Dating Sim Trapped in tv land story

[gaoldart]

I'm looking for ideas, im working on a BxG Dating Sim Parody (...it's just another multipath Vn...)

The MC is a buffed up curly-haired green-eyed blond that wakes up one day to find himself thinner, shorter, with the typical black hair and some shadow that covers his eyes... he freaks out.

All his male friends are seemingly missing and the girls he knew now have strange hair color and call him whatever weird name the player chooses.

I need five girls, something along the lines of "She is clumsy because she has two left shoes..." or "She seems kuudere because someone took her glasses"

So... any ideas?

[gekiganwing]

Make sure to read up on parody failure and shallow parodies.

The people behind the Writing Excuses podcast admit they liked the book Bored of the Rings. But they also admit that it loses its appeal, and now that they're adults, they can better appreciate the writings of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams. That said, it's usually difficult to say what makes the difference between effective comedy and cheap gags.

Knowing the source material really helps. That way, you'll know concepts which are taken for granted, and ideas which are rarely discussed. For example, in many harem games, the male lead has maybe one guy friend who appears in the story. But that's not true in Edelweiss (recently re-translated by Mangagamer), or the TV anime version of Green Green (released in region 1 by Anime Works).

Also it helps to make sure the material you're parodying is meant to be authentic drama. For example, it would be unwise to spoof Heart de Roommate or the Sakura Taisen series, since both are often played as comedy.

[Sapphi]

I think there should be a tsundere suffering from chronic laryngitis in addition to having two broken arms, so she can't belittle OR slap the protagonist. To compensate for this, she wears her hair in twintails which split into twintails which split into twintails which split into *shot*

[papillon]

Ehh.... if you don't have strong ideas of specific concepts you want to play with, it's likely to come across more like a bad generic dating sim than a parody... and if your only message is "lol dating sims are silly and dumb" then you're probably going to end up insulting the only people who bother to play it.

[gaoldart]

True... i don't like those parodies either...

Actually... my idea was on the lines of a parody that is only a parody because it doesn't take itself seriously, otherwise would become drama.

After the MC wakes up, he finds everything in pastel colors, her childhood friend crashes him only because she was lost due to the streets changing to a japanese suburbia, they get lost and only find the school because somehow, the scene just changed, they freak out and only find themselves more confused when trying to talk to other people but them (Being only background characters...) don't listen to them...

To summarize, something on the lines of "Trapped in tv land", just with a dating sim

Ps: Multi splitting twintails... add conscience to them and we have profit

[J. Datie]

Well, it's about movie parodies, but this video goes over why most modern parodies fail, and why classic ones worked.

[gaoldart]

Yup... in the end it ends up being something else... not a parody... Still... Any ideas?

[gekiganwing]

Things which could be explored in a Trapped in TV Land story:

* Who are the love interests, really? How do the "haremettes" act when the real main character isn't around?
* Stat-building: in Tokimemo and similar games, the main character is refining and balancing stats at least six days each week. The audience only gets a general idea of what this is like. What's actually going on?
* Map-based movement: You can find this in games such as Da Capo, in which the player knows where specific NPCs will be. How does the main character know this?
* "Welcome to Corneria" dialogue: Almost never happens in VNs, but common in complex games. Will the characters talk to NPCs, and get the same canned responses no matter what's happening?
* Characters who eventually realize they're in a fictional world.
* At least one of the real people who enters the fictional world is genre savvy. (But then again, he might be wrong genre savvy.)
* Finally, in your average BxG game, the main character will get to interact with several cute girls who have some specific appeal in terms of personality or appearance. When written poorly, they don't seem genuine. Perhaps in your game you'll want to ask if the characters are in fact human.

[Funnyguts]

I recommend watching Pleasantville for a good idea on how to do this kind of story right.

[Sapphi]

Oh, I had another idea. There should be the obligatory pettanko character. Except she's so flat that her cup size is in the negative numbers. Every day she gets flatter until she has two gaping holes in her chest and her back is lumpy. She's very self-conscious about her negative chest. She smacks the protagonist for accidentally putting his hand in one.

"Don't touch me there!"
"What?! But I didn't feel anything at all!"
"...WAAAAAAAAH!"

[gaoldart]

Negative number pettanko... Love it!!!

So, it would go something like:

MC: Something tells me if i cross by this corner i might get run over....
**Childhood friend comes by quickly and smashes with a wall because he's not there**
MC: I knew it

[Sapphi]

Ah, yes... and don't forget the late-for-school toast-in-mouth.

Actually, maybe you should just have a character who is constantly late for school, and every day has a new type of toast.

White bread... wheat bread... a grilled cheese sandwich... an entire baguette...