Pet Project Revived (Writers Wanted)

[LVUER]

My (current) original story is this:
A boy is a 2nd year senior high school student who's so smart that he doesn't need to study at home anymore, whose parents rarely shows up at home (perhaps like twice a year), whose sister just get a scholarship and went aboard, whose confession just got rejected XX times straight... Basically he is a young with too many times at hand. So rather than wasting times with sex, partying, or other useless things, he decided to raise a pet.

The pets are the descendants of villagers that was cursed by its deity for destroying the sacred forest. They were scattered, abused, and scared. Not all pets are hopeless though... some are successful enough to make an organization that gather all pets into one isolated community. But due to over-budget and realization that they couldn't do this forever (the pets need normal life too), they begin to search for suitable master for those pets.

-----------------------
Since there will be many artist involved in this project, the MC will be faceless (he will appear in CG, just like usually in VN, I will make his general design though he will be just like those faceless MC). He will be name-able. Personality: quite plain... he is smart, kind, willing to help people, but also a bit naive, especially when it comes to social relationship (caution: he is not a pervert).

[Fawn]

I'm going to be completely honest with you:

Your premise sounds overly complicated, this is what I am afraid of... A lot of those details aren't really needed, it should be more about the pets than the background story (hence a simpler explanation for the pets' creation, such as genetic engineering). In order to explain all those details you will need even more sprites, cgs... Ect. You would basically need to make an entirely different game. Also the "high school boy who's parents are never home" trope is pretty unrealistic and cliche.

It's a lot easier to understand a young adult who's just living on his own and wants a pet because he's lonely; and the pets came from the black market or they're genetically engineered.

There's no need for a very elaborate back story for the protagonist or where the pets came from because everyone should be focusing on making a detailed story for their pet; but should have some guidelines so it doesn't get out of hand with unneeded details.

However, it's up to everyone else, too. Logically speaking it seems that having a very basic guideline that each person can mold (like in the examples I mentioned before of each pet having a problem due to their type of animal and their creator/father) sounds the simplest. Also, as a player I wouldn't want to play a game that has a bunch of unrelated stories unless they were all separate stories, which the pet project isn't.

[Mocha07734]

I also agree with Fawn.
If there is a less complicated back story to the protagonist, the more lenient the stories for the pets can be.
This would also be rather helpful considering this is a collaborated project with many people contributing.

Also here is a quick drawing of a Turtle-tan... I got bored in school... o_e;

[LVUER]

Hmmm.... then let's start with something simple. For everyone: how old should the MC is? Personally, I want about 16-18 (since this is an all-age VN anyway)... though 20 isn't bad either.

[sorani]

I want to apply to this project as well, so here is a python-tan. And I suggest a college aged protagonist.

[LVUER]

Just though another story. I'll make it simple this time:
The MC just graduates from high school and decides it's a good time to go out of the house (and the parents agree in condition that they cover all tuition fee but you need to study seriously, but never mind that...). You're still wondering where to go so you decided to take it easy, taking several months of "free-time" to think. The story happens during this period of time.

One day you get an ad about a new pet center that have all kind of animals and give you a free one week trial time. So you think "Why not?"

For the pet, let's go with (modified) Fawn's idea. There's a mad scientist who make a pet-tan with the power of engineering (genetics engineering). Doing that only for leisure, he doesn't realize he just made TOO MANY pet-tans... (idiot). So he's searching a way to get rid of those "genetic modified" animals.

The story still takes time during one week (if you think it's too long, we could shortened it to several days). If you fail, reach bad ending, or simply cruel to the pet-tan, the prof (or the father) will take the pet-tan back and zap all your memories regarding that pet-tan.

Supporting character:
Please write any supporting character you'll need. The father (mad scientist/prof) is a must to have (though not necessarily must be used other than in bad ending). In Menui/Iguana-tan, there is a friend who have a restaurant where the MC often have free meal. In my story there's going to be the usual osana-najimi to spark the legendary love-triangle path.

----------------------
@sorani:
To be honest... I don't think she's not moe enough... it could be just me though... could you make her a little bit more cute and moe? Lucky Star and K-On is a good reference material.

[TsukiShima]

I agree about the MC being faceless, but just giving some hair features, clothes and body, because it's mainly interesting and he can be fit into anything that way (other than the player can just imagine himself as the MC).

