#obviously every vn with multiple routes

[brave-symphonia]

The more I find myself thinking about We Know the Devil, the more I think that I want to play each "route" in it twice. And that I want to really think on the endings of whatever each one is.

Like, I really feel like there is a lot in the ending to Jupiter's route to really look at and think about, and I feel like it makes me understand her a lot more. And I feel like it'll be the same for all of them.

Like, I feel like I can't judge each of these endings or routes or whatever unless I have a good understanding of all the characters. So i really want to try seeing how I feel going through everything once I've seen all the endings I can see, since I feel like by then my main gripe with the vn won't really be a factor.

Especially because my experience with this first playthrough of it felt like I wasn't really focused due to not grabbing onto the setting or the characters super well, and I already feel like that's changed a little bit.

Plus, with how short the game is, it feels really doable.

#zack reads vn #zack reads wktd #obviously every vn with multiple routes #isn't really fair to judge #unless you've at least played them all first #but a lot of the ones i've played #feel like you could judge them at least partly on one route #but this feels different

[aspenglen]

Update 1-30-2022

Canyonlands: American Folklore Update

I'm going to update everyone on the progress of the game:

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Completed tasks:

The entire story is outlined, including the three major routes. This game won't have set branching systems like in my last game, more like a point system where different points get to different endings after an initial route branch. The game's route will be based on the player's investigation into one of three true crime cases. The story will of course have branching paths beyond that, especially since there are multiple endings for the same point threshold

Character sprite for the main character and one of the main cast is complete. Obviously, for more important sprites there will be a dedicated new drawing, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Exact descriptions for each of the three cases have been written

All character arcs are written except one

In-Progress:

Coding on the main story portion has started, as well as writing. I currently have a very long way to go.

Minigames are currently under development for each respective case, but the base code is mostly ready for one. The UI interface for the map feature (still under consideration) and the deduction feature are still be ironed out for design.

2 backgrounds are in progress at the current moment

GUI design was made a while ago, but I do not like it. I was thinking about an eye theme but discovered a yandere VN had already used that theme, so it's back to the drawing board.

To-do:

Oh boy where to start

Coding needs: Content before route split, Content of route 1, Content of route 2, the content of route 3 (basically all of it)

Endings still need to be fully written out and have the details ironed out.

The sprites for 10+ characters

The Shop (possible feature)

The time management system needs to be designed and coded

All but 2 of the backgrounds

Inventory system coding (works into GUI)

Suspicion bar

Backlog:

Originally, there were about 5 songs already composed for the story, but unfortunately, I lost the files after a mistake during a file transfer. Progress on this has been back-logged

Goals:

The goal for this month of development will be coding in the minigames and various other things that require the most coding effort. With the outline, I now know the direction of the story and will code appropriately.

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Sorry for the long silence! My life is kind of crazy right now so the game's development is taking a while. The game is going to be set in a rural town in Utah and will be a bit of genre divergence for me as I'm delving into a murder mystery and cold cases. The MC will hopefully have a more active role. I can't release much in case I regret this idea and scrap it, but the end game will have an MC in a dangerous, bigoted town attempt to solve cold cases that continually occur every ten years. These cold cases will lead to insight into her own dangerous situation and hopefully lead her to not make the mistakes of the past.

There will still be yandere characters, but I hope to portray them as different from my first game.

In this game, I hope to explore themes of loss, the learning of bigotry, grief, found family, cycles of abuse and mourning, and rewriting history for sake of the next generation.

Please be patient with me on this, I hope to make more rapid development in the summer when I have more free time as I am currently a full-time student.

(also i am considering getting a twitter, i need to figure out how to advertise these games lol. if you have any ideas leave it in the notes.)

