Ever tried creating your own visual novel?

[InvertMouse]

Just curious to know if anyone here has had a go and creating their own visual novel. If so, I'd love to hear about that experience .

Back in uni, I've created a few visual novels that I handed in as assignments. They were terrible in quality, though, so I won't waste anyone's time with them .

I'm actually working on a new title at the moment. It's a kinetic novel with gameplay elements. I'm wondering if it's okay for me to share it here when it's ready ?

Thanks .

[Guest]

Yay. share it here so we can tear it to pieces love it to bits!

[RainHeaven]

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Edited August 2, 2020 by RainHeaven

[Snowtsuku]

I plan to do one. I already have a story, but doing it solo is a pain.

[Ryoji]

Im in the middle of writing an actual Novel. Im about 260 pages in. Id love to make a VN, but I dont have the skills lol.

Ive been writing my Novel for about 4 years. Its really hard to put everything in my head to words, but im trying.

If anyone would like i can post a couple chapters here.

Anyway, it would be cool to make a VN.

[InvertMouse]

@Aaeru: Haha, that's all right. I'd like to know how I can make the game better, anyway. Yeah, I'll share it here when it's ready .

@RainHeaven: Yeah, being able to do it in a less formal setting is nice. Of course, writing in VN format does present its own challenges, too .

@SnowPoke: Doing it solo is indeed a pain! I'm doing mine with a minimal amount of sprites. No matter how small we set the project's scale, it always turns out to be more time consuming than we expect.

@Ryoji: I've actually been pursuing a novelist career for quite a while, too. Over ten years now, haha. I was too immature during high school and uni so nothing I wrote turned out good. That, and the fact that I was a noob. I've been writing a new novel seriously for the past three years and so.

[eclipsezero]

I...kind of attempted. Well ok, maybe not, only got as far as forming this one concept :V

Its old and terrible, but in case anyone is interested:

Concepts:

Triple Timelines:

basically, there are three timelines going on at once(Think of them as three different universes).

Each timeline has its own unique 'concept' around which its based. The first timeline embodies the concept of Destruction, and is a negative timeline, known as the Dark Path.

The second timeline embodies the concept of Creation and is a positive timeline, the Light Path.

The final timeline contains both, the Human Path.

Each timeline has the same people, though they are the same only in appearance, the personalities are utterly different.Each Path is different in the weapons they have and the concepts of their world.

Dark Path - A world where magic is real. Main weapons are swords and magical weapons such as wands. Wars are considered pretty much usual here, and are nothing more than a tiny quarrel, even wars that encompass the entire world.

Light Path - A world where science has no limits. Its mainly a peaceful world, where even the tiniest battle shocks the world, even as tiny a battle as a squabble between two little kids. Weapons are high tech and dangerous, ranging from sabers such as those from Star Wars, or a simple pistol or a simple pistol with enough power to blow up about half the planet.

Human Path - A path that contains both magic and science, there are times when magic is more prominent, or times when science is more prominent. Though both at the exist at the same time. So even if science or magic is prominent, the other will continue in the shadows.

At the time, both are equally matched. This is also a world with limits, unlike the God and Devil Paths'. There are various laws and its impossible to keep on doing world scale wars or anything outrageous which would be considered easy in the Devil or God Paths'.

Dreams:

Dreams that people have in this story, are actually insights into what one of their counterparts is doing at the time.

Hidden Path:

The Nothing Path. Its a Path that surrounds all three, and can occasionaly materialize in one of the three paths, either within a person, or as a newly born person.

Whenever it materializes, it completely assumes the concept within the Path. For example, in the Devil Path, the Nothing would become a being capable of destroying everything.

Current story:

The main character has been having weird dreams for quite sometime, but he disregards them completely.

These dreams are about events that have simultaneously started in the Devil and God Paths', and soon enough, similar events begin in the Human Path as well.

All three protagonists (Meaning, the Human Path and its counterparts) begin to realize that the dreams they are having are similar to whats going on in their path.

The VN would basically follow each path as a different route, each requiring MC to meet different people and doing certain things in certain places or time.

But anyways, as Ryoji said, would be p. awesome to work on a visual novel~

[Snowtsuku]

If you can give me a graphics tablet I'll help~

Doing it solo is indeed a pain! I'm doing mine with a minimal amount of sprites. No matter how small we set the project's scale, it always turns out to be more time consuming than we expect.

