Visual novel in the making?

6/02/2012

Lately I've been thinking of making my own visual novel.

A visual novel, according to Wikipedia, is an "interactive fiction game, featuring mostly static graphics, most often using anime-style art or occasionally live-action stills and sometimes video footage."

Most visual novels have choices and options for the player, while some are just kinetic novels which follow a linear path. Basically, kinetic novels are like digital storybooks while the usual visual novels  are like choose-your-own-adventure books, just like the one pictures below. ^_^ Visual novels such as those are also usually dating sims, where players have the option of "courting" a specific bachelor or bachelorette through a series of choices.

(In the pic: free background by BCS and Sylvie, from Ren'Py.)

Visual novels are incredibly fun, and as someone with an outrageous imagination I absolutely fell in love with the idea of creating my own "book".

Heck, I've been wanting to create my own visual novel since I first played Katawa Shoujo a few months ago. Of course, I thought it was impossible. I thought VN making was only for professionals. That's until I came across Ren'Py.

Ren'Py is a software that people use to make their own visual novel. It's user-friendly and extremely easy to use. It's also free for download from their website. The best thing about it is that even if you don't have any experience in visual novel making, you're still bound to make a pretty good, but simple, visual novel, provided that you can create a good story.

So last night I downloaded Ren'Py and tried to make a simple visual novel. It's really enjoyable! :D I made one using free backgrounds, free characters, and free music, just to test if I could get a grip on it. And yep, fortunately I managed to do it. So if I can create one, I'm sure plenty of people out there who love visual novels can also make their own.


I'm planning to create a longer visual novel this time with more choices, using my own characters and probably my own backgrounds. (But BCS said hers are free to use so maybe I'll use some of them.... with credits to her of course... ;)) And I already employed my friend to color my drawing for me! Hahaha, I don't know a thing about digital coloring. -_- Like in photoshop for example. I don't know a thing about that.

I don't even know if this will come through. School is starting next week and I may not have enough time anymore. But who knows... ;)

I already drew some characters after all. 
Lalalalala~

Ran

P.S. If you want to make your own visual novel but don't have any sprites, backgrounds, or anything really, please visit this site and check out the pre-made assets. :) It's really helpful to newbies who just want to create their own story. Goodluck to us, fellow visual novel makers!

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2 berries

  1. @touru1114: Oh, the one I'm planning to make is entitled "Seasons of Love" (as requested by a friend) while the one that my friends and I are currently working on is called "Forgotten Memories" They're both the dating sim kind of vn. :)

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