Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

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Obscura
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Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

#1 Post by Obscura »

Just wanted to hear about your experiences as game makers.

Even though I tear my hair out with the coding, and the art takes me FOREEEEVER, I think writing will always be the toughest part for me. I feel that art and coding have a "right" and a "wrong" that guides me as I go along. I generally know if the art looks janky (even though it might take me a while to catch it.) And coding, of course, will give me thousand and one errors that tell me I'm doing something wrong right off the bat.

Writing feels like I'm groping along in the dark hoping I don't fall down a deep dark hole. -_-

* Whoops - also forgot to include MUSIC!!! Or any other aspect of game development you want to add. :wink:
Last edited by Obscura on Sat May 12, 2012 2:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

#2 Post by Anna »

Obscura wrote:
Writing feels like I'm groping along in the dark hoping I don't fall down a deep dark hole. -_-
Why not try and look up some things about writing, or write yourself an outline if you keep getting stuck or have problems? These links may help: http://www.darkwaves.com/sfch/writing/ckilian/ and http://www.sfwa.org/2011/10/guest-post- ... two-pages/ and for fun http://www.dailywritingtips.com/100-mos ... rjections/

As for me, I feel pretty comfortable doing both the writing and art, which is what I mainly do. Writing is incredibly fun, because it's the main aspect of the visual novel and I've always loved coming up with stories. It's also really fun to experiment with different kinds of wording, styles of writing and I'm learning more English thanks to it as well!

Art is something I've been doing my entire life and takes long, but is fun too. I also know how to make sprites and backgrounds better than during my first VN, so it's not hard to know where to start and what I'll need to do. The only thing you need to watch out for is improvement during the production of the graphics.

What I fear the most is doing the... music. Dear gods. I'm still only learning about that, but it's really hard.

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Re: Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

#3 Post by LVUER »

For me, it's writing that the hardest. Of course it's not because writing is actually harder than the other two (or the other way around). It's simply because I'm not used to writing.
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Re: Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

#4 Post by Ziassan »

Everyone will answer depending on their own skills, but well. I'd suggest you to add the music part of the work in your title alo (interesting, that's not the first I see people talking about VN creation only including code, art & writing, I wonder why).

So to me, it would be the writing since write in another langage than my native one (French) isn't natural and stuck my creativity. Music & Coding are not a problem, Art is average.

Out of personnal preferences, hmm... I think the writing is especially a bit harder ? because it's hazier to evaluates, and to be sure of what needs improvements and what not, sometimes. But in the end the conclusion will probably be tht each side has a same level of hardness.

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Re: Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

#5 Post by nyaatrap »

Obscura wrote:What Do You Find the Hardest?
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Re: Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

#6 Post by Dakishimete »

Coding is all about sitting for a while and finding solutions to problems. Most of them are on Internet or you can ask other game developers. I never even went near being an artist, but my sister is and except for the fact that she's lazy she does prfectly well. Writing is actually the easiest thing to me. What's the most problematic is fixing my own mistakes and redoing scripts according to editors' tips.

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Re: Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

#7 Post by AnthonyHJ »

For me, it'll always be art. I've worked as a writer and a scripter long enough that neither skill fazes me. Art, on the other hand...

Let's just say that I have learned how to draw some very expressive stick-figures...

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Oh, and I can copy certain art styles when I put my mind to it. (such as Order of the Stick)
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Re: Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

#8 Post by azureXtwilight »

Coding, it's always the coding. It's frustrating how you have released a game and suddenly you got a report saying everything crashed due to a simple typo...
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Re: Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

#9 Post by tuna_sushi »

For me, well........
I actually find writing the hardest. :oops:
Just because I was never a writer. -.-"
Especially writing in English... orz

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Re: Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

#10 Post by Applegate »

I consider myself a writer and find writing the hardest; editing your own work numerous times just to get it right and make sure the idea is brought across appropriately, then discarding it because it isn't up to par... it's really suffering.

I'm much easier to please when I code things myself or draw things myself, since my expectations are lower.

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Re: Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

#11 Post by Gambit74 »

Hmmmm. I can't decide between art and music. Though I'm decent as an artist, I really blow it when it comes to drawing on a tablet (To me it is actually different than drawing on paper). For music, I'm just not gifted enough to play any instrument other than a recorder :( . I can hum a catchy tune every once in awhile, but making it (Even if I'm using a music synthesizer) is actually pretty hard for me.
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Re: Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

#12 Post by Sapphi »

Writing is by far the hardest. I love it, but it's definitely the hardest.
I can get words out on a page, but they aren't necessarily good. I hate just about everything I write immediately after I write it. I don't have a good, focused place to go to work on my writing and the only time I'm in a good mindset to write is usually when I don't have access to my computer.

I feel like there's a lot of pressure to make the writing good because you can't rerelease a second version of the game with "New and Improved Writing!" like you can with illustrations. Once you write it, that's it. I'm not planning to charge for any of my projects, but I would hopefully like to write something that is at least worth the time spent to read it.
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Re: Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

#13 Post by Razz »

Writing is super hard. I'm used to doing comics where the less dialog the better, where 250 words per page is considered tl;dr, and then getting into visual novels where dialog tells the story...it's hard.

I find art pretty easy. I can just look at it and see what I need to change, where writing I just feel like I'm fumbling around in the dark.
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Re: Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

#14 Post by Tetiel »

I don't think you'll ever find a definitive answer on this one (that is, if you were looking xD). It all depends on someone's current skillset. Artists will find art easier usually since they've been doing it pretty much all their life, while writers will have practice with creating storylines probably since childhood, too. Most people that I know that do programming for a living also started out programming games for their friends in QBasic when they were in grade school. Of course, the problems come when you become good enough to recognize how bad you are at it. Then you spend your time hating everything you do, which others may find good all while banging your head on your desk, questioning why you even bother. That kinda complicates this formula.

I can potentially do all of these things. All but art frustrates me, though. Err, well... art frustrates me, too, sometimes. I can write. I actually did very well in my creative writing class as well as non-fiction essays, but I'm just not very creative. I'm actually very nervous about making a visual novel for myself, so I don't even bother trying right now. I'd say that's the most difficult thing for me - coming up with a non-derivative idea that isn't idiotic. I guess that isn't even writing, since I'm not afraid of that. It's the conceptual aspect!

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Re: Writing, Art, Or Coding...What Do You Find the Hardest?

#15 Post by teacup »

Definitely writing.
I love to write... in my native language. I used to even want to become a novelist.
But despite the fact that I've lived in America a good part of my life, English is still my second language and sometimes I find it very difficult to put what I'm trying to say in words. Sure I could write in the language I know best [French], but I want my VNs to reach the biggest audience possible. Also, I think writing is the most important part of any visual novel - so it feels like there's more pressure to make it great. And I'm such a perfectionist that I rewrite things over and over again, never completely satisfied.
I'm not the best artist but I can do sprites in just a few hours. Coding isn't hard, it just takes a while to get the hang of it. Writing, on the other hand, is what takes me months and months to do, and it never seems to get any easier. =w=
And strangely, I'm majoring in journalism in college. I think I'm a masochist.
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