Poasts-for-later - Nonsense Warehouse

artwork from Citizen Sleeper

FOR ANY WRITERS OR THOSE WHO LIKE GOTHIC LITERATURE

I found this. It's basically a huge list of how to write in a gothic horror-like style. It gives you words to use, and what types of adjectives to put down, and it explains them rather than just giving you a list too. I hope someone beyond myself finds this useful because holy shit am I going to use this tool

Following my redesign of Mal, here’s my take on Evie from Descendants! 👑 I wanted her look to be contrast Mal and be a lot more polished since she’s royalty. I also leaned more into prim and princess-like based on her personality in the movie, but still maintaining dark elements in her aesthetic. I gave her a little skull makeup bag as a nod to the skull in her mother’s dungeon from the original film!

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i was kind of imagining all 15 pipes dropping at the same time in one cacophony but he drops them one after another very methodically and then sighs and goes At least i only dropped 14 of them.. & then there's. well you're smart you can figure this one out

Happy Halloween! Are you ready for the Killer Chat! Halloween Special? ;)

HOW DO SERIAL KILLERS SPEND HALLOWEEN?

TOGETHER... OF COURSE.

It's October 31st, 2023. Angel's overworking herself when Ronin knock-knock-knocks his crowbar against her door. V's landed in Japan for a charity event and Misaki is begging him to meet them for real.

Whatever happens... no one's dying tonight. Right?

It's bound to be a special Halloween.

FEATURING...

Two original short stories about the Killer Chat main cast and their Halloween! 

Two beautiful art pieces by Killer Chat's CG artist @munstxr illustrating the story's events... featuring the serial killers in costume! 

MADE BY...

rosesrot - Writer

munstxr - Artist

This book is a DLC of Killer Chat!, a dating sim where you date serial killers on the dark web! 

Download the short stories for free now!

"I want to make a visual novel but don't know how"

visual novels are one of the most diverse and varied mediums out there and can be so much fun to make. if you've ever wanted to make one, it's pretty easy to get started!!

Overall Guide

this is a lengthy guide I made going over different parts of visual novels and how people make them! now let's go over some parts~

arimia

How to Make Visual Novels, a guide by arimia

A quick overview on how to make visual novels including terms, engines, communities and more. You can get started making your own visual nov

What Are Visual Novels?

Visual novels are a medium of video games focused on storytelling through the use of static or low-gameplay mechanics. Most can be considered a subsection of interactive fiction. A lot of visual novels have no gameplay or minigames, but some do feature light gameplay. The important aspect is that the gameplay in visual novels is never the focus, and instead the game focuses on a story delivered through dialogue & narration in textboxes on the screen.

Some visual novels are romance, some are fantasy, some are mystery, some are NSFW, some are cutesy, some are kiddie. Visual novels come in all shapes and sizes.

Visual Novel Misconceptions

Visual novels have been around for several decades now, but parts of them are still misunderstood by wider audiences. Here’s some frequent misconceptions about visual novels.

"Every visual novel has sexual content."

Visual novels come in all shapes and sizes, which includes content. Not every visual novel has sexual content, nor is it required to sell well. Visual novels are a medium for storytelling rather than a genre, so they can be anything you want them to be.

"Every visual novel is a dating sim."

Similar to the last one, some people think every visual novel is a romance game or a dating sim. Not every visual novel has romance in it, nor is it required to sell well.

"Every visual novel has choices and multiple endings."

Some of the most popular visual novels out there like Umineko When they Cry don’t have choices. Choices and multiple endings aren’t required to make a visual novel—completely linear experiences are fine.

"Visual novels need to be long."

Some of the top visual novels on itch.io right now are under 25k words, which puts them under 2 hours of playtime. Visual novels don’t have to be a certain length—they can be as long or as short as the story needs them to be. There’s even an annual visual novel jam, O2A2, that focuses on making a visual novel under 1k words with limited assets.

"Visual novels don’t sell well."

This is very much your mileage may vary. Some visual novels sell very, very well, such as how the recent Our Life: Now and Forever Kickstarter gained almost $300k. Marketing is an entire field just like art and writing and isn’t something you can skimp on or push to the end.

"Visual novel players hate reading."

A vast, vast majority of visual novel readers want a visual novel—they want a game that is light on gameplay and heavy on reading. You don’t have to add gameplay to a visual novel to keep people interested. Rather, minigames added at random can deter players. Visual novel players want an engaging story—if you’re worried of losing their attention, then focus on a tighter script or cinematography.

"Visual novels need to be anime style."

