itsu-saragi

[itsu-saragi]

Devlog #3 - Revisions and Indecisions.

Sjdjfdhs hi. Apologies for letting the “see you in a month” turn into several months. Work got busy, then I caught Covid, after recovering I went on vacation, and then work got busy again… But I did work on this VN all throughout.

I didn’t make as much progress as I wanted, but some progress was made nevertheless.

So what exactly did I do? Let me count the ways.

Story Revisions

Changed the premise from magic academia to magic uhhh small business? Workshop? Something like that, I'm not sure what to call it.

My original story followed the player character and their love interest as they explored their university campus. This came to be because I was tinkering with the concepts of "group partners to lovers" & showing the player character as non-humanoid to allow for reader-insert and immersion, like the Obey Me games and the pink sheep MC. But the story stopped being appealing to me, plus the scope started to become bigger than I had anticipated. Multiple CGs in different locations across a giant campus? Yeah that's a nightmare to draw.

I'd still like to explore the idea of a non-humanoid MC though, so maybe that'll be a future game, or at least another brain dump post!

But anyway, I shrunk the premise. One store, one LI, and the customers that enter the little workshop. I'm still sticking to the idea of mundane modern fantasy though.

Because of the location change from university to workshop, I've had to revise the LI a lot. He's shaping up really well though! His name is Fen, I hope I can introduce him here sometime soon.

Building Frameworks

I'm not sure what to call it, so for now I'm calling it frameworks.

Basically, instead of tackling each aspect of the game separately from drafts to completion (ex: drawing all sprites right now and then moving on to writing the script), I want to create rough versions of everything.

I think this will help me because then I'll have an idea of how much work each aspect will entail, and I can hopefully spot and remedy any holes or glaring skill issues.

This is especially important for coding. I'll be using RenPy, the classic engine for visual novels, but I have very little coding experience. I'd like to gain some before I start creating the writing and assets meant to be incorporated into the platform.

By creating the framework (or I guess prototype is the better word in this case), I'll get some understanding of how RenPy works and once I have the assets complete I can insert those in.

For plot frameworks, I'm trying not to go into too much detail. Lots of bullet points cause I fuck with those.

For character frameworks, I must admit I'm putting a lot of thought and detail into Fen, but I think I should as he's the core of this game. I'm reminding myself though that much of him can still be altered if the story requires it.

There's definitely more frameworks I need to think about, like sprites, backgrounds, and music too.

But to sum it up, I'd like to create a rough draft of the entire game, and then only afterward do I start going in and changing details and adding colors to the big picture. I hope that makes sense.

Next Step: Character & Coding Frameworks

For the rest of April and probably the entirety of May as well, I'll focus on fleshing out Fen and putting together the coding framework.

I think figuring out Fen's character arc will help me get an idea of the overall story, which is incredibly daunting yet exciting lol

I'm not planning on making the coding look pretty, I just want to make something that functions. I have no clue how well that will go so please pray for me or something.

Personal Thoughts: I am Afraid

I think the reason why I didn't make a lot of progress is because lately, I've been afraid of doing so. I've never made a game before, or written an original story. I don't know what I'm doing, and instead of directly addressing things I've kept working around them. And because I haven't made much progress, it stresses me out. And then that stress makes me do less work.

Hellooo feedback loop.

I'm an indecisive person who likes to look for the right or most optimal answer. But in a creative project like this, it's hard to know what the "right" answer is cause it can be subjective.

I'm trying to remind myself to enjoy the process and to take small steps, and everything is still changeable as I'm still in the beginning stages. It's hard, but as I'm writing this update I think I'm feeling better.

I'm sure this gamedev journey will be me enjoying the ride and then immediately hating it, so for anyone reading: thank you for your patience. I appreciate you.

I'm going to try and post an update, no matter how small it is, once a month. So. Cheers to me being able to post this in April.

I'm still trying to figure out what to post and how to get my thoughts across. I've never done anything like this before, so please bear with me. If you have any feedback, please feel free to share!

And again, thank you to whoever's reading this. I hope you have a great timezone :)

#dev log #gamedev #vn development

[itsu-saragi]

No pressure to answer this, particularly since it may go near spoiler territory, but how much customization will we be able to do for the MC? Will they have a set backstory and/or personality? Or are they more of a blank slate that we fill in the blanks for? Maybe somewhere in-between? 🤔 Thank you and good luck with everything!

It's not spoiler territory, so we can go through the customization!

Appearance

The MC appears partially in some CGs, like half of their face or an arm, so the main thing here is the player will have a skin tone choice

Where the MC is shown a little more (e.g. one of the characters resting their head on the MC's lap), we couldn't fit height and body type options into the budget, but hopefully everyone understands that the MC in the CGs just acts as a mannequin to better show how the LIs are interacting with the player, and the focus is always on the LI rather than the MC

Messenger app/Gameplay

Name and username choice

Chat bubble color choice

Profile picture choice

Pronoun options

A few custom options for how the MC might be referenced, such as: boyfriend/girlfriend/partner

Personality/Backstory

The MC is mostly a blank slate and does not have a backstory

Usually when making choices, there's an answer that goes towards an alternate ending, and then 2-3 personality options

The personality options are typically either a more outgoing answer, or a more reserved answer

There are 'flavor' choices that don't usually effect the story, like choosing what genre of book the MC likes best. Note that the MC's personal choices do not have to match up with a certain LI's preferences for the LI to like them

Overall, since the game is partially played as a chat sim, it made the most sense to keep the MC a blank slate/self insert. We did what we could for customization with a smaller budget, and did our best to have some amount of personality choice while also not overwhelming the player, since there will be a lot of player answers!

