Looking for help

[Watercolorheart]

I love Humanoid Ryo-Ohki D:

[monele]

Who doesn't? :3

Jinnai : I like the endless game idea in that good players will quickly have big stats and end the game quickly. Others will take more time but will still get what they came for. Or at least that's how I understand the system.

I don't have a clear vision of the rest of the game though... Do you think you could make a mock example of 2 or 3 days of the game ?

[PyTom]

I should just point out that 9 to 12 romanceable characters is a very large number. It may make sense to start with a small subset of them, so you get experience completing a game before tackling a huge project.

(I suspect the difficulty goes up with #characters^2, as that's the number of relationships you have to deal with.)

Also, be sure to be a Ren'Ai game first, and a fan game second. Compare this to Ai Yori Aoshi, which was a fan game first, and so didn't let any of the relationships change, and so was inferior.

(For this post, fan game == game featuring non-original characters.)

[Jinnai]

Who doesn't? :3

Jinnai : I like the endless game idea in that good players will quickly have big stats and end the game quickly. Others will take more time but will still get what they came for. Or at least that's how I understand the system.

I don't have a clear vision of the rest of the game though... Do you think you could make a mock example of 2 or 3 days of the game ?

Ok i will probably have 3 periods. I was thinking initally of 4, but 3 sounds better and its probably easier to manage.

Each day will begin with you chosing what to do from a list. You are not resticted to certain actions at certain times of the day really. FE, you can train at the Dojo in the morning as easy as the evening.

With the exception of the first few days and various festivals almost everything will be triggered by stats if i go with an open ended system.

As for meeting up with each girl, they will have certain areas that they appear in and not. FE: Finding Ryoko while taking it easy is easier than while working in the fields. I have 2 ideas to do this.

First: In this manner of a routine will be infamous with the Love Hina and Galaxy Angel Flash games where they are randomly placed, excpet with weighted chances as mentioned above.

Second: script where each character will be on a given day. Likely i will base this weekly and seasonly if so.

Both have advantages and disadvatages. The former being more life-like and the latter being able to be easier for me to base special dialogue events around. In either case this will not affect events that happen inbetween peirods.

I should just point out that 9 to 12 romanceable characters is a very large number. It may make sense to start with a small subset of them, so you get experience completing a game before tackling a huge project.

(I suspect the difficulty goes up with #characters^2, as that's the number of relationships you have to deal with.)

Also, be sure to be a Ren'Ai game first, and a fan game second. Compare this to Ai Yori Aoshi, which was a fan game first, and so didn't let any of the relationships change, and so was inferior.

(For this post, fan game == game featuring non-original characters.)

Yes it gets more complitcated the more you add. I wouldn't say its quite squared though. For something with an existing format like Tenchi its also easier than designing a game from scratch in some ways...

As for relationship change, I don't plan to promote heavily one girl over another if that is what you mean. I might at the very begginning where you have all the characters introduced, but after that I would generally let the player chose the course of the game. I do not like games that force or heavily steer you toward one girl or another. I may make some vague hints in those first few days of the game as to who should officially be chosen, but will not force anything.

If that's not what you mean, please let me know.

[mikey]

12 romanceable characters is Casual Romance Club territory, and it's a very large number for a fan-made game like this. The most they managed was 4, done by GS:Kykuit.

I don't think it makes anything easier if you use an established universe or series to base your game on. In terms of game structure, story and graphics, you still have to do that from scratch, so the only advantage I can see is that it's easier to imagine and think about the story and so. And that's not really an advantage as far as the road from an idea to a finished build is concerned.

Anyway... don't take this the wrong way, but from all the experience that we had, it is exactly this type of project that never gets finished. Most people will get discouraged as soon as they see the amount of work that should be done... and so we add one more title to the graveyard.

So I hope you can manage this and reasonably plan your project. This forum has many topics about game-making, specific projects, if you read through them you can get a feel of what the problems are - mostly it is the fact that making the game is vastly different to just talking about making it or experimenting. It's much less rewarding, so it's good to be prepared for that.

You were looking for someone to do your art, your music and help with programming. And that's a very long journey ahead. I would also advise not to call for music or art help unless you have a script reasonably written and an engine working - an art-less music-less game, so to say.

Again, this is suggested procedure, it may be that your style will be different and all will work out well. It's probably too bad that we don't have NaNoRenO now, it's a very good test. I'm not really trying to persuade you to try something smaller first, but statistically, the completion rate of big free fan-made projects is 0%. Not even semi-commercial projects have managed to pull this off. It's what the numbers say.

My thoughts (a bit dated, but still) on this you can find here. Alternatively, the simple to-the-point explanation by Blue Lemma centers on the most common problem.

[papillon]

A huge character set is possible if you do almost all stat-building and very little story, like the silly flash games. And in that sense working with an existing setting would make things easier because you wouldn't have to try and find ways to distinguish one girl from another in personality and all, it would come easily.

So, it *could* be done with careful planning... but that sort of game isn't really very romantic.

Definitely get the game outlined before sourcing any graphics.

[monele]

As for meeting up with each girl, they will have certain areas that they appear in and not. FE: Finding Ryoko while taking it easy is easier than while working in the fields. I have 2 ideas to do this.

First: In this manner of a routine will be infamous with the Love Hina and Galaxy Angel Flash games where they are randomly placed, excpet with weighted chances as mentioned above.

Second: script where each character will be on a given day. Likely i will base this weekly and seasonly if so.

A mix between first and second would give True Love actually. They have whole weeks during which an event can happen as long as you have the stats and do a particular activity. The more secret characters usually require actions done on *very* specific days. Either it's "activity A, on evenings of week X", or even worse : "activity B, on evening of day X". The bad thing about this is that, unless you give hints, it's impossible to find by thinking... it's just sheer luck.

