sleeplessdoodai

[sleeplessdoodai]

🎉UPCOMING VISUAL NOVEL: MYSTERY DEBUNKERS CLUB🎉

👻Done by myself and @destreza-draws, this romcom features sweet, cozy moments and no bad endings!

👻Demo releases on May 24th‼ Get ready to meet your four club members, as well as all the shenanigans that come with them!

Itch.io page: Link

The page will be accessible to everyone after we reveal all the characters within a few days!

[sleeplessdoodai]

"I want to make a visual novel but don't know how"

visual novels are one of the most diverse and varied mediums out there and can be so much fun to make. if you've ever wanted to make one, it's pretty easy to get started!!

Overall Guide

this is a lengthy guide I made going over different parts of visual novels and how people make them! now let's go over some parts~

What Are Visual Novels?

Visual novels are a medium of video games focused on storytelling through the use of static or low-gameplay mechanics. Most can be considered a subsection of interactive fiction. A lot of visual novels have no gameplay or minigames, but some do feature light gameplay. The important aspect is that the gameplay in visual novels is never the focus, and instead the game focuses on a story delivered through dialogue & narration in textboxes on the screen.

Some visual novels are romance, some are fantasy, some are mystery, some are NSFW, some are cutesy, some are kiddie. Visual novels come in all shapes and sizes.

Visual Novel Misconceptions

Visual novels have been around for several decades now, but parts of them are still misunderstood by wider audiences. Here’s some frequent misconceptions about visual novels.

"Every visual novel has sexual content."

Visual novels come in all shapes and sizes, which includes content. Not every visual novel has sexual content, nor is it required to sell well. Visual novels are a medium for storytelling rather than a genre, so they can be anything you want them to be.

"Every visual novel is a dating sim."

Similar to the last one, some people think every visual novel is a romance game or a dating sim. Not every visual novel has romance in it, nor is it required to sell well.

"Every visual novel has choices and multiple endings."

Some of the most popular visual novels out there like Umineko When they Cry don’t have choices. Choices and multiple endings aren’t required to make a visual novel—completely linear experiences are fine.

"Visual novels need to be long."

Some of the top visual novels on itch.io right now are under 25k words, which puts them under 2 hours of playtime. Visual novels don’t have to be a certain length—they can be as long or as short as the story needs them to be. There’s even an annual visual novel jam, O2A2, that focuses on making a visual novel under 1k words with limited assets.

"Visual novels don’t sell well."

This is very much your mileage may vary. Some visual novels sell very, very well, such as how the recent Our Life: Now and Forever Kickstarter gained almost $300k. Marketing is an entire field just like art and writing and isn’t something you can skimp on or push to the end.

"Visual novel players hate reading."

A vast, vast majority of visual novel readers want a visual novel—they want a game that is light on gameplay and heavy on reading. You don’t have to add gameplay to a visual novel to keep people interested. Rather, minigames added at random can deter players. Visual novel players want an engaging story—if you’re worried of losing their attention, then focus on a tighter script or cinematography.

"Visual novels need to be anime style."

Visual novels originated in Japan and most do have an anime style, but visual novels do not need an anime style to sell well. The art style for a game will change the audience for the game—players who want something anime style probably won’t be interested in a semi-realistic style, but other people will be. It’s all about finding the right style for your story and finding the audience who responds well to it.

Visual Novel Terms

Here’s a list of terms you might encounter in visual novel and game dev communities.

EVN / OELVN – stands for English Visual Novel and Original English Language Visual Novel. Two terms used for describing Western VNs that are made in English, although EVN is used more frequently nowadays. An EVN/OELVN is specifically a visual novel made in English first, not a visual novel that has an English translation (and was made in a different language first). There are several variations of this, such as JVN meaning Japanese Visual Novel and RVN meaning Russian Visual Novel.

Kinetic novel – a visual novel that’s linear with few or no choices. Has only one ending. Also called a linear visual novel, linear game, etc.