Visual novels originated in Japan and most do have an anime style, but visual novels do not need an anime style to sell well. The art style for a game will change the audience for the game—players who want something anime style probably won’t be interested in a semi-realistic style, but other people will be. It’s all about finding the right style for your story and finding the audience who responds well to it.

Visual Novel Terms

Here’s a list of terms you might encounter in visual novel and game dev communities.

EVN / OELVN – stands for English Visual Novel and Original English Language Visual Novel. Two terms used for describing Western VNs that are made in English, although EVN is used more frequently nowadays. An EVN/OELVN is specifically a visual novel made in English first, not a visual novel that has an English translation (and was made in a different language first). There are several variations of this, such as JVN meaning Japanese Visual Novel and RVN meaning Russian Visual Novel.

Kinetic novel – a visual novel that’s linear with few or no choices. Has only one ending. Also called a linear visual novel, linear game, etc.

Game jams – an event where developers have a set amount of time to make a game, ranging from a weekend to several months. Some jams have themes that the games must follow as well as other restrictions while others are more freeform. Nowadays, most jams are hosted on itchio. You can find a list of visual novel game jams here.

Game engine – a piece of software used for developing video games. The most popular ones for making indie VNs in English-speaking areas are Ren’Py and Unity, though Tyranobuilder is very popular in Japan for indies.

Text/code editor – when programming, you’ll need another piece of software to edit and write code that works with the game engine. Some popular text editors are Visual Studio Code, Sublime, Atom, Notepad, and more.

Character sprite – the individual character art that changes expressions and can move around the screen. Can include multiple outfits, pose changes, and more.

CGs – although it typically stands for Computer Generated, CGs in visual novels typically means the cut scene art where no sprites are shown (unless there's a side sprite on the textbox). CGs are usually reserved for special scenes and are the type of artwork you’d see in a CG Gallery or as promotional artwork.

UI / GUI – the User Interface / Graphical User Interface. This is what the player interacts with such as the textbox, main menu, save / load screen, settings, and more.

ADV mode – the standard reading mode for visual novels, short for Adventure mode. The textbox is located at the bottom of the screen. Popular examples of this are Steins;Gate, AI: The Somnium Files, and Amnesia.

NVL mode – a different reading mode for visual novels, short for Novel mode. The textbox covers most of the screen. Popular examples of this are Fate/stay night, Tsukihime, and Umineko When they Cry.

Dating simulator – dating sims are some of the oldest forms of visual novels and are essentially stat raisers where you spend time with various characters with the goal being to romance them by getting your stats high enough. In Western spheres dating sim has become synonymous with a romance game, where stat raising is not involved, but it’s important to note that dating sims refer to stat raisers a lot of the time. Unlike otome, a dating sim doesn’t refer to a specific sexual orientation.

Otome / Otoge – roughly translates to “maiden’s love” and is used to describe games with a female demographic, usually dating sims & romance games which feature male love interests and a female protagonist. Some otome games feature female and other gendered LIs, but male LIs are still the primary focus.

Eroge – an erotic game. If a game has sexual content in it, it’s an eroge. The original Fate/stay night (not the remastered version on Steam) is a popular example of an eroge.

Resources

And now, let's look at some tools and links for actually making visual novels.

Engines & Programming

Ren’Py – free visual novel engine

Twine – free text-based game engine (usually used for interactive fiction)

Naninovel – Unity-based tool for making Unity VNs

tiny tools – collection of various game dev tools

Ren’Edit Add-On – Ren’Py script editing & feedback tool

Ren’Py Accessibility Add-On

Feniks Ren’Py resources – various add-ons and tutorials by Feniks

Game Jam & Short Dev Advice

Game Jam Survival Guide - Essential Tips and Tricks

Releasing 8+ games (ft. game jams) and when to take a break

making game development backup plans

Advice for Leading VN Game Jam Teams

How to Make a Visual Novel Solo

How to Finish Your Visual Novel

Design

How to Make Visual Novels

Visual Novel Conference Talks

Visual Novel Cinematography & Design

Art Direction & Execution in Visual Novels

Making Impactful, Impressive Character Sprites

Post-production Techniques for VNs

Vimi’s Visual Novel Design

Writing

Writing Interactive – guides for narrative games writers

Visual Novel Conference Talks

Writing Mystery Visual Novels

How to Design Interesting Choices in VNs

The Intrigue of Ambiguity

Artwork

Clip Studio Paint

Krita

FireAlpaca

Medibang

GIMP

FastStone Photo Resizer – batch photo resizer and editor

FotoSketcher – various settings to apply artistic filters to photos

Marketing

How to Market Visual Novels

Marketing Visual Novels FAQ

Marketing Fundamentals for Indie Game Developers

Marketing your first indie game – What we learned from releasing the same game twice

The stairstep approach to indie game marketing

Marketing your Visual Novel for Kickstarter

Visual Novel Press-Kits

Audio

Eric Matyas music & SFX

Vita-chi SFX & graphics

Free Music Archive

Free Sound

dova-syndrome

Misc.

