Do we have any anon who has created a visual novel? I'm looking for tips to create my own VN with Ren'Py. Share your itch.io pages if you don't mind revealing that you're an anon.
nope
>>7849061The genre is dead even in Nihon.
I started working on one buts its progress is on hiatus at the moment until I can devote the time needed for it.So I guess my tip is that it requires more time than you'll expect.First you'll have to write the whole storyThen draw all the backgrounds, characters, and character expressions, and make sure theyre all uniform in size.The coding is easy enough to learn but requires a ton of time to go line by line of your story, and switch between open mouth for talking, closed mouth for listening, and all the other emotions.I used to think WEG devs were lazy pieces of shit for how little they released in a 6-month update but once I started working on one myself I could empathize with what a huge undertaking it actually is.And then you'll probably only get a handful of readers after all the work. And even less if it's not porn.
>>7849061VNs were replaced by gacha and adding endless random fanserive lore and dialouge to every character.Or games like MiSide
>>7849061>I'm looking for tips to create my own VN with Ren'PyI'm on the same boat, although if you're looking for tips you might want to be a little more specific. Tips for what exactly? Art? Coding? Writing? I assume art considering the board you posted this thread on but again your request is too vague, I advise narrowing it>>7849077>And then you'll probably only get a handful of readers after all the work.That's possible, but then if you're going to make a VN (or a KN, a.k.a. a kinetic novel, which is the same format but without choices nor diverging paths and such) it should be to express something that speaks to you and that you feel a need to get out there.For example I'm makin' a KN myself and although I don't expect to finish it considering I never once carried a project to completion in my entire life I find the endeavour almost therapeutic in getting things bothering me off my mind; writing is a form of meditation, it forces you to make sense of the confusion that's in your head and if all goes well it gives you a better general picture. Honestly, I recommend it, even if you won't complete it it'll give you something to do in this boring existence
>>7849061I'm making a VN in Renpy too. One tip about art I can think of is that you should make sure you know what options you have for displayables like character images before you draw them. When I started out I made full images of a character each with a different expression but realized later that a layered image would have worked much better. Also Renpy Action Editor is pretty useful for transforms so you might want to install it if you don't have it already.>>7849102Sadly true. VNs that don't have gameplay features rarely become big anymore. I remember reading that Danganronpa was pitched as a pure VN and one of the reasons it didn't get greenlit first was that they were concerned a VN wouldn't sell on PSP. Then they added gameplay features and pitched it as a highspeed logic battle game instead.
>>7849067You haven't been to f95 then
>>7849061Why should I help a potential competitor lol? Get fucked.
I was going to post mine here but apparently Mega killed the link after so many years.I hate the antichrist.
>>7849132What's even the point of fully linear VN's. My (admittedly limited) experience with the genre as a whole is that it does nothing better than any other story telling medium except for elaborately branching narratives. Does it just appeal greatly to autistic brains?
>>7849876>What's even the point of fully linear VN'sSome people like me just do not care for choices and treat the medium in a way that is closer to a book. A good example is 9:22: it's a KN, it's also beloved despite the absence of any branching paths whatsoever (if you're considering picking it up let me warn you in advance that there's gay shit in it, make of that information what you will, it has not been a turnoff for me personally). If your writing engages people, you don't need choices, conversely people won't automatically love your VN just because there's player input. If you ask me, player choices are often gimmicky, barely impacting the story if at all, some people include them out of a sense of obligation rather than them actually enriching the VN in any capacity, at that point you might as well have done without, hence why some go for KNs straight up.KNs are a perfectly viable medium, especially if you're like me and just want to get a story out there>Does it just appeal greatly to autistic brains?Hell yeah brother, I have read a bunch of furry VNs now and I NEVER would have done so hadn't it been for the cute animal people on screen. They're a great motivator to engage in stories you otherwise wouldn't, I'm certain weebs feel the same when it comes to big eyed anime characters in their favourite VNs
>>7849986Im something of a weeb myself. But not so much that i intentionally seek out the autsic elements in concentrated form. Idk, VNs have very little of what I like in pretty much any story telling medium; i actually like prose, and panel flow. But more power to you, and other autists, brother.
>>7849531it's dead there too, it's jus a third world puddle full of piranhas competing for scrapsafter the patreon cut, fees, taxes etc you're a thirdie with no career or applicable experience 99.9% of the time, and if you actually get lucky with a popular project, you're basically disincentivized from finishing it, exacerbating the issuethat's not even getting into the art part where drawing is a handicapthe only smart approach to f95 is making a shitty html porn gif player you copied from the last one with shit you got from /gif/ because coomers don't actually read or play the thing
>>7849986I'm not the anon you replied to, but wouldn't it be better to create a comic in that case? If that seems like too much work, you could opt for an illustrated story. Or, you could be more experimental and create something that mixes both formats. On the other hand, the biggest advantage of a visual novel is that it works well for stories in which the reader is the protagonist.
