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Do you have a question about a Japanese visual novel or a translation of it?
/vn/ is ready to answer it. We are not them.
>Developer Resources, Getting Started:
pastebin.com
>Recommended Reading:
vndb.org
pastebin.com
>For Developers. Huge collection of guides on everything:
lemmasoft.renai.us
>Ren'Py Download:
renpy.org
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>The girl that's actually a man/was a man.
>The character that's actually a robot/android. Blade Runner ripoff about their humanity and soul.
>Time travel. Bonus points if the time travel has no rules, or violates its rules.
>Supernatural elements worming their way into a grounded narrative, sometimes with no warning.
>The climax of the story revolves around the power of love and friendship.
>Numerous bad ends that are either canon in alternate universes or ignored.
>Several large twists that make next to no sense under close inspection, or make the reader say 'huh?' immediately. These come at the end.
>Characters dumping wikipedia articles about philosophy or thought experiments and everyone but one character already knows the details, or people quoting books they have no right to have read.
>A person on the protagonist's side turns out to be the source of all their suffering. 'Even my immediate family bought it!'
>Someone is brutally and needlessly killed and or dismembered for shock value. Usually done by a character that had no foreshadowing as a potential killer, or is too small for the task. Said killer is typically prompted by petty bullshit.
>Seemingly innocuous choices have ridiculous outcomes, like above.
>Absolutely insane amounts of fluff: dialogue scenes and subplots that go nowhere and contribute nothing to the main plot or the character's conflicts. [It's a beach/cooking episode. Hermione fighting for elf rights.] Simply portraying two people together in the same room is not relationship development. They must be tested, or it's fluff.
Literally hours, or entire novellas dedicated to nothing simply to increase the word count and thus the writer's paycheck.
>Music played when silence would enhance the drama.
>Protagonist is too pure hearted or kind. They're unrealistically willing to socialize with the number of people they do, in the manner they do.
Help me fill this out, /evn/. I want to subvert or deconstruct each one.
>I want to subvert or deconstruct each one.
This is how terrible stories are made.
Is diversity not a trope?
>you cannot learn anything about a character unless something serious and pressing is happening
>relationships between characters do not develop without some kind of "test"
Have you ever had relationships with actual human beings?
Have you ever read a book?
1. Not all (good) books follow what you said.
2. Visual novels are not books.
>tfw you love slice of life and the "padding" /evn/ gnashes their teeth over
Just wanna be comfy.
So because a VN isn't a book, it shouldn't have good writing?
What is good writing for a book does not necessarily constitute good writing for a VN,
Me too. Comfy is important.
Good writing: everything advances plot or theme as concisely as possible.
Comfy is important, but if the characters are having a quiet meal in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, well...
Nice hot opinions. Go deconstruct concisely, I'm sure it will be a real moneymaker
What about scenes that just let you get to know the characters? It might not progress the plot, but it does help you empathize with a character.
>if the characters are having a quiet meal in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, well...
But that's exactly the sort of thing you want to see. A little bit of peace in a doggy dog world.
>non porn evn
>money at all, in any way, for any production
These memes are reaching their expiration date, and the memeless shelter is closed! Please don't let them go to waste.
Write a story about a protagonist that seems too pure and kindhearted to be true, but is actually a girl pretending to be a trap to extort money from trap enthusiasts. She carries around a giant boombox that plays mood music 24/7. All her trap enthusiast friends are also giant posers that say intelligent things they found on the internet to sound cool without understanding what they mean. There are choices that seem extremely serious that lead to silly and meaningless conclusions. Every time characters start to relax and live like normal people someone screams at them to stop and get back to the plot. Every character remembers any bad ends that happen and will talk about how unpleasant they were when you advance the game after having played them. This is due to time travel with complex and thoroughly explained rules contained in a giant infodump. The world is full of supernatural, but a completely mundane plot takes the stage with no warning. A cute girl who you would expect to be a yandere, upon encountering a scene where those characters would be expected to snap, is actually a genuinely sweet girl and forgives the person for their minor slight. At the end, it's revealed that all the protagonist's problems were caused by a random stranger who has not been involved in the story at all before this point, but the characters point out that this makes no sense and ignore the revelation.
Here's your new bestseller, no need to thank me.
>dog eat dog world
fixed
That's exposition. You shouldn't have that 2/3 of the way through your novel.
