WAGAKKIWA![Drama,SliceofLife,Romance] UPDATED

[Dragonstar89]

UPDATED!

WAGAKKIWA is a game about love, and being your true self. The game aims to be colorful in visuals with a story to hit close to home on many subjects. The game also aims to tell multiple stories with the same premise, using the same characters and backstories, to show the player all the different ways Hideo's life could have or would have ended up like. Here is the synopsis taken from the official website:

"You play as Hideo Toyoku, a 17 year old male who attends Chinrai High School. Since his days as a first-year, Hideo has been a “player” with women. Though, one fatal day as a second year, when a girl rejected his sly proposal of dating in front of everyone at the gymnasium, he has lost his vibe, and slowly grew to have trouble even talking to women, let alone greeting to them. Your friends Tomi Misora and Akaka Okuma agree to help you out with re-building your ways of talking to women, and getting a girlfriend. You will play and guide Hideo’s life for 5 months until his next semester. Can you help get him the girl of his dreams? Will you lead him to a committed life, or a life of seeing different women at once? The decisions are all up to you."

Here's some quick tidbits of info:
-The awesome backgrounds are from the generous Uncle Mugen's FREE Resources!
-There are a total of 4 girls Hideo can pursue, each leading to many different endings (depending on what you choose, there will probably be a good amount of endings possible!)
-The game is still in development, with little done compared to the goals of the project.
-The game will be free. UPDATE: There will be a $10 version you can buy that helps support me and others working on the game, and also gives you some more extras and guaranteed free downloads of future DLC mini episodes.
-More info HERE!

There used to be a bunch of text here but for the sake of the update announcement, I'll be linking to the tumblr site.

MEET THE CHARACTERS!
DESCRIPTIVE ABOUT PAGE!

FEATURES (In progress | Completed | Not started) :
-One big story, filled with side scenes and many other events.
-Multiple paths that can always route to different endings depending on your choices.
-Mailbox system.
-CG Gallery.
-Music Gallery.
-Dates (Side events)
-Full Skills and Confidence system
-Affection Points System
-OTHER NEW THINGS THAT ARE IN THE FEATURES LIST-
-"After School" scene where you can choose to raise your Skills or Relationship with your friends.
-Tons of CG's to discover.
-Your choice of path and choices in general will seemingly effect main story events
-Japanese UPDATE: & RUSSIAN Localization (most likely to be published months after the original release)

Help spread the word, and keep updated!:


Webpage

Let's get on with the update, shall we?...

So, I stopped development for this VN back in February. During that time I was still very much a noob with bad graphic editing skills, etc. I also had my story all over the place, and my sprites weren't perfect. So, I now decided to pick up the project again, starting with re-doing the sprites. They will have the same design and all, they'll just be bigger images. Among that, I'm going to make their "neutral" or default stance for each of their outfits have a breathing animation. That's going to take up about the first month and a half of work. In the midst of that, I'm making a few changes here and there to the programmer, and collecting more great backgrounds and music.

I'll keep posted on the tumblr blog and Indiedb page with dev diaries and videos. Feel free to ask any questions or pitch any help you can! Thanks!

[gekiganwing]

1. What level of content do you intend to make? If it were a movie, would it likely get a PG rating, or an R rating?
2. Setting: are there any unique or interesting aspects of the characters' town? Would you need to make more than one or two changes if the setting was not contemporary Japan? Also, could the story happen ten / twenty years in the past or the future?
3. Real world Japan: have you lived there, or do you know someone who has? If not, are you willing to do a reasonable amount of research?

Your friends Tomi Misora and Akaka Okuma agree to help you out with re-building your ways of talking to women, and getting a girlfriend.

Giving your main character two friends to interact with seems like a good choice. They don't have to be wacky caricatures (as in the comedy scenes of the 18+ VN Edelweiss, and its untranslated spiritual predecessors Green Green 1-3), but they can be interesting and reliable individuals. Or perhaps rivals.

-Mailbox system.
...
-Dates (Side events)
-Full Skills and Confidence system
-Affection Points System

Looks like you want to include a pretty good amount of gameplay. Make sure you're ready to spend a lot of time and energy coding it.

And it might be a rare example of a romance game in which the MC can actively date characters! This is one reason why I usually avoid the term "dating simulation" unless talking about a product with genuine simulation gameplay. It's rare to see one outside of A) untranslated '90s games, B) the indie scene, or C) sandbox games.

I'm still pondering as I continue to develop the game to full give the option to turn back into a harem-wielding man or not. If yes, then I'll have a ton of edits to do and destroy anything that would block Hideo from interacting with other girls. If no, then work is easier. I may just have it come to a point where you can have the option to start seeing one of the other girls if you want to get your 'God-given talent' back instead of living a committed and loved life.

