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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

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

Here is the working synopsis for my first game so far. Things will probably start to slow down as I get more into the meat of the game. I’ll try to keep posting as I go, though.

——–

Finally, your last year at Harrington Academy has arrived! Your time here has been a mix of ups and downs, finding new friends and some enemies. Now it is almost over. When you graduate, what will happen to the relationships you created? More importantly will you leave alone or will you finally find love? The new year begins full of questions and excitement, but your last year starts with an unexpected turn. “I… I just wanted to tell you… um, I love you.” Those are the last words you remember before taking a couple steps back in shock only to be hit by a passing car.

When you wake a couple days later you hear those words cycle in your head, but when you try to recall who spoke them to you, you draw a blank. Who was it? Will you ever be able to find her?

This last year is sure to be interesting as you set out to find the girl that confessed to you while taking part in the many school activates and to, hopefully, finally graduate. How will your last year turn out?

——–

~nio

So here is my first post about development. Now, I’ve been drawing all my life (or close to it) which means I’m an artist first and a programmer second (or maybe third). This doesn’t mean I have no programming skill. In fact I can code in PHP fairly well. However, making a game is a bit more complex than some web application.

As an anime/manga fan it didn’t take long for me to find out about bishōjo (dating sim) games. So it seemed obvious to put my drawing ability, minor coding skill and love of bishōjo games together as an original english dating sim game.

I picked up a coding application called Dark Basic and started making my own dating sim/visual novel engine. I’m still fairly proud of what I accomplished with that. It had a lot of features and it was all my own coding. However, I eventually hit a brick wall. There were some feature I just couldn’t figure out and some things were a little clunky at best. So I shelved the idea for a while.

Then, from the great Lemma Soft forums, I learned about an up-coming visual novel engine called Ren’Py. This excited me and I started thinking about making a dating sim game again. Ren’Py gives you a basic shell to jump in and start adding your assets and make a game without much coding. I of course want to make a game that has a lot of the features of the dating sim games I’ve played from Japan. So with many posts and much brain picking of the Ren’Py creator, PyTom, I started to add and customize a Ren’Py shell with all the features I want to offer in my HyperBunny dating sim games.

As it stands right now I’m about 90% finished with the game shell. This shell contains no content, just functions. There are a few remaining issues that I’m trying to iron out. My hope is to get this done within a week so that I can start on the actual development of my first dating sim game.

~nio

This blog is here to give an on-going look into HyperBunny game development progress and other random tid-bits. Under the HyperBunny name I will develop adult visual novels similar to eroge games found in Japan.

What are visual novel games? It is a game that has been made popular in Japan, called bishōjo games. In short, it is a game styled after the “choose your own adventure” type books, but in this case the stories usually revolve around dating. Though there are many types of bishōjo games in Japan, eroge (erotic) is the style of games that I will be developing. This is a game where your goal is to court a girl, usually from a selection of girls, make choices that branch the story in different directions and, if you’re successful, to have sex with her.

You can learn more about HyperBunny and Visual Novels from the about page.

So I invite you to join the journey and welcome you to HyperBunny.

~nio