Lemma Soft Forums

New VN project from an aspiring group of young artists looking to give back to a community that has given us much growing up.

Please look over the kickstarter and donate if you like the look of it! Keep in mind the art shown is completely conceptual and not final.

Welcome to the forum, Jaeiin! You've definitely come to the right place for assistance with developing your visual novel.

It would definitely be a good idea to give the forum rules a read-over, and especially since you're posting a link to your Kickstarter. Here's the link: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 10&t=14588

It's a good pace to start either way, but there's actually a specific rule about posting crowdfunding campaigns.

13.) Crowdfunding
Do not link to crowdfunding campaigns (including kickstarter or indiegogo campaigns) for visual novels or games unless those campaigns include a link to a nontrivial playable demo or a completed game by substantially the same team.

I stumbled across Aratana Hajimari thanks to a post on the r/visualnovels sub-Reddit. Afterwards, I made sure to look at its Kickstarter page. Here are my thoughts so far:

1. Please keep in mind that this is your story, and you can do anything you want with it. If you plan to create a love polygon story in roughly present day Japan with an academic setting, that's fine. You can also create a story in any genre or category of fiction. It can have any style of art. Your visual novel can be as short or as long as you want, with as many choices and endings as you want to include. It can emphasize gameplay such as simulation or puzzles, it can emphasize characters and plot, or somewhere in between.

2a. Tell us about your story, characters, and world. Who are these fictional people, and what will make them compelling? What conflicts do they face? Is there anything distinct or notable about your setting?
2b. Make sure that your portrayal of contemporary Japan does not include any factual errors. At the same time, I believe you will benefit if you make sure that your visual novel reads like a story, rather than a travel guide or an essay.

3. Make sure that your Kickstarter includes details about how your team will spend money.

4. There have been many promising crowdfunded projects that never got finished. Be sure to research topics such as video game Kickstarters that failed, or that had troubled productions. Also, I recommend reading the Why So Many Unfinished Freeware Visual Novels? discussion thread from 2012.

5. Consider the appropriate rating for your story. If your visual novel were rated by an organization such as the MPAA or the ESRB, what content ratings would they likely give it?

6. Be open to a variety of artistic influences. Try new things, or look into older stories that you haven't yet experienced. Perhaps you read Katawa Shoujo and liked it. Then consider reading a visual novel that's rather different -- perhaps Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors or Memoirs of an Angel. Perhaps you watched Toradora or Love, Chunibyou, and Other Delusions and liked them. If so, watch or read something clearly different -- maybe Hols: Prince of the Sun or The Castle of Cagliostro. Don't limit yourself to a genre, style, or category.

I believe I saw somewhere that according to Lemmasoft regulations, you can't request Kickstarter donations on a game if you haven't yet made a demo for it. Is there one available?

I've killed the link for the time being, per forum rules. The creators can add it back once they've posted a demo. (If no demo exists, it's probably premature to ask for crowdfunding - how will you know what resources you'll need to make a finished game?)

gekiganwing wrote: 1. Please keep in mind that this is your story, and you can do anything you want with it. If you plan to create a love polygon story in roughly present day Japan with an academic setting, that's fine. You can also create a story in any genre or category of fiction. It can have any style of art. Your visual novel can be as short or as long as you want, with as many choices and endings as you want to include. It can emphasize gameplay such as simulation or puzzles, it can emphasize characters and plot, or somewhere in between.

While alone this is is unobjectionable, I'm not sure why this was posted here. A comment like this could be posted in just about any thread that discussed a game, and I don't think we need people going around to certain threads adding this reminder if they don't like particular concepts.