Lemmasoft Creative Commons Forum

itch.io visual novel resources

Google Fonts – free fonts

Uncle Mugen backgrounds

Canva – browser & desktop graphic design tool

Unsplash – free photos

Wrapping Up

all in all, visual novels are a fun medium to explore and play around with. if you want to make something short as a test run, try joining a game jam! if you want to see how varied visual novels can be, try playing some indies from itchio! at the end of the day there's no bad way to start making your own visual novel. hit the ground running and go for it!!

I've been developing visual novels for over 10 years now, blogging about them on my own blog and releasing visual novels through my studio Crystal Game Works. I hope this guide helped shed light on how to get into the medium!

— Arimia

This time I have something diffrent and smaller as I played new game and I made small guide/list of tips to get every ending. Maybe it will help someone.

I really recommend trying it out. ^^

Google Docs

Killer Chat!

I took all of the tips from comments and from the creators page (and from my attempts for now). If you have any tips, you can write them on

I have some random thoughts about Vace from Teenage Exocolonist. (It's been a while since I played, so hopefully I haven't gotten anything incorrect.)

He was always so insufferable at the start, but I really like characters who can grow and actually become better people, because that doesn't happen often enough in real life. And he really does change, if you can get through to him. It's not an instant, overly perfect change, it's still a struggle for him, but he never stops trying. He doesn't even ask for forgiveness from the people he hurt, he understands they don't owe him that, he just acknowledges his wrongs and tries to right them and be better.

And when you think about what the Helios society is like and learn about his upbringing, his past, it doesn't make some of his actions excusable, but it does make them make more sense. He was abused by his parent. His enhancement, according to the artbook, is a perfect body or something like that, though in-game it's listed as having a big dick. That's what he was raised to believe is most important in life. Helios seems to be a society of toxic masculinity and bullying and "might makes right." He says himself, "I was born because they knew they'd need the next generation of soldiers to fight." IIRC, Rex and Nomi are anomalies on Helios. Vace is the norm. Vace is the ideal. And he's still young. All the adults in his life are just as much to blame, and at least (again, depending on the ending) he's breaking that cycle. That's a credit to him. That he's willing to go against so much of what's ingrained in his mind, to face the regret or shame or pain that comes with acknowledging your wrongs, and say, "I'm going to be better than that from now on." The world would be a better place if more people did that.

Listen, in real life, I'd have most likely avoided him pre-change because he is a real asshole at the start, and I wouldn't blame anyone hurt by him for not forgiving him. But as a character, I like him a lot *shrug* There's more depth to him than it first seems there is, and he has a great redemption arc. And although some of his convo after he starts therapy is a bit cliche and maybe a bit more insightful than is realistic for most people, it's a great look at how someone's upbringing can mess them up and what it means to genuinely change and try to do right by the people you've hurt.

Also he did sometimes make me laugh when he was just being grumpy or full of himself 😅

if the li's went to therapy what would they be diagnosed with? :3

ronin - i don't think the therapists know what's wrong with him 💔

angel - depression + anxiety

misaki - adhd + anxiety

v - autism

My friends showed me the Descendants movie for the first time, and I am very clearly not the target audience for this franchise and that's fine lol.

But for fun, I wanted to do this redesign if I were tasked with imagining the Descendants characters. I personally don't dig the modern setting, so I would've leaned towards a fantasy aesthetic closer to something like The School for Good and Evil.

I knew I wanted Mal to have her mother's (and father's) unnatural complexion, and yellow eyes from both. I also wanted to give another small nod to Hades with the blue flame (if she were to use ger spellbook, the magic from it would manifest in blue flames). I gave her little purple baby horns that would turn black as she got older. I also put hints of red in her outfit, which I wanted to be her main color (especially for her coronation look at the end of the story) later on instead of just purple and black like Maleficent, to reflect her slowly coming into her own. Overall, my goal was to push her look to be a lot more witchy and supernatural looking.

I'll likely redesign the other villain kids as well. Let me know if you'd like to see them too!

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