My First Visual Novel So Far

I have done a lot more with my visual novel since I started this blog a while ago.  Keeping a blog about my indie work does help me move faster and keep track of things. Down below are drawings I have done for Trapped.

 Title screen

Background

A scene the player can get based on her/his choices

Of course all these sketches are rough and are not finished yet.  Most of my focus has been on the writing which I believe should come first when making a visual novel.  I can figure out what I have to draw if I have the whole story fleshed out.  Not to say that writing this visual novel has been a walk in the park. Aside from figuring out choices and how to lead to certain story paths; keeping people's interests during long periods of reading concerns me.  

I have a few moments when the main character is left alone.  She likes to think.  Should I let the player simply read through her thoughts (three to four paragraphs worth) or should I put some choices for the player to select while she is thinking?  I'm not sure if I will have those choices go toward any path or not. 

If people simply get bored with my first visual novel and delete it after five minutes due to boredom then I should not be surprised.  A person's first game is never his or her greatest work.

Knowing My Options

While I am developing my story for my first visual novel Trapped, I think it is important that I keep in mind the various places where I can submit my visual novels.  Through some searching on Google, a few places came to mind.

1. Lemmasoft
 Lemmasoft seems like the place to get the most help for making Ren'py games.  There is not only an abundance of members but also an abundance of Ren'py games (there is a database complete with categories to choose from) or demos (often in the Work in Progress section) to try out.  Lurking the forum from time to time and reading various Work in Progress, Completed Games, or coding topics has provided me with plenty of ideas for my visual novels.

2. TeaCup
I was honestly not aware of this message board until a friend told me about it. The board is not as active as Lemmasoft but there are a ton of interesting topics that I have looked through.  The "Spritemaking for visual novel beginners: things and tips to consider" tutorial  and the discussions on various aspects in visual novels really made me think deeply about making my visual novels. There are games that I have not seen on Lemmasoft which are submitted only to TeaCup.

3. Pre-Embryonic EVN Forum
This is the last forum that I looked up before calling quits on finding English visual novel developing forums.  This forum is slower than TeaCup and might stop existing in a few days or months due to a lack of members.  The creator of the forum seems dedicated to pushing the development of English visual novels further and gathering other serious indie game developers along with him or her. I hope I can make my first visual novel before the forum gets taken down.

Of course there are a lot of other places that speak of Ren'py or English Visual Novels but I think I should look at EVN, TeaCup, and Lemma Soft before spreading out.  I feel that joining these forums are a great way of spreading my work and getting help with indie game development so that I may grow as an indie game developer.   

The Digital Works Journey

Sorry I have not been able to update this blog weekly but there is a reason.  I have been experimenting with Photoshop and Manga Studio EX 4. I was going to do the line art for Trapped in Photoshop but a friend told me about the wonders of Manga Studio.  Manga Studio makes the line art process short and painless. Of course I will dive into the line art process of Photoshop some time after Trapped.  Its nice to learn a variety of ways to do one thing.  

Here are some examples of my digital work:

With the hurdles of learning how to color on the computer out of the way, I can see a release date for Trapped coming soon.  The end of this month sounds pretty good to me.