Discussion about the making or playing of English Language Visual Novels, save for the ones from /ksg/, or games released originally in Japanese.
Do you have a question about a Japanese visual novel or a translation of it?
/vn/ is ready to answer it.
>Developer Resources, Getting Started:
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>Recommended Reading:
vndb.org
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Directly from the end, as a sequel / continuation
>Good luck
Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed reading it. We are aware that there are a quite a bit of expressions missing for some of the girls, but we had to make some compromises in order to have the time to produce a reasonable amount of CGs. It's not impossible that we decide to add some sprites for some of the minor characters though. As for the sprites themselves though, it's not likely we will rework on them, mostly because the next part will have new sets of sprites (and this time more clothes variations are planned).
For the RP thing, we've received both positive and negative reaction with the scene, so I guess it's really subjective. The intent here was mostly to show all the characters be happy together and worry-free (except for Yahiko) one last time before the ending, since I don't think the next part will have a lot of happy-go-lucky slice of life.
Thanks for the feedback anyway, it's much appreciated.
Good morning, you dead bastards.
That doesn't look so low.
It actually looks better than most $15+ evns
It looks good, it's just that the developers have been making this without any budget so far, hence why.
name the devs ?
Lekasoft studios I think. Their game is called Lost Winter Nights. There's a very short playable demo if I recall.
Aw shiet.
Checked their demo. Unpacked resources, all expressions done as individual separated files, despite having 1 base body for each characters. Blinking textbox. Shit lags at start. Shit lags in "History" screen. And they have (!) 2 programmers according to lemma & fuwa threads.
Yeah I saw that. The blinking textbox is really annoying and distracting. I'm surprised they didn't try to fix this first thing.
ohayou
>all expressions done as individual separated files
that's not too bad unless there is a shitton of characters
>all expressions done as individual separated files, despite having 1 base body for each characters
In defense of that practice, I find it a hell of a lot easier to plot out scenes when the expressions are fully built in the images directory and I can go look at it and see exactly what the face will look like before coding the character to switch to it.
It's not like filesize is an issue with most of these games, if there's no voice acting. Even with every single expression saved as a png the game's still under 200 MB. I could shave that down, but why? Some customers get bitchy if the game file is too small, like it can't possibly be a decent game if it's under 100MB.
Blinking textbox, though, damn, I've refused to play games I got free copies of for that. (I assume you mean it disappears every time an expression changes? Annoying as fuck.)
I liked the RP part. It made sense and seemed like a good way to turn around the mood. I find kind of funny when people complain about little SoL segments in a medium rife with them.
More on the tech side of things, though, I stumbled across pic related in the amusement park. Seems like a sprite is missing or bad naming or something. I get this one whenever I leave the tech showcase event for last.
Really? I couldn't stand it. It dragged on and on, was utterly mindless, and broke up the otherwise somber but optimistic end of the VN. Having the brief happy reunion in the hospital was more than enough, and felt way more natural.
I hated all of the SoL parts, though, so maybe it's just me.
On the note of tons of files... Can someone explain live composite to me like I am 5 years old? Or link to a good tutorial?
>I hated all of the SoL parts, though, so maybe it's just me.
My point, my good user. If a VN makes a point of including SoL and they don't lie about it, well, the fault lies at you.
It's fine if you don't like them and prefer other genres. There are VNs out there that keep the SoL parts brief or non existant (although less abundant than its counterpart because interacting with nice and likable characters seems to feel a basic necessity that goes unquenched modern day Japan--and soon the whole world). Saya no Uta and Kikokugai, for example.
*seems to fill
That argument doesn't hold up. If halfway through Clannad you had to play Call of Duty for twenty hours before you could continue, you would be well within your rights to criticise that choice of direction, even if it was advertised that it would be included. In the same way, saying "This VN's sprites are drawn in crayon" does not then invalidate people criticising the VN for an unecessary and possibly distracting stylistic choice.
Fallen Snow can develop Lucid9 how they like (and I hope they do, overall it's been quite good so far). But I can also provide feedback on the experience, and my feeling is that it would be a much better VN if it was remade as a single-thread narrative, and not a multi-route dating sim.
>That argument doesn't hold up. If halfway through Clannad you had to play Call of Duty for twenty hours before you could continue, you would be well within your rights to criticise that choice of direction, even if it was advertised that it would be included. In the same way, saying "This VN's sprites are drawn in crayon" does not then invalidate people criticising the VN for an unecessary and possibly distracting stylistic choice.
This argument doesn't hold up.