Randomness could make things more interesting but also more annoying, especially when you replay to get another girl and miss a particular event, just because your computer decided so. In that sense, random events should have an impact on the course of the game. They should only add flavor.


And I'll add that you should listen to all these advices and try to gauge the size of the project. With motivation, it always seems like everything's possible, but going ahead blindly usually ends up with a bump on the head ^^;

[Jinnai]

12 romanceable characters is Casual Romance Club territory, and it's a very large number for a fan-made game like this. The most they managed was 4, done by GS:Kykuit.

I don't think it makes anything easier if you use an established universe or series to base your game on. In terms of game structure, story and graphics, you still have to do that from scratch, so the only advantage I can see is that it's easier to imagine and think about the story and so. And that's not really an advantage as far as the road from an idea to a finished build is concerned.

Anyway... don't take this the wrong way, but from all the experience that we had, it is exactly this type of project that never gets finished. Most people will get discouraged as soon as they see the amount of work that should be done... and so we add one more title to the graveyard.

So I hope you can manage this and reasonably plan your project. This forum has many topics about game-making, specific projects, if you read through them you can get a feel of what the problems are - mostly it is the fact that making the game is vastly different to just talking about making it or experimenting. It's much less rewarding, so it's good to be prepared for that.

You were looking for someone to do your art, your music and help with programming. And that's a very long journey ahead. I would also advise not to call for music or art help unless you have a script reasonably written and an engine working - an art-less music-less game, so to say.

Again, this is suggested procedure, it may be that your style will be different and all will work out well. It's probably too bad that we don't have NaNoRenO now, it's a very good test. I'm not really trying to persuade you to try something smaller first, but statistically, the completion rate of big free fan-made projects is 0%. Not even semi-commercial projects have managed to pull this off. It's what the numbers say.

My thoughts (a bit dated, but still) on this you can find here. Alternatively, the simple to-the-point explanation by Blue Lemma centers on the most common problem.

I understand your concern. I have worked on other games, albeit with other engines beforehand so I know what I am up against.

However, as papillon says, as this will more stat driven than storyline driven that makes it easier. However, I stll want enough storyline that things don't get too boring.

As for meeting up with each girl, they will have certain areas that they appear in and not. FE: Finding Ryoko while taking it easy is easier than while working in the fields. I have 2 ideas to do this.

First: In this manner of a routine will be infamous with the Love Hina and Galaxy Angel Flash games where they are randomly placed, excpet with weighted chances as mentioned above.

Second: script where each character will be on a given day. Likely i will base this weekly and seasonly if so.

A mix between first and second would give True Love actually. They have whole weeks during which an event can happen as long as you have the stats and do a particular activity. The more secret characters usually require actions done on *very* specific days. Either it's "activity A, on evenings of week X", or even worse : "activity B, on evening of day X". The bad thing about this is that, unless you give hints, it's impossible to find by thinking... it's just sheer luck.

Randomness could make things more interesting but also more annoying, especially when you replay to get another girl and miss a particular event, just because your computer decided so. In that sense, random events should have an impact on the course of the game. They should only add flavor.

Yes, I was thinking if I set it up randomly, it would just be to add flavor, maybe occasionaly have a question/choice you'd be ask, but it wouldn't fundimentally change anything and would only be one-time (unlike those flash games where the questions are asked over and over again... >_>)

And I'll add that you should listen to all these advices and try to gauge the size of the project. With motivation, it always seems like everything's possible, but going ahead blindly usually ends up with a bump on the head ^^;

My main concern is getting the GUI up and running and finding an artist. Coding isn't that hard. I've tackled projects that would make this seem easy. Music would be nice to have original, but its not as important.

And I may cut the number of romanceable characters down, but I don't think I'll be dropping the original OVA ones at all and a few others. And unlockable characters generally have less storyline (not always) than non-unlockables.

[musical74]

Coding isn't hard for you, Jinnai? <envious>

Given that you are going with more of a *stat-driven* than *story-driven* game, does this mean that the story is going to be pretty thin? I don't mind if the story is a little lacking, but if someone who had never heard of Tenchi Muyo <I'm sure there's someone out there who hasn't heard of him> were to pick it up and try it...would they be confused as to why Tenchi has all these lovely ladies after him? I'm not trying to put a crimp in it, just wondering how the story is going to be presented. And, given the violate relationship between Ayeka and Ryoko, would you include something where when Tenchi does something that Ryoko likes, would that cause Ayeka's feelings for Tenchi to go down? Just trying to get an idea of what to expect, so when you get it done, I'll be able to say something like *that is SO Washu!*

[Jinnai]

Coding isn't hard for you, Jinnai? <envious>

Given that you are going with more of a *stat-driven* than *story-driven* game, does this mean that the story is going to be pretty thin? I don't mind if the story is a little lacking, but if someone who had never heard of Tenchi Muyo <I'm sure there's someone out there who hasn't heard of him> were to pick it up and try it...would they be confused as to why Tenchi has all these lovely ladies after him? I'm not trying to put a crimp in it, just wondering how the story is going to be presented. And, given the violate relationship between Ayeka and Ryoko, would you include something where when Tenchi does something that Ryoko likes, would that cause Ayeka's feelings for Tenchi to go down? Just trying to get an idea of what to expect, so when you get it done, I'll be able to say something like *that is SO Washu!*

It will be more like True Love storyline where there will be small scenes, not many huge long involved ones. The first few days with the character introducations will be more intense overall that rest.