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I've been pondering this and thought I could share and start a discussion with other people's ideas and experiences?

So, usually, when you want to make a VN you start solo with your story. Then you may (or not) recruit or hire other people to help you with it and you may make a group or a 'circle'. Even name said 'circle' for the sake of branding or for the sake of having a group that may make many things together down the road under a common name.

My experience says that in 'circles', the main goal is to finish VN x, that may have been thought by the group's leader or writer (which are usually the same person) and everybody works hard towards that goal.
Now, a subset of the same group may make a side, lower priority project, that still will be released under the group's name.
Maybe another member of the group may make a personal project on the side without having the rest of the group involved that may or may not be released under the group's name because of whatever reason.
But in any case, the priority is to get VN x done.

Now, I was thinking about Collectives. My artist friends over here work as collectives, sharing projects, and, most important of all, helping each other on their individual projects. The basis is that they share some similar interests, so they work together but not necessarily as a team.
In a VN collective there could be as many projects getting done as the number of members (or more!), and not necessarily everybody would be working on everything at the same time, but everybody would help in some way on each project either providing something directly (art/writing/music/coding) or providing feedback and encouragement.
So... if a collective has 4 members and member A is working on project A, members B, C and D are also helping a bit on project A, and Member A also helps a bit with projects B, C and D.
I'm under the impression that when a work done under a collective gets released, it's released under the collective's name.


I've never been on a collective myself, but I think it's a rather nice way to work.


What is your organization like in your VN?
Would you like to be part of a collective or are you already a part of one?
If you are, mind sharing your experiences? C:

The best teams are 2-person teams imho.

You can cover each other's bases, and there are not too many cooks to spoil the broth.

Working solo is the default and it's too much effort and you tend to miss blatant mistakes by being too deep in the project.

I personally think that groups should form around projects, and not the other way around.

@Deji:
What is the difference between "under collectives names" and "under circle name"?

I see. I guess you could say I've been working inadvertently under a collective for quite some time now and it's definitely a more rewarding experience than going solo. I think it's great for long-term projects with no pressure to complete the game/games. Working with a small group, though, (2 persons or just a little bit more, as DaFool has mentioned) from my experience which mostly comes from NaNoReNo, seems to be the more efficient way to get things done well and fast.

I believe the reason for this is that some members in a collective may not have relatively the same levels of motivation to finish the game as other more dedicated members in the same collective - which could result in less motivation to finish the games over-all. Of course, this is all dependent on the individuals behind each game, but when working in a group, the motivations of the other members definitely affect your own - unless you're a sociopath.

To sum it up: Collectives are great for the experience while small, dedicated teams working on a single game seem more efficient as far as getting the job done is concerned.

Based on personal experience, of course.

Hmm, what about the prospect of having both? You have your circle that's working on a game and it could meet with other circles as a Collective of circles. Might be difficult to coordinate but you could potentially get the best of both worlds.

And yeah to reiterate what others have said; Collectives seem better for small personal projects that could possibly innovate in some aspect since you have a pool of different perspectives working towards a solution while Circles are for larger projects that need a lot of content since you have a pool of of various talents working towards creating content.

So who wants to start a Collective with me :D

@DaFool: I also think two is a good number, but sometimes you can't exchange the roles. let's say I team up with a writer, he writes and I draw and we make a VN. Now, I want to write my VN... I can't ask him to draw because he can't xD I could ask him to write while I draw, but maybe the way he writes works for his story but not for mine? Or, in order to be comfortable writing it, he changes the story or the characters or the style to something he likes and changes what I wanted to the story? Or maybe he has a lot of stories, so it's always the writer's story and the artist's art and the artists never has the chance to write their own story for any reason?
That's why I think Collectives may be a good idea for people working solo or small teams.

@LVUER: As I see it, the main difference is the 'visible ownership' of the project, if that makes sense.
Hmm... let me see if I can explain it so it makes sense (it makes sense in my head, at least >>; )

If you make a VN under your name/brand, it means you alone made that VN (you may have hired other people to help you, but it's still 'your' work), and nobody else was directly involved in the creative process. The 'face' of the creator of the VN is you/your brand.

• Example using myself: If I publish Caramel Mokaccino having worked by myself on it, under my own name or a brand I just made up for myself (like Nyucu+, or whatever). In the... hmm... cover's art, there would be my name/brand. In the splash screen where you put the company's logo, there would go my name/my logo. Any other people that I hired in the process or that helped me along the credits would be on the credits at the end.

