promo, it's a strategy used very often in the app world. Regardless of whether you have an audience or not, I'll be happy to send a recommendation/push notification or whatever to your VN to help drive traffic; by the sounds of it, though, yours will be released much earlier than mine (which is restricted by financial issues currently, since I plan to be less democratic and hire people to work on it whilst making executive choices/writing). 

 

We'll keep in touch, I'll PM you now. 

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I would like a little more information. What skills are you looking for? I found that one of the reasons why many projects in the past failed or never began to start with was because people started recruiting without specifying who they do and don't need. On top of that there seems to be a shortage of visual artists on this forum. =/ 

 

Also you said,

 

 

We're going for a small scale project, taking place over the course of a single night. 

I actually like this idea but could you maybe give a bit more of a description like setting? And characters?

 

As for myself, I am considering being a writer for your project (if you need one). I never wrote anything long which is why I like your idea of keeping it as a short VN. 

 

Also this idea kinda reminded me of James Joyce's Ulysses since that entire book takes place in just one day. However I'm guessing you're not aiming to revolutionize how we think about literature so it should take you a shorter amount of time (took him around 16 years  :P). 

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I would like a little more information. What skills are you looking for? I found that one of the reasons why many projects in the past failed or never began to start with was because people started recruiting without specifying who they do and don't need. On top of that there seems to be a shortage of visual artists on this forum. =/ 

 

Also you said,

I actually like this idea but could you maybe give a bit more of a description like setting? And characters?

 

As for myself, I am considering being a writer for your project (if you need one). I never wrote anything long which is why I like your idea of keeping it as a short VN. 

 

Also this idea kinda reminded me of James Joyce's Ulysses since that entire book takes place in just one day. However I'm guessing you're not aiming to revolutionize how we think about literature so it should take you a shorter amount of time (took him around 16 years  :P). 

 

As of right now, I'm mostly looking for writers.  Narrative is the main draw of the game, so therefore it's where most of the focus should be.  I'm hoping we can get around art or music shortages with some clever design choices - Tsukihime is probably the most well-known example of this.

 

As for style, I'm keeping it mildly vague intentionally as to get the ideas flowing once we get a group of people, as we can then put some of the ideas together to make something more original.

 

If you want my personal ideas however, I'm thinking a modern or near-future setting, multiple viewpoints and non-chronological storytelling along the lines of Pulp Fiction or Baccano! (I haven't seen Pulp Fiction, but I hear it's generally the same idea.)  with an episodic release schedule.

 

Going further into what I've thought up, there's a 20-year old policewoman as the first episode protagonist, and her half-insane father trying to revive his wife on top of a skyscraper.  There's also her little brother, a corporate shareholder in a lime green suit, a mildly creepy scientist and advertisements of new Virtual Reality tech being released soon.  I'm still working through if there's any better possibilities on how they fit together, though.

 

I always say this to about every new visual novel development group I see but...

 

If you ever need a motion graphic designer, count me in.

 

Your pictures will becoming moving pictures in videos.

 

 

Well, like I said we're running on a low-budget.  I'm not sure if we'll need videos, but if you're also good with more basic pictures I think it'd be useful. 

 

Edit--Oh, dear.  Did this just quadruple post?  Let me see if I can delete the extras...

 

Mild forum bug issues, I guess.  I'll just edit some other replies into the extra one...

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I'm a python coder so if you're using Ren'py I may be able to help with that. However i'm 100% useless with pretty much anything else. 

 

Well, I'm not sure if we have too much use for some extra coding.  Thanks for the offer, though.

 

If we need anything, I'll be sure to contact you.

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I always say this to about every new visual novel development group I see but...

 

If you ever need a motion graphic designer, count me in.

 

Your pictures will becoming moving pictures in videos.

 

Just curious if you have any past works to look at? :) 

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  • 1 year later...

Depends on what you were looking towards making. The problem is with working with others is that some people get such a narrow idea of what they want to create and it becomes more like one dictator than a collaborative effort.

I made one great game with a collaborative effort with everyone having a say, but I have seen some dictators around that just want people to write their story for them.

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Depends on what you were looking towards making. The problem is with working with others is that some people get such a narrow idea of what they want to create and it becomes more like one dictator than a collaborative effort.

I made one great game with a collaborative effort with everyone having a say, but I have seen some dictators around that just want people to write their story for them.

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