* Do you want to compel the player to pick a relationship and stick with it? If so, is this part of the main character's development as a person?
* Do you want to let the MC be more than friends with multiple girls? If so, where will this lead to -- is everyone still on talking terms at the end, or does it result in broken relationships and bad endings?

Emi is a sweet and polite girl. She is the best student in all of her classes, and is the Vice President of the Game Research club. Emi tends to show her kindness and respect towards everyone; mean or nice. Though, she does have a side to her that would be 'indecent' to the public.

Hmm, she might be a bit genre savvy. Not to imply that she's the equivalent of Deadpool, but she might know a few things about romance games. Or maybe not... her knowledge could be limited to worksafe life simulation games, or GxB stories, or maybe BxB.

[silverpikachu99]

I'm loving the character art so far! It's so adorable~! eeveetron did a brilliant job! Can't wait for more to come~!!

[Dragonstar89]

2. Setting: are there any unique or interesting aspects of the characters' town? Would you need to make more than one or two changes if the setting was not contemporary Japan? Also, could the story happen ten / twenty years in the past or the future?
3. Real world Japan: have you lived there, or do you know someone who has? If not, are you willing to do a reasonable amount of research?

2: Being honest, I don't quite understand the ideal behind this question. So, I don't know the answer to that right now.
3: I have several pen pals there, and of course I'll be doing more and more research. I'm still in the starting stages and have only applied several things I've looked up and things I've watched in Slice of Life anime's, manga's, etc.

Giving your main character two friends to interact with seems like a good choice. They don't have to be wacky caricatures (as in the comedy scenes of the 18+ VN Edelweiss, and its untranslated spiritual predecessors Green Green 1-3), but they can be interesting and reliable individuals. Or perhaps rivals.

Thanks. As for wacky, Akaka is a character I aim to have a personality similar to Masaomi from Durarara!! (if you ever watched that). Basically, he seems to always tell jokes and poke fun, but there's some serious stuff that happens in his own personal life that the player and Tomi and others will find out later on in the game. Tomi stays himself mostly; smart, likes to keep everyone feeling assured and peaceful while still able to tell a joke or two.

Hmm, she might be a bit genre savvy. Not to imply that she's the equivalent of Deadpool, but she might know a few things about romance games. Or maybe not... her knowledge could be limited to worksafe life simulation games, or GxB stories, or maybe BxB.

You almost gave a complete accurate guess. BxB stories is Emi's type more. One of the school's smartest students who is nice, respectful, and cute likes to spend her alone time playing BxB and otome games, looks up yaoi, all of that stuff xD She is definitely one of the interesting characters.

Looks like you want to include a pretty good amount of gameplay. Make sure you're ready to spend a lot of time and energy coding it.

I spend a lot of my time coding, and I love games and technology. I have the energy for it, everyday of the week I've managed to fit in a good two to three and a half hours of development on the game.

And it might be a rare example of a romance game in which the MC can actively date characters! This is one reason why I usually avoid the term "dating simulation" unless talking about a product with genuine simulation gameplay. It's rare to see one outside of A) untranslated '90s games, B) the indie scene, or C) sandbox games.

I wouldn't necessarily go about to say it is a Dating Simulation. Basically, when you go down the paths with one of the girls, your choices will decide if one of the programmed dates will activate or not, then when at said date what amount of money you have and such and the choices you make there can further affect the story and your affection with that girl.

I guess my hardest part of this entire project would be keeping 100% track of the story flow. I'm keeping the right labels in their correct scripts, but I will ensure that I will run into several bugs when writing the rest of it out haha. It's going to be quite a long game.

I'm loving the character art so far! It's so adorable~! eeveetron did a brilliant job! Can't wait for more to come~!!

Make sure to go thank eeveetron then We're glad you like them!
Edit:

* Do you want to compel the player to pick a relationship and stick with it? If so, is this part of the main character's development as a person?
* Do you want to let the MC be more than friends with multiple girls? If so, where will this lead to -- is everyone still on talking terms at the end, or does it result in broken relationships and bad endings?

Pretty much yeah - to both of those questions. Staying committed builds Hideo's personality and makes him a nicer, more sociable man. Dating multiple girls would end with some relationships ending and leading you to a bad ending. Like I mentioned in the 'Other Notes' section, I may make the option to let you eventually start seeing one of the other girls while dating another one of the girls which will add to variables that will activate later and most likely end your relationship with both (though maybe one of the girls would know you'd be cheating but wouldn't care Take a wild guess of who that one might be)

[Hyraculon]

Apologies in advance for a bit of a lecture, but the Japanese you're using for your title is very clunky and awkward. A better way of putting it would be, "raigakki made (wa), aishiteru," and here is why:

- You don't need the "I" and "you." They're already implied.
- It's better to use simple, casual language for a title unless you're showcasing the character's speech patterns. That applies to the (still unnecessary) pronouns you have there, too. Does he really use watashi and anata with people his own age, and not, say, boku and kimi? Or ore and omae? I know it doesn't matter much since the game is in English, but it's still making a statement about the character.
- Raigakki just sounds more natural to me. It's kind of like "next semester" as opposed to "the next semester"
- I am reasonably sure you can take or leave that second "wa." It's kind of hard to describe the nuance, and if a native speaker or superior grammarian wants to correct me I would appreciate it, but to me the difference feels like "I'll love you until next semester" (no wa) versus "Until next semester, I'll love you" (wa). It's a matter of emphasis.

