Pondering the first chapter of a short VN.

[ArachneJericho]

So my first VN to reach completion will be Kaguya Hime, and it's not going to be long... I don't think. I mean, I'm envisioning 5, maybe 6, chapter levels with variants inbetween. That seems pretty short compared to great big ones I've seen with 200k words and so on.

My first chapter is a mere 3k words, and I feel a bit sad about that. Shouldn't it be longer? And it only has one choice in it, and even though that choice will have a serious domino effect in later chapters, it just feels so... not enough, somehow.

I think maybe I should add smaller dialogue-level choices as well, to keep things lively, but is that necessary? What do you think?

I don't know what to think. I want every choice to matter, to have impact, to be difficult to choose.

[raistlintg]

About the problem of the choices.
Like you said, you want every choice to matter, so why do you think one is not enough ?
One very relevant choice will be plenty, especially if it has effect on the following chapters.
If you want a light atmosphere, it might be interesting to add a few "useless" choices to make things more lively, but if you want a more serious tone, put only one choice, and emphasize its importance.

About the number of words, 3K would take <10minutes to read (350 words/minute).
Maybe it's too short to set a mood, it depends on you objectives.

Very curious about your project anyway.

[ArachneJericho]

Thanks, raistlintg!

[ArachneJericho]

So, um, I kind of expanded on the choices and they all matter and are suspenseful.

Also, 4000 words. With the other half of the big decision as of yet unexpanded.

I'm tempted to put "[SOLVED]" at the top of this post, lol.

[Milkymalk]

What software did you use to make that diagram? It looks very simple unlike most programs I tried for organizing my stories...

[ArachneJericho]

I used Twine, available at http://twinery.org/

There are two versions, the downloadable app, which is older, and the web online app, which is newer and unstable as all get-out.

The downloadable app is simple and lovely. You can zoom in, zoom out, there's a language you can use to actually have some code so you can test conditional branches with flags and so on. And it also can generate an HTML/Javascript page that contains your story and can be interactively walked through, which my beta reader finds extremely more useful than anything else I've come up with.

[Geckos]

A few smaller choices that just add an extra line here and there are really nice, I find, but at the same time it may not be right for all games! Go with what feels right to you, and what you want to do.

[verysunshine]

If the rest of the story is engaging and paced well, having a single choice should not matter.

[raistlintg]

I used Twine, available at http://twinery.org/.

Didn't know this site, thanks for the tip.
This choice diagram seems quite rich, you really don't have to worry about that in my opinion.
If anything, you might have to think about how to add some scenes to expend word number.
When you read your first chapter you'll know if the lenght satisfies you.
Good luck, we're waiting for news.