F.I.N. [Modern|Fantasy|Crime] - Season 1 - Episode 1

[Jod]

Preview of the first draft of some scripting for episode 1 scene 3.

Written in Hollywood movie-script format because I felt like it .

[Jod]

Got a preview of the music accompanying the epilogue for everyone. Sadly I can't integrate the soundcloud player on the forum, so I'll just have to point you to the link here:

http://unexpectedconsequences.tumblr.co ... w-epilogue

While you're at it, why don't you take a look at the rest of the tumblr?

[Jod]

And some more results! Today went well. I had to drag the words out, but in the end I created one-and-a-half scenes. Not as much as I’d want, but at least they’re there. I’m not quite happy with the quality, but I think it’s better to at least have it out there and then polish later.
I also added Kristof’s soundtracks to the new content, and I must say it sounds awesome! I really need to add some fade-outs and fade-ins, but that’ll be for the next time.

For now, some screenshots!

[Jod]

Some thoughts on tattoos for Rin.

It started as an harmless note in my design document’s character descriptions: “Has tattoo on left shoulder.”
When I designed Rin, I wanted her to have a tattoo. Something permanent on her body that would never allow her to escape her Yakuza heritage. I didn’t know what it was yet, I just made the note and continued describing my characters.
Last week I started writing a scene where Rin sits on the school’s rooftop and thinks about a lot of things, including the tattoo she got the previous year. For that to make any kind of sense, I had to know what the tattoo depicted! I knew a few facts about the tattoo:

• It was a ‘present’ to Rin from her mother.
  It was meant to honour Rin’s father.
  It was meant to symbolize the hope that Rin would bring the Yamamoto family back to it’s previous glory (so no pressure there, then).

And so I went digging into the beautiful world of traditional Japanese tattoos.

I stumbled on this site and the description of the Koi fish caught my eye:

Koi fish:
Koi fish tattoos are perhaps the second-favored symbols in Japanese tattoos. Generally, koi fish are bright-colored fish that have special symbolism in Japanese culture and you can even find them in front of many temples. The myth states that the koi fish swim upstream to a bridge or gate of heaven where they were transformed into dragons. This design symbolizes luck, strength, power, ambition and individuality. So if you are looking for a tattoo that symbolizes the struggle faced by humans in life, the perfect choice is a koi fish tattoo.

Strength, power: Awesome. Ambition: More awesome.

But the best part?

Struggle.

Rin’s story is one of constant struggle. The struggle of bringing honour back to her family’s name. Struggle with her heritage, the broken mess her father left inside her head, her mother’s overbrearing nature.

Yes, the beautiful Koi would fit Rin just fine.

After some more research (I say research… I mean clicking around on the internet) I found out that the colour of the Koi actually means something as well.

Black Koi
Fish Tattoos – Black Koi fish tattoos are actually reserved for the men of the family in Japan. However, there is a lot of discussion about the colors of Koi and their meaning. For instance if you look at Yin and Yang Koi Fish Tattoos, you’ll notice the inclusions of a black Koi. This doesn’t represent the father, but the mostly masculine side that also contains some feminine qualities.

Blue Koi
Fish Tattoos – Blue Koi Fish Tattoos are reserved for the son in a Japanese family. However, just like the Black Koi Fish Tattoos they have been westernized and can take on other meaninga. The electric blues in these tattoos are stunning. Blue represents calmness, tranquility, and peace.

Red Koi Tattoo
Red Koi Fish Tattoos – Red Koi fish tattoos are reserved for the mother of a Japanese family. Pink Koi fish tattoos are for the daughters. However these colors in the western world have a different meaning and can be used to color Koi fish tattoos as you choose.

Well Rin, a pink Koi you’ll get! Rin normally wouldn’t go for that kind of colour (she’s more a purple and white kind of girl), but if it’s tradition… and I like the idea of Rin having a beautiful pink tattoo on her arm. Of course, there’s going to be quite a few black scales on that Koi, to resemble her respect for her father. No red scales? Hell no, no red scales. A little act of rebellion of our dutiful daughter.