I don't mind having a lot of sprites since once you made the character design creating the sprites is a lot easier IMO. When it comes to art, it is the CG that bothers me. This is because CGs are not only art, you have to put them in certain parts of the story to create impact.

[Tay]

*Fake Pride Mode - Active* Not only have I made visual novels, I even posted one on Fuwanovel. Bam. Boom. Sheblam. *Fake Pride Mode - Inactive*

(For the record, the one I posted was a one-man, 6-hour production... so not at all indicative of the other projects ).

I love writing. Like the other comments here, I've written short stories, novels, poetry and essays for a long time. A big part of my medical school application, actually, is about a poem that won a recent contest and the lessons I learned starting a poetry group at my university.

I'd imagine that the type of people who are drawn to visual novels (beyond mindless sex games) are creative people. That's probably one of my favorite parts of this forum: seeing art, music, stories, etc. created by each other. (Yes, Ryoji! Post it!) (but, you know, not too much, right? Don't want to risk voiding first publication rights)

[Dizzyworld2]

I've wanted to and would like to create a visual novel one day. However, the only thing I can do is provide art ahaha// I've been wanting to provide art (chara designs, sprites, and cgs) for vn projects to see how the process would be but I'm very slow at providing them so ehehe..

[Clephas]

I'm the opposite. I'm a writer, but I don't have any talent for visual art at all. Also, I don't have the patience to work through using any of the existing ready-made vn systems...

[InvertMouse]

Tay, indeed, I think a lot of people here are creative people! Sitting through a long VN does require a lot of patience and passion.

Haha, thanks SnowPoke! I'm doing my best alone so far by keeping the scale nice and small. It's tough when you have a full time job as well.

Dizzyworld2, Clephas, it is true~ Building a VN takes up so much time. My game is tiny in scale, and still the time required always creeps up. A month long project turns into 3 months, etc. It's a climb for sure.

[Alice]

I have tried and had actually planned on making one two years ago with my two best friends, but we decided that making it was a pain since we were busybodies in school and we don't really have time except for doing our own thing. It's just sad that our project is cancelled, mostly because of the lack of programmer and also time.

So my project is redirected into a light novel instead, with some illustrations to accompany the pages. I have just started writing at November 2012, and I have only just produced 3 chapters with 21,000 words. ;;

[Tay]

I have tried and had actually planned on making one two years ago with my two best friends, but we decided that making it was a pain since we were busybodies in school and we don't really have time except for doing our own thing. It's just sad that our project is cancelled, mostly because of the lack of programmer and also time.

So my project is redirected into a light novel instead, with some illustrations to accompany the pages. I have just started writing at November 2012, and I have only just produced 3 chapters with 21,000 words. ;;

Ooooh! Cool! Now, obviously first publication rights are a big deal, but it you ever have a desire for feedback, there are a lot of people here who'd love to read it! If you want to keep it out of the public eye, PMing is a good idea, too.

I'm interested, though: what makes it a "light novel" instead of, say, short story/novelette/novel?

[Daeyamati]

I'm interested, though: what makes it a "light novel" instead of, say, short story/novelette/novel?

Generally, the length and writing style. Light novels are shorter and cater more to a younger audience (middle or high school students). The language is simpler, although sometimes it throws in some funky readings for kanji/kanji compounds, and uses furigana more often than a novel for adults.

Baka-Tsuki is a well-known site for hosting light novel translations in wiki format (they also host VN trans'n projects too!), so you can also check that out if you're interested

[InvertMouse]

I'm ready to release the first two episodes of the aforementioned VN I've been working on. Would it be okay for me to share it on this "Visual Novel Talk" section of the forum? Maybe this is more of a question for the admins, I guess . Thanks B)~

[Eldin]

i have never tried to make one, or even write a story for one, but if i did i assume it would be as mortifying for the players as some of the dnd campaigns i've made up.

think corpse party + school days.

[Tay]

I'm ready to release the first two episodes of the aforementioned VN I've been working on. Would it be okay for me to share it on this "Visual Novel Talk" section of the forum? Maybe this is more of a question for the admins, I guess . Thanks ~

Looking forward to it!

[Ryoji]

I'm ready to release the first two episodes of the aforementioned VN I've been working on. Would it be okay for me to share it on this "Visual Novel Talk" section of the forum? Maybe this is more of a question for the admins, I guess :)/>. Thanks B)/>~

Oh nice I cant wait to see this. Been waiting for you to realease a peak.

Id love to read it Mouse!! Yes you can share it if you want to.

