Teams of HOW MANY YOU SAY?

[Blane Doyle]

I've been curious... of all the teams known or on the forum, what are their exact numbers?

I know that some people make OELVNs here all on their own, but I know there are also some who work only slightly with a few others for things like art or programming project to project. I also know there are small teams of 2-3 and larger teams of up to 5-10 people working together.

So another question: Do you recommend working with a team? Or on your own with a little help from others for things you can't do? I'm curious as I am trying to write out a script for a project of my own AND program everything out AND try to create my own music with easy programs (the art I do have someone lined up for, but she's not really doing anything else other than a beta test). I'd love some insight from more experienced forum goers.

[Obscura]

Well, I'm making my first VN so I don't know if I count, but I'm doing the art, coding, writing, and music by myself.

If there's one thing I wish I had someone to do, it would be to color my line art and create backgrounds. But as I have no funds presently I'm just trying to whip it up the best I can on my own.

As others have said here, I think it's good experience to try to make a game all on your own before working on your next game with a team. You get a better idea of what the process will be like and you'll be a better team member if you decide to work with others in the future.

[Applegate]

Personally, I've created two Visual Novels that I'd release publicly; both of which more or less had a team, in that I outsourced important parts of the project I couldn't handle myself to outsiders. One project I had an enthused friend I asked (enthused may not be the right word) who drew for me. However, I wouldn't say that really qualifies it as being a 'team', as I tend to do what I can first and only ask for help when I determine I really cannot do it myself to a satisfactory level.

I do recommend asking for help when there are things you cannot do yourself; after all, it is no weakness to admit to weakness, and even less so to ask for assistance in those departments. Moreover, having someone else to work with you provides you a valuable asset: the opinion of someone who also invests in the project and, thus, has a stake in the project actually being the best it can be.

The major disadvantage is that you become responsible the moment you draw in others, whether you pay them or not. Assets have been created (and paid for), and now you need to return the efforts (or get value out of your money). I definitely don't recommend working in a team from the get go unless you're the type to really be dedicated to creating a Visual Novel, and start out small first to experience what really goes into making one.

[redeyesblackpanda]

For Eternal Memories, we have 9 people (including me) working with various degrees of commitment (going to have to find more for certain things later though). Working with a team can be very rewarding, as it can give you more motivation and allow you to bounce ideas, but managing a team requires more work than just managing yourself. I spend a lot of time keeping tabs on members of the team, which I wouldn't have to do if I was working alone. Even so, for me, it's worth it. I couldn't do most of the things that my team members are doing (definitely not as well as them, that's for sure) and on top of that, I enjoy spending time chatting with members of the Eternal Memories team. As for what I'm doing, I'm doing all the writing (although I do bounce ideas around the group Skype chat from time to time).

I think the choice to work with a team will vary by person in question. If you can handle trying to coordinate members, and enjoy communicating with people, you should probably work with a team. If you'd rather not do those things, you probably won't enjoy working with a team (or at least managing one).

[WatchJessieGo]

I'm working on my first VN, and I'm doing the writing and coding. I've got an artist, and various people doing music. I like this arrangement. I do what I can myself, and then ask for help in areas in which I'm lacking.

[KomiTsuku]

Let's see...
Anton's Vacation had 10 people.
Dreams of the Skies had 5.
Rising Angels is somewhere around 14 people and expected to climb.
Those sound like big numbers until you start adding in the different specialties required. Writers, editors, musicians, sprite artists, background artist, GUI artists, coders, CG artists... Everyone has their own piece of the pie that they need to take care of. Most people will fill those roles with either themselves or have an artist fill multiple roles. Some people like myself are limited in their talents, so it becomes mandatory for me to have a team or give a very inferior product. That's not to say that these teams are fixed; the only a couple people are seen from project to project, all of those but myself being freelancers. Also, smaller teams are good for smaller projects, but it gets a lot more unmanageable when you are making something large. Can I ask a single CG artist to do 80+ CGs? Yes. Can I expect to see it sometime this year? I wouldn't dream of asking that. It is a balance between who you need, what you can afford, and can you manage the number.

[Hijiri]

I tend to work with various teams when it comes to some projects, usually this can vary between 2-8 people, while my own group seems to be stuck at just 1 member =^=;

[Auro-Cyanide]

It will depend, person to person, project to project. Teams can be very beneficial or a huge burden. You kind of have to use your best judgement for it.

Could I make a VN own? Yes. But it would be short, simple and take me forever to make. You probably know there are only 2 people in our team, though we do hire a GUI artist. Expanding is a possibilty we are consider sometime after we get some projects done, maybe. It would be nice to share the workload, but we don't want to compromise the stability we already have.

[DaFool]

Neko-Soft:
1 producer/director/employer
2 sprite and CG artists
1 BG artist
writer seems to be outsourced (a different writer per project)
musician also outsourced

when you're a developer of games similar to this it's pretty easy to branch off into visual novels as a side hobby, both terribly unexciting genres which "real gamers" easily dismiss.

I don't know whether to count myself as outsourced programmer or as a full-fledged member of the team since I'm sort of a co-investor in all this, but at the same time there are some projects that I'm considering taking a hiatus from so that I can work on my own stuff.

I still really want to do another solo project one of these days, but just recently I tried writing again and I just couldn't make the words flow anymore.

I consider the core team for Elspeth's Garden essentially only 2 (me and Taleweaver), though I'm willing to cut Jake some Special Thanks/profitshare. (Core Team = Profitshare, usually). Everyone else was contractual and brought in for a per-piece basis, which I fully paid already. No need to string everybody else along, when assembling the story and gameplay is all that's left.