Yeah. I spent all of 2025 trying (and failing) to make a VN. The main thing you learn is that VN's are genuinely a lot more work than it seems. Like even if you're an artist and you're talented at character design, there's still music, and sound effects, and UI, and script-writing, and programming, and marketing, and someone needs to be good at ALL of these things. If you don't have a person specifically good at UI or whatever, then your UI is just gonna suck. People say that VNs are dying, but I completely disagree. Every other year some random VN like Class of 09 or Slay the Princess comes out of nowhere and blows up, or Coffin of Andy and Leyley which might as well be a VN. Dispatch just came out too and it's basically a VN. People actually love VN's as a genre, but they have zero interest in most VN's because they don't find the plots or characters or art styles interesting. Gacha totally cannibalized the dating sim market, but the actual audience for a new creative VN is basically unlimited.
>>7850803>Dispatch just came out too and it's basically a VNnot even remotely
>>7850776>wouldn't it be better to create a comic in that case?Nah, comics are actually a lot of work, VNs on the other hand require creating character sprites which you can then reuse how many times you want. It's a no brainer. Even the backgrounds, most people just take a photo and blur it out, and boom, there you have it. VNs also have the benefit of music and sound effects, which comics and illustrated stories obviously can't provide.There's also other small minutiae that VNs/KNs are capable of that further increase immersion, and that's things like typewriting (i.e. when a line of dialogue "writes itself out" character by character, you might have seen that in games such as Undertale for example) which more closely mimicks how people speak in real life instead of all the words in a line being blurted out at once, or forced line transitions which for example is useful when a character is speaking and is cut off by someone or something else, there are also visual transitions such as fade-ins and fade-outs which give a more cinematic feel... As you can see, this format has a lot going for it
>>7850807That anon has a point, you also have a point.I'm pretty sure that anon said Dispatch "is a VN" in the sense that if you took away all the animations and it were just 2D character sprites instead that, mechanically, it'd still work all the same, someone could still play it.Of course that argument would be the same as saying "well if you took away the chassis, a Ferrari would look just like a FIAT!", the point being they're both cars capable of moving you from point A to point B, their only difference is in their outer appearance (and performance, but shhh that'd ruin my parallel so pretend they have the same engine for the sake of this argument). By that same token, Dispatch is mechanically very similar to VNs in that just like them you can make decisions which influence the story, obviously Dispatch has a much higher production value with it being 3D animated and voice acted. Other than that, it's an application with player input relying heavily on narrative, boiling it down to that you can see VNs are not too different
>>7850803>musicCouldn't you just take some royalty free music? Plenty of places to get that stuff, like the YouTube Audio Library for example>and sound effectsDitto>UIJust stick to RenPy's default bro, seriously, a custom UI is nice and all but at the end of the day people are there for the story and art, you can get away with the regular UI>writingWell come on that's the best part! The story! To be able to get it out there for everyone to see should be perceived as a motivator not a burden>programmingFair enough, coding is a pain, thankfully though Python isn't too difficult once you get the hang of it (I'm assuming you're using RenPy) and if you're stuck you can Google most shit.What were you working on anyway? What poison? Weeb or furry? Seeing how you posted a spy I'm assuming weeb lol.I know making a VN seems like a daunting task but having delved into 3D game dev myself in comparison VNs are actually much more manageable, at least compared to that.I believe in you anon, that you can see this project through, the only real reason you wouldn't would be if you overshot your scope: you didn't try to make a super elaborate VN right off the bat, did you? If you have, then scale that shit down brother, I know it sucks but see it as the equivalent of amputating a necrotizing limb to save the whole body.As for marketing... Well, the unfortunate truth is that many VNs are uploaded completely free of charge, if there's a price tag attached to your VN there's a good chance people won't even look at it. Personally when I was making that 3D game I mentioned, worrying about it selling sucked the fun out of it, but with this VN I'm planning on releasing for free there is no such ailment, I'm actually enjoying doing it. Up to you man, honestly it seems only few chosen ones are able to make a living off their games, if you aren't so gifted it's better for your sanity to free your game of monetary expectations, that way joy can be found again in these endeavours
>>7850925I feel like the lesson from Dispatch is that a game having minimal gameplay can still be a MASSIVE hit if you do everything correctly.But does this apply to VN's? Kinda... I've noticed that every single VN-adjacent game to break through in the past few years always does something differently from traditional VN's, in such a way as to make them more exciting moment to moment. Like you have Slay the Princess' beautiful animation and storybook-like VA. Or Class of 09's snappy dialogue where something new is constantly happening. Playing this new gen of VN's after experiencing the classics is kinda jarring, because all VN fans know that this genre traditionally has a lot of downtime, even in the action-heavy shounen stories. Obviously Dispatch is more comparable to Telltale's older games, which have always found fans (especially The Walking Dead), but I see reason for hope in its success.
