(Re)writing Memories [GxB] 13/8 Character designs up!

[SakanaTonic]

Story

The heroine has had a pretty average first year of high school. While she did hang out with friends and barely scraped by with her grades, she hasn’t really done anything different from middle school.

With the start of a new year, she aims to make lots of valuable memories, some of which may include joining clubs, starting a part time job, meeting new people, and some of the more cliche high school scenarios.

Concept

It’s more of a surprise if you are unaware of it until you actually play the game, so I’ve put it under a spoiler tag for anyone interested.

The visual novel will play with the idea of multiple playthroughs. Say that the heroine chases after character A on your first playthrough, making a bunch of different memories together throughout the course of the game. Naturally, when you start a new game and the game resets, neither of them will have any recollection of being together and the heroine may go on to pursue other character’s paths. However, due to the game system being somewhat bugged, there may be glitches which may or may not cause the characters to recover bits of their memories from previous playthroughs…

That’s the main idea! There’s still a little more that I have in store, but that will be saved for when the game is completed

Characters
updated 13.8.13
*these are merely character designs and won't be used as sprites in the final game






Will hopefully feature

• 4+ romanceable characters
• 8 paths (2 paths per character)
• 8 or 12 endings (1 ending for first path, 1-2 endings for second path)
• ? number of CGs
• CG & endings gallery (?)
• custom GUI (hopefully!!!!)

Progress
Story outline - 80%
Script - 10%
Sprites - 0/5
CGs - 0/?
Programming - 5%
GUI - 0% (may not customise if I run out of time)

Notes
updated 13.8.13

Hhhhhello! Here’s a new game I’m going to be working on as a school project for the next four months or so. Hopefully I’ll have it done by mid-November.

The character designs aren’t finalised at the moment and they will not be used as sprites in the final game unless of reasons due to time constraint. That said, I would very much appreciate any critique on the art, as I’ve only recently began drawing poses that are not head shots of a character facing the left with a neutral expression.

As for backgrounds and music, I’ll probably be leeching off of free for use resources because making those is definitely out of my league lmao and I doubt I'll be able to finish the game on time as it is.

A lot of things are not yet finalised and are subject to change at this current stage.

Feedback
updated 13.8.13

If you read through that whole thing, thank you!! This section may change depending on which stage of the project I am at.

I'm kind of curious about anyone's first impressions of the characters...? Also do the character designs look okay (ie. are the characters too similar looking)?

If you’d like to add anything else, you’re more than welcome to!

[Anne]

I wonder where it takes place as that can affect the events.

Will the story change significantly depending on the memories they have of the previous playthrough? I generally dislike the idea of content unlocked with multiple playthroughs and here it seems you have to pursue the same character which is even less exciting (for me, at least). Unless the story is actually about time travelling or some such and the first playthrough is more of a prologue to the real thing

[compositionc]

I like the concept, but

I feel kind of iffy about the whole idea of the game being "glitchy" and the character remembering the old memories. It's original, yes, but I don't know if it would really work.

Good luck though! Hopefully I can change my mind.

[SakanaTonic]

I wonder where it takes place as that can affect the events.

Will the story change significantly depending on the memories they have of the previous playthrough? I generally dislike the idea of content unlocked with multiple playthroughs and here it seems you have to pursue the same character which is even less exciting (for me, at least). Unless the story is actually about time travelling or some such and the first playthrough is more of a prologue to the real thing

It'll be taking place in the heroine's second year of high school.

haha you caught me, the story definitely will be repetitive. To what extent though, I still haven't decided. Since you mentioned it though, I'll definitely be trying to write it so that the second playthroughs have significant and noticeable changes compared to the first playthrough.

The story won't be about time travelling (but I suppose it'll have a lack of the fourth wall since it'll talk a little bit about the game glitch??). I've thought about making the second playthrough from the guy's perspective but I'm still not sure how that'd work right now, so that might not materialise.

I like the concept, but

I feel kind of iffy about the whole idea of the game being "glitchy" and the character remembering the old memories. It's original, yes, but I don't know if it would really work.

Good luck though! Hopefully I can change my mind.

Thank you!

If it's about the reason for the glitches, it will be caused by a character who I'm not revealing yet. How the memories will affect the game, though, I probably won't be able to make too complicated or randomised since this is my first time programming anything haha. I've thought about an unlockable 'Play?' button specifically for playthroughs where characters recover their memories to separate??

Hopefully I've answered your question on how it would work?? but if I haven't, please do elaborate; I'm always open for suggestions since even I haven't got the clearest idea either at the moment haha

[Anne]

By where I meant lke in what country.