If you were warned that there was Call of Duty in the middle, you could still criticise its effect on the pacing of the story, because that's a secondary issue.
But if a VN is advertised up front as having crayon sprites, all the screenshots have crayon sprites, and then you play it and bitch that it has crayon sprites, you're as much of an idiot as the people who buy VNs and then complain that they're virtual books with no gameplay. YES THAT IS WHAT IT SAID ON THE TIN.
Read the documentation.
If I bought the game and then said "WTF why are there crayon sprites???? Gayshit lol" then I would indeed be an idiot. But if insead I said "Buying into the team's artistic vision of a visual novel sprited entirely with crayon, I found myself left cold. Unfortunately, the overall effect failed to properly convey the emotional state of the characters, and ultimately left me unable to take seriously the VN's more emotional moments" - then that is fair feedback that their aims fell flat.
With Lucid9, I acknowledge that the game was pitched as partly SoL. I am now providing feedback that I found those elements detracted from the experience, and that I believe it would have been a better VN without them. You are also welcome to provide feedback on your own experience with Lucid9.
Selenon Rising now has a single review
It's negative
Poor bastards
>Sekai Project
uh, aren't publishers supposed to market products they take on
laughing so fucking hard here
>30% of your profits past Steam/taxes for two tweets
If any of you guys are dumb enough to sign with them, you deserve your horrible fate.
The other tweets are them retweeing gaming sites posting about it, so they at least submit your press release to some 'journalists'
But yes. You could do this yourself, if you're not a complete cavedweller.
That's what you get for making typos in game name.
How is it even possible to mispronounce Skeleton as Selenon ?
Skeleton Raising
The new necromancer parenting sim
If that can somehow help, as I said earlier, I don't think the next parts will focus on slice of life (if there is, probably much less than in Inciting Incident). That being said, I'm not sure you could argue that the game would objectively become better without the SoL parts. With all the feedback we've received, it seems that a majority of the people enjoyed the slice of life in the sense that it made them care about the characters. However, there is also a (non-negligible) minority who believes the SoL really distracts the pace of the game. I don't believe any group is objectively more right than the other, how you will react to this will depend on one's own sense of humor. I'll admit that the demographic we are targeting (at least with Inciting Incident) is probably younger than your average EVN? With all the internet culture stuff, memes and pop-culture references, it's most likely harder to enjoy the game if you're not really into it.
Anyway, my point is, different demographics, different tastes, different experience. While your feedback is definitely valuable, it relies on your personal enjoyment and tastes. Would removing all of the slice of life make the story better if a majority of people saw value in it? And if you were to replace those scenes, what would you include instead?
>2 tweets
>17 likes and 13 retweets in total
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA
Oh wait, it's actually quite bad.
HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA
The crowdfunding campaign for Phantom the Rebound succeeded. Didn't this one fail before and relaunched later with a much lower goal for the same game?
And, from the creators of Sickness, comes Wander No More to Steam.
Right. Everyone will naturally have their own opinion.
For me, I still didn't care about most of the characters, and at least for Inciting Incident, they had no reason to be in the story. Akira and Airi are very unrealistic, which makes them hard to take seriously. Akira's boundless optimism especially clashes awfully with the overall tone of the VN. Had neither existed, I don't believe Inciting Incident would have been any the worse, and I think the pacing would have been much improved.
Elizabeth is a more grounded character, but again, she doesn't serve much purpose in Inciting Incident that couldn't be easily glossed over. I don't think any of these three had any really emotional scenes, either. Maybe I'll change my mind after part 2, but looking at Inciting Incident alone, I think they could have served much more minor roles.
Misaki is a bit better, given her history with Yama, and her status as a red herring about Yama's past. But she also tied in weakly to the central plot. Amalgamating the essetial roles of Misaki, Airi and Elizabeth into Misaki would have solved all that.
The best parts of the VN are the tension of the mystery, and Yama's scenes with Rui, which not only felt the most natural of any of the heroines, but also led to the most depth. The two have a much deeper and more complicated relationship than almost any other I can think of in an EVN, and I think that was actually the greatest success of Lucid9. Needless to say, I'm not convinced the other 4 heroines will be able to measure up, but I'll reserve judgement until part 2 is out.
As you said, however, to each their own. I found the memes cringey and juvenile, but others may find them fresh and humorous. Ultimately, it's your VN, and whether you choose to incorporate or discard any of this is up to you. I did enjoy the VN, and I think it was one of the best EVNs I've played, but I think it could have been phenomenal, instead of merely good, and that leaves me disappointed.
