Lemma Soft Forums

Okay, i don't know if it's worth to be looking here
but i got no other place to go.

Okay, i am looking for people to work on a new dating
sim that i have been planning to do for a while now. The
available spots are;

Programmer: I Require that you have either been working
on multi-ending dating-sims before, or are a very skilled
programmer that can adapt to the settings.

Artwork(Characters): High-quality artwork, you should
have some samples to show me. I'm looking for people
who can draw very cute looking characters. If you are
able to do backgrounds too that would be good. Otherwise
there will be one other spot that is open which is ->

Artwork(Backgrounds): Same as above, but with
backgrounds. High-quality.

Script: Here I'm looking for people who are able to come
up with great, and in this case; Very dark script. Your English
must therefor be either semi-skilled or very skilled. You
should also give me an example of how you write (A story for an example).

I will work with the concept-art and the script with those two.
We will release the game as a free game, therefor don't
count on getting any profit if nobody donates any money.
We will do it because we love to work on it.
I don't want people that works on it for a week or two and
then drops out of the project. So if you are like that, don't
bother to message me ^^.

To give you a basic idea of what the game is like i will explain
it more or less;

It's a really dark story with lots of unexpected twists
(It will be a Dating sim though). There will be 6 girls,
all with different personalities. There will also be 3
different endings per girl which will result in 18 endings.
The story is about a guy that wakes up after he heard
some things outside of his house, he decides to go out
and check and when he opens the door he is blinded
by a furious light. When he regain his vision, an angel
appear in front of him. Chocked he stares, not moving at all.

After a while he notices that the angel is trying to speak,
though somehow he can't understand what she is saying.
Seconds later a huge cross appears behind the angel,
and she smashes into the cross and becomes crucified.
Crying she silently whispers; Remember me, remember
yourself.. When the dawn arrives, try to remember..

The angel then dies, and the main character falls asleep
outside. The next day he wakes up in his bed,
remembering it all.. Was it a dream? Or did it really
happen? When he arrives to school that day, six new
female students all of a sudden joins his class, and it doesn't
take long before strange things begins to happen.

Okay, this is very basic but I'm still writing the characterbios
for all the characters and such. But i hope you get the point.

There is two ways of contacting me about a spot in the team.

1. You can email me at gamer@eskimobob.com with the
subject (Dating-sim work)

2. Or you can just speak to me here first, and then i could
email you about details instead. Either is fine.

Well, I can do the easy bit of programming it, if you give me a script and some art to work with.

It does sound like quite an overly ambitious project though, which might deter potential writers and artists.

Maybe you are right, but at the same time i think that it is possible to do.
Somehow i feel that it will work out even if it will take some time.

It really all depends. Have you created any previous games? Really, I should be asking if you've created any finished games. Because if this is your first game, then you're going to get burnt out really quick when you figure how much time and effort it takes to make a ren'ai game. However, if not...I could be the artist. The only problem is my scanner doesn't work! So, if you don't need an artist in the near future...[/i]

I would advise thinking about it a lot more. In which style would you be writing it in, VN style or stat based?

If VN style then the storyline will have to be fairly static, with a fixed path with events on which your score with the girls is determined. Season of the Sakura is a very good example of this. In most cases (Season is an exception for me) this dramatically lowers the replayability. How many 'events' will there be? Multiply it by 6. THe number is big enough that if you let alternatives exist. How do you plan on getting three endings for each girl? Multiple routes? If so then multiply that answer by 3.

OK. Now a player must NOT be allowed to alienate any of the 6. Why? Because these 6 each interact with the player in the static bits of script in set ways, which always happen every game regardless of what the player does. You have no choice but to make most of the game static, otherwise all the ifs will pile up exponentially and scripting will drive you mad.

If say, you stand Rielle up, and she gets annoyed with you then she should not talk to the player normally during the rest of the story. With one person it would be managable to change the script, just 2 directions. With two then the player could annoy one, the other, both or neither. 4 directions. This could apply to anything where branches are made based upon branches etc.

