My First Two VN Ideas (Critiques/Suggestions Appreciated)
Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2016 2:47 pm
Hello! I just joined the forums a day ago and I was wondering if I could get some feedback on my first two ideas for visual novels. I write other stories in my free time on Wattpad and have proofread and edited a few chapters for other authors' stories for free on Wattpad and on Goodreads, as well as with the first draft for a few chapters of a story that my friend is writing. I believe that grammar is my specialty, and having what I believe are great story ideas (and helpful suggestions for other authors) tends to work well with that. That being said, I'm only a second semester freshman in college in the United States, so I don't have a ton of experience, let alone professional experience, in writing stories and I am completely new to writing visual novels. I only started playing visual novels about 6 months to a year ago when I played Katawa Shoujo (which I enjoyed parts of it and had some gripes with others).
But enough about me; let's get to the good stuff: my first two ideas for a visual novel.
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My first idea for a visual novel actually started about two years ago as one of my many ideas for a book. It was originally going to be a two-book series and I had the general idea of what would happen in each one. I recently decided to make it a visual novel idea instead and told my roommate my whole idea for it (everything I had thought of so far for it). He gave me some great feedback on it, which led to me scrapping the idea of a two-part story (book/VN) and sticking with just the first part, as well as slightly adjusting the ending to fit this. About 3 weeks ago, I suddenly started thinking of how the opening scene would be written/flow and I essentially made up the entire first scene in my head (dialogue, character actions/movements on-screen, basic visuals) on the spot.
This is what I have written for the first scene/chapter (the first chapter in the game is only one scene) from my first VN idea: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mDk ... sp=sharing. The story is called Piece of Mind, which is a pun on the phrase "peace of mind" and has to do with a big reveal/plot twist at the end of the story.
The basic premise is that the main character (labeled as "MC" in the basic script that I wrote for the scene) wakes up in an alternate world with fragmented memories of his life in the world where he has lived most of his life and no recollection of how he ended up in this new world. He is a college student at the time this takes place. He meets a girl almost immediately after he wakes up and she tells him that she is the one who created this alternate world and that she brought him there. The problem is that she refuses to return him to the world where he came from despite his pleas. She eventually gives in and tells him that she will return him to his world, if, and only if, he completes a "project" that spans at least seven days. She also tells him that she can, and will, do everything she can to prevent this from happening, though she can't rely on any "god-like" powers that she has in this world to do so in order to give him a chance to succeed. The story follows their interactions and the MC's attempts to complete a project under the constraints to return to his world. Romance eventually ensues between them and...well, you know the drill. I plan on there being one or two H-scenes later on when their romance has been developed for the most part.
I am debating whether to include choices throughout the story on little things that happen, though the story will only have one ending, so I'm leaning against it unless I can manage to come up with a few things to slightly vary the various interactions between the two characters to where the ending isn't really affected by them (which is why I am mostly leaning against it, since there wouldn't be too much point to having choices when they don't affect the outcome at the end and I know that a decent amount of people wouldn't be happy with that).
I'll include the link to the Google Doc where I wrote the script for the scene again here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mDk ... sp=sharing. It shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to read it all, and I have it set up to where you can comment on the story. Just highlight a part of the script and click the "Comments" box towards the top right corner and then click on "Comment," then type your comment in. You should also be able to reply to other people's comments.
----
My second VN idea is somewhat different than the first one, and you'll understand why in a moment. There is still romance in the second idea, but other than that they are two completely different stories/VNs. This second one is a survival "dating sim" eroge that functions more as a pick-your-path type of VN where your choices are of the utmost importance. This game will be fairly hard and have MANY different choices, which will be absolute hell for the programmer(s) (I am so sorry
). The format will be fairly similar to the "Sorting Hat" one as described on https://heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com ... sed-games/ in that it is essentially a combination of the "Gauntlet" and "Branch-and-Bottleneck" formats that are also described on the same webpage.
