What caused you to become involved in the making of VNs? Were you inspired to do if because of something? Did some hire you for one, then you got interested yourself? I'm interested how all of you got into it.
As for me, I was inspired to make a VN after playing through Clannad (such a beautiful game...), and I ended up finding LemmaSoft through the renai.us archive. Seeing everyone working on projects inspired me even more, and now here I am/have been
(All projects currently on a hiatus of sorts. I blame life.) Tsundere VN Not really checking the forums any more due to time constraints, so if you want to contact me, PM. I'll get a notification and log in.
Also, I've been hit and run posting, which means I don't see many replies. If you want to respond to something I've said, also feel free to PM me.
NOTE: if you've got questions about vnovel or things like that, it's Leon that you should be contacting. Leon's been pretty much handling everything, but due to various reasons, I've had to withdraw entirely.
I've been interested in writing ever since my elementary years, as well as game making since my middle school years. When I ran into games like the Ace Attorney series and Type-Moon's stuff, I realized that I wanted to make a game like those. I then went on to read other visual novels to get a better feel of the format; learning more about the genre in general as I kept going. So when I discovered Ren'Py, I just had to go and let my imagination flow out .
redeyesblackpanda wrote:What caused you to become involved in the making of VNs?
I was first introduced to the world of visual novels when an artist asked me to write a story for a VN she wanted to make. Since I'd never even heard of visual novels before, she had me read "Ballad of an Evening Butterfly." Ballad is a horror story with only a few menus, it's almost kinetic. As an author, I was immediately hooked on such a new and interesting way to tell a story.
"A Story with Pictures and Music" is still my preferred model of VN to make, and to download. Dating sim VNs just don't hold my interest because there's never enough actual story for me.
Last edited by OokamiKasumi on Sun Jul 01, 2012 5:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Ookami Kasumi ~ Purveyor of fine Smut. Most recent Games Completed:
I'm not really sure...
I think, I played my first VN around 2004 or something. I didn't play VNs regulary, but I loved them, WHEN I played them.
Around 2006 I started using the RPG Maker XP for creating roleplaying games. In 2007 I got the idea of making a VN with the help of that program, but I got desinterested half way through and broke it off (I only had half of the backgrounds done and some script, so it wasn't that much thrown away work).
And, well...
At the beginning of this year, a friend of mine and I talked about VNs and joked about strange ones (like the ridiculous sex sounds from Enzai or the missing of any logic in some games). At that day I noticed a advertisment on Facebook for Sweet Amoris, a Online-VN.
Tada, I wanted to create a VN again, soon found Ren'Py (someone in the board there mentioned Re:Alistair and Ren'Py was named in the credits) and well, I'm rather quick and good at building a deep story out of nowhere in a few days xD
But since I saw and played a few games from the people here, I'm really incited to make the game good and - of course - finish it >:3
So, in general:
Because I played random commercial games in 2004 (like Silver Chaos, Enzai and Sukisyo).
This particulary time:
Because of the online-VN Sweet Amoris/My Candy Love and Re:Alistair, who reminded me of this type of game.
Well I'm actually fairly new with VN's, I played Katawa Shoujo in January, and because I was a student GameDesigner, I wanted to make my own game, I thought making a VN would be the perfect match for me, and yes, it is
I always loved drawing and games, combining them is just the ultimate experience, and I want to entertain people, I want to make people happy with my creations, that's why I make VN's...
Well... I had been seeing visual novel art floating around the internet forever on quiz sites (Think "Wut kind of catgirl r u?" quizzes with "U r a PLAYFUL cat girl" results showing Hinata* from Pure Pure) and role playing sites (Picture: Tobari from Pure Pure. Description: This is Shadow she has a very dark past and she is goth) but only comparatively recently did I find out what they were from and what a visual novel was.
I don't remember how I found Ren'Py, but I know I was looking for visual novel engines because I also looked at Blade and Novelty. The first Ren'Py game I think I played might have been Bishojo Games' My Teacher, followed by Songs of Ariah. I didn't find My Teacher a very satisfying read (it seemed more an outline for a story than a fully fleshed-out tale to me), but I think it was Songs of Ariah that inspired me to join the forum.
I played more of the titles on the Ren'Py list for awhile. Then somehow I got a hold of True Remembrance and it completely blew me away. Although it was pretty sparse with artwork and used a lot of free assets, the quality of writing, story, and mood it set was what drew me in. It delighted me and it also made me cry. It's my dream to create stories that will do the same.
*Hinata is a dog girl. A dog girl!!
