I showed my very first test Visual
Novel to my best friend, who got me to take part in Nanoreno
2020. At first I thought I realy wouldn't be able to do it, but I
wanted to try it with my friend so bad, that I gave it a try.
I learned how to code 2 days prior and
managed to make an awfully short test visual novel in one day. I felt
empowered by this achievement, but I couldn't help but still feel
like i didn't belong in there. I was scared to mess up, to know to
little, or to fail.
The video that taught me how to code
But again, knowing my friend was taking
part in it, I threw myself in the Nanoreno.
Surprisingly enough, for me, I was able
to find a story quite fast. The mechanics and goals of the game
became clear to me and I was able to envision the different routes. I
had to cut things out, due to my lack of knowledge in coding and the
limited amount of time, knowing that i'll have to have it finished by
the 28th, due to other events I wanted to take part in.
Again, to my biggest surprise, coding
was one of the things that ended up being the easiest and fastest for
me. Everything was still fresh in my head, and I was keeping it super
simple. I don't think it's anything very impressive, but to me it was
quite the achievement.
The longest I spent time on was the art
and the dialogues.
About the art :
I tried something with blue ink and
liquid watercolours, that at first meant to be turned into
greyscales, but I ended up liking the blue mood better, I had to
desaturate it though, since it was really pretty bright at first.
unedited raws of the first backgrounds
Something I would like to do better for
my next game is to scale the characters better. Some appear bigger or
closer than other, while this was not my intention. Maybe by using a
grid or planning it more efficiently I can avoid this kind of
problems.
About the dialogues :
I kept reworking them until words made
no sense to me, because I was too worried that they'll be too flat or
too cheesy, but somehow I was able to find a balance I was satisfied
with by forcing me to stop haha
In the end I feel like I was able to
get close to what I envisioned. I think reading more English books
and playing more games in English would help, since it is not my main
language.
When I came to sound design, since I
used to work on an audio show, it was not too long for me to create
ambiances and find what kind of sounds I'll need. It was also fast to
put everything together. The result is something that works the way I
wanted it too, it's present without being too much.
My only regret is that I didn't had enough time to compose my own music, but maybe next game. I was too rusty to come up with something this time ! : (
My only regret is that I didn't had enough time to compose my own music, but maybe next game. I was too rusty to come up with something this time ! : (
Aaaaand after that I replayed and
polished the game for around 3 days, replaying everything, making
sure sprites where showing up and disappearing properly, that there
was as little typos and mistakes as I could do, and if there was any
kind of bugs. I kept having dream that I left stains on the sprites
or that the game was not working on other computers.
I was quite stressed out. It's my first
serious Visual Novel, my second VN ever, and I was going to put it
online. I was so stressed out I thought I wouldn't do it. But thanks
to encouragements of my friends I decided to upload it on itch.io !
I am very grateful I had their support
along the way, I kept doubting myself and second guess everything, it
was quite the experience, but in the end I can say that I enjoyed it
and that I have no regrets. I'm glad I tried and I'm happy I was able
to prove myself that I was able to do it !
Thank you for reading !
If you want to try my game it's
availiable here for free !:
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