Swords of Edo [VN,Romance,GxG/B,Battles,Female Protagonist]

[Dharker]

Hi, My name is AJTilley (though I often go by Dharker on-line) And I am the creator of the Swords of Edo graphic novels as well as the visual novel game of same name that has been in development for about 12-18 months so far.

Originally the game was being developed by another developer using another game making piece of software named Construct 2. However recently I realised that this just wan't efficient enough and well other reasons occurred that meant I decided to take over the development side of things again and I turned to Ren'Py to rebuild and finish the game for a public release.

So far the game has gone through two successful crowd-funding campaigns, the first one was for the main game artwork, characters and background designs, raising around £12k (£10k after fees) in September 2013 and then the second campaign raising funds for extra features and CG scenes to be added in an expanded edition that is now due to be the final release addition for another £10k (£8 after fees) in April of this year. So quite a good set of funding for the games development and now that I am building it in Ren'Py alone I felt it was best to announce myself so that I can get your help/opinions and feedback.

Now enough of the history and more about the game:

Background: The game is set in an alternate universe, where Japan never opened its borders and the samurai never lost power to the emperor. That was in the past, now in the present Edo is controlled by a 'Regent' and a council of nobles, they keep control of Edo and maintain peace by appointing strong samurai warriors as Justicars with the power to investigate and bring justice to any threat they see within Edo. The game is based on characters from the graphic novel series of the same name.

Protagonist: Asumi

(A controversial decision, my first big visual novel game has a female protagonist)

Other Characters from the game:

There are other characters still in development as we finish off the main script.

Storyline: The game follows Asumi on her first mission after being appointed as a Justicar for Edo. Kami (another Justicar) has tracked a rebel group to an Academy on the fringes of Edo, Asumi has been sent in to confirm the rebels exist and if so to eliminate the threat once and for all. This forces Asumi to go undercover after a lifetime in the shadows as an assassin.

Here are a few screenshots of the game, but more will be coming soon as we develop more of the game in the Ren'Py engine in the next few days and then on to a final release as the last of our characters and CG scenes are developed by a variety of talented artists.

Screenshots:

More screenshots and details of the various characters will be coming very soon...
The standard game size is set as 1024 x 800.

Features

• Battle & Levelling system
• Over 15 different Endings
• Multiple CG Scenes throughout
• Over 10 different characters
• 4 Romance-able characters (2 female & 2 male)
• Music Jukebox
• Unlockable CG Gallery
• Voice Acting
• Large Track List

Credits

Creator: AJTilley.com
Characters: Tonee89 & Kouson33
Story/Script/Developer: AJTilley.com
Backgrounds: Tonee89 & Kouson33
Voice Master: Michael Salyer & Guests
Sound Engineer: Steve Green
Music Tracks: Various Artists
GUI Artists: Buko Studios (development pending)

Once last thing our game is currently on Steams Greenlight system and we are very close to reaching the top 100. But we really want to get accepted on Steam so that we can get a larger on-line release when the game is finished. So please help us out not just with comments, feedback and support but also by visiting us on Steam's Greenlight and voting yes. The more visual novels that can get acceptance on that platform the bigger the visual novel community will get that will help all of us.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... 400792899/

N.b. The images on greenlight are from an old build of the game before we moved to Ren'Py but they are being gradually updated. New videos are also in the works for the greenlight pitch.

You can also find me on: DeviantArt | Personal Blog | Graphic Novel Website | YouTube.

Thank you all for your time, hope to hear from you all.

[swordholder]

Wow this looks and sounds amazing, you definitely have my vote. Ah quick question how long will your game be?

[Dharker]

The final game should work out to about two hours on a single playthrough assuming you only skip previously read text, also we are planning some extra free dlc with bonus storylines following other characters after the game is released.

The game may be longer on the first playthrough when finished, but for now we are trying to ensure that as the minimum play time.

[wererat42]

2 female and 2 male romance options.
Is it really accurate to call that yuri? Why not use the (GxG/B) tag?

[Omniknight]

I'll be completely honest with you here.

First of all, congratulations on the successful kickstarter. A solid financial background always helps to get things off the ground, especially for indie developers like you and me.
From an objective outsider's point of view, there are two main reasons this game is having trouble being greenlit.

1. 3 Kickstarters. Your company held three kickstarters for the same project with no differentiation as to the purpose or the objective. I'm curious myself as to why the campaign was held three times...however, if you did this to generate more funds, then I totally understand You should post that explanation somewhere though.

