Tag: game dev

Articles

What does a modern visual novel release look like?

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Or, “how I ended up releasing 2 commercial visual novels in the same week”.

Visual novels, sound novels, and adventure games have been around for a handful of decades now, with their presence in America & other Western countries being around 3 decades long. A lot has changed in the gaming and doujin industries respectively in that time frame—nowadays, anyone can make visual novels on their own and small groups can even make a living from them.

But what does it look like to actually release a commercial visual novel in the mid 2020s? Today I’m going to compare the releases for two visual novels I worked on, A Tithe in Blood and Asphodelium.

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Articles

Free VS Commercial Visual Novel Development

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Visual novel development is a joy – you get to create your own stories and bring them to life in a medium that relishes in the marriage of stories with visuals. For some people, making visual novels and releasing them for free as a hobby is enough. For others, they make visual novels as a side job or a fulltime job.

While both groups are making visual novels, there are some very important differences between making commercial visual novels and making free visual novels as a hobby. If you know how to make visual novels and want to take this hobby as a side gig, then this is for you.

I’m a hobby dev turned commercial dev, so today we’re looking at things to consider if you want to move from free visual novel development to commercial development!

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Articles

How to Finish your Indie Visual Novel

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December comes and rolls by again like clockwork. It’s the capstone month, the month for tidying up loose ends and getting ready for a fresh start in January. You wrap up what you’re working on and release your game to the world – you did release your game this year, right? Right?

As I procrastinate finishing Canvas Menagerie—which releases in 4 days as I write this—I wanted to talk about the incredible miracle of actually finishing and shipping indie games.

starting is hard…

Taking the first step to start a new game is a tough one. Do you start with concept art? Outlining? Character bios? Mood boards? There’s really no bad way to start making a game other than not starting. However you want to go about it- as long as you make that first jump – is up to you.

…but finishing is harder.

They say the last 10%—well, really the last 5%—of development is the hardest, and it definitely feels true when you’re in the thick of it. Play testing, bug fixing, small edits you pushed off to later—it all adds up.

What’s worse is that you start running off of fumes rather than fixation and can lose steam—and love for the project—the longer it drags on. How can we avoid burning yourself out before the project is released?

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Articles

Developer Interview — Developing Slay the Princess

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A little over a year ago, Steam players were tasked with a simple order—slay the princess. They took up the call to action in droves, diving into the depths of one of the most branching and intertwined visual novels to release in years and pushing it to well over 12,000 reviews. Now, a year later, Slay the Princess has received a massive expansion called The Pristine Cut, bringing it well past 16,000 positive reviews on Steam.

Today I’ll be talking to Tony Howard-Arias and Abby Howard, the developer duo at Black Tabby Games about their work on Slay the Princess and Scarlet Hollow!

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Articles

I played another 50+ visual novels in 1 month and here’s my advice to devs.

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Again, not clickbait!! I played over 50 entries for Spooktober Visual Novel Jam, a Halloween-themed visual novel game jam, where I’m a judge. Every visual novel in the jam was made in 1 month, with judging taking up about 3-4 weeks during October.

As a follow up to last year’s article I played over 100 visual novels in one month and here’s my advice to devs, I’ll be talking about some of my favorite entries and what we can learn from them!

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Articles

How to Make a Visual Novel Solo

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Making an entire visual novel is hard enough, so could you imagine making one by yourself? Solo visual novel development is hard, but not as hard as you might think.

As a visual novel developer myself, most of my games are made solo – you can see my portfolio here. But how do we define “solo”?

Typically, a game is made “by yourself” if you’re not only the primary contributor but the only person with a say on the project. Using creative commons materials (like free to use backgrounds, music, etc.) and getting input / advice from friends doesn’t disqualify a game as being “solo made”. Even commissioning others, such as hiring a musician, can still be considered “solo made” if they don’t have a say in the rest of the project and are just being hired for an asset(s), whereas hiring a programmer can negate this because they work with every department (writing, art, sound) to bring it together. The primary factor is typically if they have a creative say in the project.

With the definition out of the way, how do you actually make a visual novel by yourself, especially if you can’t do every aspect a game requires? I surveyed over 30 other visual novel developers and together we’ve assembled some advice for you!

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