The Ren'Ai Archive (renai.us, RAA) all-in-one thread

[Jake]

But it could use a more romantic font (The font is too business-like)

It looks like the font isn't set at all, so it'll be using whatever your browser's default is.

I kind of agree, but also don't. I mean, I think it'd be a good idea to fix the font to something in particular, if nothing else 'cause the default on most people's browsers is going to be Times, which doesn't look so hot in that layout - but I'm not sure 'a more romantic' font would be a good idea. I'm personally partial to sans-serif 'businesslike' fonts, just 'cause they're usually nice and readable.

If something more elegant were put in, I think it'd be a good idea to limit it to just headers, at least.

[PyTom]

I didn't think about the font... I use sans-serif, and I just sort of assumed so does everyone else.

[mikey]

I'd also vote for more "business" fonts, something like on that template I liked a few posts above.

I'd also put the sorting bar on the left.

And, I'd include an "all" option, so that when people sort games by a category, they can go back to the "all games" listing. Or just add "Sort by NAME", and probably put it on the top of the list (the whole Sort part), somehow that's more intuitive (for me ^_^).

And probably I'd put the whole site into some box, like visualnews. I think the concept is good, but it needs some lines.

Wah, too much criticism?

[Misuzu]

Well, I'm by no means a graphics designer or layout person, but I've got a little experience in working with layouts because of my trade, so I decided to have a little stab at modifying what PyTom had created to make it look a little nicer. It's not done yet because I haven't modify how any of the context information will look like, but really, thats up to PyTom as each context page is different ^^;;.

I wasn't out to do a redesign, so I only adapted what he made (so it's still minimalistic and clean). Anyways, I'm off to sleep, but any comments are appreciated.

[Recca Phoenix]

That definitely feels "warmer" and more "ren'ai" to me ^_^
Maybe a light beige, lavender, or eggshell instead of white for the main frame though.

[monele]

Use a "sans" font?

[mikey]

That's the "boxes" thing I was talking about

Maybe a light beige, lavender, or eggshell instead of white for the main frame though.

I'm for beige and dark yellow, for a more neutral look.

Use a "sans" font?

Definitely agree.

[rioka]

I fiddled with PyTom's design a bit too. I'm not satisfied with the top-part but given what I can work with right now, it'll have to do.

How's the colors?

[mikey]

I think the top part (home, submit etc + recent) could be left the Misuzu way.

The sidebar's category names could have a space before them (so the first letters aren't glued to the side) - or simply define some spacing inside the box.

The "Sort By" could definitely be the FIRST category.

Other than that, I like it! I'm biased towards warm color combinations, so the color scheme looks great to me ^_^, even the outlines and so, great. And sans fonts rule.

[PyTom]

The recent games thing seems to be a problem. Maybe we should consider getting rid of it, except on the front page?

I also want the site name and category name to be in a standard font, serif or sans-serif... if only because I want the site to look similar on all platforms, and I don't want to use image-text, especially for text that can change.

Once I finish 6.2, I'll probably throw some more time into renai.us, to add support for sorting entries and the like.

I also think we need to emphasize the new style of game that's exemplified by "The Silent Maiden" and "The Loyal Kinsman". Perhaps call these mysteries, but I'm not sure where this should go... perhaps a new "genre" category, that is many-to-many with the games... so a game could be described with multiple tags.

(Maybe relationship should be many-to-many as well, so a game could be described as BxG and GxB, without being BGxBG. Migrating the data's gonna be fun.)

[mikey]

The recent games thing seems to be a problem. Maybe we should consider getting rid of it, except on the front page?

I wouldn't mind getting rid of it alltogether. Last time I added 6 games in one day and it didn't show the 6th one (Morning Star). The function is better served by the news IMO.

Personally I'm okay with the standard font, just make it sans serif.

I also think we need to emphasize the new style of game that's exemplified by "The Silent Maiden" and "The Loyal Kinsman". Perhaps call these mysteries, but I'm not sure where this should go... perhaps a new "genre" category, that is many-to-many with the games... so a game could be described with multiple tags.

I'm for simplifying this, actually - if nothing, then just to reduce workload. It's often difficult to put the works in a box, we even have troubles with the relationships. The thing is, we don't want to be stuck when adding a game, thinking... "now, how should I classify this?" I think the RAA is great in its simplicity.

I think what we can safely define is the [playtime], then the [age rating] and then the [release date]. Those are quite comfortably defined, although I'd simplify the age rating and have just 3 (everyone, teen, adult), with everyone having no, teen having implicit, and adult explicit sex/violence.

Problems will arise with the other ones. The [relationships] could be maybe completely abandoned, they're getting clumsy and maybe even give away unwanted info. Plus, in the future there will be more and more non-relationship-based games, so even though it kind of goes against the legacy of "ren'ai", I'd just be brutal and leave it out, maybe explain in the FAQ how renai.us got its name and so on. This would also go well with the new policy of allowing non-ren'ai.