By the way why don't you really make these glitch memories appear when you play for another guy? As players don't normally pursue the same character again and again. And the MC will be naturally disturbed by these vague memories of a guy different from the one she's with. Though that still has to have some meaning like the MC learns about the game and says "So my feelings are just played with? And no matter what I do I'll have to go through all of the trouble again and again never living happily with my chosen guy? Hmph! I refuse" and goes home. /end of stream of consciousness

[SakanaTonic]

By where I meant lke in what country.

By the way why don't you really make these glitch memories appear when you play for another guy? As players don't normally pursue the same character again and again. And the MC will be naturally disturbed by these vague memories of a guy different from the one she's with. Though that still has to have some meaning like the MC learns about the game and says "So my feelings are just played with? And no matter what I do I'll have to go through all of the trouble again and again never living happily with my chosen guy? Hmph! I refuse" and goes home. /end of stream of consciousness

I haven't thought to specify it, but I assume it'd be a Japanese high school?? My own school doesn't have nearly enough yearly events for me to write about it (hell, we don't even have halloween parties; even prom is exclusive to seniors and valentines day isn't as huge a fuss as you'd imagine) so the next best thing I have is what I know about overseas high schools from otome games and shoujo manga hahaha

Any recollection of previous memories for any NG+ is very vague for all characters and it's a lot like dejavu ("hmm? haven't i been here before?..."). They might have very brief flashes of previous memories, but they wouldn't be nearly clear enough for the MC to feel disturbed? The memories only get clearer if you choose to dig more into it and do something about them during extra choices that appear on subsequent playthroughs.

[Katta]

I haven't thought to specify it, but I assume it'd be a Japanese high school?? My own school doesn't have nearly enough yearly events for me to write about it

I suppose that's one of the reasons why people make so many VNs about Japanese schools (free bgs may be another one) and that's what I thought about my own school until I actually began counting and it turned out that we had lots of school events, like school plays, different games, contests and quizes, trips and so on, they just seemed not that thrilling as in manga) but I bet in the game they would be nice) Though we didn't have any clubs and that's a lot fun in Japanese school games. So my point is that you can probably combine some of your own school experiences with what you read about in manga (like your school events with Japanese clubs).

[SakanaTonic]

I haven't thought to specify it, but I assume it'd be a Japanese high school?? My own school doesn't have nearly enough yearly events for me to write about it

I suppose that's one of the reasons why people make so many VNs about Japanese schools (free bgs may be another one) and that's what I thought about my own school until I actually began counting and it turned out that we had lots of school events, like school plays, different games, contests and quizes, trips and so on, they just seemed not that thrilling as in manga) but I bet in the game they would be nice) Though we didn't have any clubs and that's a lot fun in Japanese school games. So my point is that you can probably combine some of your own school experiences with what you read about in manga (like your school events with Japanese clubs).

Actually, now that you've mentioned it, there probably are a lot more events than I think there are; it's just an issue of how much I actually participate in them haha, which is probably why I was under the impression that my school didn't have that many events. I'll definitely take your advice into mind and try to combine my own experiences so that it's also a little easier for me to write.

[shiho14]

I'm actually interested about your concept on the game because it's really unique and I'm curious how would this turn out when I'm actually playing the game ^^ Will there be a True ending? Because that's what first came to my mind when I read about your concept since

the character is somewhat remembering old memories from previous playthrough? It made me think there's a reason for this? or I'm just over-thinking it?

I like the character designs..I kinda wish you use them as sprites xD If your not using them as sprites does this mean their sprite will look completely different to their character design and the art would change completely?

[SakanaTonic]

I'm actually interested about your concept on the game because it's really unique and I'm curious how would this turn out when I'm actually playing the game ^^ Will there be a True ending? Because that's what first came to my mind when I read about your concept since

the character is somewhat remembering old memories from previous playthrough? It made me think there's a reason for this? or I'm just over-thinking it?

I like the character designs..I kinda wish you use them as sprites xD If your not using them as sprites does this mean their sprite will look completely different to their character design and the art would change completely?

There will be a true ending!

... I think. I'm not sure if it's a true ending more than it is the ending where most details of the plot are revealed to Kris. And you're not overthinking it! There's a reason why they're recovering their memories

Also thank you very much!! I was actually a little worried about the drawings. When I mentioned I wouldn't be using them as sprites though, I merely meant that I would be redrawing a more polished design of the characters that I'll spend more time on. The character designs aren't going to change much from this point on other than some minor tweaking with the outfits or other minute details.