>>7850930>Weeb or furry? Seeing how you posted a spy I'm assuming weeb lol.Weeb, yep.>I know making a VN seems like a daunting task but having delved into 3D game dev myself in comparison VNs are actually much more manageable, at least compared to that.I've experimented with 3D gamedev too, though most of that just came down to 3D modeling. Making a VN is easier for sure, but maybe only because I actually enjoy it, whereas my heart wasn't 100% into making the 3D game. >you didn't try to make a super elaborate VN right off the bat, did you? Nah. But I can't do stuff like use royalty-free music. When I come up with ideas for my VNs, I have this exact sense of how it should all play out, down to the music, the sound effects, the vibe, the individual scenes, the fashion, the art style and everything, and I just have to do it that way. The art style I have in mind apparently hasn't been done before, so it's taking a lot of experimentation. I thought someone would have done before but I really couldn't find any examples. I dunno man. Maybe it's just me
>>7850925Dispatch is an animated spectacle QTAfest moviegame that is commonly regarded as "it should have been an animation". Calling it in any way similar to a VN in the context of "VNs are totally popular you guise" is pure retardation, at that point Telltale games are VNs. There's a reason Telltale games sold and not VNs.
>>7850946>There's a reason Telltale games sold and not VNs.Of course, it's much more inviting to the average consumer a product that features higher production values such as 3D animation and voice acting, no one is putting that into question. No one wants to put VNs on par with Telltale games and adjacents, when I said they were similar mechanically speaking I did not imply they were 1:1, they're only similar in some ways.But I also feel you're underestimating VNs' popularity, while more niche there definitely is a demand for them still, no matter how humble it may be
>>7850977Japanese VNs of any production value (big studio, console games, dlsite rpgmaker slop etc) released by year:>20201265>20211150>20221144>20231058>2024750>2025621Mind you, even the 2020 figure is a steady decline from the ~1500 average of the 2010s, peaking in the 1700s.It's dead, Jim.
>>7850980Three things:1) source?2) as with everything there are highs and lows, you're not acting as if you're certain it'll decline all the way to 0, are you?3) that's still acceptable for me, even if numbers are dwindling, I'm fine with reception being small so long as I get any at all. There still exist niches receptive to VNs, even if they aren't large
>>7850946>Calling it in any way similar to a VN in the context of "VNs are totally popular you guise" is pure retardation, at that point Telltale games are VNs. There's a reason Telltale games sold and not VNs.I find it weird that in most genres of games like FPS, RTS, etc people classify both early games and current games in the genre as being in the same genre, but with adventure games/VNs people just act like the genre is dead while ignoring all the games that are obviously in the same overarching genre just because the format's evolvedDoom (1993) and Doom (2016) are both considered FPSs but then you've got guys like this who pretend that one story-focused game isn't in the same genre as another story-focused game just because the exact format isn't identical
>>7853891yeah, because visual novels aren't a genre in the first place, but a storytelling format that only partially overlaps with video gamesthe vast majority of vns have zero gameplay, you're just readingmeanwhile the games you pretend are vns have no readingyou're basically arguing movies are literarure
Not a VN but I got a Fear & Hunger style monster tamer game. Took a break from it for a couple months but it's definitely what's keeping me going.
>>7853891Are manga and anime the same thing?
>>7849061I always wanted to do a side story for a katawa OC but I work full time, have a high maintenance family, and cant afford to quit and draw cripple girls all day.
>>7849067i got curious and asked on /jp/ a few days ago. this isn't really true. >>>/jp/50567628. in particular, the game in the op has sold pretty well (nearly 9000 players on steam at its peak, who knows how well it sold via domestic platforms https://steamdb.info/app/3101040/charts/), has a shitton of fanart on the boorus (https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts?tags=mahou_shoujo_no_majo_saiban), and was even recommended by 07th expansion (guy who wrote the latest silent hill game). i think the big issue with them being unpopular is like, if you're western. jp markets are super insular and jp people have so much to pick from, why would they care about a western vn. i bring up jp because let's be real the dream of anyone who wants to make a vn is that elevens notice it
>>7856482samefag: westerners who interact with vns are also just...kind of lame? from my experience they're like, people who don't have the know how/dedication to create actual games, so they turn to vns because they're perceived as 'easy' -- and that's true and definitely is a thing in japan (people making vns bc they can't make anything else), but you have to consider the types in western fandomish spaces that want things to be 'easy', they're normally:>troons. mtf troons or ftm troons, both suck because they're normally...>...queerios with no story to tell, no interesting thoughts to communicate >some wokescold loser who is gonna do another ddlc with le edgy scary gore and pixelated effects >people who do not take the medium seriously and just want to make another slop vn where you can date anything or like meme on popular brand charactersmost english vns fall into those four categories. and western fandom is so moralfaggy and pearl clutching that you can't even really take advantage of the format and get completely fucking insane like most vns do unless you want to constantly beat off finger waggers with a stick
>>7850980sure, not every studio is shitting out endless tokimeki memorial sequels anymore, but there's still consistent quality releases yearly, with big names like 5pb, MAGES, chunsoft or nitroplus still thriving on VNs alone.
i have developed two gamejam VNs, one is complete but in need of a writing revision (and art makeover if the artist is willing), the other was completely me and i only managed to finish the first act. renpy is a very easy program that anyone, even a complete moron, can learn and understand. it has a very high complexity ceiling but i dont try to bump up against it and i get by. i encourage anyone with any interest in art, writing, and games to give it a try. during gamejams there are always people of different skillsets looking to collaborate
