What do you think about visual novels?

Hey,

I was thinking about experimenting something new, and I remembered about visual novels.
You know, these kind of "games", or more precisely, interactive stories, often designed in an anime style, with music, decisions to take...

What do you think about them?
How are people interested in them? (can it, somehow, compete with animes and mangas?)
Is it possible to make visual novels funny, scary and/or with some action (even though characters are not animated?):
I guess it is since classical novels (you know, books with nothing but text) can do it pretty well.

I'd like to create something, but I'm not good enough for video games (requiring a lot of different skills).
I have some knowledge in programming, graphics, I know how to use Unity, and I like to write. I've got some assets
to help me create visually attractive content.

Here is an example of the kind of backgrounds/characters I can create:

(I use google to search for bodies, background and music (I edit them), and I use RPGMaker character generator to create faces and expressions).
And before you precise, yeah I know, using already existing stuff is not really ethical, but I'm so bad at drawing,
and if I make a visual novel, I won't sell it, and almost nobody will know it exists. I'm just an amateur.

To create the image above, I used those assets:

I think I found a good story, but I need to dig into it.
It would be a depressed accountant with an a**h*le of an employer.
While he's looking for help, browsing forums, as he wants to commit suicide, he will meet someone who will give him special pills to have lucid dreams. He takes them to evade his sad daily life, and will eventually end up confusing dreams with reality.

What do you think about this? Your advices are welcome

Originally Posted by Demonz54

Seems like an interesting story. I'd definitely recommend writing a solid amount before creating the visuals as you could alwas just cop it off as a story/book. Creating enough visuals for a story will take quite a long period of time, especially to capture crucial details.

Originally Posted by sasori~

Thanks for the reply, and yes, you are right.
Creating the visuals, animations of faces, the UI, programming, adding music... takes a lot of time. I need to be sure of my story/dialogues beforehand.
If I can, at least, write 50% of the story, I'll be motivated enough to put it into a visual novel. I already started writing the first lines & ideas on a word document.

I wrote the first scenes, and I wanted to try now. I found a software called ren'py. This is really easy to use, much more easier than unity or visual novel maker.
Here's the result after one day:

This is in french, but here's what it says:
we meet the protagonist, Itachi. He works at a company called "Akibara" as an accountant,
and he's summoned by his boss, Mr. Aizawa (yeah, japanese names, lol).
His boss screams at him, threatens to make his life a living hell because Itachi hasn't registered the invoces of the last 4 months, and the deadline is oncoming.
His boss also calls him an "runt" and asks him to "get the fuck off" (but Itachi is not fired. His boss just doesn't want to see him).
It's the end of the day for Itachi, he goes home, but it rains, and he hates that.
He lives 45 minutes far from his work, in a poor district of tokyo, and cannot afford a bus or subway ticket since Mr Aizawa is not paying him enough.
He walks and thinks, desperate for all the bills he needs to pay, how his life sucks and his studies wasn't worth it, how he won't have the time to do anything else than having a shower and sleeping, wondering what he will eat this week since he has no money: "carrots I guess".
As he's complaining on his fate, a car drives fast next to him, and splashes him with water from the ground.
At night, he finally arrives in his little flat, opens the door, and here we are.

What do you think about it?

EDIT: I changed the sprite's sizes

I really dont care at all about the story in video games, I don't play them for that. I play video games for either, the fun gameplay, competitive element or the unique visual designs some games have. I feel like video games aren't the best way of telling a good story when there are mediums like t.v shows, books and movies out there. However, it's pretty cool that you like them enough to actually try and create one yourself, keep refining your story and visuals and make the best visual novel ever!

Don't like it so much, manga is better for me.

It can be a hit or miss, but i think it depends on the games. most seem like theyre edgy or too sexual.
I'd recommend steins gate to get started.

What do you think about visual novels?

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