The scenario of this VN is that the player (can choose male or female) is forced to take part in a Hunger Games-esque battle royale, a life-or-death tournament of sorts in which only one person can be the winner. The arena is like that of The Hunger Games in that it is HUGE, indoors, and simulates a natural environment (real animals, plants, "rain," rivers/lakes, small hills/mountains, etc.). There are 20-30 participants in total (including the MC). You, the MC, must survive until the end. However, you have the opportunity to romance with 4 males and 4 females. The player has the option to choose whether they want the 4 males, the 4 females, or 2 of each chosen randomly or by their choosing (they have the option...I like options
). There will also be some H-scenes in the game for each route (probably 2-3).
The "route" that you end up on is the first choice that you make in the game, but you don't know who you will end up with until you run into them soon after the choice is made (the character that you end up with is predetermined for each of the four options, but you have to play through 4 times and select each of the different options each time to find out which choice leads to which character). I am debating about including the option to switch over to one of the other routes between 1/4-1/2 of the way through the first character's route, but that would only mean even more work than there already would be.
The goal of the game is to survive until the very end and end up getting together with one of the characters that you have the option to romance with. What will make this game tough for players (somewhat) is everyone in the game is dead-set on killing you and everyone else and will do whatever is necessary to survive, including lying to you and pretending to fall for you and then betraying you when they see an opening/when they see fit. The goal is to win them over and have them actually fall in love with you and decide not to hurt/kill you. As stated before, there will be MANY choices throughout the game, which, in this game, will lead to multiple endings per romance-able character (one or two good endings and many bad endings (which occur when you are killed throughout the story by making bad decisions as well as at the very end)).
The crazy thing about this second idea (if it wasn't already crazy enough), is that I thought of this whole idea this morning...as in 8-10 hours before I typed this post. I came up with the name for it: Survive This Dating Sim (which can be abbreviated as STDS ). I thought it summarized the game pretty well, was catchy/memorable, and funny, which always helps. I don't have anything written for this one just yet, but I did think of a few of the different scenarios/plot points/events that would take place during the story and in the different routes.
----
That's all that I have for now. If you have any comments, questions, suggestions/recommendations/advice, or anything else to say, please leave a comment below or send me a PM. Don't forget to read my basic script for my first VN idea (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mDk ... sp=sharing) and let me know what you think of it.
Thanks!
AKABoy123
But enough about me; let's get to the good stuff: my first two ideas for a visual novel.
----
My first idea for a visual novel actually started about two years ago as one of my many ideas for a book. It was originally going to be a two-book series and I had the general idea of what would happen in each one. I recently decided to make it a visual novel idea instead and told my roommate my whole idea for it (everything I had thought of so far for it). He gave me some great feedback on it, which led to me scrapping the idea of a two-part story (book/VN) and sticking with just the first part, as well as slightly adjusting the ending to fit this. About 3 weeks ago, I suddenly started thinking of how the opening scene would be written/flow and I essentially made up the entire first scene in my head (dialogue, character actions/movements on-screen, basic visuals) on the spot.
This is what I have written for the first scene/chapter (the first chapter in the game is only one scene) from my first VN idea: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mDk ... sp=sharing. The story is called Piece of Mind, which is a pun on the phrase "peace of mind" and has to do with a big reveal/plot twist at the end of the story.
The basic premise is that the main character (labeled as "MC" in the basic script that I wrote for the scene) wakes up in an alternate world with fragmented memories of his life in the world where he has lived most of his life and no recollection of how he ended up in this new world. He is a college student at the time this takes place. He meets a girl almost immediately after he wakes up and she tells him that she is the one who created this alternate world and that she brought him there. The problem is that she refuses to return him to the world where he came from despite his pleas. She eventually gives in and tells him that she will return him to his world, if, and only if, he completes a "project" that spans at least seven days. She also tells him that she can, and will, do everything she can to prevent this from happening, though she can't rely on any "god-like" powers that she has in this world to do so in order to give him a chance to succeed. The story follows their interactions and the MC's attempts to complete a project under the constraints to return to his world. Romance eventually ensues between them and...well, you know the drill. I plan on there being one or two H-scenes later on when their romance has been developed for the most part.
