My Blog Theme

It’s that time of year when you find little hidden treats left by cute bunnies! It’s also the year of the rabbit! One “hyper bunny” left a special treat to help celebrate. The HyperBunny site has been redesigned and updated. There are new pages with information linked above, our new mascot, Lala, has come to share her energy and cuteness and you may even find a little “treat” hidden somewhere!

HyperBunny was started in 2005. It has gone through many changes, face-lifts and reinventions. A lot has changed over that time. Many lessons were learned and many ideas have grown. However, the goal has always been the same, to create high-quality, fun and titillating adult visual novels.

Easter! Year of the Rabbit! Site update! Is it a sign? Stick around and see what happens next!

Here’s to a bright HyperBunny year!

~nio

I was thinking about a recent VN I was playing and tried to determine how they structured their story. After some thinking and trying different paths, I realized they had a “process of elimination” system going on. You were presented with opportunities to go down a path with a certain character and if you turned that option down (which wasn’t always so obvious) you closed off that path/story. This seemed a little more like real life to me. In the first structure that I posted your choices are evaluated to dispense a final outcome, here you’re choices lead you down different paths all together. Some are closed to you in a sort of “point of no return” setup depending on how you make your choices. Like real life, you often only get one shot to go down a certain road.

So I sketched out a diagram, as I seem to like to do, and below is the clean version of what I came up with.

In this structure you are essentially telling a story from multiple angles where some lead down different story outcomes. Like the first diagram, you have your main path that starts with an introduction and offers points for you to learn more about the characters as they are presented to you. The first couple threads don’t change the outcome as much as they help you to learn about the environment and story. A means of giving you information that you are interested about.

Then you have a PNR (Point of No Return) point. This is a choice that if you pick one way will lead you down a new path, if not you continue down on your way. If you pass each PNR point you basically have eliminated all your choices and end with nothing.

I thought, though, that even with an PNR system it would be nice to still have a second chance (SC). This would give you at least one more opportunity to “jump-ship” on the path you are on and go to another. To the reader (player) this would hopefully not be so obvious and it certainly takes some of the mystery away by showing a graph like this.

During one of the side paths you have some options that will eventually lead you to one of a couple endings.

The problem I was having with the first structure was trying to “weave” a couple different stories into one main path. This is a lot harder than it appeared, because if the player has too many options to jump around the different stories that are going on then there will be little sense of a complete story.

~nio

I just wanted to post an update here to start off the new year. After my last post about Visual Novel structure, I tried to pick up the Confession story and apply that structure idea to it. I changed a couple basics plot points, took out a couple characters and added some new ones. I quickly found out, even with my simplified structure, that it’s not so simple to put it down on paper.

When I was thinking about the characters, their motives and where they would be and how they would react, things started to get a little messy. So while that structure (graph) is a good place to get things rolling, when you get down to the dirty work it can start to unravel in front of you and you can find yourself stuck or going in circles.

I’m not out yet, though and hopefully I can start to really post some progress in the coming months.

Keep checking back.

~nio

So in my attempt to get back into making an adult visual novel, I thought it would be good to do some research. Research is fun when it involves playing games with cute anime girls. Anyway (cough), one of my many goals was to get a better grasp on the VN structure from a story and game perspective. With that I started to lay out a little roadmap in regards to getting a scenario together  for a visual novel. This is what I came up with and I think it’s a good place for anyone to start that is interested in making a visual novel adult or otherwise.

1) Concept – The first thing you need is a concept. Before jumping into the dialogue you need to know what the VN will be about. If you’re stuck a good place to start sometimes is to look at VNs you really like and use that idea as a jumping-off point. Twist it with some new ideas. Before you know it you’ll have a lot of new ideas to work with.

2) Characters – These are typically stories about people. So the characters are a great place to go next. If you can develop them enough they will have their own motives, which will help you push the story along when you get stuck. You need to give them a voice in your head so you can understand where they are coming from and why they do what they do. I like to list out the main characters and any optional or side characters. Figure out their relationships (if any) and then I try to list out some basic information about them like their fears, dreams, hobbies etc.

3) Outline – Next I try to get an outline going. This is just an idea dump at first. I list some important story points I’d like to have or explore. Then arrange them in an order that makes sense. With the important points listed I can try to connect them together so it flows and makes sense how one part of the story leads to another. If I have any thread or branching ideas I jot them down here too. An outline is a great way to get the basics down without worrying about the details.

4) Threads & Branches – I’ve played a handful of VNs and I’ve noticed that it’s not all branches. It’s mostly threads. What do I mean? Think of the main story as a “highway”. There are “events” that happen on the highway as you go along. This is what I usually establish with the outline above. This is the main core of the story. Threads are “detours” that go off the “highway” and lead to a temporary side-story. In a VN these “detours” would be started by a player choice. Once the thread is done you’re back on the main “highway” story. From a technical point, you might use this to up or lower the player’s score. It may even cause some dialogue in the main “highway” story to change using an “if” statement etc. But overall the main “highway” story is something you always go back to. It holds the overall story together and keeps the plot moving along.

The branches are something usually saved for a critical point in the story. A major choice has to be made, or the choices from the threads earlier come to fruition. From here the story (or highway) will break off into separate branches. The choices the player has made have now be solidified in a completely new direction. From here the rest of the threads will really determine the final outcome. Eventually the story will branch off to the final ending depending on the actions the player took to that point.

I made a diagram to show this:

Here you see the main “highway” of the story. Off of that are the threads or “detours”. These represent the choice points the player makes, but they all go back to the main story again. At some point the story reaches a breaking point and it branches off into different “highways”. From here the player has made his choices and they have changed the story outcome. On the new branch there are more threads to the final conclusion. Depending on the choices, the player will get one of any number of endings. In simple cases there may be a “bad”, “good” and “perfect” ending for each branch or an overall “bad” and “good” ending but only one “perfect” ending for each branch providing the player’s score is high enough.

So there you have it. A basic rundown of how to get a visual novel scenario off the ground. Now, this is just my way of doing it. It doesn’t mean this is the best or only way. There are also many ways to go about structuring a VN, but this seems to be the common path most typical “date-sim” type VNs go in its most basic form.

~nio

Well, it’s been… well, it’s been a long time. Let’s just keep it simple.

So what happened? Well, life mostly. Making a VN has been an off and on side obsession of mine for at least six years.

Many projects have been stopped short due to other people I tried to work with or my own lack of interest or time.

So then came Confessions of a Heart, I was serious about this one, but alas it fell through the cracks. It became overwhelming. It had too many girls to keep track of and the thought of drawing all the scenes became disheartening.

What does this mean? I’m still interested in doing an adult VN, but I need to set my goals a little lower. I am only one person after all. But my hope is that by focusing on smaller stories I can provide more quality overall.

My current thought is to produce Mini-VNs. These would focus on a couple of characters or maybe even only one. This affords me a little more creative power. It helps keep the story focused, it will hopefully make things a little more meaningful. It also means I might be able to get voice work done since there won’t be a ton of characters to deal with.

Hopefully (crosses fingers) I’ll have something to show down the road. I may re-work Confessions of a Heart or come up with something new. I won’t make promises as I seem to have a horrid track record of this, but I thought I’d throw a little note here as to what’s going on.

~nio