Game jams – an event where developers have a set amount of time to make a game, ranging from a weekend to several months. Some jams have themes that the games must follow as well as other restrictions while others are more freeform. Nowadays, most jams are hosted on itchio. You can find a list of visual novel game jams here.

Game engine – a piece of software used for developing video games. The most popular ones for making indie VNs in English-speaking areas are Ren’Py and Unity, though Tyranobuilder is very popular in Japan for indies.

Text/code editor – when programming, you’ll need another piece of software to edit and write code that works with the game engine. Some popular text editors are Visual Studio Code, Sublime, Atom, Notepad, and more.

Character sprite – the individual character art that changes expressions and can move around the screen. Can include multiple outfits, pose changes, and more.

CGs – although it typically stands for Computer Generated, CGs in visual novels typically means the cut scene art where no sprites are shown (unless there's a side sprite on the textbox). CGs are usually reserved for special scenes and are the type of artwork you’d see in a CG Gallery or as promotional artwork.

UI / GUI – the User Interface / Graphical User Interface. This is what the player interacts with such as the textbox, main menu, save / load screen, settings, and more.

ADV mode – the standard reading mode for visual novels, short for Adventure mode. The textbox is located at the bottom of the screen. Popular examples of this are Steins;Gate, AI: The Somnium Files, and Amnesia.

NVL mode – a different reading mode for visual novels, short for Novel mode. The textbox covers most of the screen. Popular examples of this are Fate/stay night, Tsukihime, and Umineko When they Cry.

Dating simulator – dating sims are some of the oldest forms of visual novels and are essentially stat raisers where you spend time with various characters with the goal being to romance them by getting your stats high enough. In Western spheres dating sim has become synonymous with a romance game, where stat raising is not involved, but it’s important to note that dating sims refer to stat raisers a lot of the time. Unlike otome, a dating sim doesn’t refer to a specific sexual orientation.

Otome / Otoge – roughly translates to “maiden’s love” and is used to describe games with a female demographic, usually dating sims & romance games which feature male love interests and a female protagonist. Some otome games feature female and other gendered LIs, but male LIs are still the primary focus.

Eroge – an erotic game. If a game has sexual content in it, it’s an eroge. The original Fate/stay night (not the remastered version on Steam) is a popular example of an eroge.

Resources

And now, let's look at some tools and links for actually making visual novels.

Engines & Programming

Ren’Py – free visual novel engine

Twine – free text-based game engine (usually used for interactive fiction)

Naninovel – Unity-based tool for making Unity VNs

tiny tools – collection of various game dev tools

Ren’Edit Add-On – Ren’Py script editing & feedback tool

Ren’Py Accessibility Add-On

Feniks Ren’Py resources – various add-ons and tutorials by Feniks

Game Jam & Short Dev Advice

Game Jam Survival Guide - Essential Tips and Tricks

Releasing 8+ games (ft. game jams) and when to take a break

making game development backup plans

Advice for Leading VN Game Jam Teams

How to Make a Visual Novel Solo

How to Finish Your Visual Novel

Design

How to Make Visual Novels

Visual Novel Conference Talks

Visual Novel Cinematography & Design

Art Direction & Execution in Visual Novels

Making Impactful, Impressive Character Sprites

Post-production Techniques for VNs

Vimi’s Visual Novel Design

Writing

Writing Interactive – guides for narrative games writers

Visual Novel Conference Talks

Writing Mystery Visual Novels

How to Design Interesting Choices in VNs

The Intrigue of Ambiguity

Artwork

Clip Studio Paint

Krita

FireAlpaca

Medibang

GIMP

FastStone Photo Resizer – batch photo resizer and editor

FotoSketcher – various settings to apply artistic filters to photos

Marketing

How to Market Visual Novels

Marketing Visual Novels FAQ

Marketing Fundamentals for Indie Game Developers

Marketing your first indie game – What we learned from releasing the same game twice

The stairstep approach to indie game marketing

Marketing your Visual Novel for Kickstarter

Visual Novel Press-Kits

Audio

Eric Matyas music & SFX

Vita-chi SFX & graphics

Free Music Archive

Free Sound

dova-syndrome

Misc.

