Immortal [Sci-Fi, Slice of Life, Drama, Action]

[ZeroSine]

*Title is only temporary, would greatly appreciate any suggestions!*

A little bit about myself:
Not too well-versed in VN's, but the few I have played I've enjoyed immensly (Ace Attorney series, Zero Escape series, Danganronpa etc). This visual novel I'm currently working on has been in my head for quite some time (characters and story mostly), so I'm hoping to get it out there and see what people may think of the concept.

Story:
The premise for this VN is the idea that no one's brain capacity can reach 100% (A cheesy concept I know, but just bear with me....)
Background: The planet (Earth) runs on “Energy”. Everything that resides on earth uses a fraction of that energy, with the intentions of returning its life-force to the planet once it dies – Allowing for a cycle that ensures the longevity of the earth.

Therefore, humans are allocated a specific percentage of that energy from birth (basically a way of regulating the planet’s power source.)
The amount of percentage you’re designated is determined by a device that reads life energy. Then the baby is given a band of varying colour (e.g. Red = 99-89% Orange = 88-79% Yellow = 78-69% etc) which enforces the power cap.
The issue that arises is that many people are often forced into a role or lifestyle that they may not want to be in.
E.g. My percentage is capped at 34%, therefore I cannot join the military or exert too much physical strain.
Or, my percentage is capped at 12%. Very weak; only likely to work a boring office job, where I’m sitting at a computer all day.

Characters:

The story follows the main character Soren, and his younger brother primarily.

Soren is resentful of the system because his functionality is capped at 49%. Just shy of 50%, he is deemed not quite good enough to join the military – which is what he wants to do in order to follow his parent’s legacy (Mother and Father both high-ranking soldiers in the military, often viewed as heroes of their time: They were killed in action).
Despite this, Soren enrols in the Cadet Training Programme anyway. An academy for potential recruits to train for military roles (either on the field, or in support).
He is hoping that by the end of it, he can prove his worth as a soldier on the frontlines, as opposed to just the support team (i.e. gathering Intel, maintenance, first-aid etc.)

Coloured Image of MC Soren

(A rough colouring, hoping to improve in the meantime).

Max is Soren's younger brother. He is very close to his brother since their parents passed away. A bubbly, playful personality in contrast to Soren's more somber tone; they help to balance each other out.

There will be other characters met along the way; currently 3 more at least that Soren will interact with: Luna, Maya and Hunter are their names at least (will aim to get some progress pics up soon!)

Gameplay:

The end goal is for a fleshed out story with multiple branching paths (particularly affecting character relationships and the scenes that’ll play from that).
-Will have an Inventory screen; where the player can view all items they’ve collected along the story.
Rather than being able to directly interact and pick up the object on-screen in the environment, when at the appropriate point in the story, a text prompt will come up, and the player will have the choice of either picking up or leaving the item:

-Main gameplay derived from collectable items is being able to give items to other characters
-This’ll reward the player with a closer relationship with that character; resulting in alternate dialogue/an extra scene/fleshing out the character profile etc.

This, in turn, is tied to "character relationships": I aim to have a system in place where certain dialogue choices with characters will lead to their relationship with Soren growing stronger. This will prompt alternate scenes and different/extra dialogue.

Also hoping to have a Character Stat system in place. It'll be for Soren only and will be a simple case of having the option to go to A) Gym, B) Library, or C) Socialising at the Mall for example. Going to the Gym would improve your strength, Library will improve intelligence, and the Mall will improve your friendship stat with certain characters.
I'm aiming to also have the character stats affect certain scenes in the story/dialogue choices etc.

Images:

For the backgrounds, I was initially intending to create them from scratch in 3D using Maya (since that's what I studied at Uni), rendering them, and then editing the bkgs in Photoshop.
However, that proved pretty time consuming, and I didn't totally like the end result.

Example:

I changed it up, using photos instead, and edited them to suit the visual style I was going for:

These are just some of the bkgs I have so far.....

What I'm hoping for:

I guess I just want to prompt some feedback about the story (hopefully I didn't ramble on too much, and if anything is unclear I'll be more than happy to clear it up).
I'll be aiming to get some more info/art up on the characters and such in the meantime.
This will just be a place to note all my progress so far, and please let me know if it's the sort of VN you'd be interested in

[gekiganwing]

The end goal is for a fleshed out story with multiple branching paths (particularly affecting character relationships and the scenes that’ll play from that).
-Will have an Inventory screen; where the player can view all items they’ve collected along the story...

...This, in turn, is tied to "character relationships": I aim to have a system in place where certain dialogue choices with characters will lead to their relationship with Soren growing stronger. This will prompt alternate scenes and different/extra dialogue.

