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Hi all. I'm a writer for (and representative of) a currently nameless group of writers, programmers, artists and musicians who are currently working on the Cage of Nemestrinus visual novel project. The project was only an idea in idle chatter a month ago, but now has exploded into a large project with members from all around the world taking part. However, we are in need of a little more before the show can truly get on the road, and that little something is the main obstacle fledgling projects face when getting off the ground: Art.

We do have two artists, but one of them already has coding responsibilities to juggle and the second is overwhelmed with working for multiple projects at the same time, so we're looking to very much lessen the load. No, we can't offer money at this juncture. Everyone is working on it for the project itself, and for now that will include any artists on board. This is also not going to be a commercial project, at least that's the idea right now.

Here is a rather vague summary, we are trying to be secretive when it comes to the actual plot of this.



We are looking at a simple art style, nothing grimdark but nothing overly cutesy either. Not that any of us hate moe, but it just wouldn't work out with the type of story that we are trying to create.

This is going to be a full length VN, and no short project. It will have at least 5 routes which will be roughly several hours long each.

We aren't specifically looking for anyone other than artists due to being somewhat full already, but if you think you have something to offer the project then feel free to let me know and we can talk.

-Amarrez

Okay, I couple things:

-There are a looooot of people with their hands on this project. How are you planning to manage everyone and keep everyone happy?
-Talking specifically about artists, how are you planning to split the work load? Have you discussed with the current artists how they want it to be done? It's going to be pretty awkward if everyone wants to do character sprites.
-You haven't been working on this very long and you haven't outlined what the exact progress is. Are you sure you are ready to be bringing in more people than you already have?
-Have you made a short project before? Are you ready to take on a longer one? What is your experience with Visual Novels?
-You have connections with Hopes and Dreams. Is that something you were previously working on and dropped or is it an unrelated connection?

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The other 1/2 of Cyanide Tea l My Deviantart Account I My Tumber Account I Break Chance Memento I Ristorante Amore

I was waiting for that post, so here I go.

1. Hoa is our general manager and he has a fair amount of experience working with visual novels, he also works as a manager/writer for Love Despite. We meet in IRC regularly and everyone is part of a steam group which has regular updates and meeting announcements. Even if you aren't awake at a time that lends itself to attending meetings, we have a communal dl dropbox and titanpad where one can lend thoughts and ideas.

2. Ideally, we would have one artist per route (similar to another completed project which I'm sure everyone is well aware of). However, I'm aware that's unrealistic so it may come down to two routes per artist or something similar. Until we actually can assess the artists we can recruit and enter the production phase there isn't much we can really do to plan for that.

3. We are in the pre-production phase. The only thing stopping us from beginning work is our lack of solid artistic base. Each writer has their own route ready to be tackled, and our common route is nearly hammered out.

4. I can't confess to having being heavily involved in a VN project before outside of proofreading for various projects. I am not claiming to be the leader though, a person with experience is managing us so it shouldn't be a problem. The degrees of experience in the project vary from completely new to the process of game making to veterans.

5. Our connection to Hopes and Dreams is a long and somewhat private story. Long story short, this isn't a breakaway or an unrelated project. Hopes and Dreams and Cage of Nemestrinus had what could only be described as a schism some weeks ago. There isn't really any animosity or relation between the projects anymore, just two seperate projects that are both looking promising.

It's good to get these things hammered out at the beginning

1. Ah, that project. Well, it's good to be extremely open about what everyone has worked on and what happened with it so people can get a good idea of where the project might lead.
1b. I'm presuming the leader will have over-riding decisions? What happens if a writer and artists disagrees on how a route should go? It's nice to say everyone will have a say, but in practice this can cause massive problems. On the other hand, having one person dictate to everyone else can also cause problems.

2. How would you account for widely differing styles and quality, especially if two characters are on screen the same time? There are other ways of breaking up art such as sketch>lineart>colouring which would allow for a much more consistent style. Have you planned what you will be doing for backgrounds? Artists for those are extremely hard to find.

3. This is unture. You do not need art to write. It's nice to have, but at the end of the day it doesn't actually prohibit scripting. Everyone has to be able to keep moving even if other people disappear, so it's good to get in the habit of getting stuff done regardless of missing pieces. CGs can't even be done until the scene is written anyway.

