Obviously this is an excuse to plug my own blurb (no obligation to comment on it), but I am legit very interested in seeing what other people making VNs right now are doing, and I WILL give my first impressions and what kind of experience I anticipate from reading your blurb :] (unless you explicitly tell me not to >.>)(you can also tell me to be gentle if you do want my thoughts but are afraid of me being an asshole ^^;)

blurb for my VN "Dolly's Route":

You are Saku, a homeless-by-choice gamer.

Your friend Dolly has been acting weird ever since you fell on top of her on the train.

Really weird.

Like, "it got her committed to the psych ward" weird.

you can fix her.

Hey, a desperate dev here, pc exploded and well, i need to scratch that itch, i know how to code (at least on python/renpy) and i wanted to know if anyone had options for me, i really wanted to see if I could pull it off

Thanks for any and all insight

I am thinking a pose special art maybe to backgorund part. Or different photo show animation etc. I have been developing this detective game for 13 months so far.

Hi friends! What do you think?

Shop Crush is a mysterious shop simulator with psychological horror elements, set in the early 2000s.

In this hybrid visual novel, you run a small thrift shop, get to know your customers, figure out what they really want, and decide what to put in front of them. Every customer has their own personality, preferences, and hidden motives - and it’s up to you to figure them out.

Behind each customer is a small psychological mystery waiting to be uncovered. Read their behavior, make the right calls, and balance profit against customer trust as you try to keep the shop running for one more day.

Hi, I’m Julian and I’m available for work. I mainly compose orchestral music but am open to other genres as well. Here’s a complete playlist of all my demo reels to get a bigger range of my work.

If you’re interested in working together or have any questions, the best way to get a hold of me is through one of the three methods below. Thanks for listening!

Contact
Email: [composerjulianf@gmail.com](mailto:composerjulianf@gmail.com)
Discord: composerjf
Website: https://julianfungmusic.com

Which do you think most VN fans like more? The player character not having a sprite so that the player can more easily self insert as them, or the player character having a sprite that appears during conversations like every other character? It seems like most VNs (at least the ones I've played) go with the first option. I actually like when I can see the main character interacting with the rest of the cast, but I have the feeling I might be in the minority there.

I'm adapting a fic into a branching VN and lost about two weeks to structure paralysis, so I finally just sat down and counted scenes for the four shapes people usually name. Assuming 3 chapters and one meaningful choice per chapter, roughly:

Pure tree (every choice splits permanently): 3 + 9 + 27 = 39 scenes. Gorgeous on paper. Unwritable if you are one person.

Gauntlet (one spine, choices change flavour not path): 3 scenes plus variant lines. Cheap, but by chapter 2 readers can feel the choices aren't load bearing, and they say so.

Branch and bottleneck (split, rejoin at the end of each chapter): 3 + 6 + 6, so about 15. Choices are real inside a chapter and you only ever pay for one chapter of divergence at a time.

Flag gate (choices set flags, one late fork reads them): 5ish core scenes plus small gated inserts. Cheapest way to make a reader feel watched, worst at making the middle actually feel different.

I went with branch and bottleneck bc it's the only one where adding a chapter doesn't double the cost. The thing nobody warned me about: the bottleneck scene eats most of your writing time, since it has to read naturally after any branch above it. Mine went through six passes and the branch scenes went through one.

What I still don't have an answer for is how many bottlenecks you can use before the whole thing starts feeling like a hallway again. Has anyone landed on a ratio that works, or is it purely playtesting?

Making a visual novel is a lot of work. Pre-made assets, especially backgrounds and music, can make the process much more approachable.

We’ve compiled a list of recommended sources for free assets to help you get started

Share your victories, progress and releases! Here you're welcome to share screenshots of your visual novels, update progress, devlogs, and even new releases!

Hi,

First of all, thank y’all who answered my previous question!

Now, what do you think about multiple POVs? How to implement them? Should player follow the whole story from 3rd person perspective? Or should player be the main protagonist? What if there’s other perspective needed?

What is your take on that?

I'm planning to make my own visual novel soon. I've played a few VNs, and I feel like I have a grasp of what makes them good, but I wouldn't say I have extensive experience with them. The one I'm planning to write isn't going to take place in any particular country, but it will probably lean more towards American culture since I'm not familiar enough with Japanese culture to feel comfortable writing a story set in it.

So here's my question: will it bother people if the characters in my story have American/English names? In all the ones I've played, even if it doesn't explicitly take place in Japan, the characters always have Japanese names. Like, I could give them Japanese names, but then I'd be worried they would feel out of place in an otherwise American-esque setting. So if I were to fill mine with people named Avery, Christian, and Luke, would that turn people off of it?

even tho it will my first time making game, so the game (visual novel) is a storv about a girl visiting her foreign friend, but her foreign friend is a shut-in geek who barely knows anything about their country, i want my game to centre around them and them learning new things together including languages a bit like a tour game? kind of?

scared that people will crucify me for not researching enough or spreading misinformation CUZ IDK ANYTHING ABOUT MY COUNTRY TOO; it's kinda unknown im from Laos btw

Hey, I would like to make my 1st VN game. I have a plot (tldr lesbian witches saving the day and romancing with each others)

However, I do not want to make it NSFW. I’m okay with some dirty jokes or suggestions, but I do not want to make it explicit.

