Couple of questions regarding a new VN in creation

[Khaos]

Hello, currently me and 3 others have began working on a VN.

We haven't thought of a title yet, however as for a genre it will be a Psychological Murder Myster type (Similar to stories such as chaos;head, higurashi, school days.)

The VN in no way involves any type of dating sim.

Questions begin here:

Currently, we are deciding between kinetic or interactive. I prefer kinetic because you have much more freedom, however is their as much of a market?

We plan on having it where throughout the normal portions of the game, it uses the occasional sprites, first person view. However for serious scenes, we have plans on making it CS like, in which it switches to 3rd person, has voice acting (clicking will not progress, the CS is pre-rendered is my point, like your watching a video) and will have an ost made specifically to correspond with that scene.
Does this seem like a good route to go?

How long do most VN's take to make? (As in from the day you start writing the story, to the day you finish and are ready to publish the vn)

Our game will feature ~20hrs of gameplay, ost's (will be released separate as an album, but will of course appear in game), cutscenes along with normal sprite scenes, voice acting during the cut scenes, and alot of extra's. Assuming our artist is pretty good, the music matches well, and the story is well written, how much do you think would be the appropriate price to charge for a game like this?

Thanks xP

[papillon]

Currently, we are deciding between kinetic or interactive. I prefer kinetic because you have much more freedom, however is their as much of a market?

The sales figures for most VNs in English are not released. The sales figures for such games that are known vary wildly.

To the best of my knowledge there are only two (non hentai) KNs on sale in English, one being the translations of the extremely famous Higurashi games, and one being made by a completely-unknown group using a custom engine. And no one knows how much either sold, although I expect the sales numbers for these two possibilities are nowhere near similar, and would provide absolutely no useful information on the likely sales figures of any other KNs.

The market for VNs in general is not well enough known for people to judge how well something will or will not sell, they can only make rough guesses. For a KN there is not even enough information to guess.

We plan on having it where throughout the normal portions of the game, it uses the occasional sprites, first person view. However for serious scenes, we have plans on making it CS like, in which it switches to 3rd person, has voice acting (clicking will not progress, the CS is pre-rendered is my point, like your watching a video) and will have an ost made specifically to correspond with that scene.
Does this seem like a good route to go?

We cannot possibly answer this question as it depends on your team's abilities and budget. (Also, I don't know what you mean by CS-like.)

How long do most VN's take to make? (As in from the day you start writing the story, to the day you finish and are ready to publish the vn)

They take as long as they take. How long does it take to write a novel? It depends on how long it is, and who's writing it, and what their writing speed is, and what other things they're doing with their time, and whether they are dependent on other people supplying parts for them. Some people can write a novel in a month. Others take multiple years.

Our game will feature ~20hrs of gameplay, ost's (will be released separate as an album, but will of course appear in game), cutscenes along with normal sprite scenes, voice acting during the cut scenes, and alot of extra's. Assuming our artist is pretty good, the music matches well, and the story is well written, how much do you think would be the appropriate price to charge for a game like this?

It depends on your actual game, which doesn't exist, therefore no one can comment on it. It depends on what distribution method you decide to use. It depends on your target market. It depends on your business skills. It depends on your marketing.

Why are you asking us?

[Khaos]

1.) Rephrasing my question, and I ask this know as more of a survey. Kinetic vs Interactive, if they are equal in quality, does one attribute persuade your opinion to purchase the game over the other?

2.) CS refers to Cutscene. As in now I can incorporate more camera views and effects that normally could not be done with just sprites.

I was asking if Sprite x Cutscene was a good route to take, or does it kill immersion? All I did was merely describe what a cutscene in our vn would be like, again answer under the assumption that it is well done. An idealistic example would be steins;gate in my opinion.

3.) Rephrasing the question, on average. I know it doesn't matter, but it is a curious question. Average time spent on AAA games tends to be 2years now (with the exception of games that are in progress at the same time as another).

4.) I was only asking for a simple price. Assuming the game is on par with games like chaos;head and higurashi (writing wise) with the exception of the artwork being more amateur (I'm not saying it will be, but in all honestly I know for a fact we will never match artistic quality with a game like chaos;head, although, higurashi won't be hard to match xD.)

Assuming my descriptions are correct, and that is the general consensus of the game (hypothetically speaking), what would be a justifiable price? Self-Distribution I guess?

I am asking because I'd like to have the knowledge from someone experienced in this, my own views could be so off that I could be looking at this entire project the wrong way.

Most of my questions may seem to be market focused, however my number one concern is the game itself (I just don't have as many questions regarding the creation, yet... xD, plus I have testers xP)

EDIT: Adding in, the market would be focused on fans of games such as chaos;head, steins;gate, higurashi, school days, etc. I thought that was clear though...

[Spiky Caterpillar]

IMO, interactivity is better, and I think that interactivity also sells better. However, the sample of commercial KNs is too small to actually tell if KNs will sell better than VNs.

Cutscenes in general don't break immersion (again, IMO). However, I expect that making a game cutscene-heavy will slow development down a fair bit. How much depends on how fast you can make cutscenes and how much cutscene material you'll actually have (and, if changes are required, how easily you can change them. Voice acting makes editing MUCH harder, because then you have to get the VAs to redo any changed lines.). Unskippable cutscenes will annoy players who play the game more than once.

Average development time is seriously meaningless. Western Hentai Animation Theatre (the world's only all-ages hentai game) took about a day; IIRC, Magical Diary took around a year. In general, the larger the team, the slower development is.