If you make a VN under a Circle's name, it implies that the whole group or a part of it was involved in the creation of the VN in a rather direct way. Your name, along with everybody else's, is just mentioned in the credits. The 'face' of the creator of the VN is the Circle.

• Example using myself: I'm part of Mystery Parfait, which is a Circle. The Circle's main project is Flight of Twilight, and it'll be published under Mystery arfait's name. I'd be credited as the Lead Colorist, GUI maker and other stuff on the credits. I could, being part of MP, publish Caramel Mokaccino under the Circle's name, and, again, MP would be the creator's 'face', CM would be listed udner MP's works along with FoT, and my name would be on the credits.

If you make a VN under a Collective's name, you are still the creator and you/your brand is still the one it gets published under, but you also add the name of the Collective, implying the rest of the collective helped you in some way to get the VN done, without being a collab.

• Example using myself: If I were to be part of a Collective with... say... Auro-Cyanide and two other people, I'd be working on Caramel Mokaccino, Auro would be working on Red Snow and the other members would be working on their own VNs, while helping and encouraging each other to a degree. Now, if I were to publish Caramel Mokaccino under those circumstances, it'd be published under my own name/brand AND under the Collective's name. Both names/logos would show up at the splash screen, and in the credits there would be the names of the members of the collective. The work would be listed along the Collective's works along with the other member's works, BUT it'd be clearly stated who is individually responsible of each work

Now, there could be other cases, where two Circles collab together, or an individual and a Circle, or two circles under a Collective, or two collectives working as a Circle...

A brand/name says something about it. A group's name says "Made by this group", an individual's brand says "Made by this person", and there are some cases where a brand says "made or produced by this person with other people working under/for him/her". A Colletive's brand says "Done while being part of this group of developers".
For example, Jack Norton's games have his brands (WinterWolves and Tycoon Games) and when you see those names with the name of a game, you know he made or produced them. Same with Sakevisual.
If you saw WinterWolves AND Sakevisual on a game, you'd now it's a game made by both brands working together in a collaborative effort.


@lordcloudx: Thanks for sharing the experience C:
I also think Collectives are good for the experience, because it's encouraging and nurturing, and (at least how I envision it) friendly, so it encourages you to work, especially if you're working solo or on a small team.
dedicated teams are always more efficient when it comes to get one project done, though!
For some reason, I keep thinking Collectives would work better for short-term projects (less than a year)... maybe because most people working for too long are way too absorbed or get tired and drop the project (when working solo or on a small not-very-committed team).

@Suikama: I think a Collective of Circle could work with small teams - as in 3-4 people or less - but I think it'd get harder if it's something bigger than that.

Are circle and collective terms of art in the art community? At least for me, I'm not seeing a huge difference between a collective, and a circle that stays together for multiple games.

One thing that makes VN different from other projects is that there's a larger number of disciplines required to complete a project. While it would be possible to have an artist's collective where one person handles sketching, one inking, and one coloring, my impression is that's not really what you're describing. If I'm understanding correctly, an artist's collective tends to consist of multiple people with skills that largely overlap. I think this differs from a VN team, where several of the skills have minimal overlap.

I'm not sure that the question has a lot of meaning, until the terms are defined precisely.

A Circle is a group of people all working on the same project. For example 4 Leaf Studios is a Circle working on Katawa Shoujo.

A Collective is a group of people who are each working on thier own projects. For example... this site! :V

I see. So circle is basically a group that already established or well-structured, and will be there for a long time. Collectives is a bunch of individuals who are temporary join forces since they all have same temporary goals which is to make a certain something.

As I see it, a Collective is not something necessarily temporary, it may be something long term as long as the members of the Collective keep having the same interests and keep being interested in making games.
Now, you'd usually form a collective with people you know and trust, not just recruiting people that can do what you can't and have some interest in your project, like on a Circle.
Ideally, all the members of the collective may become friends and stick together for a while.


A Circle may not be long lived if the members are just there for one project and then decide they don't want to work on a new project together for any reason (bad experience working together, burn-out from working on a long-term project, etc.)

I've heard of the term "Circle" being used by Doujin artists. It's the first I've heard of Collective but it's good to know. I don't know about using them though - it just makes things more complicated; explaining things and remembering who's in what circle and so on.