>as concisely as possible
You mean "as concisely as needed". Just as you can be too long winded, it is also possible to be too concise. There is a happy middle here.
I'll throw slice of life in wherever I damn well please.
God dammit Hemingway, you forgot my robot.
Any advice on starting a patreon?
So, form over content? You don't even have an idea of what you want to write, but you want critics to say nice things about it.
Instead of asking here you should go to tvtropes and rip a few pages.
People like you are a diamond dozen, you know that?
Sorry.
One of the MC's poser friends is faking being a robot in order to be cool, but is actually a human and literally does not have a soul. Also, the ending revolves around the theme of the power of strangers.
>a dime a dozen
fixed
But how can I validate my narrative's existence without 100 postmodern tricks on the reader?
I swear, you damn grammar nazis think you can just waltz in and go "walla!" and fix everything. This isn't per say the best way to go about things.
Guys, my story has 6 villains and they all have the same name. Is this bad?
Are they all hot?
Yeah, that sounds bad. Is there one MAIN antagonist?
Is some fur trash welcome?
Depends on the grimmick/
Bane?
Yes... what? I ask every time i come in this thread if i'm welcome.
You don't need to keep asking, you know. Just go ahead and post that fur trash.
Here's some fur trash then. This was a fun scene to write since I was basically writing a presidential speech. I pulled a lot of inspiration from Donald Trump because I was looking for that fear element of group creation. Plus using the phrase make blackgate great again is just so perfect. It's slogan genius and helps with the xenophobic elements in the VN.
pretty cool!
Who's the Bernie of Blackgate?
Oh shit... that is an excellent question. I know Vincent (cat librarian who is a dick to everyone, no one likes him, and he can put people in jail) is Hillary. Bernie is Sooth, (pictured) old turtle dude who was all about change and fighting for the future but his life was tragically cut short.
>Bernie is Sooth, (pictured) old turtle dude who was all about change and fighting for the future but his life was tragically cut short
Does he fug you up the butt before he dies?
these are all great ideas, thanks
Wow these threads really died with Dischan, didn't they.
>this hack writer getting excited about his hamfisted political commentary
im glad someone out there is at least enjoying himself
LIVE
Don't jinx it
>implying there was any need to jinx it
We will die perfectly well on our own without any voodoo involved
True.
Ooga booga
You don't need to. I am validating your narrative through my own writing. This entire thread is part of my VN.
Reality and dating sim collide in swirling vortex of post-modern subversions, 4th-wall metatextual techniques that my buddies on TVTropes think are cool and words that I don't know how to use.
I am the ruse cruise and I was a passenger on you all along.
>Hermione fighting for elf rights
m8, that was to tie in with the overall plot, told us something about her personality that we didn't pay attention to before and was fucking hilarious
now every scene in FSN with Taiga is a waste of time, I agree
still thinking wistfully about characters:
your coach, who in his youth was an olympic medalist himself
your teammate, who is nowhere near in your league and only gets to come to world events because you're a contender so your country gets two slots
the brash American competitor, an athletic jumper who puts on a macho front to try and convince his country he's not gay
the ruthless Russian competitor, a perfectionist who comes across as a cold skating machine
Get out of here slut, Veeky Forums is for men only.
lots of beautiful, well-oiled men
Where did everyone fucking die?
Come on guys, keep posting your idiotic opinions on what makes a VN good. Otherwise the thread will die.
VNs are only good if they have boobies.
I'm too busy trying to make progress on this project before self-loathing kicks in and I delete the entire out of shame and have to try and make myself feel better by eating bread rolls again,
I'm sick of whiny fucks like you. JUST DO IT. Ignore the self loathing, stop coming on here and feeling bad for yourself.
Wow, you did it! All of the self-loathing in the world is gone!
No, fuck you, everyone has a right to bump this catatonic thread with a pity party post at least once a day.
boobies and cocks at the same time
When will Winged Cloud ever make a futa game?
Does anyone here ever read evn's with no dating or lewd anything?
i very rarely see evns that are lewd
certainly i've read a few with no romance, they just need to have some other compelling hook to catch my interest
It's easier to get interest in a romance/lewd game. Many evns aren't written well, so at the promise of romance/sex will keep people invested.