2. Plot. For us indie developers, art can only go so far because it can get expensive very fast (it took me three months of scouting to find an artist who could draw sprites at the JVN level.) That's why it's wiser to place increased emphasis on the plot especially if you don't have much funding to begin with. Although I feel your art is above average, your plot is way to generic to attract the target audience. Academic themes with a focus on adventure and fighting crime has been used so many times in the past 2 years (Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, Hidan no Aria, Black Bullet, etc.) I feel you'll be so much more successful if you made a "jump"--something that would make you pop out from the rest.

Just my 2 cents!

[Dharker]

2 female and 2 male romance options.
Is it really accurate to call that yuri? Why not use the (GxG/B) tag?

You are probably right, I updated it to be more specific.

First of all, congratulations on the successful kickstarter. A solid financial background always helps to get things off the ground, especially for indie developers like you and me.

Thanks, we are proud and very grateful for the success.

3 Kickstarters. Your company held three kickstarters for the same project with no differentiation as to the purpose or the objective. I'm curious myself as to why the campaign was held three times...however, if you did this to generate more funds, then I totally understand You should post that explanation somewhere though.

Hi there, thanks for the point, first of all it was two kickstarters, the first that you are referring to was for a graphic novel primarily with a small stretch goal that included the start of this game. That gave us a tiny bit of funds to begin working paid for a few licenses and some basic software as the graphic novels went along we gained a lot of support for the visual novel game.

So we ran a dedicated campaign purely to fund the visual novel. It was successful and so we carried on, however as you have mentioned art is expensive and we didn't realise quite how expensive it was. We never raised enough in the first game to get all the CG scenes as good as we would have liked so the second campaign was run as an 'expansion' we set a very low goal and told everyone they did not need to back it as they would already get the game and any additional artwork would be included etc...

Despite this the second campaign was massively successful again. We are nothing but grateful as these extra funds mean we can really get some great CG work done as well as create more characters... However your point is well made and I will consider adding a more detailed explanation to the section of the dedicated site for the game as well as in updates on kickstarter. That being said funding is now officially over for good heh. I am now just working on the game and waiting for the final artworks and CG scenes to start rolling in to complete the game.

Plot. For us indie developers, art can only go so far because it can get expensive very fast (it took me three months of scouting to find an artist who could draw sprites at the JVN level.) That's why it's wiser to place increased emphasis on the plot especially if you don't have much funding to begin with. Although I feel your art is above average, your plot is way to generic to attract the target audience. Academic themes with a focus on adventure and fighting crime has been used so many times in the past 2 years (Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, Hidan no Aria, Black Bullet, etc.) I feel you'll be so much more successful if you made a "jump"--something that would make you pop out from the rest.

Thank you, you may be right about this, however it is a bit late in development to really change this, also I could change the setting however if I did it would mean fundamentally re-writing the entire script, it wouldn't be impossible to do this, but it would take a lot of work and would probably delay the game further.

I also believe the female protagonist has affected votes as well, Ihave found from running these campaigns that although they have done well we have had a lot of people saying they would have backed or they would be interested if it was a male protagonist. Ultimately I set a female protagonist because the game was based on the graphic novels which have mainly female protagonists. in hindsight it may have been better to of had a more interesting setting and it would have been better to have a male protagonist that a larger audience could relate to etc.

Though many might say I made the right decision that there aren't enough games with female protagonists which is what I do hear, that is outweighed by the amount of people wishing for a male protagonist. Ultimately there is a reason why few games have female protagonists.


But it is now to late to change this I feel so I can only try to do the best I can. I think though that your points are good, what I need to do is try to find a way to make my school fight game stand out a little in some way. There is still time for the script to be edited and for some alterations to be included which could do this...

So to that end if anyone has any ideas on how to add to the game or alter it to make it stand out I would like to hear them as they may be possible to be included.

[wererat42]

I wouldn't have thought having a female protagonist would have been that much of an issue. Compared to a decade ago the number of games that have them has skyrocketed; heck, most of the games I've bought this year so far have one (most recently Transistor). And the popularity of yuri has steadily increased to the point that it's almost become the norm to see at least some girl-girl subtext or fanservice in anime and manga these days.

Either way, glad you chose to stick to your guns.

[KiloTango]

As someone who actually really likes good female protagonists I don't think it's an 'ew girls' thing... BUT this does seem rather more aimed at guys than at girls (not an uncommon issue with a lot of GxG sadly, but it's there) so you're possibly going to be cutting down on your female audience there. When I know I can change a characters bra choice but I don't know anything about any of the girls' personalities, it makes me feel the game is maaaaaybe not aimed at me.

