Visual novel collab

[raitendo]

HIII guys and gals,

Just want to let it be known that I'm always looking for a good branching story to turn into a visual novel. (if you're unfamiliar with that term, see Air Pressure, a game by bentosmile that I ported to flash)

Basically I'm looking for somebody who can come up with a great story, and script it in my VN language, which is pretty much based on Ren'py. What I want is people to send me finished/first drafts of stories (remember they should be branching) rather than pointless requests of the "please can you commit to working with me even though i haven't written anything"-variety (which you might think is self-evident but apparently, it isn't).

I'm going to put up a few resources on how to script a VN using my scripting language at this address: http://www.raitendo.com/renrai/. At the time of writing there's nothing there, so for now I'd recommend looking into Ren'py's documentation for anybody unfamiliar with scripting. For starters, I'd be happy to accept unscripted stories, but it might be worth looking into scripting already so you understand what can and can't be done in a visual novel.

The money in sponsorship for visual novels isn't necessarily so great, but I'd be willing to share 1/3 of whatever the game earns with the writer/scripter, another 1/3 with the artist (who wouldn't be me, my idea was to find an artist in the arts forum if somebody sends me a good script), and keep 1/3 for myself for doing the actual code and patching everything together.

If you've got a story/script, send it to me through pm or preferably e-mail. If you have any questions, feel free to post here!

[raitendo]

Hi,

I actually started an additional topic in collabs on this, but I think maybe a lot of you writer types don't have a lot of reason to browse that forum normally, so I figure I'd post here again.

Basically I currently have between 6-8 pro or semi-pro illustrators/artists who've expressed an interest in working on this, while I only have one finished script at the time and 3 or so interested writers. If you're a writer who wants to get started in game development, this could be a great start (Air Pressure for example has so far been played over 500,000 times). If you're interested AND have a good idea, feel free to e-mail or PM me! Questions preferably go here in this thread or the other thread, I suppose.

Here's some general advice on what my personal take on what makes a good branching story:

The ideal visual novel should make the player feel like they are making worthwhile choices. Choices of the type "go left", "go right" where it's impossible to tell the outcome should generally be avoided. Ideally, the game will have more than one ending, and more than one ending that doesn't end with the player dying because they screwed up. The game certainly doesn't have to have endings where the player dies either. It's OK to sometimes present the player with false choices", i.e. 2 or more choices that seem different but basically lead onto the same path. It's also OK and also probably necessary to have some branches lead back and merge with another branch. If you'd want to give each choice it's completely unique branch the story will soon spiral out of hand in terms of size, unless you severely limited the amounts of choices. It's all a question of balance though - you really don't have to give the player a choice at each and every turn.

Any of these rules can also be subverted in many different ways - but not always successfully. Another game made by the Air Pressure author (also coded by me) was pretty much panned, because it subverted the "meaningful choice" standard of the genre. I think it was an interesting take, but I also understand why it wasn't very popular.

As for what would make a good story: a visual novel should preferably be "chattier", by which I mean more dialogue-heavy, than a Choose Your Own Adventure book, and it should be less verbose. A good idea is to come up with a story that's easy on the illustrator. The fewer characters, the less work for the illustrator (which of course is yourself in this case). Same goes with locations (i.e. backgrounds) and "special event CG graphics". Choose a setting where you know you can get away with rough backgrounds, not showing too many details. Air Pressure is actually a great example of using a single character (with 4-5 different moods) and just a handful of locations, but still managing to create a really interesting and gripping story (again, I only coded, didn't write it so I'm not blowing my own horn here ;) ).

[raitendo]

"The fewer characters, the less work for the illustrator (which of course is yourself in this case)"

ignore the brackets, I just copied and pasted this from an e-mail I sent to an illustrator who was interested in writing. :)