With three things all these branches really start hitting you. None, 1, 2, 3, 1 and 2, 1 and 3, 2 and 3, all 3. Eight directions. Next we're heading to 16,32,64 etc. going up a power of 2 each time.

If you take this route then Season of Sakura style is the way to go.


OR a stat based game like True love. Here there is a lot less story, but a lot more replayability. And if you want a 'dark' sort of game then that's gonna be hard to fit in. There can be lots of variation, as the player cannot interact in depth with the entire cast, and each character may interact with only one or two other members of the cast. That said it isn't really much of an option from what you've written already.


There you go. It could be worded better, but there's a lot to write about, and Iv'e only touched on it. These complications aren't just gonna work themselves out by themselves.

He already said the game was a dating sim, not a VN, so I guess that should answer the question of scripted events vs. fixed story-path. As a writer, I'd be interested in the game; unfortunately, to have it tickle my fancy, there'd better be lots of things still not completely worked out. I MIGHT have some interest in working with you, Helblinde, if:

1) this is not your first game
2) the writing work is still creative work and not just "writing down what other people made up". I'm not writing dialogues if someone else tells me what the result of it all has to be
3) you give me at least one character in the game to work out for myself. Completely.

Match these three and I'll send you my resumé.

Man, I may be taking all this in a wrong way, but I keep getting this feeling everyone's rubbing each other the wrong way. You all sound so hostile here. Where's the love?

For this story, I can't contribute anything other than a smile and support. If you feel you can do this, and you have the skills to match, do it.

Jerails wrote:Man, I may be taking all this in a wrong way, but I keep getting this feeling everyone's rubbing each other the wrong way. You all sound so hostile here. Where's the love?

All of this may boil down to the fact, that Helblinde did not include any of his references (like the much-requested finished project), while scouting for almost professional help/staff. And while you can see he is serious and determined to exclude kids that will drop the project once their moms tell them to learn more (the initial post sometimes seems like an ad hiring pro staff, not asking fans for help), lacking a programmer, an artist and possibly a script writer, his project is missing almost all critical elements (rudely said, it is just an idea). Then, there is the scope of the project, which is truly enormous and perhaps one or two of us happen to be in a bad mood - hence, a cool welcome.

Jerails wrote: For this story, I can't contribute anything other than a smile and support. If you feel you can do this, and you have the skills to match, do it.

Unfortunately, this applies to me as well. Go for it and don't let some mikey tell you how to do things right. Different people, diferent styles of work. Maybe just check Lemma's doc http://www.lemmasoft.net/renai/tips.htm which can help you achieve that final build. Good luck!

mikey wrote:(the initial post sometimes seems like an ad hiring pro staff, not asking fans for help)

I agree. I seriously thought that at some point in the post there was going to be a statement saying it would be a commercial game O_o Judging by the expectations of the 'staff' being of the highest quality and so on ^^;
I know how you feel though Hellbinde I guess, personally if I were to start a project I too would want it too look great and amazing even if it's my first game but I would probably only have that expectation put onto myself, as it is a high expectation and not something I would burden others with for free. I would only set the bar that high for myself and for any others, as long as the people on the project are enjoying it and as you say "doing it because they love it", that would be my main concern. Of course naturally I would steer clear from an artist who draws stick people and boxes for people's heads or a musician who plays like they put a cat in a blender but then that goes without saying.
Anyway I think people are right to debate on these things right now and get the skeletons out the closet and getting a grip on the scope of the project because if they were to do that further down the line you'd be finding a lot of dissapointing crumpled paper in your bin (scrapped ideas)
So this is a good move by all....

Anyway I wish you all the best with your project though, I'll be looking forward to seeing your efforts ^^ It's good to see more people wishing to create games.