4. You might want to disclose what projects you have proofread for if you are allowed to. Like I mentioned before, you should be open about experience and previous work. Being vague won't help others guage whether they want to be involved or not.

5. I realised that it might be a touchy topic, but it is important. Nobody wants to work on something that will be wasted in the end and it's also good to keep an eye on problems that could occur. Honesty is the best policy when you are asking for someone's trust.

Some other questions:

A. You mention that there will be at least five routes, but how large will the cast be? This will account for how many sprites need to be done.
B. An extension of that is what is your plans for your art in terms of quality and variation (poses, clothes, emotions, CG numbers). Do you have examples of what you are after?
C. How long are you expecting it to take to be made (what's your timeline looking like so far)?
D. Will it be pure VN or have extra gameplay?
E. Are you using Ren'py or another engine? What platforms will it be for?
F. Will it be commercial or freeware?
G. How well prepared are you for 'life' creeping in? I work full time as well as working on my visual novels and so my schedule is at its capacity. Do you have a good grasp on everyone's future plans so work will continue no matter what?

I'm not picking on you or anything. It sounds like an ambitious project so it's good to get the bases covered. They are good things to think about both for helping your project succeed and also for others to figure out if they can make the commitment and if they want to. You obviously have KS placed up there as a goal, but remember it took 5 years to complete, mowed through a certain number of team memebers, had a novelty factor that won't be easy to get again and at the end of the day still had it's flaws. Learning from it is good, but aiming for it could lead to all types of problems.

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The other 1/2 of Cyanide Tea l My Deviantart Account I My Tumber Account I Break Chance Memento I Ristorante Amore

I should probably point out that KS is less of an aim and more of a model for what OELVNs can be. We have no intention of creating a project that is in anyway similar to KS in theme, story or presentation, but the idea of a OELVN being full length and having a professional touch is alluring. I, and I believe most/all of our team members are aware that this will be no quick project and are in it for the long haul.

So, anyways, to address your many points.

1. The manager manages, that doesn't mean he has executive control over all the project. For the most part, writers will work on what they want to for their route. We think it is best if people do have a certain amount of creative control over their own work. Of course, we will discuss what we are writing and swap feedback and bring up any concerns if necessarry. This applies to artists, musicians and any other team members.

2. I probably should have clarified. There would most likely only be one sprite artist and one background artist, but CGs do have the creative lisence to be varied without breaking the art style of the game. So long as they aren't wildly different in style from eachother then I don't see the problem. Each route will have its own style in the writing, so it makes sense that the art can also have its own style.

3. A problem with the development of a large project like Katawa Shoujo is that the art and writing was not done in tandem. There is also the feeling amongst us that the addition of artists will inject a lot of life into the project and will speed up the pre-production process. It's understandable that people would like to see that an idea has artistic promise before writing hundreds of lines for it. This is an unpaid project, and people would like to know that they aren't dedicating a lot of effort for nothing. I'm aware that it's logical that artists would probably be more interested in a game that's in production with placeholder art already 'in place', but there is alot of illogical things involved when creating a VN and this seems to be one of them. There is also the fact that the engine we are using (secret) hasn't been completely decided upon yet.

4. I have proofread for a NaNoReNo (Letters For You) as well as a friend's project (that never got off the ground (nor got a name)). I also act as an unofficial chief proofreader when it comes to this project as well.

5. Well, as you may have imagined, the schism occurred due to a "creative disagreement". The thing was actually quite pedantic, but because of the somewhat deviant nature of the disagreement I'm inclined not to share. If it helps, people who schism'd into CoN were against its implementation and Souls' group for.

A. There will be 5 main characters, as well as several side characters and generics (who would only require minimal sprite work). I don't expect that the amount of sprites for the 5 characters would be dizzying though. Of course, that's something we'd have to talk to the artist about.

B. In terms of quality, it would be a bit too pretentious to say "professional", so I won't. We are looking for simple and crisp designs that are of a good quality. Christine Love and 4LS art-work may be a bit too lofty a goal, but we want the quality of the artwork to try and reflect the quality of the writing, music and gameplay. I hope I'm not scaring anyone off here, I'll be happy to look at anything.

C. Right now, it's on a "when it's done" schedule. Once we hit production and gauge progress, we may be able to put a rough date on things. At an extremely rough estimate, we could be done within two years. The majority of problems KS encountered were due to team reshuffles and members dropping out due to workload. If we can avoid that, things can be streamlined much easier.

