IWSG - It's like NaNo only twice as long and with art

 

    So, I am deep into the creation process on my visual novel.  Or rather, I'm out of my depth on the creation process on the visual novel.

    Aside from needing to make one tiny edit to the text to remove some extraneous descriptive material now that I know what the background will look like, the script--which is to say, my role--is done.  (And clocked in at nearly 50k, so the comparison to NaNo is an appropriate one.  Although the script also includes notes to the programmer, information about changing sprites and backgrounds, and when sound effects are called for, so the actual text the player will see is probably no more than 45k, maybe not even quite that much.  (I should delete all the notes and such to find out...only that sounds like a lot of work for zero reward.))

    That means, of course, that my job has become largely "artist wrangler" as I try to explain to people who can actually draw what I want things to look like and then try to make sure all the art gets drawn in time to be put into the game, which has to be uploaded by August 31st if it's going to count for the game jam.  (In a pinch, of course, the game can be uploaded with some graphics missing, using blank jpgs that just say "art in progress" or something.  Or for that matter it could be uploaded like a demo, only running partway through.  And, in a super-duper pinch, I could forget the pictures and music and all that and shove it into TWINE in a few days of hard coding, if I really, really, really had to.)

    What I am learning about myself through this process is that I am not a team player.

    I mean, I kind of already knew that, from my experiences at the museum, but this is a whole different ball of yarn.  Because this is "my" project, and as an unemployed person (who has enough money saved up that I can afford not to be hunting for work) I have all the time in the world to work on it.  Which of course makes it frustrating that no one else on the team dedicates all their time to the project.

    Which is, of course, totally unfair and unreasonable of me.

    I'm aware of that, but it doesn't make me any less frustrated by the fact.

    I am doing my best not to blame them--it's not their fault, or even a problem in any logical sense, that they have lives and I don't have one--and I don't think I've said anything to make them think that I am upset that the art is not done when the script is, but trying to stay calm and rational is not successfully preventing me from feeling like a caged tiger waiting for its first meal in days.

    However, I still like the idea of making a real, honest-to-goodness game that people can play, and which isn't 99.9% text.  And I have some ideas of things I want to do in future games.  (After I write the next draft of the second novel in my YA series, as the current draft needs soooo much more work!  I expect next month's post will be me fretting about how I'm going to work in all the characterization changes from the rewrite of book one that somehow didn't make it into the rewrite of book two...)

    So I'm thinking I'm going to learn how to code.  Not like heavy-duty coding, just low-level coding.  I'm going to do some minor episodic games using assets posted to itch.io for free use (or relatively cheap use; I'll give myself a budget of, like, the price of a single console game or something) and use them to teach myself how to do it.  So, like, a visual novel to learn Ren'py basics, and then maybe RPG Maker will be put on sale and I'll do an RPG chapter (sadly, I passed up a huge sale earlier this summer, when one of the older versions was like $5 or so) and then maybe I'll see what other programs are out there to make game making a little easier that might allow me to make a puzzle game or an adventure game or a strategy game.  Actually, I should probably prioritize strategy game, since I already tried futilely to make one in TWINE and it could use a remake to make it a proper game.  (Which I'm sure a talented developer could do in TWINE, but I'm not that smart, sadly.)  Plus I have another idea for a strategy game where Achilles...hmm, no, actually, gonna keep that idea to myself.  ;)  It's an extremely alternate take on the Trojan War, let's say, and leave it there.

    But the main thing I want to do is cut my reliance on other people.  Hence learning to code and using already available resources.  But eventually the resources will dry up, and then what?  (I mean, really, where am I going to find pre-made game assets based on Mycenaean Greece?  Classical Greece, sure, but Late Bronze Age?  Nope.  Don't think I'll ever find that.)  If only it was as easy to learn to draw or computer-generate art as it is to write!  *sob*

    Of course, if there wasn't a deadline, it wouldn't bother me so much.

    And of course none of this actually has to do with writing *cough* though it's certainly a lot to do with my insecurities!

    To get back on the topic of writing...I can't say I'm totally satisfied with the script.  I feel like it started getting lazier and lazier the further in I got.  Like, early on, when the player can read newspaper articles, I went to a fair amount of effort to say where in the paper the article was, and what it said, etc.  By the end, it was just a couple of lines summing up what was said.  Hopefully the player will look at that as reflecting the mounting panic the main character/narrator is feeling, but...yup, I'm not pleased with that.  (And yet the game's already so freaking long that I don't want to go in and expand on any of that!)

    On the other hand, the sensitivity reader said they liked the main character and his boyfriend and their interactions with each other, so I'm at least pleased about that.  :)

    On a weirder note, I was getting punchy when I wrote one of the daily events.  (The game takes place over the course of two weeks, and for about a full week of it you get to pick from a handful of daily events, which go through three shifts as the situation gets more dire.)  It's one where the narrator's boyfriend is going to be interviewed by the local newspaper, and since one of the lead characters in Velvet Goldmine (my favorite movie, which indirectly prompted this game) is a journalist, I couldn't resist giving him a quasi-cameo, in that the fellow who comes to interview him is gorgeous and sending off "gay" vibes to our two leads.  (There are many differences between the character in the game and the character in Velvet Goldmine, I hasten to point out, however.  The game character is not English, he's a bit younger, and he doesn't have Arthur's serious social awkwardness issues.  Also he works for the Rock City Bugle, not the New York Herald.)

    But now I want to write a fanfic wherein the Velvet Goldmine character really does interview the two leads of my game...

    ...probably the only reason that I won't end up writing it is that I can't see anywhere the story could go other than what is called in fan fiction circles "PWP":  "porn with(out) plot".  And I can't write smut to save my life.  (Which only makes sense, considering that I'm aroace and have literally never seen a naked man in person in my life.  Nor do I want to.)  Still, I wouldn't lay odds on me not eventually trying to write it anyway. ;)  (Just hopefully without attempting the smut part.)