Anyway, setting all that aside, I used to live close to Ikebukuro and it's basically my favorite place in Tokyo, so if you have any questions, I could maybe theoretically answer them.

[Dragonstar89]

Apologies in advance for a bit of a lecture, but the Japanese you're using for your title is very clunky and awkward. A better way of putting it would be, "raigakki made (wa), aishiteru," and here is why:

- You don't need the "I" and "you." They're already implied.
- It's better to use simple, casual language for a title unless you're showcasing the character's speech patterns. That applies to the (still unnecessary) pronouns you have there, too. Does he really use watashi and anata with people his own age, and not, say, boku and kimi? Or ore and omae? I know it doesn't matter much since the game is in English, but it's still making a statement about the character.
- Raigakki just sounds more natural to me. It's kind of like "next semester" as opposed to "the next semester"
- I am reasonably sure you can take or leave that second "wa." It's kind of hard to describe the nuance, and if a native speaker or superior grammarian wants to correct me I would appreciate it, but to me the difference feels like "I'll love you until next semester" (no wa) versus "Until next semester, I'll love you" (wa). It's a matter of emphasis.

Anyway, setting all that aside, I used to live close to Ikebukuro and it's basically my favorite place in Tokyo, so if you have any questions, I could maybe theoretically answer them.

Sorry, I figured it was messed up ^^ I'm still learning so I used google translate for the title haha. And cool I'll make sure to fix you with any questions I may have.

[Dragonstar89]

....shameless bump....

Also, there are updates. Read the top, tl;dr-ers.

[Dragonstar89]

Whoo! For the longest time I left the main menu as the ren'py standard with my own background - and I just wasn't digging it. Thoughts on the new main menu for the game? I'm proud of it

The new WAGAKKIWA main menu.

[Dragonstar89]

Finished the short intro clip. Not the best, but it works for a one-man project aiming to be something good-to-great. http://youtu.be/7tMovuMXyDM

[Dragonstar89]

For those who want to support the game, you can donate $10 or some bitcoin here: www.wagakkiwa.tumblr.com/support-it

[hedge99]

Neato! I'm interested in seeing how this turns out. I had a look at the characters and it looks like you have a pretty rounded out cast. (Especially interested in Emi though. I'm a sucker for those types of characters...)

Good luck!

[vedicardi]

arent those sprites just taken from comipo...

edit: haha yep looks like they are. there's nothing necessarily wrong with that but at least but up front and honest about it.

edit 2: oh i also want to say the main character giving the peace sign in that image in the OP is driving me up a wall

[Dragonstar89]

Hey there. Yeah, I've mentioned plenty of times the sprites are from ComiPo, due to lack of artist skill and equipment. However that is mentioned everywhere the game is discussed. I'm pretty sure I've been honest so far about it.

Re main character doing a peace sign, I don't see why it'd drive some folks up the wall but oh well, tp each his own.

[Dragonstar89]

Neato! I'm interested in seeing how this turns out. I had a look at the characters and it looks like you have a pretty rounded out cast. (Especially interested in Emi though. I'm a sucker for those types of characters...)

Good luck!

Thanks for your interest! Glad to hear someone's feedback about the cast. Yeah, fun fact for Emi is that she's the first girl out of the four I thought out, but speaking in layman's terms I'd say Akahana will be my favorite. Will see who likes who when the game is complete though
If you wanna get news on the development you can check out the Indiedb page for it, thanks!

[Mad Harlequin]

FEATURES (In progress |Completed | Not started) :
-One big story, filled with side scenes and many other events.
-Multiple paths that can always route to different endings depending on your choices.
-Mailbox system.
-CG Gallery.
-Music Gallery.
-Dates (Side events)
-Full Skills and Confidence system
-Affection Points System
-OTHER NEW THINGS THAT ARE IN THE FEATURES LIST-
-"After School" scene where you can choose to raise your Skills or Relationship with your friends.
-Tons of CG's to discover.
-Your choice of path and choices in general will seemingly effect main story events
-Japanese UPDATE: & RUSSIAN Localization (most likely to be published months after the original release)

Please don't use neon colors for your text. They're difficult to read.