Today nothing happened

well, to be precise, yesterday nothing happened.

Like I said, I don't get much done on the weekends.

Sometimes I get distracted on the way between here and there.  Like, in a previous writing, I knew that two characters needed to agree to work together, but for some reason, they wouldn't get around to actually agreeing.  They just kept talking, and every time the girl would come up with reasons why the boy should join her, he managed to talk his way out of it.  Finally I skipped to later in the story and figured I'd come back and work it out later, but I never did.

NaGaDeMo- first day finished!

I am apparently going with a story-first approach to the game.  Since it's a visual novel, I can write the plot, then worry about properly coding it into branching trees.  I'm making a rough outline first, then later I plan to go back in and fill in the dialogue.

I've gotten to about page 30 of the outline, right about where it starts to get difficult to keep track of the branching paths.  Up to this point, the plot has been roughly linear.  From here, it goes off in a lot of different directions, depending on the choices made.

I have an idea of where some of the paths will end, but I don't know exactly how we'll get from here to there yet.

The weekends are actually my busytime at work, but my family has weekends off, so between work and home I hardly ever get anything done on weekends.

I do my best work either late at night, or in the middle of the day when no one's home.  When do you do your best work?

Variables and Attitude

I've been working with the game remembering whether the pc chooses to be gentle/polite or aggressive/snarky.  It occurs to me that it ought to remember that state for each npc separately, rather than as a blanket variable.

Otherwise, we could end up with a scenario where Snow's been kind of mean to everyone except the girl he likes, to whom he's been very sweet-- but she still reacts as though he's been a jerk to her throughout the game.

I should be working instead of posting

I've been asking the forums @ NaGaDeMo how other people work at game design.  It's probably a lot different for games where one has to create the engine, sprites, and all those things.   I'm lucky to be working in Ren'Py, where I don't have to worry about the engine at all.

This game probably won't end up having character art.  I don't think 30 days is enough for me to learn how to draw ;)

Mostly my first concern is whether to write the story first and then translate that into code, or whether I should just start working in Ren'Py from the beginning.

NaGaDeMo starts tomorrow!

And it will be different from all the other days when I said I was going to work on something, but ended up reading TV Tropes.

Side Characters

In Katawa Shojo there's a character, your pc's neighbor.  He's not a "gettable" character, (no paired ending,) and you don't even get to make any choices while you're talking to him.  He's just got lots of dialogue and he shows up more than once.

I think he's probably meant to be worldbuilding/ story development, or comic relief, but for me he was just something I had to click through to get back to the game.

I think it goes back to my last post, about interactivity.  I wouldn't mind "side" characters if I felt like they were either: essential to the storyline, helping me develop my character, or affecting the outcome of the game in some manner.

Interactive Novels Should Be Interactive

Another thing that bothers me in VN: reading page after page of dialogue with no choices to make.
Even if it isn't actually going to affect the underlying variables, how about giving me a choice of how to respond?  Or let me direct the conversation a little bit, even if there is important plot info that needs to be conveyed.

Example Time:

NPC: I have terrible news, sire!  Your trusted vizier was a traitor!
{PC: I had no idea!
NPC: He's kidnapped the princess!
{PC: Oh no!
NPC: What should we do now sire?
{PC: We must create a search party!

VS:

NPC: I have terrible news, sire!  Your trusted vizier was a traitor!
{PC: I had no idea!/ I knew it!

NPC: He's kidnapped the princess!
{PC: Oh no! (goto NPC1) / Eh, she'll be fine. . . (goto NPC2)

NPC1: What should we do now sire?

{PC: We must create a search party!

NPC2: Your Highness, we really should create a search party.
PC: Oh, fine.

I mean, terrible plot aside, I'd rather read the second one.

First Impressions

One thing I dislike that I see happening in a lot of visual novels:

You're talking to Girl A, and Girl B appears.

If you don't go after B right away, you lose the chance to ever get on her path. 

But if you do go after her, you never get the chance to change your mind and go back to Girl A. 

I want to make a game where you get the chance to meet all of the love interests before you have to decide which one you want to pursue.

What do you think?

NaGaDeMo

I've decided to try National Game Development Month!  

I'm going to be making a visual novel in Ren'Py.  I've played around with Ren'Py in the past, but never completed a game.

I've been thinking about an idea for the last couple weeks (since Snow White is everywhere lately) about doing a gender-swapped version, where Snow is a boy and the other characters are girls.

I guess we'll see if this gets me motivated to finally finish a game!