[enkasai]

Hmmmm, there's a very Amnesia-ish concept about this. Not sure if it was intentional, but, yeah; nevertheless, the concept is very interesting. Might be a little tricky to pull off though, so I'm not really sure about this. The anime was kind of all-over the place, and it'll take some serious writing skills to polish it off. I suggest you be careful with how the memories affect the plot -- too little and it won't really have enough push with the master plot, too much and you might just turn it too complicated and confusing.

As for the "game glitch" concept, it seems too much like a forced thing and the way it breaks the fourth wall seems kind of iffy to me. I would suggest something more "in-game", like, parallel universe or magic or something like that. Conceptual rather than technical is the easiest way to go around this, though it really would depend on the master plot. I'm thinking you're going to use flags for persistent data to get the effect of the "game glitch"? That'll be especially complicated considering not everyone will start off the same way unless you give out a suggested playthrough sequence.

Yeah. Be cautious here. Tread carefully. This is the kind of story that'll end up either epic or disastrous.

[SakanaTonic]

Hmmmm, there's a very Amnesia-ish concept about this. Not sure if it was intentional, but, yeah; nevertheless, the concept is very interesting. Might be a little tricky to pull off though, so I'm not really sure about this. The anime was kind of all-over the place, and it'll take some serious writing skills to polish it off. I suggest you be careful with how the memories affect the plot -- too little and it won't really have enough push with the master plot, too much and you might just turn it too complicated and confusing.

As for the "game glitch" concept, it seems too much like a forced thing and the way it breaks the fourth wall seems kind of iffy to me. I would suggest something more "in-game", like, parallel universe or magic or something like that. Conceptual rather than technical is the easiest way to go around this, though it really would depend on the master plot. I'm thinking you're going to use flags for persistent data to get the effect of the "game glitch"? That'll be especially complicated considering not everyone will start off the same way unless you give out a suggested playthrough sequence.

Yeah. Be cautious here. Tread carefully. This is the kind of story that'll end up either epic or disastrous.

I've actually never played Amnesia and have yet to watch the adaption so I won't be able to add anything to that haha.

I haven't actually decided how much I want the memories to come into play yet? It depends on which order the player chooses to play the paths in, and I still don't know how I'll go about writing it so that you could go in any order.

And yeah!! That's actually something I've thought about a lot?? Writing it as a time loop or something similar would be much easier to pull off, but I already have an idea in mind for the game glitch, although I'm still not too sure on how to write that. At this point, I'm not too sure about how the second playthrough will be written though I have most of the first one written up already. I guess it could either go either way at this point.

[CitrusShock]

The concept for this sounds REALLY interesting. I can't wait to see how it pans out - it has a lot of potential! As for your questions regarding the character designs, I would say they do look a bit too similar. They all have light skin, similar builds, similarly long hair (Evan, Lance and Leo especially, and even Kris' hair is similar to theirs haha)...it might be nice to change it up a bit. I do think it's interesting how they meet Kris and build up relationships with her though - it sounds simplistic, but it's very realistic for the setting. It's always bizarre to me when high school games have a series of hard to believe meetings with cute guys in one day hahaha. I'm looking forward to seeing how you develop their relationships. Good work, keep it up! (:

[SakanaTonic]

The concept for this sounds REALLY interesting. I can't wait to see how it pans out - it has a lot of potential! As for your questions regarding the character designs, I would say they do look a bit too similar. They all have light skin, similar builds, similarly long hair (Evan, Lance and Leo especially, and even Kris' hair is similar to theirs haha)...it might be nice to change it up a bit. I do think it's interesting how they meet Kris and build up relationships with her though - it sounds simplistic, but it's very realistic for the setting. It's always bizarre to me when high school games have a series of hard to believe meetings with cute guys in one day hahaha. I'm looking forward to seeing how you develop their relationships. Good work, keep it up! (:

Thank you! ;o;

I'll probably have to look into changing the character designs quite a bit then . The reason Evan, Lance, and Leo in particular are so similar is probably because I'm reusing characters from one of my previous stories where they were originally once the same person. The reason for their builds being so similar is probably due to the fact that I can only really draw one pose haha.

[Aines445]

Interesting concept, but will that actually get in the way of a good ending, or spice it up? If written correctly, this concept might make your game original. The character designs are cuteness overload, but I do have to say that they look a bit similar but with different color palletes. Are the necks too long or is it my imagination...? (Ironically, Kris doesn't seem to have this problem) Anyway, I don't really mind these character designs if you don't want to change them. The characters seem likable enough from what I'm seeing and the concept is really interesting (I even had to say it twice!), I'm still wondering how it would affect gameplay (Gameplay...in a visual novel. Fudge yeah!). I'm looking forward to this!