Nanoreno 08: A Glitch in Her Game *work in progress*

[gekiganwing]

*This is very much a work in progress. I'm revealing only the parts which I'm currently committed to creating. Things may change!*

In the ideas dump thread, one person mentioned a neat story idea: a girl who ends up in her nerdy boyfriend's renai game. I thought about that idea, and over the last few weeks, I've been trying to decide what I want to do with it. Here are my ideas thus far.

1. Part of my plan is to mix shoujo and shounen genres. To be more specific, I admire shoujo, but I'm more comfortable writing from a guy's point of view. So I turned the original idea around, and decided to write the story of a guy who ends up in his nerdy girlfriend's otome game. She's an English-speaking gamer who has a modded console and several import games.

2. I originally planned to use my title character from Winn Freddie's Road to the Sadie Hawkins Dance as the nerdy girlfriend. But I decided that it would be too drastic a change.

3. I was originally thinking "straightforward love ADV." But then I decided that my game needed some sort of theme. So then I decided to add a theme that I've always wanted to incorporate -- a girl as a manager of a boys' team.

3. Right now I'm deciding what will happen during the game to give it some sort of structure. I'm leaning toward making this story a several-day journey through intense training in middle-of-nowhere Japan. The hero will go from being a normal person to a second-string player on the baseball team. He will be training with the bishies... er, guys... during much of the daytime for several of the days, and still have time to get to know the three girls who are also there.

The stories may lead to some commitment between the characters, but true love ain't possible in several days. I want to keep this plausible.

The content may include bath scenes (did I mention the training is near a ryokan with outdoor baths?) but nothing more.

I was thinking I might center the story around a school festival, but that would require a lot of research.

4. One of the available girls will be Winn's in-game avatar. She might be the team manager, though she could be a local girl who's getting to know the guys. Either way, her appearance will resemble her "real life" appearance, but her personality will be much more social and confident. It's as if she is more comfortable in a fantasy world than the real world. If the male lead can help her realize that's unhealthy, then that will be the best ending.

5. The three "types" of girls will be 1) team manager, 2) a girl who openly fangirls one of the guys on the team, and 3) a local girl who has never lived in Tokyo.

6. Things I'm stealing -- er, drawing inspiration from:
--Kasuka, an OEL renai game from a few years ago (namely the "staying in a remote place for several days, without initially assuming it was some sort of singles' retreat" aspect of the story).

--Prince of Tennis, which I saw *way* too many episodes of through fansubs (my current idea was inspired by reading about the "Sanroku no Mystic" spinoff game, and my earlier school festival idea was inspired by an FAQ about the "Gakuensai no Oji-Sama" spinoff game).

--Corda d'Oro (I'm paying attention to the protagonist Kahoko's rivals, and trying to figure out their personalities).

--other sports-themed series which contain a lot of male characters. These include Whistle, Ookiku Furikabutte, Seo Kouji's Crossover, and some of Mitsuru Adachi's works.

I don't want this to become a shallow knockoff of any of those sources. I'll work to make sure the plot is distinct, and that the characters aren't clones.

...On the other hand, I will include some comedy elements. The game-within-the-game is based on a series called Elegant Baseball, and it may well be packed with cliches and stereotypes. So there will be humor, just not Hollywood "dog crap = funny" humor.

7. With just a few available characters and endings, and a story happening over just a few days, I will be able to finish writing this by April 1 08.

8. I've just now asked for art help on an appropriate forums as of March 7 08.

[gekiganwing]

I promised a complete story. But after a month, I only have a demo to show. Part of this is because I foolishly attempted to upgrade my Mac. It experienced a major crash, and only now is it working more often than not.

The new deadline: May 1. I've got two days worth of events to write, and the writing thus far has been enjoyable. One way or another, I *will* get this done.

[Doomfest]

I really think it's a good idea for you to put a few screens in the first post. I really can't download all the games here and try them all out without taking a large amount of my precious time x_x... maybe i'll ask this for the other posts as well, but for now, i'll ask it of this. put some screens so I know how high this should be on my "download priority" list!