Lastly, the [gameplay] category. Here, you'll have to forgive me if I push my own views, but I have a strong opinion here. So, here it goes: the RAA is home for storytelling-based games in VN format, with a few accepted exceptions. Therefore it makes sense to have categories like this:

- visual novel CYOA
- linear visual novel
- hybrid visual novel
- sim
- other

Okay, it's a version of my own system, but hear me out -
1. CYOA is simply the best and most intuitive word for these VNs, everyone explains the concept to newcomers this way, come on.
2. linear VN is also the reasonable name, even newcomers will a rough idea of what to expect
3. VN/hybrid (VN with extra challenges) is good to have, since several games are like this and it puts them into one simple category for those who want to played freshened-up VNs
4. sim (perhaps management sim) is a good all-round name for a whole group of games
5. other also means we don't have to bother inventing categories where it's not necessary (idoltype).

Anyway, I won't sleep badly if people don't like it, so feel free to disagree. But this system can classify any game relatively quickly and clearly.

And that would be it - I'm not really into "genres" or anything. The thing is there will be so many borderline and innovatie settings and stories, it's not really useful to categorize the content.

[PyTom]

Well, I think we definitely want relationships in the archive. We may want to go to a more tags based approach, where we'd replace the relationship category with a set of tags:

romance/BxG
romance/BxB
romance/GxB
romance/GxG

I think we do want to at least have some way to find romantic games, since I think that many of our games fall into that category, and we often have people who are specific about which kinds of games they want or (frankly) don't want. We'd also have other tags, like "mystery" for the new mystery games.

Similarly, we could probably make gameplay tags as well. I'd propose:

gameplay/VN
gameplay/KN
gameplay/RPG
gameplay/Sim
gameplay/Other

We don't have to stop there. I think we do want mystery games to be tagged:

mystery

I like the idea that if someone likes one of these kinds of games, they can easily find other games of the same kind. We could also add other tags in the future... scifi comes to mind.

Another feature idea (so I don't forget it) is a way to find all the games by a particular maker.

[mikey]

From a systematic point of view...

Categories that would act as filters for the game list:

The GENRE, which I personally associate with the emotional/mind aspect can be:
- romance
- mystery
- drama
- comedy, etc...

Then you have the SETTING, which is what I use for the environment the game takes place in:
- contemporary
- fantasy
- sci-fi, etc...

As discussed before, the GAMEPLAY category would focus on gameplay:
- VN
- VN/hybrid
- KN
- sim, etc...
(I don't think that we need a RPG category just yet, nor a typing game or text adventure. For now, I'd put them in "other", just to make things simpler.)

Categories that would sort the entire games list:

We can have a GENERAL (info) category, that would sort the entire games list by the factual aspects:
- name
- maker
- release date
- playtime, etc...

That's my proposal.

[DaFool]

Please make sure that a search by MAKER hits upon all the co-produced games, even if the maker in those cases is a different named group. Just so that the rising Kinoko Nasus of these forums can be more easily identified.

Else, that is all. I like the classifications suggested, keep it up ^_^.

EDIT:

Wait a minute...

- hybrid visual novel
- sim
- other

Why not just define one category, the hybrid? All the games have visual novel elements. Sims , typing games, RPGs, I doubt we would have many of those games due to their complexity, and people making all-out RPGs won't qualify for renai.us anyay.

EDIT2:

My proposal:

Visual Novel CYOA
Linear Visual Novel (a.k.a. Kinetic Novel)
Hybrid Visual Novel (a.k.a. VN-Sim, VN-RPG, VN-Typing)

Unless the gameplay element really does have a dedicated sim or battle or typing engine, they should remain Visual Novel CYOA, no matter how many minigames are stuffed into it.

[mikey]

Please make sure that a search by MAKER hits upon all the co-produced games, even if the maker in those cases is a different named group. Just so that the rising Kinoko Nasus of these forums can be more easily identified.

This is a tricky question, especially from the technical point of view. Basically, if we were to be fair, we'd have to present full credits in that case. That could be a considerable increase in the effort needed to maintain the site.

Wait a minute...

- hybrid visual novel
- sim
- other

Why not just define one category, the hybrid? All the games have visual novel elements. Sims , typing games, RPGs, I doubt we would have many of those games due to their complexity, and people making all-out RPGs won't qualify for renai.us anyay.

This is an interesting thought - it's a bit radical, but actually, I'd have no troubles with it. Perhaps make it [hybrid/other] just to be on the safe side.

A side note to this, is it really so bad to drop the term "kinetic" novel? I won't dig into this, but it's really not intuitive. People are going to ask questions about why it's called kinetic, when the only difference to a regular VN is that it's linear. So why make it complicated? I mean for the purpose of the RAA, where also new people come to find games, calling them linear VNs would be the "englisher" approach. Perhaps even make it more clear - have [multipath VN] and [linear VN].