Well, I do have some ideas for the story, just as suggestion:
The MC is a college student (mainly this reason is because the situation is close to us and maybe the ones playing, probably he'll be about 19?) who's living alone in his own apartment. He lives alone because his parents passed away 3 years ago due to car accident, and ever since then he was lonely. One day he opened a website about adopting pets for a week, so he decided to adopt one. The next day the pet arrived and he was quite surprised that it's an hybrid.
Then the one week experience is all up to you (?), maybe?

As for me, I'm planning that the professor, is the bad guy. And I want to most likely reveal that he is the cause of the MC's parents death. The bad ending will is like LVUER's idea, where the professor will take the pet back and erase his memories. In a good ending, he sees the pet changes and decided to let him keep her instead.

I'm also planning to have a 'Best ending', and my story actually doesn't need a side character (but I guess that would be boring). Maybe they'll mostly go out with each other in the cafe.

But I guess in my story, the 'parent' thing adds a bit tension into the game, and since this is a light comedy game, I'll most like go with the idea the MC moves out from his family's house. Ah, I can change my story according to the flow~

-----------------

Other than that, I'm also in planning to see if I can made it to make a Starfish-tan. xD I'm surprised that no one made a fish species yet.
And also love the Phyton-tan and Turtle-tan xD I just love to see this many personalities of our moe moe pets.

[LVUER]

I'll wait other opinion before deciding anything, but I think your idea is too complicated and a little bit dark for light moe story.

Btw, here's another sketch of my pet, Mantis-tan.

Cute moe mode of Mantis-tan

She is a yandere. So don't try to make her mad. Normally she is very cute and kind, but when she is mad... well, she is sweet, calm, and kind though so it's not easy make her mad and it's not that she is bad/have bad personality.

Oh, and her fingers have enough power to make apple juice... want some? ^_^

The problem is...

Evil Burst mode of Mantis-tan

When she is hungry, she will switch into evil burst mode where she will eat anyone she sees. She is also the type "I love you so much that I want to eat you"-type. Not the best kind to make as your lover. So her path will mainly consist comedic situation where you try to control her hunger and killing instinct.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Other than that, I'm also in planning to see if I can made it to make a Starfish-tan. xD I'm surprised that no one made a fish species yet.

I did, I created the Koi fish.

By the way, I'm pretty sure Komi-Tsuku is going to write for Miss Koi. I think we are going for quite a simple and sweet/bittersweet story. I don't think the backstory will have a great effect on us during the actual story, depending on what Komi-Tsuku decides to write. I think we are just going with a basic relationship building story. I will also probably draw the MC within the CGs, so I'll need a description if you want me to stick to a design. I also prefer someone within the 18-20 mark, but that is generally a personal preference.

I think by now we need to rein in everyone and decide what is and isn't going to be in the game and make sure no-one is taking on more then they can handle. Right now we have way more characters then writers, so we need to figure out what the writers can take on and who they want to take on. We can only do as many paths as our lowest dominator.

And also I do hope that artist want to be considerate and change the pet design to accommodate writer request.

As long as it is based on compromise. In this case the artists are generally the creators of the characters and should be able to put their foot down on some things if the disagree. It needs to be a balance of control over the story so both parties feel they are having input.

[TsukiShima]

Other than that, I'm also in planning to see if I can made it to make a Starfish-tan. xD I'm surprised that no one made a fish species yet.

I did, I created the Koi fish.

By the way, I'm pretty sure Komi-Tsuku is going to write for Miss Koi.

Oh yeah, I think I forgot about that. Sorry! xD So now we almost have every animal species? There's bird, insects, mammals, etc. right?

---
And yes, I agree that my story is a bit dark, forgive me because of that, I think it's because I got used to that, haha. Anyway, I'll wait for the others as well. It's fun to just watching this progress.

[KomiTsuku]

Other than that, I'm also in planning to see if I can made it to make a Starfish-tan. xD I'm surprised that no one made a fish species yet.

I did, I created the Koi fish.

By the way, I'm pretty sure Komi-Tsuku is going to write for Miss Koi. I think we are going for quite a simple and sweet/bittersweet story. I don't think the backstory will have a great effect on us during the actual story, depending on what Komi-Tsuku decides to write. I think we are just going with a basic relationship building story. I will also probably draw the MC within the CGs, so I'll need a description if you want me to stick to a design. I also prefer someone within the 18-20 mark, but that is generally a personal preference.