I think (personally) the ideal team is 2, like Cyanide Tea, Zeiva Inc, and Circle Pegasi. Just add contractors as needed. My favorite co-production moment was working with just one other person. I've been sorta-co-producing recently but most projects tend to pull in people as it gets developed, which is not altogether a bad thing.

As they say, it's easier for 5 people to get 100,000 dollars than it is for 1 person to get 20,000 dollars. If KS were made by 1 person I would consider that person a god, but I doubt it would have reached the exposure that it did.

[KomiTsuku]

Wait, if we are considering contractors to "not be part of the team" (which I seriously disagree on), then I'm a one-man show, complete with a fez and accordion.

[Camille]

Contractors don't actually have a say in how the game is made or anything, though. They generally just do what they're hired to do. For example, we have one person who does all our GUIs (so far), but all she does is make mock-ups of the screens in Photoshop. (not that I'm making light of that, I'm just saying that that's all she's responsible for doing) I'm the one who actually puts them together and codes them so that they work in the game. ^^; So honestly I don't really consider her as part of the team, either. (I don't think she's even played the games she's helped design, haha)

I feel like 2 people is a pretty ideal team, it's just that Auro and I are really busy with other things so we don't get to spend as much time on VNs as we would like. I would love to eventually add more people to Cyanide Tea, but they'd have to be reliable individuals who really believe in the Cyanide Tea goals/vision... Finding people that you'd be comfortable working with and relinquishing some control to is pretty hard to do.

I will say that there is no way I would ever be able to do a VN on my own. It's not just the fact that I'm a terrible artist... I could afford to have someone do all the art if I really wanted to. It's just that hiring someone to do art is very different from having someone who works on the game alongside you. I bounce ideas off of Auro and she and I come up with our new game ideas together. Sometimes she gets inspired by something I've written or by an idea she has and draws pictures that, in turn, inspire me to write some more or come up with new ideas. It's a very harmonious creative relationship and it's easier to work hard on something when you have a partner that's both a cheerleader and a slave driver. XD I wouldn't be half as motivated alone. If you're the type that's more disciplined, though, you might be able to work better alone? This is just what works for me (and Auro, by extension). :3

[Gear]

Our team, at approximate last count, has 40 people working on it. But LemmaTV was designed to be collaborative to begin with, so it's going to be an especially large team, each person doing their share.

[Shadow]

Mine has about 18 people now, including myself. It used to be much bigger but roles have shifted and people have had to leave for various reasons.

Personally, I recommend working in a group. I started out working in a huuuge team and I get hired out to work on other people's projects, so I'm really not used to working alone. I made a NaNo project earlier to see if I could work by myself (with all assets taken care of), but I struggled with ideas and output because I'm used to a team hierarchy and hammering out ideas in discussion before implementation.

[Androol]

As much as you can manage to gather and keep i think.

I only worked with one team on a video game project, it was just a mod for a comerial 3d game so its maybe not the same. We started at 3 but the third left after 3 week befor the first relase to do a fork where he may not have to deal with us with his idea. He stop not very long after. The other founding member and me worked together 2 year with a lot of other peoples, some for some weeks or just one thing they wanted added in the mod, other for month or year. The last year we got a guy who was far better than us at programing, modeling and design and he stick with us until the end, when the game become fairly out of date and we were almost all wanting to move to another one.

After this we do other thing together and i am still friend with some of thes guy 10 year after. Its one of the perks i think will always make me say in group its better than solo, but thats not the only reason. Motivation is easyer to get in group, everyone pulling the others with new idea and new finished work, making things become real faster. The bad side is you have to deal with conflict, i m not the best for this, but the other founder was fairly more diplomatic than me. I think that was a good thing as i was the bad cop and he was the good. The other team member knowed i was an ass they dont go to far where the other was the reason they stayed even if they can't always get what they wanted.

We were never a very large team but even at 10 it is hard not to go chaotic if you have core members to have the last word on where we go. 1, 2 or 3 are a good base for the core team to decide where the project goes( monarchy or diarchy, maybe a triumvirate), and you can ad as many halogen member at this number as you can manadge, with time some of the alogen will prove so usefull they will naturaly become core member themself. The thing is, with large team you need one guy who (unlike me) is good at dealing with people and have basic skill in everything side of the project to gater the piece and make the link enter the core member and the halogen member, with large team it will be almost a full time job.

[Calissa Leigh]

I'm not an artist by any means. I can write and can hack my way through coding. So when I wanted to try to make a game, I sought out artists who wanted to make a game but weren't wanting to learn code and didn't really write.

I managed to find one who was really interested because she enjoyed the games like I did. I think it was more sheer luck I found her and she was interested. Since we teamed up, I'll start talking about a scene and she'll say, "We could do it like this..." So it is certainly a partnership.

It's kind of like when you go through the publishing process. The book/game might be your baby, but when you've got other people working on it, they'll have suggestions, too. While you don't have to go with every suggestion, most of the time you'll end up with even better ideas and a game that's more well rounded and thought through. Plus, there's at least a second set of eyes on your project. (No protagonist eye color that started out blue in the beginning and ended up brown by the last chapter!)

There's advantages and disadvantages to team members sometimes. It depends on the project and your personality. If you have a linear idea about your book and how you want it to be though, hiring out for art and or writing or coding will ensure that the people produce under your direction only. You'll own the rights to the work after (always depending on how you agree to work together). This can be advantageous if you want to work with a particular artist (or coder, etc.) but this person is not really interested in being a team, or you simply love your project and want to ensure it stays in tact.