Small tip for VN devs

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juunishi master
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Re: Small tip for VN devs

#16 Post by juunishi master »

*lurking in the corner while nodding in agreement

Although I already made a mistake of not prototyping now.

*back to cry over the slowdown caused by story revision

I should've drafted them in "normal storywriting format" first.

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Re: Small tip for VN devs

#17 Post by Ghost of Crux »

Speaking of a solo dev with a project that is heavy on arts...

I think I'm pretty much on board with the idea of prototype with writing. Writing tends to get to a lot of places you didn't expect you'll end up in. When you're writing a story, it's more important that you ensure the story makes sense than to prioritize things fitting the art. Your script WILL have a tone, and that tone will not always fit the specific art style an artist creates. Even worse, script tones change. Genres can shift. I have had to redo multiple sprites just because midway through I accidentally found that if I delve into a certain repercussions of a previous event, things get interesting but also EVERYTHING changes. Suddenly, I needed more subtlety and nuance that my previous sprites just didn't have. I had to redo a lot of arts for that.

In regards to parts of the previous conversations, though, I have to ask: How relevant are little details to the story? I go through multiple drafts of my characters' designs, especially when the project's been going on for years. So far, despite multiple design changes, I've had to change approximately 0 words of my script, mostly because I never found it really relevant to describe in detail all of the characters' physical attributes/clothing. I guess if it's something such as an identifying Thing, it's understandable. But if we're talking about character has a different hair in the revised draft, is it really important to describe the hair in the script at all? Just my two cents, but yeah.

That being said, details in sprites. I'm a big fan of this. I think it's what differentiates a good sprite from a great one-- having little details on an art that is more based on personality than pure aesthetic reason is GREAT. I think having the art describe the characters so that you can focus on the good stuff like action and natural-sounding conversation is just great. I don't need to know the details. Unless we're talking a high school social clique story OR Jurassic Park style running from the dinosaurs, the skirt she wears ain't gon affect the conversation.
Imperf3kt wrote: I'm of the opinion that if you've done the art right and the rest of the story right, there is no need to describe anything.
One pet peeve I have with a lot of VNs is the incessant need to describe what you can see.
I, the reader, am not dumb. I can see character X is wearing a blue shirt with gold lacing, why must I read this prose that serves no purpose but to lengthen the word count?
This, though. This is kind of what I have a pet peeve with, because it doesn't further characters' voice nor does it tell anything about character X. Not to mention it can be done through other means that isn't so unnatural-- the narrator could be better off just outright stating their opinions on how stupid/great they think the shirt looks, rather than describing it. If you really must, even "that blue shirt with gold lacing is a travesty to mankind" is way better, because at least that way we can see what kind of person the narrator is.

That was a really long ramble, and sorry if it doesn't make as much sense or if it just doesn't make a linear sense. That's my opinion on the topic, though. It's 2 AM.
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