Lemmasoft Creative Commons Forum

itch.io visual novel resources

Google Fonts – free fonts

Uncle Mugen backgrounds

Canva – browser & desktop graphic design tool

Unsplash – free photos

Wrapping Up

all in all, visual novels are a fun medium to explore and play around with. if you want to make something short as a test run, try joining a game jam! if you want to see how varied visual novels can be, try playing some indies from itchio! at the end of the day there's no bad way to start making your own visual novel. hit the ground running and go for it!!

I've been developing visual novels for over 10 years now, blogging about them on my own blog and releasing visual novels through my studio Crystal Game Works. I hope this guide helped shed light on how to get into the medium!

— Arimia

[sleeplessdoodai]

[sleeplessdoodai]

There is nothing sadder than being a part of an already small fandom and your favorite character not being popular. I just wanna see more content of my little guys!

[sleeplessdoodai]

saw this on twitter and i had to share

[sleeplessdoodai]

if i was given the opportunity to see ghosts, i'd want the ghosts i see to be these three

[sleeplessdoodai]

Guess who finally learned how to make memes

(I'm gonna abuse the fuck out of this power)

[sleeplessdoodai]

wdym, steam? 😳

hey killer chat friends! if you'd like to be notified when killer chat releases on steam, follow me ;) https://store.steampowered.com/developer/rosesrot

a massive thank you goes to all the donations that made this possible! you're incredible ❤️

[sleeplessdoodai]

XYX??? FJJDNV THIS IS SO SILLY I LOVE DEJA SM

DEJJAAAA, MY BABY, SHES SO REAL BC WHY IS ELIO NOT REAL ?!!??!?!?!! FREE MY MANN FROM HIS SCREEN </33

[sleeplessdoodai]

Kickstarter Community Goals!

Community goals are finally public AND WE'RE SCREAMING! I had these messages drafted to post today, BUT YOU GUYS PASSED THE THIRD LEVEL JUST AS I WAS ABOUT TO POST SO I HAD TO EDIT IT ahdlkawdh

You guys had us scrambling for the second time this campaign ahsdlkad but congrats!

If you want to unlock the rest, then hear ye hear ye!

For the Kickstarter, we prepared eight levels for you to reach. The numbers we're tracking on both of our socials are for our pinned posts. On Tumblr's end it's this post, and for Twitter it's this one!

With each community goal met, we'll drop the requirements and a clearer description of the reward for the next level.

Since everyone passed the first three (sobbing), the next level is an addition to the phone UI in the game! As of right now, we default you to a theme that's based on the season you got, but in the next build of Keyframes you'll get to pick between that and a special custom KS theme! (And if you guys hit our stretch goal you'd have even more phone customization to pick from!)

In the meantime, hurray for passing the first three levels! The rewards for those was:

Access to your seasonal ringtone you hear in game!

You know that sound you hear when your friends first call you at the start of the game? Well, now you can download it and make it your actual ringtone if you wish!

Here's a link to where you can grab it -> BOOP

2. Release for the Trailer song!

The trailer song made by our composer, HI-T3C, would be available on his Spotify to listen! In addition, backers that grabbed the Full Soundtrack reward will get a copy of the song.

3. We release bloopers and scripts that didn't make it to the final version!

A handful of people were curious about the writing process for Keyframes, and I can only summarize it as a lot of back and forth. There's a fair bit of content that was scrapped because it didn't work anymore and now you get to see it!

Once we organize it for you all, we'll share the link!

Andddd that's that for now! Best of luck!

(BLANK) House

[sleeplessdoodai]

Homicipher (文字化化)

Release date (Windows, Steam) English, Japanese and Chinese: November 1st, 2024

"When the protagonist wakes up, they find themselves lost in a different world. As they learn the words of the mysterious monsters that speak a strange language, they search for a way to escape. Along the way, will they fall in love with the monster men who come to their aid...? Really?

