████▓▒░ NANORENO 2015 ░▒▓████

[shinyzorua]

my partner and i will be joining in this year!

[ibukichan]

I missed it last year, but I'm definitely in for this year!! I got a great idea earlier this week, this is going to be so much fun!

[Le Hewitt]

Challenge accepted.

[Sky Bear Games]

Hi all

Long time reader, first time poster. So it's the first of March tomorrow, and I have challenged myself to make a game. It'll be called Prince of Cats. I'm drawing inspiration from Shakespeare and fairytales.

[Hijiri]

Hi all

Long time reader, first time poster. So it's the first of March tomorrow, and I have challenged myself to make a game. It'll be called Prince of Cats. I'm drawing inspiration from Shakespeare and fairytales.

Good luck to you. As a small tip for you and all the newcomers:

Just finish something.

It doesn't have to be the prettiest, longest, or the deepest thing. The goal of NaNoReNo is just to get people to actually finish a game. So keep that in mind as you work through the month, and try to have fun with it.

[Sky Bear Games]

Thanks!

[curry nochi rice]

Forgive me guys but... I felt obligated.

[Cidz]

I'm excited for it to start tomorrow, I already have my idea. I just hope I have the time with working more hours now. Well, it's decently short anyway, but if i run low on time i can make it shorter.

[Deji]

NaNo is about to start!
AHHHHH!!!

Some advice about things you'd like o have ready by the time you start or in the early days of March!:

★ The Initial Plan ★

Make sure you know what you're going to work on for the rest of March!
Make sure you and your team (if you have one) have all the tools to work ready, including software you'll use, software you'll use to communicate and share files in case you have a group, and references you'll need.

ALSO THIS IS IMPORTANT:
You only have a month to do this. DON'T OVERESTIMATE YOURSELF!!!
If you have worked on projects before, you probably know approximately how long it takes you to complete X (X being writing a scene, programming a scene, making a music track, drawing a sprite, etc). Take that time and add 30% extra of time. 50% to be sure. (Believe me, I've been there :'D I overestimate myself CONSTANTLY)

The idea of NaNo is TO FINISH A GAME IN ONE MONTH, not to make the coolest game in one month or that game you always dreamed to make in one month, so focus on what you can realistically achieve in one month and then scale it down a bit more. (again, I've been there :')

★ The Storyboard ★

Now that you know what you want to do, you may want to sit down and break down your game into small scenes with a short description of each.
This way, you'll know exactly what you need to do, ho long it is (remember to not overestimate yourself!) and probably have an idea of how much art, music, programming, etc. you'll need! This will serve as your project roadmap!

★ The LIST ★

You have your roadmap, now it's time to make THE LIST.
The list must have every single thing you'll need done for your project.
Every. Single. Thing.
Scene 01 draft , Scene 02 draft, etc.
Scene 01 edited/proofread, etc.
Sprite 01, sprite 02, sprite 03, etc.
BG 01, BG 02, etc
And so on.
EVERY. SINGLE. THING.

Now that you have your LIST, you need to assign each item a priority.
Contrary to what you may think, not *everything* you think you need is absolutely essential to your project.
There are 2 basic ways to assign priority that you can combine:

• Must have, Would like to have and Can do without

Different people use different names for this, but it basically comes down to grouping things into 3 categories of importance for the project:

MUST HAVE is the stuff that you definitely, no way around it, NEED for your project to function at all.
Examples of Must Have are key scenes, basic character sprites and the programming of both. If you have a dedicated musician, a must have will be a couple of key tracks; if you have a dedicated GUI artist the must have will be the textbook and main menu and so on.
It's the essentially the bare minimum you need to release your project, and you need to get them done before anything else.

WOULD LIKE TO HAVEe is what you don't necessarily need but it would make the project more complete if you do have them.
For example, a would like to have could be extra scenes for character or story development between Key scenes, more CGs than the bare minimum, extra character sprites, or extra expression/clothes, extra music tracks, GUI screens like custom settings and load/save, etc.
Things that are reasonable to expect to get done for your project, but you could still do without if you're running out of time.

And finally CAN DO WITHOUT is all the fluff you'd looooove to have in your project so it'd look its best and look the way you'd seen it in your dreams... but that is not at all a thing that is needed for the game to be complete.
Can do Without examples (ymmv) are fancy animations on sprites and/or GUI items, a custom-coded gallery, extra scenes that don't really add to the core of the story or characters but flesh things out a bit more and/or make things more fun, extra poses and outfits for sprites, extra CGs for every cool scene that could use one, extra cool variations of CGs, chibis, cut-ins, voice acting, an intro movie, mini games, etc.

• Priority order with numbers

This can either be used as a replacement of the above or used alongside with it.
You go through your LIST and give a priority from 1 to 3 (or to 5) depending on what needs to be done first/what is more important, with 1 being the most important and the higher the number the less priority it has.
Ideally, you'll be done with all the 1s and most the 2s by your deadline. If you're awesome, you'll have all your 1s AND 2s done and some 3s (and 4s!) done too You should strive to get all your 1s done first.

★ The Schedule ★

Now that you have *everything* organised, it's time to make a schedule and set some soft (or hard) declines for yourself and/or the rest of the team to see by what time each of the 1s/must haves will be done, the 2s, etc. Try adding some extra leeway/breathing room time to each deadline in case life gets in the way or things take you longer than expected.
Don't get tempted to shorten the times to work on each asset/category just so you can fit more of the less essential stuff in there; remember the goal is TO FINISH! And you can always polish later and do a re-release

So remember:
Be organized, know exactly what you need to do, manage your scope and your priorities and FINISH YOUR GAME NO MATTER IF IT'S NOT AS PRETTY/POLISHED AS IT COULD BE!

Happy NaNo-ing <3

[CoffeeDrive]

Hello! I'm the director of Sleepy Mountain Studios and wanted to let you know we will be joining this year. This will be our first completed game, as our longer running project is still in development, due to the projected size. But we shall putting it on hold to take part.

Good luck everyone!

[Harliqueen]

NaNo is about to start!
AHHHHH!!!

*Snipped due to size*

Happy NaNo-ing <3

Some really brilliant advice, thank you so much for sharing. With this one being my first project, it's nice to get a handle on organising how the VN is going to go and hear from those more experienced

Very excited to get going!

[yoshibb]

Thanks for the advice, Deji! I'm so nervous

[Lesleigh63]

Good luck to folks doing nanoreno - It's March here. I'm not participating but will still be working on my game throughout the month.

[Sami-Fire]

1.5 more hours here! NaNoRenO has already started for my artist, so I think she's already starting on the sprites... technically, I'm cheating and making a demo and not a full game, but at least it's something?

[Railgun]

Actually I won't participate either mostly because I plan to use Unity since I'm more familiar with it and C#. So I'll dedicate this month into finishing a (rough) custom engine Orz

But good luck all and have fun!