Lemma Soft Forums

To make people's lives easier if you need to send someone to this thread, I've gone ahead and registered:

http://www.nanoreno.org/

I'm joining at a whim. I mean, I have a short(?) story ready to be written as VN, with maybe stat-raising elements if I can do it. I have next to no programming whiz, though, so right now it's a moment(?) of practice~

The problem is, I have finished one of the sprites. Whoops. I guess I'm scratching it/releasing it under CC license. (Unless, like nanowrimo, there are also nanoreno rebels who already made assets before March? 8D)

I'm too excited for the project to wait for March (and I'm slow), so I guess I'll be working for it outside of NanoRenO. :">

This is so so cool and I'm looking forward to participating!
Do Nanoreno entries have to be made in Renpy, or are other visual novel engines allowed?

Other engines are certainly allowed. NaNoRenO has always been community run, and about the games - unlike certain other game jams *cough* that only exist to promote a specific tool.

I'm so keen to join in, though previous years I've done NaNoRenO solo have always failed because GDC is smack bang in the middle. Will give it a go anyway, because (despite timing) it's one of my favourite annual jams. )':

Found a thread for NaNoRenO Tips for Beginners.
http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 59#p311541

Lesleigh63 wrote:Asked for some post-mortems and advice from those who have done Nanoreno before (looking at you Auro).

Hahahaha XD Lore and I are taking part this year as Cyanide Tea, we are very excited!

Hmmm, advice... This will be my sixth Nanoreno, and I successfully completed the previous five I worked on (Don't take it personally babe, Ristorante Amore, Witch/Knight, Taarradhin and The Blind Griffin) so I'm pretty experienced with the event now. The challenge has become less about just finishing a game and more about pushing what I'm capable of. This year will be no different... I'm gonna die :'D

Generally speaking I think as long as you have fun and you learn something, no matter if you succeed or fail, then your efforts will be worth it! So much is gained from getting in there and trying your hand at it all, it will make you a better dev.

However. If we are working on the assumption that you are going to take a good crack at being successful I think it's important to consider why Nanoreno exists to begin with. The barrier to entry for VNs is quite low, but finishing one is very difficult. Even compared to other types of games they are difficult, mostly because they are almost 100% content.

Nanoreno is meant to provide a specific environment and restrictions that are conducive to finishing your game, to get people over the barriers that generally stop people from getting stuff done. In my opinion there are 3 main ones that are project killers: Scope, Time Management and Fear of Failure.

Scope is a massive one, people often over scope right from the beginning, get excited, let feature creep crawl in and suddenly you have a project that is so unwieldy that you will have little chance of finishing it. I can tell from the recruitment threads that some of you are over scoping already, especially those of you without completed projects. It's really, really important that you pull your idea back to it's minimal components of what you need to CRITICALLY get done to have a game up and working. Feel free to have another list of things you would like to add, but don't touch these until you finish what you need to. Be brutal with your idea and your priorities.

Time Management is another one. This is about working consistently with whatever time you have. Try to get as much done in the early part of the month while you are still excited because trust me by the middle of the month your excitement will wane as you get to the harder parts of the project where it's less about the fun of ideas and just about hard work to get stuff done. Sitting down and working on your game takes discipline and you'll have to juggle it with other real life obligations. The time restrictions on Nanoreno are super important because it's very easy to put things off and if you miss that deadline there is a very real chance it will never get done or will drag into a year+ long project as feature creep sets in.

Lastly is fear of failure. This usually happens when you start failing at the previous two, when your project isn't looking as good as you imagined it and you start thinking hey, if I don't release it at the end of the month and keep working on it I could make it SO much better! This is exactly what Nanoreno is meant to combat. If you start falling into this hell hole then your project isn't going to see the light of day. Your game is NEVER going to be perfect, it's never going to be complete. Getting over that fear and releasing what you are able to achieve will teach you a 1000000x more than trying to perfect an unreleased project.

Anyway, that's my take on it anyway, I know there are a couple other hints and tips around. I wish everyone the best of luck, let's all have fun and work towards the same goal, finishing a game!

Brilliant tips, Auro, will definitely be taking them on board

I'm in again this year. Had tons of fun doing it last time and I'm really excited for this year

Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with, there seems to be always be a hugely varied selection!

Ahh, I want to participate this year. It would be my first completed project. Nothing like a deadline to get the creative juices flowing eh? I guess I will go at it alone, although I wouldn't mind a lovely person as a proofreader at some point. Now to sort through ideas...

On another note, I noticed there is no countdown in the header this year, I almost forgot about it.

Hello, all! <3 Windchimes' writing partner here!

We have been really, really, unbelievably, amazingly lucky, and we've found so, so many talented people to collab with us. I almost feel like an impostor LOL. This definitely isn't a good thing, but I'm glad I now have an additional source of motivation -- I don't want to disappoint them with mediocre writing! x')

I've "won" NaNoWriMo twice now, and I'm so excited to finally try my hands at its visual-novel equivalent. Fortunately, since we'll have two writers, my estimated workload is only ~25k! While it's still a lot, it's a breath of fresh air compared to WriMo, and I'm hoping I can meet the challenge. <3

Overall, I'm super excited for March!

My second year joining NaNoReNo and as character artist again! (and maybe CGs)
Found a perfect project for me to work with, hopefully we can finish it in time.

I've start working on some rough concept sketch and it's been real fun <3
Good luck for everyone who's joining this year!

I won't officially participate with anything new outside of what I'm already doing. I might use the time to get some more programming done, but that would be about it.

However, I can offer my services as a writer for anyone who's looking for one. Normally, I charge five cents per word, but for NaNoRenO, I'll offer a special discount at two cents instead. I'd prefer relatively short-ish projects at this point (or, perhaps, a single route in the case of, say, a short dating sim), and something fairly simple and straightforward.

OOOH!! still a noob in renpy, but I'm thinking of joining this year going solo since I barely know anyone here yet.
.....still I'm considering it though

I'll be doing Nanoreno this year with the team from Fairly Dangerous (Nanoreno 2015) + 2 special guests! This'll be my 4th Nanoreno...wow, time flies.