I think by now we need to rein in everyone and decide what is and isn't going to be in the game and make sure no-one is taking on more then they can handle. Right now we have way more characters then writers, so we need to figure out what the writers can take on and who they want to take on. We can only do as many paths as our lowest dominator.

And also I do hope that artist want to be considerate and change the pet design to accommodate writer request.

As long as it is based on compromise. In this case the artists are generally the creators of the characters and should be able to put their foot down on some things if the disagree. It needs to be a balance of control over the story so both parties feel they are having input.

Yep, yep. Komi has indeed agreed to write a slice of life story for Miss Koi. I just realized I never actually said that. I'm really looking forward to writing a cute story instead of something dark and dramatic. As I always say, I've just got too much dark drama in my life and stories already. v.v If that is the direction everyone wants to go, I'm afraid I must decline and tap out. To be honest, I wanted to write a cute and fluffy slice of life story where the "humanoid" animals were just accepted as what animals were, no mad scientists or genetic splicing. I'm willing to compromise on some of the aspects, but...

[TsukiShima]

Yep, yep. Komi has indeed agreed to write a slice of life story for Miss Koi. I just realized I never actually said that. I'm really looking forward to writing a cute story instead of something dark and dramatic. As I always say, I've just got too much dark drama in my life and stories already. v.v If that is the direction everyone wants to go, I'm afraid I must decline and tap out. To be honest, I wanted to write a cute and fluffy slice of life story where the "humanoid" animals were just accepted as what animals were, no mad scientists or genetic splicing. I'm willing to compromise on some of the aspects, but...

*le gasp* Maybe you should wait awhile longer, since this is just a planning progress and everyone's opinion counts. Beside, to be honest as well, I joined this in the first place because I wanted to do something 'moe' for once. I'm sure the others can change the story as we go on and we are not even half finish yet.

My 'original' story doesn't involve anything like death or science stuff, just about a guy who went out to buy a pet for himself, spending time with her and finally stays together with her. It's not that complicated and that's why mine is easy to compile with everyone's else later on. I do hope on something that this story will be something for a genre like slice-of-life, comedy, story.
Anyhow, I think you should wait a bit more to see how far this will go,ne? :>

[Fawn]

I think the "gene splicing" part a little is being taken too heavily- It won't show needles and test tubes and labs, it just gives a believable explanation for why the girls are like that.
Similar gene splicing tropes have been used in the very fluffy Tokyo Mew Mew and Tenchi Muyo, and there isn't really anything dark about it. They just say "yep this person is half A and half B cause I engineered them that way".

Like LVUER said, the scientist won't kill you, he'll just zap you with a laser that wipes away your memories of your pet-tan. (Which also could explain why you go back to the computer and try to get another pet-tan afterwards when you play another route, hahaha)

The scientist is a funny old man, I'd expect he'd look a little like Master Roshi from DBZ:


Also, the pet-tans don't need to have problems with their father... That is a bit dark. But you can add them if you want!

As for the writer-to-artist ratio, The best thing to do to lower the pet-tan ratio is to just let writers come up with their own pets before we draw any more of them. That way we'll have more stories instead of random designs...
I know as an artist myself it's really easy to create character designs without and boundaries, but letting the writers come up with a character and story first will be a lot more beneficial- not only will you have a design, but you can make that design so it fits to the story, instead of limiting the writer to what YOU like. If you can write it yourself, awesome! But If you can't, you should obey your writer- he/she is most likely brilliant and you should be happy to draw for them!

And finally, Here is a better concept of Iguana-tan/Nemui:

[Thee Forsaken One]

I suppose I'll have to change the scientist killing the protagonist.

Nemui looks so awesome. I love her outfit and the scales are a nice touch. So good. ^^

[Fawn]

@Thee Forsaken One: I'm glad you like her! Haha I basically took the outfit she had on in Deji's sprite (But added some fringe to the jeans for a more alluring look )

Oh, and I forgot to mention, LVUER-

In my story there's going to be the usual osana-najimi to spark the legendary love-triangle path

Wouldn't that make it more complicated too? :/ Cause you'd have to make even more sprites, and there would be less focus on the pet... It'd be best to decide on one friend of the character. That way we wouldn't all have to make more sprites and backgrounds just for everyone's friend. Not to mention the the entire cast would double since everyone would have their own friend...
While the childhood friend idea is okay for a stand-alone project, it would add a huge complication to the story that not everyone can relate into their own story.

The friend should be a minor plot device, and the pet should be the only object of affection to keep things simple and do-able for everyone