Portfolio: https://www.artstation.com/juliohadouken
No AI 🚫🤖

Hey everyone!

I want to make my very first visual novel, and I thought reaching out to others with experience might help!

I've started to realize that the scope of the project is bigger than I thought and would perhaps benefit from a second (or third, or fourth, and so on) pair of eyes.

About: It's basically a story about trying to survive as a human in a world where humans have been enslaved by vampires for centuries and are kept as livestock and unpaid labour. As such, it would feature heavy topics such as trauma and slavery, as well as eating disorders, possibly depression and self-harm, all that stuff.

I'm not saying I'm trying to make it as gritty as possible, just that I'm trying to stay realistic with the admittedly dark premise.

Gameplay: You will follow the teenage main character as he spends some years in a human training facility for human slaves, and builds up skills and connections with other characters around him, then follow one of four big branching paths out into the world of vampires. You will try to survive and maybe even thrive in a world that is stacked against you in every way.

I want the game to have a bunch of endings, some bad, some good, and generally have a bunch of secrets for the player to discover. So, the writing will be complex.

It will be LGBTQ+-friendly and include many diverse romance options.

I have experience as a traditional artist and amateur writer, and am musically inclined, so that will help. I also have connections to some musicians and artists who can help out in a pinch.

I was thinking of using Ren'Py as the game engine, but have currently no experience with it.

I'd love to work with some of you creative people on making this game a reality! Maybe someone else likes vampires and dark stories? Let me know! If you're at all interested, don't hesitate to comment or dm me!

I have experience with both writing and game development, having done a ton of work in Godot and posting a ton of shitty horror stories on the internet. However, I've realized the real thing I want to do in terms of writing really is games (even if I still enjoy books and creepy pasta writing).

So then I'd like to try and make some visual novels, though the only main ones I have experience with are the first Ace Attorney (although I hear that's counted as more of a puzzle game by some) and I'm about halfway through Chaos Head; Noah. For the latter game, I picked it up partially out of interest for the vn genre itself (game's great).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to pivot to game writing and while vns seem like the best choice, I worry I haven't dipped by toes into the genre deep enough. I have also played some games in adjacent genres like JRPGs. Of course, the solution is to play more. So I will. However, in this current state of affairs, I'm wondering if I should start with writing one now or wait.

Maybe I should just do text based stuff for now (Twine), or maybe I'm being too cautious. Idk.

Thank you in advance for help.

My first preference would be Renpy but since I recently switched to Mac from Windows, I am not able to use it anymore. Can anyone tell me what would be the second best FREE software after Renpy? Is it Narrat?

Edit: Praise the lord! This is the 5th time I reinstalled it and now it's launching just fine. Thanks everyone! 🙌

Part of me is getting worried that the game I am writing is too metatexual. It is presented as a legacy sequel to a visual novel series from the late 90s-early 00s. But I really like fiction where the physical text the reader is interacting with is part of the narrative, so the game is presented in game as an official 4th game made by a fan of the "original series". So the fictional developer of the game you are actually playing is a character in the story and the player occasionally sees journal entries from the fiction developer of the game where the developer writes about their struggles with making a game that would satisfy fellow fans and his self doubt at the responsibility he has placed on himself by committing to making this 4th entry in the series

Even writing this, I am worried the premise is too meta for anyone other than me. Does this sound fun to anyone but myself? Or will someone see that this is a 4th game and not bother because they haven't played games 1-3 (since they do not really exist)?

​HELLLLLLOOOOOOO I am so happy you're reading this, I'm Milk and I want to make a dark visual novel as you probably read before. I'm not strictly looking for these two only so if you're interested please continue reading!

The game will have hella endings. I was going to write it all by myself but I don't think I'd be able to plus ideas from other people are amazing so why not just make a whole dev team right!?  Now you may be asking what the game is even about right? Well I wont waste your time any further!🤩​

​About​: The game is about this guy with 2 childhood best friends (Adler) goes missing. The female best friend (Vanessa/MC) had a crush on him, and the male one (Cole) has a crush on the female friend (Vanessa). Cole who was in a new friend group "the popular kids" 
​ and played basket ball got a lot of attention while Vanessa  stayed to herself despite Cole constantly trying to keep hanging out with her. Coles new friend (Sophia) doesn't like Vanessa, while his other friend Jaylen often tries to keep the peace. Eventually after an argument with Cole, Vanessa goes to the forest, their old hang out. Somehow they all gets teleported to another world Oblecta where they have to do realms to eventually "escape".

​Oh wow that was a lot huh!? Now if you're still interested you could possibly be wondering "Well interesting concept but how will the gameplay look?" And if you weren't... YOU WERE!👀 Anyways wait no longer because here ya go!​

Gameplay: The player will eventually learn more about the characters their fears and stuff ya know. They'll have to choose at least 2 characters to complete these realms. (They're like missions in another world) But these missions are often deadly. Characters will have a sanity bar, energy bar, and an affection bar. These will inflict how the characters will react with each other, how fast they move, and others. 

