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http://blog.clone-army.org/?p=252#comments

nuff said

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I haven't really anything much to say regarding Dan Kim's works, but I was more interested in the comments.

It's amazing how the general attitude of people is pretty negative as to what's been done so far while pretty optimistic that that they can make something epic for the first try that will blow everything else away.

A Good Visual novel must have good

-art
-story
-music
-presentation
-gameplay (if not kinetic novel)
-dialogue (if any)

Graphic novels only rely on the first two. The more factors there are in production, the more likely there is something to screw up. Like for example, a person can receive far more positive comments for drawing a single cute picture as opposed to putting that cute picture as a sprite in a mediocre game with mediocre features. People notice what doesn't work more and that overshadows what's been done well otherwise.

GREAT ENGLISH VISUAL NOVEL RACE! (LOL WE'LL SEE )
I'm still wishing Dan the best of luck as it takes courage to try new mediums.

DaFool wrote:It's amazing how the general attitude of people is pretty negative as to what's been done so far while pretty optimistic that that they can make something epic for the first try that will blow everything else away.

...

GREAT ENGLISH VISUAL NOVEL RACE!

While I do understand and mostly agree with the general point, I kind of suspect that Dan's satirising the concept of the 'Great American Novel' with that last bit.


Speaking generally, the guy is more self-deprecating and self-questioning than any other capable artist I've known - and generally more dedicated, for that matter. And like it or not, one way or another he does seem to have ingratiated himself and his work with the elitist japanophile set.

The medium needs a few demographic-expanding success stories if it wants to establish itself as a popular medium (no comment on whether this is necessarily desirable) and with an existing [outside-of-OELVN-circles] fanbase and tolerance to the artist's work, this probably stands a better chance, rightly or wrongly, than something like Ori, Ochi, Onoe would of being one of them.

Personally, I'm looking forward to it 'cause it's more the kind of story I enjoy than most OELVNs turn out to be.

I'm pretty sure its going to run on Blade Engine Pro:

http://blog.clone-army.org/?p=247#comments

He wouldn't want to give up those industry connections.

I'm thinking this will really catapult the BE from its current slumber.

DaFool wrote:I'm pretty sure its going to run on Blade Engine Pro

Yeah, I think that's pretty much a given.

GREAT ENGLISH VISUAL NOVEL RACE!

OK!... I have seen it and read it and now it got my attention.

This could be interesting and I could use this "Competition Driven Environment" to motivate me to finish my project.

I'll accept the challange!... I am dead serious!... COUNT ME IN!... but before that, let me finish a more polished and improved version of Lucy's Revenge.

For now, I'll keep a low profile and pop up here occasionally everytime I have questions or stuck in Ren'py.

(goes back to work)

DaFool wrote:I'm pretty sure its going to run on Blade Engine Pro:

http://blog.clone-army.org/?p=247#comments

He wouldn't want to give up those industry connections.

I'm thinking this will really catapult the BE from its current slumber.

What? I think he's actually capable of programming one himself.

Darn it! Another Waterloo student is in the race! I'll have to make my attack swift and via dojin soft route. I'm really hoping that would have a faster development.

I think this guy is going to pull it off very well.

It's on man! It's sooo on!

He's worked with them before no doubt.

OH YEAH. I like competition. I did better in high school when I was competing for honors.

I am so going over-the-top now on my project, full-blast.

Counter Arts wrote:What? I think he's actually capable of programming one himself.

I think he's capable of programming one himself, but I don't think he will. Hell, I know I'm capable of programming one myself and I don't think I will either, and my reasons are less good than his.

Think about it objectively, from the information we have available:
We know the Blade collective - the CuriousFactory guys, the Akiba Angels guys, the Buredo guys, whoever they all are they're all associated - have already translated Kim's PXI to Japanese as a volunteer project, showing familiarity with and appreciation of Kim's work.
We know that the Blade people have some Japanese resources; the Buredo part IIRC is based in Japan.
We know that Kim's claiming a Japanese voice track for the Kanami VN, which requires some Japanese resources.
We know the Blade people are... 'proactive' with their advertising.

The most-likely conclusion is that the voiceover is coming through the Blade people, and that even if they don't insist Kim uses their engine, it would be rather churlish not to in that situation. Maybe he was persuaded by them to move to the VN format, maybe he decided to do so and then thought "who do I know who makes a VN engine?", but one way or another I think it's pretty likely.

Well, the blade-engine 2.0 seems decent enough to make simple visual novels. It's no NScripter though.

Right now, Ren'py is waaaayy too easy to use for me though.

http://games.clone-army.org/visual%20no ... ew_000.jpg

Demo soon (on or before Feb 14)

I just found the picture now ^_^.

Anyway, is that going to be a standalone thing? Because it seems to be a manga that will have its next chapters written in KN form.

And actually, I just read the battle announcement more carefully (the VN race thing), and I realized that Kanami is in essence a black and white KN. No choices, no flashy graphics, so I don't really know how that can be a contender. Maybe the manga is well-known, so people will accept this more easily this way. But for me, especially with the discussion about high production values, it looks rather ordinary - I can imagine if this screenshot was posted by some other team, it would get a "yet another BW KN" response.

It looks nice though, and I'm looking forward - but I just can't see this as the breakthrough VN. Even if a BW KN would harvest praise and all, there is still a lot that a killer VN can or should do - go to color mode and have multiple choices.

But it's going to be nice playing a Blade game for a change - now that I have Direct X9

mikey wrote: And actually, I just read the battle announcement more carefully (the VN race thing), and I realized that Kanami is in essence a black and white KN. No choices, no flashy graphics, so I don't really know how that can be a contender. Maybe the manga is well-known, so people will accept this more easily this way.

Well. Certainly there are a lot of fans of Dan Kim's work - he claims a readership of "over 150,000" and I don't doubt that he has the stats to back that up - so in a sense there is definitely an existing 'market'. As I understand it he's not continuing the story from the manga into a VN format, though, he's starting again in the VN format.

On the other hand, I really don't think he meant that 'battle announcement' thing literally...

lol... for me, anything to stimulate the English market is good, even if it's a senseless competition.

Currently, I believe that ren'py excels in simplicity and power. The untapped potential in the ren'py engine still remains quite large. (Something crazy programmers like me like to use). The only current limit is hardware accleration. However, it's currently not at that point where hardware acceration is a must.

Hardware acceleration is a double-edged sword, though... witness the problems people have getting blade games to work.

PyTom wrote:Hardware acceleration is a double-edged sword, though... witness the problems people have getting blade games to work.

Yep, it's really not worth it right now. If I really desire to put something crazy that requires a 3D card then I'll use XNA and skip blade altogether even if they start going crazy with effects. (Haha, a VN with Bullet Hell sounds fun)

But yeah, so much for easy things with blade.