#yandere #yandere otome #game #otome #male yandere #yandere visual novel #visual novel

[morphogenetic]

the requested, very long adaptation of a Twitter thread I made about flowcharts in media. contains multiple spoilers for several things but I will section off each part. Under a readmore because Fucking Long

(starts with 999/general ze spoilers but will also talk about ai, raging loop, and 13 sent.inels a bit)

1. The MAJOR 999 and Zero Escape spoilers part

while it is obviously super convenient for replays, the 999 port including a flowchart kind of defeats the point because zero WAS just blindly trying things. they'd always have to watch junpei fuck up from the beginning over and over because they DON'T have the ability to just jump back to certain points in the timeline!! at all!!

like yes obviously its a thing to start from the beginning over and over (and then speed through text youve already seen) bc its a DS limitation in some ways, but it is FULLY accurate to zero's own gameplay experience (and, hell, even junpei's) to NOT let them be able to just jump around wherever in the timeline

in contrast, letting the vlr/ztd protags jump in random places into the flowchart IS fully justified! it makes PERFECT sense that they can do that! in fact, if they COULDNT do that, it would be Bad, bc the plot relies so heavily on them Being Able To Do That that it wouldn't make sense otherwise. ztd in particular actually is brilliant with how it does things completely asynchronously to the point that piecing together the order of events is almost impossible. yes its confusing, but its SUPPOSED to be! it's not always good otherwise but the way it PURPOSEFULLY disorients the player like that is. So good.

2. The less-major-but-still-spoilers AI: The Somnium Files Part (and general-Uchikoshi-media part)

ai is kind of a weird case, because unlike A Lot Of Other Uchi Stuff, the existence of a multiverse is only implied, rather than canon. the branching system is so drastic that i don't think it WOULD work nearly as well if it didn't have an in-game flowchart. on the other hand, its not super well built into the actual narrative structure of the game, which feels INCREDIBLY unlike uchi.

its probably just something he brought over bc he was so used to it from his previous games and it DOES have a narrative purpose in ai, its just less of a storytelling choice from his usual time bullshit way of doing things lol. i do like it but it's probably part of the reason that ai isn't quite as high up for me as 999 and even punchline in some ways. its still GOOD but it doesn't take full advantage of being a game (or a show) in the same way that a lot of his other stuff does

3. The Raging Loop flowchart part (minor spoilers, primarily for the early routes, and implied 999 spoilers)

raging loop is a really interesting blend of flowchart and looping to me, because, just like 999, every time you die you are actually starting at the beginning. however, because of the way the game sets up haruaki (the protagonist), and because of the way the actual looping mechanic works, letting you skip forward past sections you've already seen makes PERFECT sense. there are cases where haruaki just straight up goes "yeah I did the same shit here a few times to get this to work" and it makes PERFECT sense bc hes not even like "WOAH a time loop," he just immediately accepts the mechanics of his situation and spares recounting it over and over.

this works even better when you throw revelation mode into the mix, for a ton of huge spoiler reasons that i won't actually talk about here, but rloop really is the perfect blend of 999 vs vlr style time bullshit, and it works PERFECTLY for the type of story its trying to tell. it takes into account that the type of person playing this game probably already HAS played a ton of vns with a time loop mechanic, and so it gave itself a flowchart and a protag that is set up fantastically for this kind of setup.

4. The 13 Sentinels part which you REALLY SHOULD NOT READ IF YOU HAVENT PLAYED IT

this is a spoiler buffer this is a spoiler buffer lalalalallalalalaala

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okay if youre reading this I sure hope you have played 13 sentinels because otherwise im going to spoil you. please play it or watch an LP if you dont have a ps4, if you need content warnings I can give them to you, I'm begging you for the love of god play this game if you like vns at all

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comparing 13s to any of these other things feels weird, because it uses its flowchart system in a completely different way. unlike the others w the looping mechanics, a ton of the branches on each character ARE different days entirely. not always, of course, but its more used as a way to help the player keep track of information they've already learned, rather than as a way to introduce a sense of non-continuity into things. this works perfectly fine for 13s because Flashbacks Real And Happen Often

this probably comes from the fact that 13s was at one point going to have a FUCKTON of endings, like 12 for each character, so it did originally use the flowchart for a branching-narrative purpose, but then had to repurpose it entirely. it did actually arrive from the usual idea of a choice system that is typical for many visual novels/adventure games, but it ends up using it in an entirely different way for budgetary limitations

(this next part is in rot13, because while those were fairly minor things, this stuff is MAJOR major. just. please I must reiterate PLAY THIS GAAAAAME. if you have plug this next part into a rot13 translator and you'll be good)

vg vf rkgerzryl shaal ubj, hayvxr gur bgure gjb tnzrf ba guvf yvfg, gurer vf nofbyhgryl ab gvzr ohyyfuvg ng NYY. abg rira ybbcf ner ernyyl gvzr erfrggvat.