Fair enough, I can understand that. It would be unrealistic to try to please everyone anyway, though I'm still glad that you found value in playing the game despite disliking a good half of it. Regarding some of the points you wrote, I do think those scenes suffer from the lack of perspective that comes with only releasing part 1. While it's true that a lot of those moments are completely irrelevant to Inciting Incident, they are supposed to set up a non negligible amount of foreshadowing for the heroine routes, but since part 2 is not out, the reader has to take those scenes at face value, meaning that if you dislike the heroines, it will just bore you.
look, this meme again.
>blinking textbox
>lags at start
>lags in "History" screen
What are you guys talking about? The only thing that blinks in the textbox is the little arrow telling you to keep going, and there is no lag whatsoever unless you are playing it in a literal toaster.
This is beyond nitpicking, unless you are the devs and it's just a ruse to make people check it out. If so, it works.
Each time a new sprite or expression appears on screen, the textbox flickers. It's really distracting.
Hey Sekai apologist, how about you let the rest of the class know exactly what is it that they can do for anyone? We have a clear example of them not doing enough to warrant a slice of the pie, as shitty as the pie is.
and can be fixed with literally a single line of code (unless it's a namebox, then you're shit out of luck)
Where have you been the last few threads? It's clear that they partially funded ML, those 5k didn't come out of nowhere.
Should I splurge some money on an artist to draw a cool looking cover and then do the in-game stuff myself, despite my lack of skill in that field? For a comparison of what I'm thinking of, think like the original Umineko releases.
Wasn't that the point? That they have all these 'programmers' and still such a basic mistake put forward
No, see a Wild Catgirl Appears. People will shit on it to no end.
More like if you're dumb enough to sign with a publisher and expect them to do 100% of the marketing work for you. Sekai will basically post about your game as long as you create content they can share easily. If you expect them to come at you and ask you "Okay, so here is the plan for the next two months regarding marketing, we will need you to gather X assets, ideally Y newsletter and blog post, and produce Z original assets for a press release", you're really mistaken. Having Sekai as a publisher is a multiplier for your own marketing efficiency.
Making your own marketing plan twice as more effective is useless if the value of your efforts starts around 0. The EVN projects that teamed up with Sekai who knew how to market themselves but just lacked the audience received a very decent amount of additional exposure thanks to Sekai from what I've seen.
You can do it this way if your total game budget is $50 and if you're really really lucky you might get some decent results, but in general people will bitch that the art doesn't look like the cover and demand refunds.
Unless it's free and then at least you might attract enough attention with your cover to get a few extra downloads.
>Unless it's free
That's the plan. No way am I stupid enough to think people will want to buy it if I do that, I'm interested solely in scoring extra downloads to market myself. It's my hope that enough people aren't put off by the blatant bait-and-switch marketing that they like my writing (which they might not have checked out if not for the cover) and I can market myself more in the future (and maybe re-hire the same artist to do more than a single illustration).
And that's very bad, you moron. They wouldn't have to fund their projects' crowdfunding at all if they were doing a good job advertising. Getting the funding to complete the project and not marketing/selling at all is a bad thing in a commercial project.
I swear to God, some of you still think getting your game on Steam or other stores is making it. There is a big jump between that and getting people to play it and give a fuck about it.
A lot of people bought it, though. They complained, but when you're starting from zero with attention, every little helps
I checked the reviews and more of them are complaining about the writing and technical problems than the art.
>If you expect them to come at you and ask you "Okay, so here is the plan for the next two months regarding marketing, we will need you to gather X assets, ideally Y newsletter and blog post, and produce Z original assets for a press release", you're really mistaken.
They're taking a share of the money.
It's not unreasonable to expect them to be a little proactive.
On the other hand if you can't be arsed to prepare marketing materials for them to use or give them a reasonable time to hype your game before you insist on releasing it, they can't work miracles.
The art has since been fixed. There were tons of complaints about the art when the game launched, we had multiple threads mocking how ridiculous it was.
What is a publisher supposed to do? Publish. If you sign with them and you still have to put your game out there because they don't have a plan, you're not exactly getting a publisher out of the deal.
What does the new art look like?
>On the other hand if you can't be arsed to prepare marketing materials for them to use or give them a reasonable time to hype your game before you insist on releasing it, they can't work miracles.
This. Then again, if they have no QA and will just let you tank, it's very unethical that they'd take your money for a service they're not in condition to provide given the circumstances.
>On the other hand if you can't be arsed to prepare marketing materials for them to use or give them a reasonable time to hype your game before you insist on releasing it, they can't work miracles.