IMHO Hellblinde, first you should start by registering on the forum. Spend some time here talking with us on different matters and then propose a project and ask people to join. But since you came out of nowhere requireing top quality staff without even giving some references or links to your past work or games you created you have to understand that most people are rather reluctant to your proposition. I really like your dating-sim idea though. But honestly, 6 girls with different personalities, 3 different endings per girl, 18 endings in total. That is an enormous amount of work for all the team. Right now I can only wish you good luck, but if you stay here on the forums a little longer and at some point you decide to narrow your game project to a reasonable size I might be able to help.

Well, you might think it's overkill and i understand that. Though it's not.
Me and my team will create this game, have fun, and doing one of the best free dating games of all time (I like to keep the bar high, that makes the game better then if i try to do something average)

I have worked on: Love Love story & Starlight (Both released in japan as free games) If you want to download them (Though you need to understand japanese) I can fix a link if requested.

- Helblinde

I'd be pleased to see some of the work you've done so far, and I'm surprised you didn't introduce yourself to this forum with your former projects. Quite a few threads here in the GM Corner deal with finished or "in progress" VN and DS projects, and people will be happy to give you some feedback.

As for me, my offer is still standing ^^

I'm glad to see you're dreaming big, Helblinde. Keep it up! But you do need to keep your feet on the ground. Do read Blue Lemma's tips at http://www.lemmasoft.net/renai/tips.htm - particularly #1 and #5. See under #1 where it says: One of the biggest and most common mistakes I see people/groups make is to dream up a HUGE game for their first project. You know, tons of characters, multiple endings, dozens of special scenes - the whole works. What happens? Usually, they do fine for a while...before fizzling out. And I've seen LOTS of projects fizzle out. People tend to lose interest in the project, or partway through they realize, "Damn, this is bigger/harder than I thought!"

The reason people here are being a bit skeptical is just that we love English-language ren'ai games, and love seeing them get completed. And unfortunately it's happened way too many times that people start huge projects full of enthusiasm, but they don't get completed.

I have a very broad-ranging and innovative dating game which I fully plan to complete, and which I've spent a lot of time planning out and writing script for. The promo page is here. But I was coming to realise that it was too big, and it would likely have fallen by the wayside, even though I'd do all the programming and scriptwriting myself. Lemma's tips have inspired me to create a much more manageable sized game, Elven Relations (page here). I have graphic artists for characters and backgrounds on board, and the work is progressing well. I hpe to have it released by the end of the year... But it was started last summer. That's a year and a half on a project much smaller than what I originally dreamed up. I've experienced discouragement, the temptation to let it slide and be quietly forgotten, letdowns from my graphic artists, and the discovery that even with a much smaller scope the script can still be far bigger than expected. (The programming is basically trivial, and is likely to be for any dating game; but even so it still needs doing.)

We welcome you here, and your creativity is excellent to see. But I do urge you to scale down your expectations, and start with a much smaller project. By all means keep this as something you plan to come back to; but before soliciting people to work for free on such an ambitious game, show us that you can stick it out by producing something more manageable first. It'll feel better to you too, because everybody knows the disheartening feeling of having started creating something and never finishing it.

chronoluminaire, you are right about some points and i know that very well. Often you decide to create this huge project and it wont be finished since it will take up to much time (Im very aware of that).

I have been working on ren ai' games since 5 years back (During these years i have finished two games with difr people and at the same time grown mature), so that's maybe why i now decide to do something i have dreamt off for so long.

I do have a side project though that im working on myself, and i just might finish that one before starting this one out. I do have some people that are willing to work on this big project. I just contacted a local band that can play anything and they are willing to do all the songs for the game. So that is a step towards something good.

I dont really care how long it takes for the game to be done, as long as we have fun while working on it i feel that it will be a very good game.

And thanks for you guys who wish me and my future crew goodluck, i(we)really need it.

Well Helbinde, I really wish you good luck . If at some point in the future you need a coder for your project don't forget to drop a note on the forum. I'm sure many people will help you if you have some art and at least a large part of the script ready.