gur erny sybjpuneg bs guvf tnzr vf whfg gur tenqhny puebabybtvpny cvrpvat gbtrgure bs rirelguvat, ohg vg VF hygvzngryl n yvarne fgbel rira vs rkcrevrapvat vg va n yvarne jnl jbhyq pbzcyrgryl ehva vg. fb, va gur raq, vgf sybjpuneg orvat onfvpnyyl puebabybtvpny sbe rirel punenpgre, rkprcgvat synfuonpxf, NYFB cresrpgyl freirf vgf fgbel. gur cynlre whfg unf ab jnl bs xabjvat gung hagvy arneyl gur raq.

#junpei.txt #sorry for being annoying about video games (some crimes can never be forgiven)

[foxstens]

so let’s talk abt visual novels

i didn’t think i’d be interested in any of them after fsn but i guess the format just works for me? personally i love words and the things you can do with them and the way books do storytelling but i’m also horrible at visually imagining things when reading, and that makes books more forgettable to me i guess.

but the vn format seems to be the perfect middle ground. it’s less limited than anime when it comes to things like narration and internal monologue and even length i guess, but it’s also easier to pay attention to than books thanks to the audio-visual elements. 

then there’s the fact that you can control the pace at which the words show up, which is one of the things that frustrates me about books. when i got into reading as a regular hobby i developed this habit where i’d kind of skim everything i read, as in i’d really only pay 100% attention to the dialogue, bc trying to read and absorb every word was slow and boring and every time i tried to do that my eyes would always jump ahead and i’d find myself having to return to certain sentences to make sure i really understood them. so even though having to hit enter after every sentence isn’t my favourite thing, the autoplay function on vn’s without voice acting is a godsend

another thing i love is how in a lot of them the backgrounds and the characters tend to look completely different. like in some the background might be more realistic while the character sprites are very obviously anime-like, and in others the sprites might be very colourful and detailed while the backgrounds are pretty bare-bones and simplistic. i kind of hated it at first but now it’s just one of those things that make vns different. (not to say that every vn looks amazing but yea)

as for things i don’t really love....... well. i guess the biggest one would be the choice-making aspect. bc as far as i’ve seen the choices can lead to a good end, a normal end, or a bad end. or they might be meaningless choices that just give you different dialogue or smth. and sometimes it might be impossible to guess which choice or which combination of choices does what. which is why i’ve used a walkthrough for every vn i’ve read so far (other than f/fha)

if you happen to want to get every possible ending you might end up having to basically replay every route multiple times while abusing the skip button (if it even has a skip button). and even when you get to choose the route there might be a recommended order for the routes (which you’d have no idea about unless you looked it up) or you might have to read all of them to unlock the entire story

so i guess route-wise fsn’s approach is my favourite, and choices-wise it’s fha’s bc basically all i got to choose was when to interact with which characters, instead of when to die.

i guess kinetic novels might be the answer to this but i haven’t tried any of them yet and having choices makes me pay more attention? and if i happen to really really really love a vn i’d actually be glad to go through every possible choice and ending :’)

there’s a lot more to talk abt but i’ll prob do that later on so in the meantime here’s a list of the ones i’ve tried so far

1. fate/stay night

2. fate/hollow ataraxia

3. amnesia: memories

4. flowers - the volume of spring - (dropped bc i wasn’t in the mood for it)

5. english detective mysteria (same as above)

7. fashioning little miss lonesome (loved it but the first LI is so ugly i had to drop it)

6. cinderella phenomenon (currently reading)

#my posts #my rambles #read more #vnblogging #i kinda hate myself for dropping flml #honestly up until theguy showed up i loved e v e r y t h i n g #the menu the music the mc's voice the first bad end even #and then he showed up and ruined everything #so idk ill prob try again later #i really do wanna read all of it :( #after i finish cinderella phenomenon ill prob read shadows of pygmalion tho #or maybe thats too good #maybe imma need a palette cleanser first #also btw vndb is the best site ever when it comees to the search function