gekiganwing wrote:Welcome to the forum! First, here are two questions:
1. Have you written and finished a story? If you have, about how many words was it?
2. Do you prefer writing stories or coding gameplay?
A few recommendations
which I've said elsewhere:
I. If you haven't already finished writing a story, then be careful. I can understand that you want to write a lengthy, intricate visual novel with many characters. You might want to work on your masterpiece now. However, you will probably benefit by making sure that you can create a short, simple visual novel with a few characters. After creating a short VN, you will be more prepared to work on a longer story.
II. Please take some time to read the
Why so many unfinished VNs? discussion thread.
III. Ask yourself complex questions such as "What do I want to say to people through this VN?" or "What will keep me motivated as I create this story?" If you still plan to create a lengthy VN, then you need to be prepared. Decide what sort of message you want your VN to have. Think about what will set it apart from other stories. Remember that a visual novel is just one format for telling a story, just like how people tell a variety of stories through animation, comics, theater, prose, and so on.
IV. If you like creating gameplay, then decide how much of your VN will be story, and how much will be an interactive video game. Keep in mind that editing a story and playtesting a game are both challenging tasks.
V. Think about your setting. What do you think about life in Indonesia? How do you want to portray it through your story? Consider how you'll use your VN to show good, bad, and complex aspects of your country.
VI. Finally, you might benefit by writing your story in your native language. After finishing it, then look for a reliable person who can translate it into other languages.
Hello, thank you for your reply.
First, let me answer your question :
1. unfortunately The story still not finished, and the only thing I'd done was story for demo (demo around 10k word. Finished about 20k word. So it's about 30k words more). For the drafts, it's still less from a half.
2. Since it's my own project and the first idea is story rather than gameplay, I actually prefer writing a story. The gameplay is only to make the VN a bit longer to be completed 100% by player. I try to make the gameplay blend with the story so it's still relevant and not seem to be forced.
and for the responses of your suggestions:
1. Yes, I understand about that. The unfinished story will have a high chance get failed to finished since we doesn't know how much more it will end, and if the writer is perfectionist, it will never end. I already had created some VN before for android, but I already take it off from market, since no one was play (It's hurting my portfolio and the back up file is gone so I cannot improve it). So, creating another VN that longer than before is actually very stupid of me. Yet, I take the risk. For characters, I already pushed it to low as possible (6 chars for character have expression exclude MC. The other chars probably only shadows). I have target to release the VN on steam, so my target is 50K word so the game last for 3 hours. I think it's the shortest time recommended for visual novel and I don''t have plan to make it longer than that. I don't have a deadline, so the most problem for me is my own consistency (I plan it for 4 years development). Have a gameplay is actually have it's own merit, since I can change pace in a while in something relevant for the games when I tired to thinking about the story. I hope I will never give up about it tho'.
2. Thanks for the link. After reading it, It help me learn a lot. As a game developer, I know that creating a game and VN is need quite hard work, and without enough consistency it will never finished. I actually have some experiences about how hard to make a personal game (Not VN) before, and get so many failure in creating it (especially game jam). That's why I still in learn step to make a good game. Wish me luck.
3,4,5. Thanks for suggestion, I will keep that in mind.
6. This actually is one of major problem I have since the content of story sometimes a bit changed when you translate from native to English (If I use bilingual it's not a problem), that's why I prefer write it in English by myself (My problem is the grammar tho'). But thank you for the input.
Once again, thank you for your reply, it's help me a lot and I really appreciate it.