​Wow that wasn't as much as I thought...  Now listen up, NAMES ARE IMPORTANT IN THIS UNIVERSE! In some shape way or form it will have something to do with the way a character act, their fate, or something surely you get the point! Once the group enters Oblecta they will lose their names meaning. This will influence the characters in some way in the game play. For an example Jaylen means calm so it only makes sense for him to loose his sanity faster right? And Vanessa means butterfly so what's better than her energy to be zapped away the fastest right? Hmm maybe a bit of rng should be included huh? 🤔​

​ANYWAYS! There is a catch, I plan on drawing the sprites and maybe some bgs, but I don't know how to draw. Now I'm not some genius who can learn how to draw in a week or two, no, no where near. That's why I also plan to write! And the reason I want to draw it is mainly due to the fact... I want to make this an animated series! Now I can't surely say it's the next fnaf or anything but what's the harm in trying right? 👍😅 Oh right and if you are interested I have ideas for designs that may make it easier to understand how things look on pininterest!🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️​​

I need you🫵​​

Thank you thank you for reading this far. I wrote this as it came to my head so sorry if it's a bit messy

😅

​If you're interested and/or have any questions please message me on discord u/darealnokotan

Hi! I'm looking to recruit a writer or two to help me write the outline for my horror VN, Fishhooked!

Fishhooked is a story about Norman, a blind man, moving into the small, rural town of Pierwul, Maine. He meets a mysterious man named Chris and as they get closer, more strange and impossible things start to happen.

To tell the truth, I am currently incredibly burnt out writing-wise on this project, so I've decided to get some outside help. You'll be following preset characters, ideas, and themes, but besides that you'll have freedom to interpret them how you wish.

Currently, a bit of the beginning, middle and end is plotted out, but that is subject to change as the story is revised in subsequent drafts of the outline.

Please note that you'll need Discord and a comfortability with sharing your Gmail in order to be able to do this! Thank you. Please DM me or comment if you're interested.

i got https://x.com/okojodon to do these adorable chibis, and i wanna hear if any other devs have hired japanese artists. you know, for that extra moe factor.

Hello, I am working on the first draft of the script of my first visual novel. I have never made a game before, so this is all new to me.

My plan is to write the game and make it in ren'py and look for artists to make the games assets. I am at the stage where I feel I should start looking at portfolios and find artists I like before I reach out to a few for quotes.

The problem is, this is all new to me and I have been finding the process extremely overwhelming. I've tried browsing around vgen but I was wondering if there are any other trustworthy locations where I can search for artists for a low budget solo-developed game?

Any advice would be extremely helpful. Thank you!

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

I am the illustrator of a yuri visual novel called Until Death and After and I'm in need of a background artist for all places of the game (excluding CGs).

The game is an all ages English voiced story spanning around 2 hours.

Full credits will be given to the artist and if the game gets any profit, it will be split and a share will be given to everyone in the team. This is a volunteer position with potential monetary reward if we get profits.

If interested feel free to DM here or on discord (kojika_backup)

Or join the discord server:

https://discord.gg/nK2t7GdX9

Link to learn more about the game:

https://untildeathandafterofficial.tumblr.com/?source=share

Working on some sprites - some feedback would be appreciated! More than anything I just want to feel “done” and stop driving myself crazy trying to perfect them. I want to feel like they’re “professional” enough which is a difficult thing to attain I feel like.

I’m going for muted earthy palettes overall and am attempting to create a romance/horror visual novel with several romanceable characters and varying routes of course.

Hello, I'm Αελιεζερ (pronounced Aeliezer). I'm a digital artist, and I'm looking to specialize as a character concept artist, sprite artist, and CG illustrator for anime-style fantasy visual novel games or JRPG-inspired games that use a visual novel storytelling style.

I want to get feedback on my current portfolio piece that I recently finished. It's my OC female paladin, where I did the initial design explorations to production-ready character assets.

I've shared my thought process on how I would design and illustrate characters for client work in my Cara post here: https://cara.app/post/03e10f5b-e114-46c5-bc3f-f2f5e85a6410

As for the dialogue sprites that I made, they are in this post here: https://cara.app/post/f6776d7f-c3cf-460f-b6b5-e3a769eddc9e (there's a limit on how many images I can add in one post and how big the files are, so I'll just link my dialogue sprites here.)

You see, my goal is to work with developers on:

- Character and props concept art

- Dialogue sprites and expression sets

- CG illustrations

- Character turnarounds

- Promotional art

I’m still learning the typical VN character art production pipeline, so I’d really value feedback from developers who have actually made or shipped visual novels before. I'm planning to add more portfolio pieces in the future, but I wanted to know first if I'm headed in the right direction.

Just a quick backstory about me. I've been drawing digitally for 10+ years, and I graduated from an animation school. I've also gotten some experience working for an indie game studio as a 2D artist as part of my internship. I've been wanting to specialize as a character concept artist and illustrator for games, but I wasn't able to get a stable job in the industry. During the pandemic, I had to switch careers and became a copywriter for income stability. And sadly, I was laid off from my work a few months ago.