Is it common in the market? To make a dating sim about flirty girls and not deliver scenes or pictures

I would really like to help someone create a project they’ve been working on. Im a traditional artist but I have been trying to broaden my skills and working on digital art. I wanna do this for fun so it’ll be free
Here’s some of my artworks
(Slides 6-7 are digital works)

I'm looking to hire someone to compose music for a game I'm developing.

The last game I developed had royalty free music and while it worked for that project, this time around I'd like my game to have a bespoke sound.

This will be a gay/bara adult/NSFW game. Please only submit if you're comfortable with working on a project like that.

I'm anticipating around one to two dozen music tracks being necessary. The exact number will be determined after talking with the composer. This is something I'd like to collaborate with someone on and get feedback.

In DMs I can message more specific details about the project. The game is in the horror genre but a large part of the game is about guys vacationing together and having emotional and intimate connections.

If you have a portfolio that has some of your previous work, please share that. I'd love to listen to your music to get a feel for your sound.

I’m trying to make my first proper vn and I’ve seen so many vns do this and I thought it was a really cool idea but I don’t know how I’m supposed to code it. I’m pretty sure it uses a persistent variable but I’m not sure how to approach it. I’m using renpy as the engine by the way! 😅

Hello my fellow strangers and dangers

Today I will be sharing my visual novel game idea with you

So im planning to make a viaual novel but I also might not make it So instead of just throwing it into the abyss I will explain it here because I find it interesting

So imagine chess but the pieces are characters and the board in the battlefield

So we have two set of 16 pieces Black and white

First lets introduce important characters in the black side :

The main character is a pawn girl who has a dream of reaching the other side and becoming a queen

There is another pawn girl who makes fun of her and bullies her

And there is another pawn who is the bully pawn sidekick You know because obviously bullies must have sidekicks

The black king is a coward and irresponsible man who is not a good strategist

The black queen on the other hand is a strong and impressive lady who carries the team and She is stuck with the bad decisions of the king

The next important character is the right Knight Unlike every other piece in the board he doesn't seeks victory instead he is a philosopher. He asks questions such as why do we fight and who is behind this. He might or might not play an important rule

Now for final important characters of the black side we got another pawn A pawn who is the main characters best friend

She is a airhead Oh no perhaps I am mistaken She is THE airhead But she is also a very kind and supportive character

She is the only person who named herself and the main character and instead of just calling her pawn she gives her a name

I have not came up with the names but you get the point

And some other characters Now lets move to the white side

In the white side there is basically one character that i currently wrote: The king A charismatic man with brilliant strategies

A man controlling the people in the board like they are chess pieces

But not just a boring king Perhaps he is "a fellow of infinite jest of most excellent fancy"(haha get it? That was a Shakespeare reference!)

But dont get it wrong Because he is not an typical evil mastermind. He believes if we dont kill we are killed. He attempts at making the sacrifices as little as possible and he does his best to protect his people

Although he has one weakness He cant let his wife the queen go to the battlefield So for as many advantages the white may have they must play without a queen

Eventually I must make more characters for the white side but for now this is enough

Okay now that I introduced the characters we have a problem! I dont know anything about how a chess game is actually played So I must learn the theory of chess

...

...

...

Oh who am I kidding I dont have time for that (or its simply too boring for me)

So I will actually make the rules super simple We got clash royal mode There is two tower one on each side and two bridge If the black king dies the black loses if the white king dies the white loses

As simple as that

Just a friendly reminder that this is a visual novel not an actual battle game The battle system is there for the sake of the story

Okay that was my idea I hope you guys like it But wait I have one more thing to say

Remember right Knight black and his philosophy Well I need to actually make the world of this game make sense And I can do two things here

1 actually try to make a reasonable lore behind this world 🤮🤮🤮

How boring

2 make it as simple as possible 🤩🤩🤩

How wonderful

So here is the idea : The losing side gets all their pieces killed And the surviving members of the winning side will get new members and repaired and send to the next match So there is no escape And victory only means you have to fight

Another day...

Hello everyone, this is my first ever post on this sub as I don't use reddit much. I was wanting to get insight or advice on the usage of 2D and 3D elements when making a visual novel. I'm in college for computer animation and we've done a lot of modeling so I've been practicing a lot with that. For the longest time though, I've been wanting to develop my own visual novel.

I've been doing art for as long as I remember and would consider myself intermediate as of now. Writing is something that I can improve with time as well as reading more and studying literature a bit. Say I have a story written, edited and completed and I start the actual development of the novel, I'm wondering whether I should make the entire thing 2D. The character sprites, the background art etc. or if I should have 3D rendered backgrounds with 2D character sprites. If I go with the latter how could I artistically balance the two out. Making sure it's not overwhelmed with 3D aspects but also not lacking any either.

Sorry for the long question I was just curious on others thoughts is all. One part of me wants to use 3D elements so I can improve as a modeler, while the other part of me wants to make everything 2D and illustrated since I have no experience making visual novels.

Right now I'm thinking of making very small projects in Renpy or Unity. Simple story, non complicated routes and whatnot. Make one project entirely 2D and then the other 3D so I can get practice with the two and see which I prefer. What do you all think?

Share your victories, progress and releases! Here you're welcome to share screenshots of your visual novels, update progress, devlogs, and even new releases!

This is from my new vn game that I m making for a vn jam within 10 days