[minirop]

I'm not a writing guy, I hate story-writing. I'm a dev, so I've made several VN engine prototypes. The latest can be seen

[InvertMouse]

Eldin, write it! The creepy stuff worked pretty well for the folk behind Higurashi .

Tay, Ryoji, thank you for your interests! It's hard to make anyone care about original works not backed by some big name so I really appreciate it.

Minirop, that engine's looking great . I actually have more passion for writing than dev work. My day job is programming, but recently, I've been given opportunities to do manuscript edits, too, so I'm in a fortunate position, I suppose. My original goal was actually to write novels, but I really love game development as well. Not too sure where I want to go at the moment.

[Eldin]

l

Eldin, write it! The creepy stuff worked pretty well for the folk behind Higurashi :P/>.

it would pretty mjuch be something along the lines of:

-4-5 girls are recruited by main character to become magical girls to protect the world from evil, or the main character is also recruited by some dude.

-the girls (plus you, if i were to write it the second way) are charged with the destruction of many demons trying to destroy earth and everyone living here.

-depending on your choices, some girls may die off fighting the demons and you are then tasked to avenge them.

-towards the end of the game, you discover that the being that gave you these powers is actuallyevil incarnate, the creatures you've been killing off are actually angels sent to defend the innocent, and the demons you've slain to avenge your friends were actually the very friends you hoped to avenge.

-because the power the girls have gained (and also yours, if writen version #2) are supplied by the demon overlord type fellow, once the girls uncover his secret or start to suspect things they are stripped of their powers and killed off to prevent the other characters from suspecting anything.

-at the end of each route, the last girl (or you plus the last girl) figure everything out and are psychologically assaulted by the fact that you've not only been damning the world you hoped to save, but also killed off all your friends and family in the process.

-bad ends end with the surviving girl either being killed off in the most gruesome of fashions, or if the player is also a magical type then she goes mad and joins with the demon and kills you off in much the same way.

-good ends may include either being saved by angels and killing off the demon lord, or if you are the demon lord the girls join you and take over the world.

-maybe a harem ending, where you now have a small army of angsty teenage girls hellbent on carrying out your every wish, or you all team up to destroy evil once and for all.

i'm not really sure how it would work out or how i would write it in a way that the player doesn't know what is going on until the end and then twist them m.night style, but if i actually sat down and plotted it out it would probably sound better than something i thought up off the top of my head in less than five minutes. also, this may not be origional, it's half based off a dnd campaign i wrote years ago that made many a player throw dice and figurines at me, and god knows some dude in japan already wrote it out first.

[InvertMouse]

That's cool, Eldin . Doesn't matter if it's not necessarily original. Everything's been done before. It's just about how you execute it .

[Eldin]

i had an idea for a vn that i wish to someday create, inspired in part by solidbatman's yandere batman picture.

the game has eight potential heroines to choose from, each with a typical background as you'd see in any other vn. the little sister, the loli underclassmate, the childhood friend, the transfer student, the class rep, the male best friend if you swing that way, and two others i haven't yet thought of.

you pick each girl's route very early in the game. each character gets a short background story summary, then you get three options; open her route, skip her route, or decide later. if after all the girls and all have been skipped the game ends with a short "and then i lived a very lonely and boring highschool life" scene, or gives you a choice of any you chose to select later. all this happens within 45 minutes of starting the game, and the option to choose another character is skipped after you select one (still gives character introductions as they come.)

as you progress through the routes, the way you treat the characters will turn them into one of the four types of "dere" by the end of the game. be too nice and they'll act tsundere, be too mean and they'll become twisted and yandere. act too shy and they'll turn kuudere, act too cool and they'll turn dandere. or something, working on the details. each of the characters has four routes, each with a unique good and bad end for a total of 64 possible endings. h endings pending, i really don't want to write an h bl ending but the idea of yandereing your male best friend just made me laugh really hard so i'm going with it for now.

the routes each take place over the course of 2-3 months time, occasionally skipping a few days where nothing really happens to prevent too much filler and not enough story, and the amount of time depending on how well each character fits that role. getting your best friend to turn yandere for example would take longer than turning your childhood friend tsundere.

i really like this idea. i may go with it. now all i need is someone who can draw worth a damn and someone who's good at game design and whatnot...

I will also take suggestions for character names. go nuts, guys.

The name for this game shall thus be dubbed: "Dere to Care"

[mooingmage]

I've been wanting to make one and I'm debating between two stories of which to start but weeeh idk its a lot of work and I'd like to work with others haha.