As for target pricing, I'd look at the initial release prices for other games of similar quality and price yours in the same vicinity.

[sake-bento]

In my sliver of experience, I've found that people generally prefer an interactive story over a linear one, so I would suggest going with an interactive story if you think that you can have an interesting story for each path. If there's only one story you want to tell, it's probably not a good idea to just make up extra endings for the sake of replayability, though.

Cutscenes sound great, and I don't think they'll kill immersion. I'd highly recommend making them skippable after the first playthough.

A quick look at the Completed Works section reveals that prices range from $10-$25, with $20 being the most common price.

[jack_norton]

Most people (in general market, the one you should look at, not just VN fans) won't even consider a regular VN "a game", so you can imagine what they can think about a kinetic novel
Honestly I think is a commercial suicide to make a kinetic novel even if I have no market data.

[papillon]

fans of games such as chaos;head, steins;gate, higurashi, school days, etc. I thought that was clear though...

So, you're selling to the Japanese?

I'm asking questions because I'm trying to get you to examine your underlying assumptions. Most English-speaking people I know who are 'fans' of those titles either haven't purchased them or haven't played them.

Appropriate pricing tends to vary by where you're selling as much as by what you're selling. Titles sold on iphone, for example, are often priced quite differently from titles on the PC. However, even then, general rules don't hold true. Some individual games make the best money at cheap prices, some individual games make the best money at higher prices. No matter how you price your game a lot of people will show up to argue that you're doing it wrong.

If you truly intend to market only to people who are deeply familiar with the top titles of the Japanese market, you may have to price yourself quite low to get them willing to 'waste their time' on an OELVN. On the other hand, if you are kick-ass in marketing and can actually match the visual styles of the top Japanese titles, you might be able to command a much higher price than the existing indie set. ougaming, back when they posted here, seemed convinced that it would be possible to sell an EVN for $50 if it looked shiny enough; no one's proved that yet, but it doesn't make it impossible.

[AxemRed]

Currently, we are deciding between kinetic or interactive. I prefer kinetic because you have much more freedom, however is their as much of a market?

There is no English-language market to speak of for visual novels of any sort.

We plan on having it where throughout the normal portions of the game, it uses the occasional sprites, first person view. However for serious scenes, we have plans on making it CS like, in which it switches to 3rd person, has voice acting (clicking will not progress, the CS is pre-rendered is my point, like your watching a video) and will have an ost made specifically to correspond with that scene.
Does this seem like a good route to go?

Sounds prohibitively costly.
Frequent and/or long cutscenes can quickly become boring or frustrating since you're effectively forcing the text speed to very slow.

Assuming our artist is pretty good, the music matches well, and the story is well written, how much do you think would be the appropriate price to charge for a game like this?

Localizations of AAA Japanese visual novels go for around $30-40, most OEL stuff I've seen sells at around $10-20.

[Taleweaver]

There is no English-language market to speak of for visual novels of any sort.

Unless you count the 15,000 "Another Code" games, or the 20,000 "Hotel Dusk" games, or the hundreds of thousands of Ace Attorney games sold in the English-language market. And "999 Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors" even sold out on amazon.com...

Localizations of AAA Japanese visual novels go for around $30-40, most OEL stuff I've seen sells at around $10-20

Though not out of necessity. I'm sure a professionally-made game targeting the right audience (Shock Cocoon - Gascoygne could be such a game) could sell for 30-40 bucks just as well.

[DaFool]

Is your group full-timers? If so, a year is reasonable. If you're part-timers, even 2 years may not be enough to finish a game.

Having tons of CS (cutscenes / event CGs) is a killer. Too many projects I know with release stalled because of waiting on images.

Also, I don't think 20 hours playtime is achievable unless you make an RPG.

I also realized that the OELVN market is somewhat separate from the translated JVN market, which in itself is separate from the translated J-game console market (where 999, etc. belong) For example, a customer of one market rarely purchases from the other market. In terms of sales:

J-game console market >>>>>>>> OELVN market > translated JVN market

(yep, you read that right. A few OELVNS actually outsell Mangagamer's offerings).

[AxemRed]

There is no English-language market to speak of for visual novels of any sort.

Unless you count the 15,000 "Another Code" games, or the 20,000 "Hotel Dusk" games, or the hundreds of thousands of Ace Attorney games sold in the English-language market. And "999 Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors" even sold out on amazon.com...

Another Code is an adventure game, not a visual novel
Hotel Dusk is an adventure game, not a visual novel
Ace Attorney is an adventure game with a court simulator minigame, not a visual novel
999 is 50% visual novel, 50% point&click puzzles

The high sales of 999 at least give hope that visual novels can sell if you make them enough like western adventure games.

[LVUER]

In western, VN is categorized as adventure game. Even in Japanese commercials, VN is referred as adventure games too. Another Code and Hotel Dusk could be categorized as VN too... not pure VN, but VN hybrid (VN with gameplay).

[Taleweaver]

Another Code is an adventure game, not a visual novel
Hotel Dusk is an adventure game, not a visual novel
Ace Attorney is an adventure game with a court simulator minigame, not a visual novel

Compare:

Adventure game.


Visual Novel.


Another Code


Hotel Dusk


Ace Attorney

Yeah, right. "Adventures".

999 is 50% visual novel, 50% point&click puzzles

Point taken. Though I disgree about it being in any way like Western adventure games (Sierra/LucasArts/"interactive movies" like Heavy Rain).

[Funnyguts]

Great, now I want to play a dating sim penned by Ron Gilbert.