I need help with my course project.

[Black Cicada]

First, I apologize for any mistakes I may commit while writing, because my first language is not English.

In the course of creativity of my university, the teacher has assigned a group project.
The project consists of creating a game of any kind, and my group has decided to make a visual novel about crime investigation.

As part of the final report we need to present two interviews with people related to the type of game we are working on.
So I was wondering if any of you would be interested in being interviewed, especially those who are more familiar with the development of visual novels.

I will publish the list of questions tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. [UTC-05: 00]

If anyone is interested in helping me, please contact me through this post or by PM.

Thank you in advance.

*update*

Here's the list of questions:

What was the first visual novel you played?
What do you like the most about visual novels?
What is your favorite visual novel?
What is your favorite genre of visual novels?
What is the most important part of a visual novel?

What do you need to create a visual novel?
What is the most difficult part of creating a visual novel?
What inspires you to create visual novels?

For those interested I have created a private chat room for the interview. I will send the address and the password by PM.

[Gambit74]

As much as I would like to help, I'm not sure how much use I would be since I haven't been working with VNs for very long, let alone complete a game. I think it would really help a lot if I got to see the questions first and see whether or not I can answer them all.

[wakagana]

Kinda the same boat as Gambit, I've played a few and know the basis of what it takes to make a VN and am working on my own, but I dont think interviewing someone like my self would be a good idea :I, although I am a good speaker ^,^ - I wish you luck. xD

[Black Cicada]

Guys, thanks for your interest, I really appreciate it.

I've updated the post, now you can see the questions.

[wakagana]

What was the first visual novel you played? - Katawa Shoujo
What do you like the most about visual novels? - Art and Story/Character Development, I like being able to watch a character grow, or learn more and more about them as the novel progresses.
What is your favorite visual novel? - Katawa Shoujo
What is your favorite genre of visual novels? - Romance, Fiction, Anything that is creative!
What is the most important part of a visual novel? - STORY/Character Development

What do you need to create a visual novel? - A good mix of art, writing, and possible audio tracks.
What is the most difficult part of creating a visual novel? - Completing it 100% from end to finish ;P
What inspires you to create visual novels? - The past and present events in my own life

Glad I could help at least a little ^,^

[Auro-Cyanide]

Do you mind if I just answer the questions here? If you would like something more indepth, feel free to contact me

What was the first visual novel you played?
fffff, I don't even remember anymore. Lux Pain I think?

What do you like the most about visual novels?
Being able to take different paths, reading the story and enjoying the visuals.

What is your favorite visual novel?
I don't have one, not yet anyway. There have been a lot I have really liked, but none have really sung to me yet.

What is your favorite genre of visual novels?
I don't really have one of these either. I like lots of genres and I enjoy the really drak stuff to the super fluffy. I look for other things to pick out good VNs, like characters and plot.

What is the most important part of a visual novel?
The story and by that I do not mean the writing. The story is the way everything ties together and tells the story together. The music, the art, the writing, the gameplay, all of them can tell different sides of the same story and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

What do you need to create a visual novel?
Perservence.

What is the most difficult part of creating a visual novel?
Sticking with it. No one part is that much more difficult than the rest, and that difficulty depends on each person. The REALLY hard bit is when you get over your initial excitement and start looking at the massive pile of work you have to do.

What inspires you to create visual novels?
Wanting to tell a story.

[Hijiri]

What was the first visual novel you played? Take Rena Home (EVN) Narcissu (JVN)
What do you like the most about visual novels? How they can be like plays, except with better props and actors.
What is your favorite visual novel? Killer Queen
What is your favorite genre of visual novels? Thriller/Horror and Mystery
What is the most important part of a visual novel? The story is the most important part. You can make the prettiest game ever, but without a good story it's nothing but an image gallery.

What do you need to create a visual novel? Patience, lots of tears, and a strong will.
What is the most difficult part of creating a visual novel? Actually finishing one. You can come up with many ideas, but rarely can you finish them.
What inspires you to create visual novels? Life, stuff I read, the music I listen to, everything.

[DrakeNavarone]

What was the first visual novel you played?
It's been so long, I couldn't even remember... probably an early Insani translated title... Near the front of the pack would be Narcissu, which is probably the most memorable of the early frontrunners in my long history.

What do you like the most about visual novels?
The marriage of visuals, music, and text in a near-perfect blend. It takes the best of each and merges them into a wonderful medium ready for exploration.

What is your favorite visual novel?
Hmm, I don't think I can pick an absolute favorite, but a few real standouts are Umineko, Saya no Uta, and 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors (let's count Ever17 too, since e17 and 999 are so similar)

What is your favorite genre of visual novels?
Suspense/Mystery, then Action, then Tragedies (Nakige, I guess?)

What is the most important part of a visual novel?
Immersion, which has two parts: Cohesion and Atmosphere. Cohesion is how well everything blends together (the art, the writing, the music, even the programming and UI elements)... If these things don't work together, it's very easy to be torn out of the moment, making it difficult to read or continue. Atmosphere is the captivating element, the force that draws you into it and keeps you there. Even a cohesive work is nothing without a pulling force to drag you in, and an atmosphere work can be easily broken out of thanks to a lack of cohesion.



