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SUPER tl;dr: It's coming-of-age bromance with a side dish of understated/awkward romance if you really feel like working for it.

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While my other VN makes slow-drip progress, I've been coming up with a constant stream of other, smaller visual novel concepts that are probably better-suited to a first project.

This is one of them. I guess it would be called an otome game, but it would be more accurate to call it an affectionate parody of every nerd I've ever known. Let me know what you think.

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The name's Michelle. My friends call me Mike for short.

I am a junior in high school and in a nutshell, I'd say I'm pretty much the culmination of the Internet.

As a latchkey kid, I spent more time in front of a computer than I did with my parents. Browsed medieval infantry tactics on Wikipedia, made a short-lived webcomic, streamed various anime, debated the merits of Final Fantasy VII versus Final Fantasy X on GameFAQs, trolled Youtube, wrote terrible fanfiction, unknown to social life nor known to humor not involving memes, so as I pray, Unlimited Nerd Works.

You could say I'm not exactly your normal high school girl. You could go further and say that I'm on a completely different wavelength from 98% of girls my age, such that if we attempt to communicate it will sound something like a sewing machine wooing an elephant. Prognosis grim, highly-at-risk for Forever Alone Syndrome.

Luckily for me, I have a reverse harem of convenient childhood friend characters at my disposal. By which I mean, the entire membership of our school's unofficial Anime and Gaming Club.

Allow me to introduce them.



Osananajimi* Red Kurt, our founder, former fearless leader, and only member able to grow facial hair. Always better possessed of both something resembling normal social skills and work ethic enough to maintain a brilliant GPA than the rest of us, he has recently been standing our group up in favor of more productive extracurricular activities. When he does deign to return to our circle, he tells us that he still needs to get around to watching the anime we recommended to him two seasons ago.



Osananajimi Blue Douglas, who refuses to be referred to as 'Doug'. I have been in his class since fourth grade and he was kind of insufferable even then, but we love him anyways. A consummate Dungeon Master with a penchant for 100% completion and moveset memorization, he has never shown anything but apathy for the world of 3D women as far as I am aware. He has memorized at least 36 digits of pi, but cannot for the life of him retain the French that he has taken for over ten years.



Osananajimi Green Jeff, the man with no shame and our token Asian friend. He once wore a rainbow afro wig, a ninja mask, and a Sailor Moon outfit to school on a day that was neither Halloween nor April Fool's Day, and to this day we ask not where he got the latter. An avid LARPer, ancient history enthusiast, and casual DDR player, he has been voted Most Likely to Veer Our DnD Sessions Into A Massive Tangent From Which There Is No Escape. The day he ceases to be cheerful is the day of Third Impact.



Osananajimi Black Greg, the second-shortest of our merry band in stature and the shortest in sentence count. Seemingly doomed to existence as a background character, it is theorized that he has a special kind of invisibility that allows him to mask his presence until such time as he opens his mouth and frightens the shit out of us. He possesses a hotblooded alternate personality that emerges whenever the subject turns to super robots, Thor, heavy metal, or card games.



And Osananajimi Yellow Matthew, my best friend until he turned weird as hell around me towards the end of last year. Once referred to as braintwins for our uncanny ability to finish each other's sentences and synchronicity of interests, we are now alienated by his inexplicable tendency to ignore my existence half the time and scorn everything I think is cool the other half.

With Kurt drifting away from the fold, our Rectangular Lunch Table is beginning to fall apart like so much wood veneer and cheap exported labor. And with Matthew still being what in general medical practice is known as a 'jerkface' for no reason, I might be in the market for a new best friend.

Can I do either or both of these things before the end of the school year? Or will I really end up...


Rated PG-13 for swearing and adult themes

DEMO DOWNLOAD:
-Windows
-Mac
-Linux

HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER



Initial concept art:








Supplementary materials:
-Character rankings
-Character info that couldn't fit comfortably into the OP
-Flashback teaser comics
-Halfwrittenpalooza/beach episode/inspiration info
-Script excerpts? In my WIP thread? It's more likely than you think.

*TL Note: Osananajimi means childhood friend.

Your cast is awesome.

I look forward to seeing this.

And, by the way, props to you for not using the Default Moe Anime Style.

This. I approve of this. I want this to happen. Make it happen quickly. Also, put me in the happy to not see the usual art style boat. The sketches are a little rough, but the style seems potentially interesting once it's finalized. Though, Michelle's mouth sticks out to me as a bit odd. Is it open? It seems strange that she's the only one without a lip line, if so.