True, but that's no excuse for them not even asking for anything.
one of people's complains is that they don't fund their projects, and ML shows that they do. The only bad decision was using IGG and not announcing it at cons. Otherwise it's been advertised plenty.
...
>one of people's complains is that they don't fund their projects
And that's a retarded complaint, their job is to publish and market the VNs. Which they're clearly not doing effectively.
>Otherwise it's been advertised plenty.
Where?
>advertised plenty
By ML user, yes. By sekai? Don't make me laugh, sekai shill.
see
I rest my case, Sekai-hater.
Oh, you're just trolling. Carry on then.
I miss the simpler, more earnest and genuine "you are trolling" times. Now everyone is too jaded and goes for the more coolgy "this is bait".
>And that's a retarded complaint,
It depends on what you expect. In many cases video game publishers DO fund projects. Not always, though.
Really, it's up to the individual what contract they sign and what deals they make.
Is voice acting, no matter how bad it is, mandatory for a VN?
I'm not trying to white-knight them, I have my fair deal of complaints regarding how Sekai could do things, but I'm a bit tired of seeing people pretending they are scammers who will take your money for nothing. Their efficiency isn't great, but they are far from useless either.
But Sekai isn't the best suited to create a marketing plan, because they don't know as much as the devs about the game. Sekai knows where and how to advertise, but it's the dev's role to create and pick the content they want to be promoted. Sekai can't do that for you, and they shouldn't. A marketing plan is something for both the creators and the publisher to make.
It's honestly a bit naive to think that Sekai should dedicate their time and proactiveness toward small EVNs that won't bring them as much profit as JVNs at the end of the day. It's unfair, but money talks and they are a business.
Even if asking about a project isn't much from Sekai, I'm pretty sure most of the devs here can relate to their situation: imagine yourself being very busy with discussing stuff about crucial elements of your VN with some members (say art or music). Now, would you also take the time to check all the lesser jobs (such as editing, coding) and see if they are progressing as well? If you're too busy, you'd probably prefer them to come at you directly to brief you. It's the same with Sekai I feel.
It's true that it's not a real excuse, but if Sekai isn't making the first move, what prevents you from doing it yourself? Devs just need to know their right, have more self confidence and be a bit more pushy. Everyone benefits from it, trying to save some misplaced pride by saying "I paid so they must take care of everything without me having to say a thing" is really stupid.
Yeah, I'm sure repackaging fan translations of JVNs from four or more years ago is hard work.
No. If it is too bad I would actually advise AGAINST including it.
I don't think Sekai are scammers exactly. I do think devs who sign up with them are mugs who could do the same job themselves with a little effort.
Of course not
>But Sekai isn't the best suited to create a marketing plan, because they don't know as much as the devs about the game
>implying any publisher knows more about the game than the dev
just shut up
>if Sekai isn't making the first move, what prevents you from doing it yourself?
The fact I'm giving them revenue to do it?
Asking help from Sekai is more like a shortcut I feel. They are basically selling you their followers, and you get more chance for your announcements to snowball through social medias.
Even under that assumption, you'd have to be pretty stupid to promise to give a share of your profits forever away over a few tweets.
The problem is that everything Sekai does for you can be done in a day or two.
Except the funding, on the cases where they actually do step up with some.
Anyway. Speaking only for myself, I'm not trying to attack them so much as trying to tell people to do it themselves. You'll make more money and feel more in control of your business.
I mean, sure Sekai is at fault, but I don't understand either devs who are too butthurt by Sekai ignoring them to try to remind them that they exist and that they need to work together to make active promotion. Saying "I'm giving them revenue so they should take care of everything" is as stupid as the "customer is king" thing. If you are willing to be more cooperative and swallow your pride, and accept that Sekai might not put your project as a priority, but are still willing to help you promote it, everyone is a winner in the end. It would be a totally different story if Sekai just plainly refused to promote your stuff when asked, but I don't recall hearing of that ever happening (I might be wrong though about that though).
It's all a matter of exposure. Seeing their following, a simple tweet about the name of your game will guarantee you at least thousands of view, and it adds up with the number of retweets. Even if they don't pay attention to your project, they will be at least aware of your game existence. After people become more aware of your game, they are more likely to react when it's mentioned after. And in the end more likely to visit your download page. And maybe if they like it, they will talk about it in social medias or in different communities. It's all stuff that adds up to create a snowball effect. Getting as much exposure on your own is hard, not impossible, but it takes time and effort.
I'm not sure the people bitching about Sekai here are actually the people working with them.