What do you need to create a visual novel?
I'm going to echo Auro's answer and say Perseverance. Everything else can be done, as long as you keep doing them.

What is the most difficult part of creating a visual novel?
Creating a visual novel. Actually getting to the point where you have a completed project is terribly difficult. The individual steps maybe be tough themselves, but nothing is more trying than taking every step of the loooong journey through vn making.

What inspires you to create visual novels?
This is probably the most difficult question for me to answer. I won't say "Everything", since it's far from true, but the causes are too varied to pin down. Some of the time, pure whimsy. An idea will strike me and I want to have a go at it. Othertimes, I'll see something someone else did and find where I'd take a different turn. From there, I'd either retell that story, or craft a new world where I can still explore that option.

But what inspires me to continue, despite how difficult it is for me, even after a number of successful projects already, is the desire to tell a story that I want to tell, and to use the experience to improve my ability to tell these stories for the next time.

[jeje]

I haven't done a game yet, but I'm making it (even though I must suspend it for a month or something). So if I could, I want to answer your questions.

What was the first visual novel you played?
...what was it again? I don't even remember... I think it's Yo Jin Bo. I think...

What do you like the most about visual novels?
All of the elements in it, blending together.

What is your favorite visual novel?
...a little bit off answer, I like Juniper's Knot. It's a Kinetic Novel though. But I think it's really awesome for something like a free and indie game. All of the elements got me addicted, even though there're no choices throughout the game. For the VN, I think I like Katawa Shoujo and X-note.

What is your favorite genre of visual novels?
I'm fine with almost everything except something that smells of racism and wrong ideology and insulting contents for religion. (What I mean by wrong ideology is, if you try to tell me that raping, abusing, and murdering people is right.)

What is the most important part of a visual novel?
For me (I don't think it's just me, but, oh well) it's the art. Because it's the first thing that would hook me to play something. But if the story is a nay, I would immediately delete it.

What do you need to create a visual novel?
Patience. Perseverance. Discipline. Emotion-control. Love (If I don't love the game I'm making, I won't ever mind to make one). And above all, time.

What is the most difficult part of creating a visual novel?
To get it done. Exactly. Just. Like. What. I. Want. (srsly, I keep on revising and revising and changing all the story, the script, the art, the GUI, the... everything)
And for me, it's the lack of time. I'm really sleep-deprived because I keep on cutting my sleep time to work on this, which results in lack of focus and mistakes.
Oh, and lack of skill... this is the second hardest though... or maybe this is the reason why I keep on redoing the game...

What inspires you to create visual novels?
All the other VN game. I wanted to tell the story just like them, because I love it.

[Gambit74]

What was the first visual novel you played?
My first visual novel is Tsukihime, by Type-Moon

What do you like the most about visual novels?
There are many things I like about them such as the format, the music, and the art. But if I had to choose one aspect, I would say it's the fact that they're like books accompanied with visuals, which really helps convey what is happening in the story. I also like how many of them have choices that you can choose, which can affect the ending as well as the story.

What is your favorite visual novel?
As much as I would like to say Tsukihime since it's my very first and most memorable one, I would have to go with Higurashi no Naku Koro ni for it's scenarios and storytelling. The visual novel also happens to be in my favorite genre as well.

What is your favorite genre of visual novels?
I like mysteries, as well as psychological horror/thriller.

What is the most important part of a visual novel?
It's a tough decision between the story and characters, but I would have to say characters overall. If I don't like the cast, chances are I will not even be able to enjoy the story as much as I would have liked.

What do you need to create a visual novel?
Patience, but most important of all: Motivation. If I'm not having fun working on a visual novel, then the quality of my work would really suffer and it will never get completed.

What is the most difficult part of creating a visual novel?
Normally I would say coding, but Ren'Py has been pretty easy to pick up in that department. So next, for me would be making the music. Aside from a recorder, I have never successfully been able to play any instrument before.

What inspires you to create visual novels?
For me, it would be story telling. My head is always full of neat little ideas that I just want to jot them down somewhere. I used to always write stories for myself, but then when I started playing visual novels and discovered Ren'Py, I decided that I wanted to make one for one of my stories so that I can share it with the world.

[ScottySeng]

What was the first visual novel you played?
Clannad/Narcissu

What do you like the most about visual novels?
Well, the experience pretty much. You have the mix of great artwork, immersive storylines, and music to set a good atmosphere.
It also drags you into the mix by having you make choices to change up the game.

What is your favorite visual novel?
It's hard to decide on one favorite visual novel since nearly everything has a weakness to it. I'm going to say Clannad because of the storyline, but I'm always open to more visual novels (If I ever get around to reading them all).

What is your favorite genre of visual novels?
Anything that has a good story line. Even as a guy, I'll play GxB novels if the story line is immersive.
If I can play the visual novel by skimming everything and still not give much attention to it, then it probably didn't give me enough of a storyline to stop to think about it.