D and E. I don't want to reveal anything right now, but whilst it will be mostly a VN there are concrete plans to involve certain gameplay elements. Chances are this won't be a ren'py game.

F. F for Freeware. If we need money to keep a website maintained, we'll use ad-sense or a donate button. We're thinking along a "made for free, released for free" line of thought.

G. I haven't interrogated everyone for their plans for the next couple of years, no. As a college student I do have a workload but I am usually on-top of it outside of exam times and thus manage to have a fair bit of free-time.

I appreciate the feedback, by the way.

KS... is pretty typical really. It didn't do anything very ground breaking and stuck quite heavily to the Japanese visual novel mould. There are a lot of indie VNs that pushed the boundaries much further so I would suggest branching out and seeing what other people have brought to the table. Also, one thing to keep in mind is that Western audiences are not terribly keen on length. Some length is good, just not too long. It has to remain playable in a decent amount of time. Related to that is avoiding anything that's too wordy, like long monologues. There is more favour in seeing things happen then just reading about what a particular character is thinking.

Christine has used a basic interface for Digital, stock character art for DTIPB (and I did the additional art for my first Nanoreno project) and a friend helped her with A Hate Story, which could have come came from her connections from finishing games and building a reputation or they were a friend separate from that. Being involved in certain communities does lend itself to finding good partners though. 4LS had a lot of pull because of it novelty and notoriety, which most projects don't have.

I'll be honest and say that from my limited experience with VNs your ambitions make me cringe a little. However, I don't want to discourage you and you seem pretty set on what you are doing, so I'll wish you good luck for your success.

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The other 1/2 of Cyanide Tea l My Deviantart Account I My Tumber Account I Break Chance Memento I Ristorante Amore

Ambition isn't as scary a thing as you'd make it out to be, you know. And if the project fails, I'll simply try something else on a smaller scale.

Aiming high is not aiming wrong. Nothing is stopping us from scaling down the project if need be. The only real hurdle seems to be art, as we have more than competent writers and professional musicians/programmers on board.

Ambition is fantastic... when tempered with knowledge, experience and moderation. Just be careful not to bite off more than you can chew. Taking on too much workload or failing can psychological devastate a group. That's why it's good to get a small project out the way first up so everyone can get over their learning curve, gain experience and have a boosted morale from completing a project.

The best advice I can give you is to familiarise yourself with as many VN projects as you can. A lot of people have done some really interesting things, both in small and large projects. It's good to learn from their experiences and listen to how people have reacted. Get involved with other creators. This forum is a good start. Every problem you will experience would have been faced by a number of people here already. There are years of experience built up here, not to mention skills in a number of areas. Plus, it's good to be involved with others and sticky beak on their projects. Since you are probably never going to take the advice of doing something small, get ready for some really tough times. Take it from someone who has had a bad group experience, worked on commissions and has now been working pretty much continuously on the same project for 10 months, it gets hard. Enthusiasm WILL wane, and it's something that is really hard to get through. Once the planning and concept sketches get done, the actual work begins. Making visual novels is a very rewarding experience and I wouldn't trade it for anything. But it is hard and it takes time. It's good to see something come out of it. Again, good luck. I’ll be keeping an eye on the project 

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The other 1/2 of Cyanide Tea l My Deviantart Account I My Tumber Account I Break Chance Memento I Ristorante Amore

Trust me, I've been infiltrating various OELVN places over the course of this month, including Lemmasoft and a few key IRC channels. I do know the scene quite well.

I hope this doesn't just turn into a private chat about the risk v reward of ambition instead of an actual recruitment thread :V

Nope, I'm done. You might want to look at DA though. The pool of artists here is very shallow and most are already tied to projects. It's also where I originally was recruited on. Takes some sifting, but you can find some good people on occassions. It's a bit like panning for gold.

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The other 1/2 of Cyanide Tea l My Deviantart Account I My Tumber Account I Break Chance Memento I Ristorante Amore

I've already emailed about 10 people on Deviant Art with very little result. All the other decent artists demand comission and it would feel a bit silly pestering them asking them to work for free when they're clearly comitted to using internet artwork as an income.

Oh, right, we have an IRC channel.

#CoN @ Rizon. Come join us if you want, it's public.