In this alternate world, a different language is used. Players will interpret and decipher characters' words through expressions, gestures and the objects they point to.

This is a point-and-click adventure game. Players will investigate items to learn words or engage in conversation to progress."

This is a commercial game by Yatsunagi! It is an otome game with horror, point-and-click, puzzle and typing elements. You can buy it from DLSite here, or from Steam here!

[sleeplessdoodai]

YALL WE DID IT! ITS FUNDEEEEEED!

(Trust the server was going insane)

I KNOW, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HARD WE WERE SCREAMING TOGETHER LMAO! thank you so much everyone for supporting the kickstarter and believing in our vision for this game! we're so, so, so excited that we get to make summer and we hope to show you that your belief in us was worth it!

we've got SO much left to show you before the kickstarter's over- we didn't even get a chance to roll out our community goals, and of course we've still got stretch goals to go! but for now, it's late for us (we stayed up to watch the final stretch live!), so we'll get a more in-depth post out tomorrow. we still can't believe this happened in just three days. 😭

[sleeplessdoodai]

WE'RE FUNDED!

Keyframes: First Summer is officially funded and on the start of our fourth day campaigning too!

THERE ARE NO WORDS IN THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY THAT CAN ACCURATELY EXPRESS OUR EXCITEMENT RIGHT NOW!

There's so much more we haven't shared with you guys yet, community goals we were planning on releasing, beautiful art from incredible artists, and even more collaborative pieces--

Yet here we are, and we couldn't have done it without you all. So from the residents in the house:

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

We'll have more to say in the morning, but tonight we celebrate! Go crazy! Or finally get that rest haha. Either way, thank you thank you thank youuuu! MWAH! (BLANK) House

[sleeplessdoodai]

[sleeplessdoodai]

Keyframes Updated!

Well, folks. Our eyeballs are falling out and the last two weeks have felt a little like cramming for an exam— which is very funny considering none of the leads have been in college for a minute— but we did it. The Spring Semester demo that isn't really a demo is up!

You can now finally(!) enjoy the last two weeks of your semester with Deja, Cameron, Elio, Jamie, and Percy. Play from five new events, completely free on our itch.io page— including partial voice acting, eight CGs, and about 280,000 words total!

As we've mentioned before, we are releasing this update ahead of the Kickstarter!

If you haven't already heard, the Kickstarter only aims to fund production for Summer. We'll explain the reasons for this in full detail later, but for now, keep an eye on our social channels for news!

It's been a long year of development and an even longer wait, and we're excited to hear what you all think. We'll be taking a short break to recuperate, but our askbox is open! (But if you encounter any bugs, please send a report to support@blankhousegames.com.)

Until our next update, happy gaming everyone!

[sleeplessdoodai]

Keyframes Updated!

Well, folks. Our eyeballs are falling out and the last two weeks have felt a little like cramming for an exam— which is very funny considering none of the leads have been in college for a minute— but we did it. The Spring Semester demo that isn't really a demo is up!

You can now finally(!) enjoy the last two weeks of your semester with Deja, Cameron, Elio, Jamie, and Percy. Play from five new events, completely free on our itch.io page— including partial voice acting, eight CGs, and about 280,000 words total!

As we've mentioned before, we are releasing this update ahead of the Kickstarter!

If you haven't already heard, the Kickstarter only aims to fund production for Summer. We'll explain the reasons for this in full detail later, but for now, keep an eye on our social channels for news!

It's been a long year of development and an even longer wait, and we're excited to hear what you all think. We'll be taking a short break to recuperate, but our askbox is open! (But if you encounter any bugs, please send a report to support@blankhousegames.com.)

Until our next update, happy gaming everyone!

[sleeplessdoodai]

If you know it, you know it, TS and Obscura players