>I don't understand either devs who are too butthurt by Sekai ignoring them
You're trying to defend a position with no merits whatsoever here. If you take a job to publish and market, you publish and market. The developers can afford to have no idea how this works; their job is to develop games. On the other hand, Sekai is offering a service based on how this works. Expecting all developers to understand the situation is stupid, but Sekai's whole business as a publisher depends on their ability to market.
You have no argument here. If they can't do their best because the dev is uncooperative, they should not sign with them. Anything else is just malpractice. You would never blame a surgeon for not being willing to operate on a patient rejecting surgery, but you would sue the hell out of them if the patient wasn't given the instructions from the professional on how to prepare for surgery and died as a direct consequence of that.
Good luck getting an article on a bigger site if you are a first time dev, though.
I did. It helps to target sites that might be interested in them and having a good looking game as well as a press kit rather than just going "HEY FEATURE US".
This is the only place they can bitch about sekai. NDA with sekai forbids speaking out against them. A lot of people are very displeased with them.
I work with people who worked under them on a release and will never do so again. Like said, NDA prevents them from saying shit in public, and I was told this in confidence.
im fine with them
Good fucking riddance, we don't want to work with anyone like you anyway.
A little too on the nose, friend. Gotta be subtler.
Then why do they keep publishing with them?
We've very rarely seen anyone leave. Only Winged Cloud, and they came crawling back.
Because even if their management sucks, they remain effective in numbers I guess?
If my math isn't too wonky, supposing they take a 30% cut from your game, you just need to sell 42% more games than what you would have sold without them to break even.
I doubt a random EVN is going to sell 42% better because Sekai Project retweeted them, really
But it does.
Well, their non-Sekai game also sold like shit on Steam, so who knows, that might be an improvement
I feel bad for them but it is also hilarious
I also feel bad for the hordes of nobody game devs still complaining that Steam didn't "let them know" about the upcoming anime sale, and/or didn't feature their games on the main page.
I mean, it's sweet that you innocently think Steam cares about every little VN and is going to reach out to them personally to invite them into a sale event but... that isn't how the business works.
How does it work? Do you go email them saying "hey next time there's a themed sale hook my game up in on that"?
Might help, since the biggest problem is the 'nobody'.
If you have a game that has made a ton of sales, you are bumped up to a higher level of attention internally, and they'll automatically pay attention to you.
If you've made contacts within Valve so someone actually remembers you exist, then you might get some of that as well.
I have no clue how steamspy.com
They should take care of everything they agree to in their contract, which I've not read. Maybe the devs are signing contracts that stipulate that SP will only tweet about you once, retweet you once and not bring your game to conventions and instead do "Online Exclusives", and that's on them. Maybe not.
However, I've worked for a videogame company that also published games from smaller studios and what we offered them included:
- QA
- Some of our devs to manage to hit deadlines
- All of their PR was done by my company
- Their trailers were done by my company
- Distribution
- Showing a working demo to various journalists so they could write previews about it
And probably other stuff that I forget. While some of these would seem a bit overkill for most EVNs, expecting them to post about the VN on several related sites and not just tweeting once about the release and bringing builds to conventions (which is what I understood they didn't do with ML) would seem like the bare minimum.
I'm bringing this up because what I'm getting from yours and other posts seems to suggest that it's the devs' fault exclusively that they get such a crappy deal. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't sign with Sekai even if I were panicking about money for any reason, I'd rather ask for a loan or work a second and a third job and these devs should really learn their lesson and never deal with Sekai again, but Sekai itself isn't blameless in this. At best, they're incompetent fuckwits, at worst, they're knowingly pocketing money from the EVNs they "publish" for very little effort on their part.
>expecting them to post about the VN on several related sites and not just tweeting once about the release and bringing builds to conventions (which is what I understood they didn't do with ML) would seem like the bare minimum.
It seems that they submit press releases and/or review keys to various blogs and sites even for little EVNs.
>I'd rather ask for a loan
I agree with a lot of your post, but holy shit this is literally the worst idea.
A surprising number of indie games are funded by maxing out a credit card as a starter loan.
As said, they do make press releases and offer review keys if you ask them. The part irking most people being the "if you ask them", since Sekai really isn't proactive with their EVN.
Sure it's very little effort for them at this point, but I always saw getting published by Sekai being more of a "buy an access to their social medias followers" rather than "buy Sekai's efforts in promoting your game". It's probably just me though.
Maybe I should offer a discount service. I will tweet about your game and I don't even demand a share of profits. Just $50 a tweet. Deal, right?