I do believe I share about 5/6 of the cast's wardrobe. I've got my eye on this.

I like the way you introduced them. If the story is written as cleverly, I think I'll be glad to read it.

And just now I realise it's you, Muscat. :V

Ah this looks cool. The character discriptions were written very well which makes me look forward to ths

I must say, Michelle's shirt: I need it. Best of luck on your game!

LOL! I love this premise!!

You should totally throw in a couple of non-dateable nerds... you know... the bad kind.

I love that Michelle has freckles. She's cuuuute. And Greg is my favorite of the guys. Dat hair.

A visual novel about nerds? :3 I'll be keeping my eye on this!

Seriously, I like the art, I love the character descriptions, and I love the fact that Michelle has freckles. Also: Jeff looks soopah adorable.

Thanks for the positive feedback guys! I wasn't sure how a VN this off-convention might be received in the mixed Lemmasoft audience, so it gives me extra motivation to see this much interest.

TsunLightning: I doubt I could draw moe even if I tried, but yeah, from the main protagonist to the subject and writing this is pretty much going to be the anti-moe.

mysterialize: Yeah, these are just the quick concept sketches, I'll probably end up drawing sprites in Flash or something to that extent. Michelle's mouth isn't open, that is just her lower lip.

sake-bento: In my time as a member of Planet Nerd I've come to realize that no matter what creed or personality, 90% of the nerd closet consists of t-shirts printed with a graphic and/or reference.

Applegate: Glad to hear it, you're basically my baseline critic for good ideas/characters so this is encouraging.

TakeOverWorld, Morhighan: Thanks!

Sapphi: I dunno, I'd say all of these nerds could be considered the Bad Kind in some way. Greg's hair is vaguely reminiscent of this guy from P&S now that I look at it, but I also wanted to toss in a homage to my nerdfro friends. Will we ever know what's under those bangs? As of now, I have no idea!

DaR: Thanks! Almost all of the VNs I've seen, both Japanese and English, seem to have exactly one token nerd stereotype, so I wanted to mess with that along with the general otome game archetypes and the usual conception of what a female main character should be like. There are enough Pink Rangers and The Chicks out there as it is.

Applegate: Glad to hear it, you're basically my baseline critic for good ideas/characters so this is encouraging.

You should get on chat sometime so I can gush to you over how much I like this idea. Man, your username is terrible here. I kept on thinking the artstyle looked eerily similar to yours until I realised it was you. I guess some habits don't die hard, density being one of them.

Early gushing over introduction style over, do you intend to write a short, medium or large story out of this? Short probably being "I can read it in ten minutes"... and such. You got the usual helping you? I'm going to press you to finish this because you actually made me really interested, young man.

I think what sapphi mean is the pervy types? Or those who doesn't have a sense of reality anymore?

Anyways, good premise. I'll keep on eye with this!

Omnificent wrote: I dunno, I'd say all of these nerds could be considered the Bad Kind in some way. Greg's hair is vaguely reminiscent of this guy from P&S now that I look at it, but I also wanted to toss in a homage to my nerdfro friends. Will we ever know what's under those bangs? As of now, I have no idea!

I dunno, I think that hair in the face design goes back to 70's stuff like Schoolhouse Rock, if not earlier.

Also, probably the best fanservice you can give everyone is what the person whose hair is always covering their face, looks like underneath.

azureXtwilight wrote:I think what sapphi mean is the pervy types? Or those who doesn't have a sense of reality anymore?

I meant both!

I was thinking of the types of people you look around corners for, and avoid like the plague because the minute they see you, they will either stalk you and shamelessly hit on you (if you're a chick) or try to impress you with how "smart" they are about geeky stuff (if you're a dude). They talk very loudly to make sure EVERYONE knows how annoying they are, and follow you around being annoying so that it is impossible to make normal friends.

And yes, I have experience.

I love nerds. (Shout out to Sheldon Cooper and Maurice Moss!) I love the concept and the character designs do fit with deviating from the norm. A very promising project with good solid characters and an idea (I had a very similar idea but I want to make mine BxB). For the title might I suggest choosing something more unique? Like an inside joke. We all love those...

Ich Bin Ein Nerd.

Arsenic_Love wrote:For the title might I suggest choosing something more unique? Like an inside joke. We all love those...

Yeah, it should reference a nerdy game or something.

This idea is amazing and a little scary.
I'm sure there's hundreds of better ways to compliment it, but that's all I could come up with. I'll be watching this thread with interest.