And then I stumbled on the last aspect of those beautiful Koi tattoos: the direction the koi is swimming towards: up or downwards. It’s rather obvious, once you think about it in the perspective of the legend.

Which way is the koi fish swimming? It is said that if the koi fish is swimming “up” the part of the body it has been placed on, the person who dons the tattoo may be trying to overcome some sort of personal hardship. If the koi fish tattoo is swimming “down” the body, the tattooed individual has possibly persevered and overcome the problem they were facing.

Although if you think about it, a Koi fish that swam up the stream and reached it’s goal should have been turned into a Dragon, so wouldn’t the Koi fish that is swimming down have failed in it’s quest? I’m probably over-analyziing the symbolism here…

So, for Rin we have: A pink Koi that swims upstream with some black scales.

For the eye candy of tattood ladies (semi safe-for-work), check out my tumblr post.

[Jod]

Right! I've been drowning in work and now I finally have some time for my private projects! Huzzah!

While I as writing my thoughts roamed on choices in games, which I decided to write down on my tumblr.

For your convenience I've copy-pasted the whole thing here:

On choices

Making a choice with no meaningful difference between the outcomes is no choice. As it is in real life, so it is in games.

Impact

In games, giving the player an illusion of choice is possibly even worse than giving them no choice at all. I always feel patronized when playing a game that wants me to make a choice with no discernible difference between two outcomes. What we’re talking about here is the impact of your choice: if the outcomes have no impact on the game you’re playing, be it story- or gameplay-wise it wasn’t a choice.
Timing
That is not to say that I immediately have to see what the result of my choice is, but I believe good game design is, eventually, showing the player the results of the choice he made. It can even be fun to ‘forget’ that you made a choice and have it returned later.

Complete information?

Do I need to have complete information of the impact my choice should have? This is where the type of game you play starts making a difference. If I’m playing an RTS, I’d like to know the difference between an investing in improving the armour of my troops or improving their aim. In a Visual Novel (or kinetic novel, or whatever the term is you use), the information you have when making a choice doesn’t necessarily have to be complete. These are usually different choices with a lower impact on the story.
Which is part of where my problem lies with visual novels: the degree of linearity. Having ten endings is great, but if they are ten different flavours of the same ending ,what’s the use? The earlier your choices have a visible impact, the more awesome your game is, right?
I guess how much information you need has to do with how much impact your choice has. If your choice has a huge impact on your game, you’d want to know that beforehand and what the different options actually mean.

Reversability

No. Dear god no. If I can reverse the decision I just made with no effort, then what was the point?
Now, if the outcome of the choice was something I don’t like and I can put effort and, preferably, storyline into undoing a mistake, that’s fine. But making the result of a choice reversable is as bad as giving the illusion of choice.

Conclusions

What does this mean for my (or any) visual novel? It means that any choice I give a player should have consequences which add more to the story than a single line of text you wouldn’t get otherwise. Preferrably the effects are visible directly and long-term after, for a great one-two effect. And the storyline should allow for enough branching so that the player is not playing the same story in a different shade, but can actually play through different stories.
In short: a shitload of work to give the player actual choices that matter. A visual novel with few (or no!) choices is fine too, of course, but that’s a conscious choice. Look at the gorgeous Juniper’s knot for a great example of a story with no choices, but great storytelling.

Influenced by the following:

http://gamedesigntheory.blogspot.nl/201 ... ences.html

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/04 ... ore-148031

[Omnificent]

Gritty crime drama and apparent thoughtfulness in terms of game design, in my Japanese high school VN? You have my attention.

As far as your sprites go, just be careful not to have so much coloring outside the lines. This image in particular has a lot of that going on, plus some anti-aliasing pixelization. If you need/want any help with editing or graphics or anything let me know.

[Jod]

Thanks for the kind words!

Regarding the sprites: you are absolutely right, of course. However, the images you see in the first post are meant as placeholder images until I get the correct images up there, so I'm not spending a lot of time cleaning up the images proper-like. Thankfully, they still give a pretty good idea about the characters and show them in the context of the game.