What is the most important part of a visual novel?
Immersions/connections. As others have said, the atmosphere sets a certain mood and the story follows up with that to keep you interested.
You should feel a connection to the characters as you play. If the obtainable people are just dolls with slapped on stereotypes, then it's probably not interesting to people.

What do you need to create a visual novel?
Either lots of money or the ability to push yourself to learn and practice. It might take a while, but eventually you will learn how to draw, write, compose, etc. if you keep at it.
And if all you can do is write, don't worry, seek out artists to help out.

What is the most difficult part of creating a visual novel?
Perserverence. Also, attention is important. It's all too easy to be on the PC with the mindset of writing # of words for the story but then get distracted by Facebook or something like that.
I also think that programming Renpy the first time will not go smooth (Unless you know Python before hand). Expect bugs. Expect to either read references or the forum for answers.
I think that perservering after taking several critiques is important as well. Rather than holing yourself up in a ball of protection, read the critiques and see if they make sense to you.

What inspires you to create visual novels?
Well, I started because Visual Novels gave me something to improve my skills. As an artist, to practice drawing the human figure more. As a composer, to play around with instruments and figure out how synthesizers work. As a writer, to connect to people and to define the line between detail and too much detail. Finally, as a programmer to learn python, or some of it at least.

[LVUER]

What was the first visual novel you played?
Sakura Season. I don't even know what is Visual Novel at that time. And I must admit that I was still underage at that time...

What do you like the most about visual novels?
The story and the art. Without even one of them, I will not interested in Visual Novel. Oh, and also the interactivity... but without it, then we're talking about KN (Kinetic Novel).

What is your favorite visual novel?
Hmmm... tough question. Heart de Roomate? It's nothing special and definitely not the greatest VN, but it have the most impact for me.

What is your favorite genre of visual novels?
I don't think I have any preferences when enjoying one... but I love lolies the most. So any VN with lolies is a definite play for me.

What is the most important part of a visual novel?
Story and art. Yup.


What do you need to create a visual novel?
Commitment, to actually start making one to finish it. This applies to any kind of medium/game though... Just like I said above, you need story and then art. With those two, you are set to go to create a VN.

What is the most difficult part of creating a visual novel?
Finishing it... is what I want to say (it's true though). The most difficult one should be creating a good story that will "absorb" your reader.

What inspires you to create visual novels?
I kinda forgot... I love making games and drawing manga from I was still at grade school. Both lead me to a medium called VN... which I already love to play too. And so my creativity and creator-ivity burns with passion to make VN.

[Argeus_the_Paladin]

I could only answer a few questions, hope it helps.

What do you need to create a visual novel?
Agreed with anyone who said perseverance.

What is the most difficult part of creating a visual novel?
Apart from keeping my wandering interests in check? Coding. Programming can and will get on a newbie's -which I am - nerves very quickly.

What inspires you to create visual novels?
It is an incredibly flexible and interesting genre, but equally under-represented and underestimated, as far as the Western world goes. In my other circles of friends composed almost entirely of historians, seldom are these two words mentioned without disgust - synonymized with poor-quality porn aimed at a loser, basement-dweller weaboo demographic. How true that assessment is, is entirely up for debate.

I want to do something to change that, to do justice to the genre in the eyes of my friends. What better way to do that, then, than to write my own?

[WatchJessieGo]

What was the first visual novel you played?
Moonshine.

What do you like the most about visual novels?
How a combination of art, music, and (sometimes) voice acting can enhance the reading experience and allow you to see the story in a different way than if it was just a regular novel.

What is your favorite visual novel?
I haven't played a whole lot of them yet, but Moonshine is my favorite.

What is your favorite genre of visual novels?
As long as it's well-written and engaging, I'm fine with any genre.

What is the most important part of a visual novel?
The writing. In my opinion, you can get past mediocre art and mediocre music, but if the writing is mediocre, it completely ruins it.

What do you need to create a visual novel?
An idea, commitment, creativity, and the will to make it the best you can.

What is the most difficult part of creating a visual novel?
For me, I have issues staying organized and such. Even if you aren't writing a branching plot, it can be very hard to keep your story organized.

What inspires you to create visual novels?
Seeing visual novels that other people have made - not big studios, but just a group of determined people. Music also gives me lots of ideas for stories.

[Yakkety]

What was the first visual novel you played?
Katawa Shoujo...
What do you like the most about visual novels?
The feeling of being ''in it'', the feeling of being the main character, and to know that every decision you make has consequences, these things can make you wonder, and make you think about reality...
What is your favorite visual novel?
G-Senjou no Maou...
What is your favorite genre of visual novels?
Romance, mystery, action...
What is the most important part of a visual novel?
The Story, even with perfect art, music or gameplay etc., your VN will be nothing without a decent story...

What do you need to create a visual novel?
Imagination, and commitment...
What is the most difficult part of creating a visual novel?
This varies from person to person...
What inspires you to create visual novels?
This also varies, but for me it is the joy of life when I think of creating something to entertain others... But above all, have fun while you're creating a VN...