#gamdev #player character #I want to touch upon this someday… lots of thoughts #reblog

[itsu-saragi]

Dev Log #2 - Hitting My First Roadblock. Also, Characters and Themes.

In my last post, I said I finished creating the love interest for my vn, and my next step would be to spend time figuring out the main character. But this caused me more trouble than I expected. And while trying to figure out why, I realized that I hadn’t even finished step 1.

Let me explain.

Previously, I mentioned how all games have a foundation, the core game design that the rest of the game builds off of. And I said that for visual novels the characters, namely the love interests, should be that foundation. But I don’t think I elaborated enough.

The core of your visual novel may be different depending on what you’re going for; for example, if you want to make a mystery VN where you want the players to focus on solving the puzzle, maybe the narrative is your foundation. But for my game I want to take a character-centric approach, focusing on how people can affect each other and how it changes them. Thoughts and beliefs and emotions, all that fun stuff. Also known as a character arc. No matter how cool the plot may be, if my characters remain stagnant the entire time then I’m not telling that character-centric story, and that entire foundation is non-existent. Conversely, if I have a solid enough arc, then I can cut and paste that character into any setting and the story should still work. I think. I hope.

So working on the love interest’s character arc was my first step. In a character-centric otome game, the end goal is to end up in the LI’s good graces so it felt obvious to me that I needed to flesh him out, come up with the details and map out his overall character progression over the course of the story. And I did that. Over the course of a few months I gave him a name, appearance, some brief notes about his personality and backstory, and his “how it started vs. how it’s going.” Once I was satisfied with the amount I’ve written, I decided to move onto figuring out the main character.

Then my brain stopped working.

I originally wanted this second devlog post to be about writing the MC. I had all sorts of notes and ideas, about how I wanted the MC to be self-insert but still have a character arc, and the challenges that it entails and what possible solutions are out there. But I couldn’t come up with the solutions, or at least something I was satisfied with.

You see, my approach with writing the MC was to build it off of the established LI. But he wasn’t established enough. Stories should have a theme. To have a character-centric story means that those characters are used to explore said theme from different angles. Like if your theme is about trust, maybe you have a character that trusts too easily, another character that trusts nobody, and a third that isn’t trusted by anybody else. Put them in a situation. Boom, you got plot.

My LI didn’t have that. I had a vague idea of the theme, and I had notes about the LI, but it felt like the two weren’t properly molded together. And because that connection wasn’t forged, I couldn’t use it as reference for writing the MC.

Remember what I said about having a solid foundation? I had a brittle house of cards, and I was trying to build on top of it. Shit collapsed, real quick LOL

So now I’m back to workshopping my LI, further digging into who he is as a character and how he embodies the theme- which at the moment, is about human value. Or collaboration. I’m not sure yet. I’m struggling.

Hopefully I can figure this out though. I’ll keep y’all updated.

#dev log #gamedev #vn development #I should mention that a lot of my thoughts are based on video essays by LocalScriptMan on YouTube #his stuff is really good I recommend checking him out if you’re into storywriting #especially the character arc video #on another note I’m still learning how to explain my thoughts in a coherent way #so thank y’all for your patience! #hopefully I will improve over time

[itsu-saragi]

Dev Log #1 - Ramblings about Character Creating

I realized that I didn't clarify in my first post that I'm trying to make an otome VN. Whoops.

So yeah. I’m making an otome VN.

I decided that since this is my first game, I’ll stick to just having one love interest. And for the past month, I’ve been working to fleshing him out.

I keep thinking about that one Game Maker’s Toolkit video where he mentioned that game design is the core foundation of everything else. A shooting game’s main selling point is well, shooting. A player should come out of a platformer game remembering the challenge and satisfaction achieved from navigating a tricky course. When I asked myself what an otome game’s foundation should be, the answer was the characters. It’s romance, right? So shouldn’t the interpersonal relationships be the core?

(From “The mistake every new game developer makes (Developing 2)”, by Game Maker’s Toolkit)

So that’s what I’ve been focusing on, figuring out the LI’s appearance, personality, most importantly their character arc. I’m a little afraid to share any details right now because I feel like I’m gonna change them as I figure out other parts of the story, I hope y’all are okay with that ;w;

The next thing I’m gonna work on is the MC, the player character, and their relationship with the LI. So see y’all in a month or so!

#vn development #gamedev #dev log

[itsu-saragi]

I guess now would be a good time for me to confess that I haven’t played a lot of VNs. Reason being, I have limited brain capacity but also the ability to go into an obsessive spiral for months on end.

Help.

In the meantime, if you know of any good VNs please let me know. Fuel the obsession.

[itsu-saragi]

Dev Log #0 - Hi.

Hi, I’m Itsu. I want to learn how to make video games, specifically visual novels. I have no experience.

But I’ve decided I’m going to try making one anyway.

So this is going to be a wild ride.

Right now I have two VNs in progress, the first one being quite short as I’m hoping to make it as a “baby’s first VN” learning experience, and the second being larger and more complicated. But both are in its early drafting stages. I’ve been spending a lot of time jotting down ideas, questioning them, and simultaneously tossing around design concepts in my head. So there’s lots of stuff going around with little product to show, and it doesn’t help that I’m trying to get through Baldurs Gate 3 at the same time oops I’m hoping to post my progress here on this blog, as a means to keep myself accountable. And maybe share some thoughts about game design, to hear what y’all think.

That’s about it for now, cheers.

#vn development #gamedev #dev log