The "Western Visual novel development is not for me" thread.

[Furwerkstudio]

I love visual novels, or rather I love the idea of visual novels. I love the idea of just distilling a game into just narrative and branching paths, no long traveling, no pixel hunting, no throw everything at the wall. Only after trying them I found the better ones would work out as a movie, or a comic, or a light novel, or a series of still images, or practically anything else, often I just wait for adaption. I love anime and manga a lot, and I thought I would love visual novels. But it just never clicked.

I tried, I mean I really tried to develop a visual novel using renpy. I did pop out a couple, experimenting with different ideas like trying to have word balloons and having no sprites in trying to stand out. I tried so many things, the few I did publish had no sprites but each scene had the character interacting and I did use word balloons for a few, my first one even had text-to-voice for "voice acting", there was a ton that were never published I did so much from animating to trying to create different ways of choosing a path. I found myself having no passion for the project, even before I started work on it or found that passion when I changed to a different Medium (ether just animating a three second scene or creating a webcomic series).

Well the lack of passion was only half why I felt like making visual novels wasnt' for me, the other half was dealing with the western development community. Not the fans who eat up JAST or PEACH or, like me, spend a lot of time on the visual novel database, they're pretty cool and fun.

I mean those that call themselves "visual novelist", that use hideous DAZ3D models even when there is an endless amount of better cg models for the same price for some reason to make dull, "hyper-realistic" porn games. I tried to get along, it's just I get ignored or told because I'm the furry I was the wrong one, it was very weird.

Sorry to be very venomous here, it is just I started this thread to vent about how it feels like the visual novel development community seems very clique-ish, picking those allowed into this very special inner circle, and how I felt kind of defeated by the treatment. I mean to just get into one forum one has to know this secret password on must get from an administrator from another platform, if they deem you worthy of joining, it was nuts.

On some side notes I find it very weird a lot of western visual novelist really, really hate anime. I mean a foaming at the mouth, screaming at the top of the lungs level of hate towards anime, the various styles, storytelling, character designs, animation, production... Basically everything.. Kind of makes me wonder why they are making visual novels in the first place.

Also I looked over to Japan, and I notice visual novels are kind of a niche there too. At least in the hobbist/indie/doujinsoft section as they tent to focus more on action, fighting or shoot 'em ups. Hell I even saw somebody put together some maps for Doom, and they were good too. Kind of weird.

[TheFrighter]

What a pity. It's sad to hear that the people behind VN are so stiff.

_

[morganw]

Some of your thoughts are very similar to mine, the things I want to make are probably a hybrid of a visual novel and an adventure game, I get frustrated at the extremes and expectations of each.

Sorry to be very venomous here, it is just I started this thread to vent about how it feels like the visual novel development community seems very clique-ish, picking those allowed into this very special inner circle, and how I felt kind of defeated by the treatment. I mean to just get into one forum one has to know this secret password on must get from an administrator from another platform, if they deem you worthy of joining, it was nuts.

I can probably guess which community you are speaking of here, I dabble there as well as here, potentially we've already spoken if you've asked for the password. What I have noticed is that a lot of people you encounter there may have very specific ideas of what the final product of a game will be, how it should operate, and in some cases how it should look. I guess this is down to what they like themselves, but I think there is a also a pressure that to fit in you have to demonstrate the same fashionable ideas. In extreme cases I've seen technical knowledge withheld when a question was asked, when the person answering the question has effectively decided that what is being made should shouldn't be using feature X, because most players wouldn't like games that use feature X. Unfortunately the first interaction you have with people may not have been great, depending on who happened to be around at the time. Outside of the technical support channel everything seems much more balanced. The password thing doesn't help the overall impression, but from what I was told there was a massive amount of spam accounts being created on the forum everyday to the point that it was becoming a maintenance issue, it wasn't meant to be a barrier for actual users.

[Cassiebsg]

I'm not found of VN either, but it annoys me more that they get "cataloged" as adventure games, than the fact that they exist (in whichever form is "the correct"). 

I just can't see the point of clicking to advance the story with no other interaction from me. Then I just rather sit at the sofa and watch it on tv, or read a book/comic... and guess what, the only clicking here is used to "pause or stop" instead of advancing. 

[Furwerkstudio]

I'm not found of VN either, but it annoys me more that they get "cataloged" as adventure games, than the fact that they exist (in whichever form is "the correct"). 

I just can't see the point of clicking to advance the story with no other interaction from me. Then I just rather sit at the sofa and watch it on tv, or read a book/comic... and guess what, the only clicking here is used to "pause or stop" instead of advancing. 

It's weird because in Japan they are their own thing, and stuff that has the player doing stuff (combat, finding clues, anything really) is dubbed ADV, and honestly I never consider them adventure games.

I thought it would be awesome to create something to make a motion comic where the player (reader?) goes at their own pace. After spending some time with them I found it gets tiring constantly clicking through text, which is weird because I love Japanese CRPGs where you do the same thing but there is a dungeon to get through and monsters to tear through.

Actually I think that's a problem with visual novels, and their natural progression the Walking Sim, is there is no obstacle to over come, no bosses or no puzzles, "something" there to over come, a sense of winning and the story feels like a neat reward afterwards. Otherwise there is no real point, it's like getting a Rubik's cube but the entire thing is one solid color.