Also hoping to have a Character Stat system in place. It'll be for Soren only and will be a simple case of having the option to go to A) Gym, B) Library, or C) Socialising at the Mall for example...

It sounds like your goal is to write a story with multiple endings. You also plan to include adventure game style items, friendship / relationship levels, and also statistic-driven simulation game style gameplay. This is ambitious. Because your goals are lofty, I like it. I find it encouraging to see people who want to create intricate visual novels.

An important question: How much experience do you have designing video games and writing stories? Have you finished any freeware games or non-commercial stories? Have you published any creative works and sold them? The reason why I ask this is to remind you to be cautious. If you have not already completed writing a story, or wrapped up work on a video game, then please be careful regarding the scope of your visual novel.

A lot of people creating freeware VNs and games let their projects fall to the wayside after a while. Some projects have been released after months (or years) of infrequent updates, but it's unfortunately uncommon. In my opinion, there are four common causes of work-in-progress visual novel death:

#1: Lack of planning that leads to becoming overwhelmed. In other words, people want to use a visual novel format to tell a story, but they don't realize how much time, patience, and dedication that it requires.
#2: Perfectionism. Writers want their story to be awesome, and become frustrated when their writing doesn't match their expectations during an early draft.
#3: Procrastination. People find it difficult to fit writing and coding into their schedule.
#4: Circumstances. They have to deal with real world issues instead -- computer failure, health concerns, financial worries, communication problems with fellow creators, and more.

There is a thread on Lemma Soft called Why So Many Unfinished Visual Novels? which discusses these problems and more. I believe that you will benefit by reading it.

...Soren enrols in the Cadet Training Programme anyway. An academy for potential recruits to train for military roles (either on the field, or in support).
He is hoping that by the end of it, he can prove his worth as a soldier on the frontlines, as opposed to just the support team (i.e. gathering Intel, maintenance, first-aid etc.)

I think you will benefit by making sure that you can summarize your story in one or two sentences. This will be your elevator pitch. Strive to make sure it clearly expresses the specific things that your main character Soren wants, and what's keeping him from achieving his goals.

Not too well-versed in VN's, but the few I have played I've enjoyed immensly (Ace Attorney series, Zero Escape series, Danganronpa etc).

Let yourself be influenced by media that you like. If you have a favorite movie or book or theatrical production, then think about it for a while. Take notes and write down specific aspects of it which you admire. Also, consider writing down two lists. One will be "concepts I want to include in my story," and the other one will be "concepts I want to avoid or criticize in my story." (This idea is from the book No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty.)

In my opinion, experiencing a variety of fiction helps writers. I think it's a good thing when a person understands what exists outside of their favorite genre, format, or style.

I don't know if reading a specific visual novel or any other form of media might help you write. If you're looking for specific VN recommendations, browse the sub-Reddit r/vnsuggest for a while, and then ask if you have a question.

Off-topic: I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I have never read any entries in the Ace Attorney, Zero Escape, or Danganronpa franchises. In the last few years, I have read and enjoyed VNs such as Toradora Portable, Sweet Fuse, and Tears 9, 10.

[ZeroSine]

Thanks for the response

To date I have experience working on a couple video game projects (thanks to Uni), however these were all in varying group sizes: A group of 4, group of 10 etc.
This VN project though, I was aiming to construct entirely on my own.
In terms of writing stories though...unfortunately next to none. I'd like to think myself a pretty competent writer, but that's all subjective opinion and could prove pretty worthless in writing a script as large as I intend this to be....

It was after I started working in Ren'Py that I realised how much work it would actually entail, but so far I think I've been making good progress in writing and sticking to a schedule.
The script I've written and planned out though, I find it's easily broken into defined chapters with a beginning, middle and end. In this case, I was thinking of releasing my game in an episodic format, something akin to Telltale's Walking Dead games etc. Would you think that would be feasible?

I know that the scope of this game is pretty large, and understand how easy it would be for it to stay in development limbo or something....I was originally going to have more to the game (E.g. portions where there is a point and click style of gameplay), as well as more characters to interact with, but I scrapped those entirely and decided to narrow my focus on a smaller cast of characters and such.

The summary of the game, I am struggling with a little bit. The lore of my story ties in heavily to the MC's motivations, so I'm just trying to have a description that's concise and also gives enough information so people won't be confused on what the story's actually about!

In terms of media that I like, I was heavily inspired by the likes of the VN's 999, and Virtue's Last Reward. While the tone of my game won't be nearly as dark, I was hoping to achieve the same sort of story progression, character development and so on.

*sigh* Although maybe I am better off just holding on this project for now (which will be crazy difficult because I'm so invested in it at the moment), and just focus on putting a VN smaller in scope out there.

Again, thanks so much for the response! Hopefully this'll help hone my focus somewhat.