"It is [the writer's] privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past."
— William Faulkner
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I used to be a games designer and then I got made redundant. Since then, I have been a freelance writer who still likes designing games. I don't have the multi-million dollar budgets or large teams I used to take for granted, so VNs let me make something without needing investors and publishers.
To be fair, the first VN I made was only born because I went to a game-jam and realised that every indie in the room had the ability to make great games, but I came in with the 'cog in a machine' background, which is awful for solo and small-team development. Ren'Py was the only engine I had available which I knew how to use.
Not the most inspiring story, I suppose, but that's how I got into VNs...
First really knew about vns because of X-Note, then Re:Alistair, and then I got this morbid idea of making one out of this story I really, really love.
I never actually got around thinking of really doing it until a friend asked about vn programs. People suggested Ren'py and Novelty, and frankly, after a glance at Novelty I got really confused so I went with Ren'py.
I read "The Letter" and thought it was amazing. A friend of mine had a birthday coming up, and I had a narrative I had written in commemoration of it. Since that friend liked Visual Novels, I thought to use my love of The Letter and Ren'Py to make one out of the narrative.
The result was Nice Day. I'm not sure that I prefer Visual Novel writing over Novel writing yet, though.
Essencially, I was introduced to EVN's through a small little game called Take Rena Home followed by The Dreaming. During this time, I began to get into visual novels and read through Killer Queen and Umineko no Naku Koro Ni. After that, while I got deeper into the VN community, I began to ponder at the thought at making a Visual Novel of my own (Considering I had failed to make even so much as a mark in the writing community save for a badly written fanfiction) anhd from there, I was off.
Considering the library I currently have (Secret Game: Code Revise, Utatemeguri, Higurashi/Umineko no Naku Koro ni, Chaos;Head, Saya no Uta, 3days, etc.) It's no surpise why the stuff I like to write about are anything but family friendly.
"Perfection goal that always changes. Can pursue, cannot obtain."
I think is a magazine that introducing the people who makes VN makes me want to make my own VN..
Also at the same time I have some friends that also have interest to make VN....so that's why it caused me to make one ^^
But I think the most important part is there's a forum that used for discussing game making (just like here)and while seeing people's complete works, it makes me not to give up and still work on it ^^
Ren'py inspired me.
I've always loved both reading and telling stories, so when I found it how could I resist the possibility of such a unique way of storytelling?
And of course, the completed games threads too. Normal people making games.
I think it's a common reaction for people to complain about things they don't like. Maybe a more sensible way is to try doing it better.
For me, I got tired of trying to find a game that teaches real conversational Japanese, and is also enjoyable.
There are other games, but most are word games, or very sad attempts at RPGs that just teach vocabulary without context.
Those games also suffered because the creators either gave up part way through, or their egos got in the way of accepting help from other people.
There does seem to be a lot of interest in this project, but I think other people lose motivation after a while with lengthy projects. As this is my first game and I'm not particularly skilled in any areas, it's going to take a long time to complete.
Also, I was told that the pacing needed to be adjusted a lot due to information overload. This means the game will need to be longer just to spread out the information.
My hope is that this community will tear apart the game so it can become much better.
I'm also hoping at random times people will jump in, talk about some changes they think are needed or things they would like to see, without feeling any obligation to do any more than they want.
The ultimate goal: to help as many people as possible to learn about Japan in a realistic way, learn at least some basic conversational Japanese, but have all that happen incidentally. I want the player to have fun, and then discover they can speak natural sounding Japanese at the end, or maybe visit Japan and avoid many of the culture shocks and confusion I went through when I first came here.
So anyway, the short version is that I want to make a game because I want to help other people, and I think I can help myself in the process. Also sure to weird working hours, I have a lot of free time at night, so I want to do something constructive with it.
"We must teach them through the tools with which they are comfortable."
The #renpy IRC channel is a great place to chat with other devs. Due to the nature of IRC and timezone differences, people probably won't reply right away.
If you'd like to view or use any code from my VN PM me. All code is freely available without restriction, but also without warranty or (much) support.
I'm quite new with VN's (Like a year or so) and I haven't play as many as I'd like to.
VN's remembered me those "Make your own story" tales books, so I got instantly in love with the genre.
Since I love to draw and wanted to make games, making a VN felt like a natural choice to me.
Renpy probably has a lot to do too, since I don't know how well I could be doing with ONscripter or any other program (If there is any).
I have to agree with Arelune in this one; looking at the completed games section of this forum quickly motivated me to make one.
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