The biggest thing that stands out for me on this is the disconnect between the slight plot you describe, and the art. You've got a potentially interesting setting with all the alt history stuff... but then visually it looks like a standard modern highschool thing. Without the plot desc, it looks like a standard highschool romance with a slightly odd title and the occasional sword.

It's worth remembering that while moe highschool is all over the place in anime and VN stuff... it's not that popular outside it, and Steam is a wider audience. You've got something potentially neat to make you stand out (the alt-history element of the setting) but aside from a few shots of entirely unrelated looking war stuff, the rest is presented as highschool sim. With next to no details about any of the characters. Which makes it very easy for Steam to dismiss it as 'yet another anime game'.

Give us a reason to care about what happens in the actual school part of it, basically. The 'terrorism!' plot doesn't look on first glance like it really effects the school stuff, so if it does you want to make that clear. What makes this school different from a normal school? why are people fighting? What drives the different characters and what conflicts will they face?

(You mention decisions large and small... but you only show us underwear choices on that front. Maybe tease some plot decision stuff as well?)

Also don't assume that greenlight people have read your comic. It's all well and good name-checking people who its readers will know, but tell us enough about them that we want to know more as well.

You've got some really nice polish to the art and some potentially interesting ideas (There's a lot of scope for contrast of throwing old school samurai ideals around in contrast if you want to get into that), you just need to really show how this will stand out from every other polished-looking Japanese highschool game.

And if it's a fight game, you probably want to show more fighting!

I think I'm possibly not your target audience, but that's what stood out to me, and I hope I don't sound too harsh. There could be some really interesting stuff in this, so you need to make sure you tell us about it!

[rainbowcascade]

As someone who actually really likes good female protagonists I don't think it's an 'ew girls' thing... BUT this does seem rather more aimed at guys than at girls (not an uncommon issue with a lot of GxG sadly, but it's there) so you're possibly going to be cutting down on your female audience there. When I know I can change a characters bra choice but I don't know anything about any of the girls' personalities, it makes me feel the game is maaaaaybe not aimed at me.

I think I'm possibly not your target audience, but that's what stood out to me, and I hope I don't sound too harsh. There could be some really interesting stuff in this, so you need to make sure you tell us about it!

I agree. Your game seems to most likely cater to the male audience. You should also set up a survey to find out if your backers are mostly male or female. If your backers are mostly dudes, then it would be smart to please them by using a male protagonist. Although it's too late now, when you make your next game, its something to keep in mind.

[Dharker]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all of your thoughts, it has been very helpful I can confirm that we are now working with a new and from what I have seen thoroughly decent writer to re-script the game, it is sadly a little late to change the setting of the game as most of the backgrounds have been completed but with our new script writer we believe we can extend the story outwards and make it more compelling.

Your feedback on this has been very helpful so thank you, we also haven't officially announced it but a lot of the needless choices have been removed for example the clothing choices are a good example of something we included at the start of development but removed as un-necessarily gratuitous. We have also been working on extending the romantic liaisons between the characters. This isn't a hentai game although there are some suggestive scenes it is more about building relationships and friendships that may lead to love in the extreme situation the characters find themselves in.

However as I say over the coming weeks we will be re-working the story in the hopes of creating a more interesting story within the setting that will appeal to more people.

[Asceai]

I agree. Your game seems to most likely cater to the male audience. You should also set up a survey to find out if your backers are mostly male or female. If your backers are mostly dudes, then it would be smart to please them by using a male protagonist. Although it's too late now, when you make your next game, its something to keep in mind.

As a male who happened to back this project, if something I'd backed had the protagonist changed to a male ostensibly to please me I'd throw a shit-fit over it =P

[wererat42]

I'd have to agree that changing the protagonist to male just to please the people demanding it is probably one of the worst decisions you could make, potentially ostracizing your initial supporters. It would no different from a developer being forced to alter their vision by a publisher due to the the results of focus testing and wanting to "appeal to a wider audience." Ever heard of a game called Overstrike? Kickstarter is supposed to be a way around that. Maybe if you had made adding an optional extra scenario with a male MC as a stretch goal that would be one thing.

I also have to acknowledge that KiloTango raises a valid point that you seem to be trying to capitalize on the sex appeal, and I have to question how choosing what bra the character wears fits into the story. I haven't read the comic associated with this, but just from looking at the previews for it, I have a difficult time seeing how a traditional high school would work in what appears to be a rather chaotic setting. I understand that it would be difficult if not impossible to change that now, though I have to ask what led to the decision to a HS setting.