Lemma Soft Forums

Perhaps this is a discussion for another thread, don't wanna derail this one any further...

mikey wrote:I'd divide that into story and writing. I don't think story is necessary - I actually prefer games where there's nothing really happening in terms of plot (I don't like complicated plot-twisters) - however bad writing will destroy even the best designed style-over-substance games.

I think here we're actually saying the same thing. If you split it into two, the story being the "what" and the actual writing being the "how", then I'd consider the how, the writing, as part of the project's style. The way sentences are structured, the words that were chosen, the methods used to get the point across. I consider that part of the presentation, not the content. So yeah, if the writing is bad, then you're making a style-over-substance game that has no style... In my last post, whenever I said story or writing, I really meant the plot. The meat, the substance of the story. I'd easily forgive a story with a poor or non-existent plot if it's presented in a stylish manner.

absinthe wrote:The thing is, good writing tailors itself to the product. So the writing doesn't have to be heavy-handed, long, deep, and meaningful to be 'good', for example, if the story is a light-hearted one.

I didn't want it to sound like I said a story has to be heavy-handed, long, deep, or meaningful to be good. Actually, I was trying to say the opposite. My point was that a game with a bland or shallow story, presented in an interesting, unique way isn't any less "good" than an excellent story with a less colorful execution.

I can stand ugly or basic graphics, but too many writing and plot issues and I'm done. Flashy graphics, unless it's an action game, can only cover up deeper issues with the story (Fable and Oblivion leap to mind) for so long.

I should have made this clearer, but I'm not celebrating the gimmicky "BUY ME NOW!" type of graphics for a story (which many, many commercial games focus on). I'm referring to a creative use of visuals to liven up a story that may be lacking. Something more like what an art student would make, trying to say something without relying on words, not a business that's solely looking for a profit. So ignoring the greedy suit in the corner who has nothing but flash to sell his project, this is more of an argument between an English major and an Art major. If they both produced their own VNs, the writer with a great story but weak presentation, and the artist with a weak story with great presentation, is one game necessarily better than the other? I'm just trying to counter the mentality that may exist that thinks that the "superior" title defaults to the game with the better story.

Just to clarify my position when I said writing was more inportant than graphics or music... By "writing", I meant just that. Writing. The placing of words on paper. Good word usage, spelling, grammar, and comprehensibility. And the ability to inspire emotion- a feeling of light hearted goodness, deep rooted sorrow, adrenaline pumping excitement, or any number of other emotions.

And to get us back on track...

absinthe wrote: So if we had a place to start begging around week two or three for some basic character images, it'd be really great.

I concur! Find me a place like that, and I will be very, very grateful ^_^

absinthe wrote: So if we had a place to start begging around week two or three for some basic character images, it'd be really great.

I was thinking a week or so ago, when the on-ness of NaNoRenO was still more in question, that another interesting challenge - perhaps one for the month of September on the opposite side of the year - might be to have a pre-set selection of graphics or parts of graphics, and contestants had to base their entire VN-in-a-month around those graphics or reasonable edits thereof...

...of course, it'd probably end up with more than one pretty-similar VN, and there'd be that feeling of familiarity running through all of them regardless of what the story was about, as with other pre-fab media, but it would be to my mind interesting to see what people make of a limited set of resources.

Yeah, but it would essentially be doing what the Blade people do...gather prefab art and hope people use them on Blade Engine games...and guess what happened...one set was used alright, on a Ren'Py game!

And it was only the Tsuina one because it was the most normal, ironically. That particular blonde with glasses even was requested to make more poses for. I mean, how many stories can you make with lolis in bloomers or space aliens?

Its the same issue I was thinking about while contemplating the Superdoll project. And it becomes more and more clear that Built-To-Order graphics is preferrable over Off-The-Shelf.

The kind of materials I plan on donating are those I discontinued from use in my own projects, similar to BCS' situation. As I think about it more, it really is hard to be motivated to make something which you aren't sure will be useful...and I sure am not a deviantart type where showing art is the end goal.

http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 3575#23575

Hopefully this thread won't get buried and forgotten about. ^_^ You can either PM me or post to the thread, and I'll edit your info into the first post as soon as is convenient.

Have we considered advertising / recruiting on deviantart?

Preferably for someone who has clout and bring in other artists.

Just wondering- Can the entry be in Japanese?

hmmm... no one has ever asked that before. I would imagine... yes. If it's in English too ^_^;;; . Ren'Py supports both languages, so you could have both.

As far as having only Japanese... I don't really know. I would vote yes. But you should realize that few people here would be able to play it and comment on it.

I'd say allow it. The point here is to get people started, not to make differences between OEL, OJL or other language games. A translation would be nice though, just to let others enjoy it as well. Though you'd probably have tech support and encouragement in English only.

But if you know Japanese, there are already similar other Japanese contests like this one.

I can't remember the URLs of the top of my head, but some of the more famous ones is the "5 Minute Visual Novel" contest and a month long one very similar to NaNoRenO.

I'd say we should open it up to entries in any language, on the grounds that inclusiveness is better than exclusiveness. I don't see the existence of similar challenges as a reason to exclude people from NaNoRenO.

(Of course, I'm just the peanut gallery here.)

Oh, I agree =D. I don't think we should exclude. I'm just stating that if you were fluent in Japanese, theres already a ton of these kinds of contests existing in Japan and would most likely have already signed up for one of those (as their a bit more famous in their native language) then NaNoRenO.

I'm in.

Thanks for joining- and welcome to the forums!