Look at Roommates from Winter Wolves. The gameplay and dialogue were average at best, but the dating sim aspect made it successful.
People love romance options. They want to date the character they like the most. And to fell like their input makes a difference and keeps them engaged with the story.
>Tfw you can't commission artists because good artist on deviantart all think they're too hot of shit to even reply back.
Anyone know a better site for this? I'm willing to pay for the artist as long as they're not shit.
artistsnclients maybe? though i'd recommend visiting the site of someone if they have it listed, it seems they up their works by a few dollars on there, possibly because the site takes a small percentage.
fucking artists, took me literally a year to find an artist who isn't a scum
c14 has dating sim and isn't successful, I suspect there's more to it than you think
It wasn't marketed well and had Katawa Shounen love interests. Sometimes "diversity" is bad for sales.
You're completely right. However it's better to hamfist your butthole than to leave it aching with not2deep4me since you're clearly a gut bucket bottom. Hope you stocked up on enemas because I go in dry... just like my writing.
Nope. He's too old to be in the bone zone.
but some people love old men
I highly doubt that anyone looked at it and went 'Oh, gosh, this game has diverse love interests, that kills my ladyboner'
The biggest problem I've heard from everyone is just that it's boring. Always Remember Me may be stupid but it has that dramatic plot starter to catch people's interest. C-14 doesn't even pretend to have a plot. The official Steam blurb is "C-14 Dating is an otome dating sim that combines archaeology, friendships and love." How dull is that?
At least promise us buried treasure, or a find that will shatter our beliefs about history, or SOMETHING. Instead it's all "Realistic college semester abroad! You might dig up an old pot or something!" It sounds totally dull.
Japanese schoolgirls don't count :^)
>I highly doubt that anyone looked at it and went 'Oh, gosh, this game has diverse love interests, that kills my ladyboner'
If there was a dating sim where you could date only guys in wheelchairs or who are blind would you want to play it?
It spent about 60% of the time reading like a textbook case on archeology. It wasn't woven in there, it just broke in and shutdown whatever the plot (which was vapid at best) was trying to do. It's a shame because the sudoku-like puzzles were rather fun.
People are willing to put up with huge shit for good LIs. Having bad LIs on top of a boring plot was the nail in the coffin.
If you could date ONLY guys in wheelchairs, it wouldn't be diverse, it would be a very particular fetish.
We've had some entertaining conversations on /evn/ in the past talking about blind love interests and NTR, iirc.
Clearly we need an otome game set in a mental asylum where you're a nurse dealing with different flavors of cute fetishized crazy.
The delusional fellow who insists he's someone famous/important
The charming sociopath who seems surface-normal and will absolutely eat your liver if he gets the chance
The suicidal one with a tragic past who needs you to become his reason to live
The guy with the hairtrigger temper who becomes obsessed with you and beats your rivals to death
Forget EVNs, MH Gen is out.
> letting crazy stick his dick in you
not necessarily 'letting'
you know how girls are
romantic rape routes ahoy
Is there an evn or dating sim that lets you choose between dating angel, demon, or human girls?
according to vndb tags, vndb.org
I'm very disappointed. I'm sure someone can do a better job.
If anyone here is looking for an evn dev roommate, apparently Tao's looking for a new place to live.
No doubt, but EVN was traditionally low on girl-dating games before the past few years, so there's a very small pool to have to look for +angel +demon in.
The Rising Angels series has characters with wings but I don't know if they count as angels or demons. Toko has angels and demons in it but no romance choices.
There's Tokyo Babel, but it's not an EVN. I just really like the angels, demons, humans dynamic and would like to see more of it.
Too bad I live in a different continent.
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How the fuck do you make a comfy VN? What is a comfy VN? What the fuck is this shit?
If you have to ask, you're not the right person to make one.
The autism started sooner than usual today.
I don't know what the person you're talking to meant, so I'm just trying to guess for myself. I suppose I'd think it might mean a certain kind of predictability, while still being well-written enough that it doesn't feel like you're just being buried under a groaning pile of cliche.
Strictly Formula. You can look at it and know what you're going to get, you don't have to worry about a massive shocking swerve in plot just to be edgy. The writer isn't trying to impress you with how clever they are, and instead just lets you enjoy all your favorite tropes and hang out with the cutie of your choice. You can relax and be pandered to. Everything is okay.
But I could be wrong.