I am debating whether to include choices throughout the story on little things that happen, though the story will only have one ending, so I'm leaning against it unless I can manage to come up with a few things to slightly vary the various interactions between the two characters to where the ending isn't really affected by them (which is why I am mostly leaning against it, since there wouldn't be too much point to having choices when they don't affect the outcome at the end and I know that a decent amount of people wouldn't be happy with that).
I'll include the link to the Google Doc where I wrote the script for the scene again here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mDk ... sp=sharing. It shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to read it all, and I have it set up to where you can comment on the story. Just highlight a part of the script and click the "Comments" box towards the top right corner and then click on "Comment," then type your comment in. You should also be able to reply to other people's comments.
----
My second VN idea is somewhat different than the first one, and you'll understand why in a moment. There is still romance in the second idea, but other than that they are two completely different stories/VNs. This second one is a survival "dating sim" eroge that functions more as a pick-your-path type of VN where your choices are of the utmost importance. This game will be fairly hard and have MANY different choices, which will be absolute hell for the programmer(s) (I am so sorry
). The format will be fairly similar to the "Sorting Hat" one as described on https://heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com ... sed-games/ in that it is essentially a combination of the "Gauntlet" and "Branch-and-Bottleneck" formats that are also described on the same webpage. The scenario of this VN is that the player (can choose male or female) is forced to take part in a Hunger Games-esque battle royale, a life-or-death tournament of sorts in which only one person can be the winner. The arena is like that of The Hunger Games in that it is HUGE, indoors, and simulates a natural environment (real animals, plants, "rain," rivers/lakes, small hills/mountains, etc.). There are 20-30 participants in total (including the MC). You, the MC, must survive until the end. However, you have the opportunity to romance with 4 males and 4 females. The player has the option to choose whether they want the 4 males, the 4 females, or 2 of each chosen randomly or by their choosing (they have the option...I like options
). There will also be some H-scenes in the game for each route (probably 2-3).The "route" that you end up on is the first choice that you make in the game, but you don't know who you will end up with until you run into them soon after the choice is made (the character that you end up with is predetermined for each of the four options, but you have to play through 4 times and select each of the different options each time to find out which choice leads to which character). I am debating about including the option to switch over to one of the other routes between 1/4-1/2 of the way through the first character's route, but that would only mean even more work than there already would be.
The goal of the game is to survive until the very end and end up getting together with one of the characters that you have the option to romance with. What will make this game tough for players (somewhat) is everyone in the game is dead-set on killing you and everyone else and will do whatever is necessary to survive, including lying to you and pretending to fall for you and then betraying you when they see an opening/when they see fit. The goal is to win them over and have them actually fall in love with you and decide not to hurt/kill you. As stated before, there will be MANY choices throughout the game, which, in this game, will lead to multiple endings per romance-able character (one or two good endings and many bad endings (which occur when you are killed throughout the story by making bad decisions as well as at the very end)).
The crazy thing about this second idea (if it wasn't already crazy enough), is that I thought of this whole idea this morning...as in 8-10 hours before I typed this post.
I came up with the name for it: Survive This Dating Sim (which can be abbreviated as STDS ). I thought it summarized the game pretty well, was catchy/memorable, and funny, which always helps. I don't have anything written for this one just yet, but I did think of a few of the different scenarios/plot points/events that would take place during the story and in the different routes. ----
That's all that I have for now. If you have any comments, questions, suggestions/recommendations/advice, or anything else to say, please leave a comment below or send me a PM. Don't forget to read my basic script for my first VN idea (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mDk ... sp=sharing) and let me know what you think of it.
Thanks!
AKABoy123