GoIO VN Project

[Qwerty Kun]

Hey all, Qwerty here with a hell of a project.

By now anyone that watches the stream will know I am a bit of a Visual Novel fan (I’m sorry ).
If you don’t know what a VN is, I direct you here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_novel

In a previous thread that was meant to be a joke the idea was raised of creating a GoIO VN made by the community.

I honestly want to run with the idea and as such have started a very rough planning stage. I encourage everyone to come and help as doing this on my own will be damn near impossible.

Currently there is a google doc for our decisions and eventually the different plots.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A-FBVsh7XGX0bc7ThTWLiI56VdPw6MNlTq6GAUJIHcQ/edit?usp=sharing

If you wish to help then please use this thread to lay out any ideas or discussions you have.

Just a warning though, this thread is for the DEVELOPMENT of ideas of the game. Any trolling, random comments, opinions on whether the project should happen will be MODERATED TO HELL.

So far we have a few key decisions that need to be made and I want to thank Pieman and Gryphos for wading in early on this.

Cheers,

Qwerty

[Qwerty Kun]

This area will be used to show all images/screenshots I decide to take.
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So at the moment key decision are being made.

How many paths do we want?
What type of tone do we want to go for?
A central story that links all the paths?
What do we do about the art?

Well we have some of these being discussed/kinda resolved. If you want to wade in head over to the google doc.

As to the art Hamster has helped me devise a way of getting around no artists, observe.




Here's an interesting little update, I found an anime character creator that might work as an alternative for character creation, pretty diverse allows for a lot of different appearances.






That might just work, that might just work
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This area will give links to example or current builds using the engine.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/lxn8q6a65x43wu0/GoIO_Rough_1-1.0-win.zip

Just a super quick example of the engine, took me <5 mins to do and half of that was learning.

cheers,

qwerty

[Mill Wilkinson]

LIKE I SAID, OFF TOPIC DISCUSSION WILL BE MODERATED.

BURN THE HERETIC!

I will be glad to offer my opinions and ideas, if those are of any use to you. Already did that earlier today, but decided to drop a note. *hups!*

[Keon]

That hair looks a bit derpy on the girl. Where are you getting these pics from?

[Qwerty Kun]

Screencaps (well of the girl and the pilot in the back)

[Keon]

Well. It sounds cool. I'll help out how I can.

It seems like we have emotions mostly figured out.

[Gryphos]

Well, I'm in. This could be a great labour of love for the community. I'll help how I can mainly in the area of story crafting.

[Sailorman]

Creating a VN is a worthy quest, I'll help with my Photoshop/illustrator skills and knowledge of idioms and tropes.

[Keon]

Everybody put your opinions in. After all, we wouldn't want my idea of a climactic boarding sequence getting in, right?

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Added my input on the google doc. Basically a similar beginning to Broken Blade where you have a neutral setting with all the characters interacting. Then you go out into the world on individual story arcs.

Forgot to add a note about being a crewmember arc as well. So if you didn't want to choose any of them, there would be the potential to choose one who goes with you on your own crew. It would be the "childhood friend style" arc. This would mean more girls and story arcs than originally thought up but certainly doable.

[Keon]

Bumping so qwerty doesn't forget.

[Gryphos]

We ain't letting you abandon the project, Qwerty!

[Qwerty Kun]

I'm not abandoning it, it really want to make a VN but an unfortunate series of events has left me so I can't do much on it for a while.
Uni exams got in the way for a few weeks but now I am on holidays. Co-inciding with my holidays which is when I intended to do work on it, I got a lovely little bout of pnuemonia and will be in hospital for 1-2 weeks.
I will make a post soon as to the next steps and maybe we can see what you guys can do (It will be making the characters and their plots).

Cheers,

Qwerty

[Qwerty Kun]

OKAY OKAY! LET'S DO THIS!

Just a few notes before I begin, I am in hospital so my communication may come at odd or irregular hours, just bear with it there isn't much I can do. Also as we get further into development I would like to make skype calls, however it again isn't possible due to my illness and being on a respirator.

Without further ado...
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We have decided (more or less) on 4 arcs.
We have decided that the first arc is the same in every story and ends with a decision which chooses which girl/ship to go with.
We have decided on an art style that works (for now, the full limitations/advantages of it are yet to be fully explored)
We have decided on an engine.

What we need to work on now is the most crucial element to a Visual Novel. Characters and Story. (Yes they are one element because they are both so interwoven).

First of all we need to 100% decide what we want to do for our first arc. It has been suggested by Gilder that the first arc be a sort of 'neutral' story, maybe taking place in childhood (would be hard with our art options) with the final decision being to leave this neutral place with one of the girls and going to their birthplace/culture. I personally think this would be great as it allows each story to not only have different characters and plot elements but an entirely different cultural feel, bringing great diversity to our game. It might require more work to do so but I am keen to do it.

As for the neutral place, I believe we just stick the characters in some sort of neutral port (could even be made up I guess) and maybe make the first arc take 6 months to a few years storywise but have the characters allready largely adult (again due to our art limitations).

CAN WE PLEASE GET SOME OPINIONS ON THIS!!!!1!!!!!1!!!11!!!

Then we need the ideas for characters/plots. I think providing a little template for these ideas would help so I've whipped this up, if you could submit ideas using this format.

Ship:
Nationality:
Girl Description:
Narrative Summary:
Additional Notes:

Using this just submit any ideas you have for a rough story and if they are liked by the majority of the team we will select them and develop them further

I will be putting every useful suggestion into the google doc which is again locket here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A-FBVsh7XGX0bc7ThTWLiI56VdPw6MNlTq6GAUJIHcQ/edit?usp=sharing

I will also submit a few of my ideas for the plots to that document so make sure to favorite it.

Apart from those two main elements maybe throw some ideas around about music. Is anyone any good with any music programs? if we did do different cultures we would likely need different music to back it up.

Of course mention anything else you can think off.

Again sorry for my absence.

Cheers,

Qwerty

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Neutral arc won't be tough but we should iron that out before we go nuts about the girls. If we are having 4 different cultures coming together at one point then we'll need to think of a place in the world where there could be neutrality. I'll see about fleshing out a little more of that concept I was drawing from Broken Blade. Maybe I'll get more ideas about it if I start writing it. Is usually how I work it out on other projects.

So...6 months to a few years for opening arc, and we need more adult characters to fit the art. K, that is a good enough idea to start from. I'll post later when I have something.