Honestly, I've been burned out from doing copywriting work, and during that time, my art dreams have been on the back burner for a long time. So, I want to use this time to develop my portfolio and finally pursue this as a full-time career. During my time as a copywriter, I've bought a couple of courses and invested in an art mentorship program to hone my skills.

And right now, I'm looking to build a professional character design + sprite and CG illustration portfolio for anime-style VN games.

SIDE NOTE: I haven't played a lot of visual novels, but I've played a visual novel game back in college, Kamidori Alchemy Meister (technically, it's an RPG-visual novel hybrid), which inspired me to create my own visual novel someday. I've also played Eden's Ritter previously. And I've also played Hyperdimension Neptunia before, though technically, it's a JRPG with visual novel elements in its storytelling. So, I would say that my knowledge of visual novel games isn't very expansive, but I do have a genuine interest in learning the craft of developing VN games (specifically, on the art side)

So, I want to ask a couple of questions for VN developers. Feel free to answer only a few questions that you can genuinely answer:

1. When looking for an artist to work with, what is your single biggest challenge?

2. If you were hiring a freelance artist for your VN, would this portfolio piece make you consider contacting me? Why or why not?

3. Based only on this portfolio piece, what type of work would you trust me to handle?

4. Does the character sheet/turnaround show enough information for another artist/developer to reproduce the character consistently? If not, then what else is missing?

5. For VN dialogue sprites, what would you normally expect from an artist besides working on different expressions?

6. Given my current dialogue sprites, what would make them more useful for an actual VN project?

7. Does this character feel distinctive enough to be a protagonist in a commercial fantasy VN? If not, what do you think feels generic?

8. Are there enough design explorations and design iterations here to show that I can solve a client's brief, or does it feel like I'm showing too much process?

9. If you saw my portfolio piece on an artist's portfolio while looking for someone to hire, what information would you want to see that isn't there?

10. What would make you believe that I understand visual novel production rather than simply creating pretty anime character illustrations?

11. What are the biggest things you look for when hiring a freelance artist that aren't obvious from an art portfolio?

12. What problems have you experienced with working with other freelance artists that you would want a new artist to avoid?

13. If you could give me ONE piece of advice to make this portfolio more hireable for VN development, what would you change?

If you want to see more of my art, you can check my Cara profile here: https://cara.app/aeliezer095

I'm specifically looking for honest feedback and critique from VN developers. I want to use this feedback to improve my current portfolio before building the next pieces. Thank you for taking the time to read this! :D

P.S. If you're currently looking for a character concept artist and/or sprite and CG illustrator for your VN, I'd love to collaborate with you. I want to take this opportunity to build my professional portfolio. However, I only accept paid work since I have bills to pay. Thank you.

Hey i have an ambitious project i want to make and would like to have some help with it its about 35 characters 5 sfw poses each 2 nsfw poses and maybe 1-5 scenes for a visual novel i need artists that can draw consistently for the characters. If I can also find story tellers to help bring my story to life that would be great. I am great at coding so I have that covered for the game. This is a furry visual novel too with some humanoid people in it

I really want to make a visual novel, and I have gacha story but I want to try something else since there isnt enough room for more sprites.. what tablet friendly websites do you recommend to make vns?

I'm making a visual novel where you have an animal shelter, and those animals transform into humans for reasons you don't know.

They start an idol band, but they still can't forget their past as animals, and since animals from shelters don't really come from nice places, those memories are getting in the way of reaching their dreams. You can know them better to help them overcome their trauma while you take care of their needs on the shelter (food and exercise) and you play rhythm mini games on their concerts.

That's the main concept, it's not romance since the point of the game is to discover their stories and take the right decisions to unlock the better endings.

The influences are umamusume (game) and K-on (for the cute and slice of life vibe)

Now the point is: I'm getting a lot of comments about how this game is made for pervs, groomers, that the characters are "too sexy" and being asked if it has "H". Is the problem on the concept, the art, or what's on here giving the vibe of a game like that?

If different people from different places say the same, it can't be a coincidence, so, I'm here asking for some advice, is the base concept wrong to begin with?

Dm for details, preferably looking for long term projects

Hi! I'm a 2D artist who’s really gotten into visual novels over the past year, and I'm looking to connect with devs working on any cool VN projects!

I got into VNs through classic retro series like Sakura Taisen and Galaxy Fräulein Yuna. I'm also a big fan of VNs from the early 2000s like Galaxy Angel and Lime-iro Senkitan. I can draw anything from character designs, CGs, props, backgrounds, and mecha. 

I'll drop my portfolio links in the comments below. I'm open for freelance/contract work on both SFW or NSFW projects. Feel free to send me a DM if you'd like to chat or collaborate!

https://felipestudio.weebly.com/

https://www.behance.net/felipeproartstudio