/jp/ Project

Post here if you want to join.

Short story summary: On a Saturday morning, the protagonist wakes up on his floor, unable to remember anything, finding out that he had been drinking way too much the night before. After some of his memories return, he goes to school again, where he finds out that his girlfriend has also been absent since the weekend. His girlfriend remains absent, and all attempts to contact her fail. The protagonist eventually learns that his girlfriend was last seen at his house, the day before he lost his memory. He goes home and eventually finds out that during the night he lost his memory, he accidentally murdered his girlfriend.

Project Lead: VDZ (Anon1)
Lead Engineer: Dahdah
Creative Lead: VDZ (Anon1)
Lead Artist:
Artists: SHIKI Anon, Admin Anon, nipanya
Writers: SHIKI Anon, ckx
Music: nipanya, Dahdah
Sound:
Proofreaders: VDZ, SHIKI Anon, ckx

Currently looking for: Creative Lead (no story is perfect - more opinions = better quality), Lead Artist, Artists, Musicians, Sound people, Proofreaders

Wiki with plot outline and other stuff

Things that need to be decided:
(Click links to go to topics.)
-Protagonist details: Name, personality, looks
-Girlfriend details: Name, personality, looks
-Friend details: Name, personality, looks
-What setting will we use? (story already specifies quite a lot, but not everything)
-What trivial thing causes the argument?
-Will we use text boxes or overlaid text?
-Which engine should we use?
-What will we name the VN?

Other discussion topics:
-Backgrounds
-Music
-Scenes

TO DO LIST:
-Character designs (Artists)
--David Green
-Plan scenes (Writers and Creative Lead)
-Write scenes (Writers)
--Scene 1-01-1: Good morning
--Scene 1-02-1: Nothing better to do
--Scene 1-03-1: Cleaning up
--Scene 2-01-1: Who am I?
--Scene 2-02-1: Naturally, I know the hacker
-Draw character sprites (Artists)
-Draw CGs (Artists)
--ID card
--Computer
--Closet
--Textbooks
--Cell phone
-Draw backgrounds (Artists)
--Dorm room
-Compose music (Musicians)
--Dorm music
--Investigation music
--Fun music
-Somehow get sounds (Sound people)

How about when he gets knocked out for the second time, the story repeats itself? Maybe he gets trapped in some weird Higurashi type paradox thing.... On second thought... that was just stupid.

Anyway, applying for Writer here. I'll also do some character/background designs, but someone else would need to color them in... sorry. Also, proofreader and of course, tester.

I have some drawing and coloring skills, although my drawings are mostly skewed towards fantasy, loli, and monsters. For now, sign me up under Artist, but I can't promise I can give the best quality coloring. Let's see what other drawfags will say later in a couple of hours.

Where will we be doing the writing? Will we be using jpwiki.co.cc, will we make a new EditThis wiki (can be done in 15 seconds, interface nearly identical to Wikipedia), or does somebody have a better idea?

I am interested in proofreading/helping writers. I enjoy writing but don't think I'm high enough tier to actually be a main writer. I can definitely offer them support and criticism though.
Can also help with anything related to web hosting/development, and other misc tasks like that.

In other words: useless but interested.

Back to Anonymous.

Is a Bad End the only end? ;_;

I'll gladly write. Just give me a bit to try some different techniques out and get a feel for this.

I also want to help with the art somehow. I was trying to come up with protagonist's design yesterday, and I have some ideas for it now. Or I can just help with the coloring. I'm quite confident with my coloring skills.

I can also try to come up with some music for the game.

I had an interesting idea, earlier, that might make this a little less predictable.

What if the story continually hints that the main character was the one who did the drinking and violence, yet his girlfriend was the one who spiked his drink? Interesting twist at the end, although the fact he still killed her (this should be gory and/or interesting) still guarantees BAD END, unless you want to pull a Higurashi and IMPLY that he cuts up and hides the body.

I think you should also imply that the main character doesn't normally act violent or like a heavy drinker. You know, act like he's tormented by the bits and pieces of memory coming back to him.

An asshole protagonist is rarely likable.

What reason would the girlfriend have had to spike his drink? If we're going to shift part of the blame onto the girlfriend, we could just change it so it was the girlfriend's idea to take a break and have some beer, perhaps even with the protagonist refusing at first (perhaps knowing he has a hard time controlling himself when drinking?). Yay or nay?


Yeah, the protagonist isn't an asshole and really did love his girlfriend, and the fact that it was him who murdered his girlfriend comes as a great shock to him.

Even though the anons at /jp/ are discouraging you, please please don't let this project die, Anon1. I really like this idea so far.

Actually, I have very little influence on whether or not this project dies. Even if I were to quit the project, the only real setback would be that they'd have to find someone else to do the Project Lead stuff. I've already done the most important Creative Lead stuff, making a plot outline that the writers should be able to work with.

No, at the moment, the project is more in the hands of the artists and writers. To continue, we'll need the artists to post concept sketches and the writers to write scenes.

However, for that second thing, we still have to decide where we'll do the work, so please give your opinions on that. If no opinions are given, I'll just open an EditThis wiki and we'll post the scenes and stuff there.

It's not like I'll be quitting, though, and especially not because of trolls on /jp/...they've been trolling from the very start, to give up now because of them would be dumb.

Also, to do list added. Not everything can be done yet, but that's a simple representation of what we need to do (it will of course be improved later on - for example, like is already done with the character design thing, it'll list exactly what backgrounds still need to be made).

Question to writers: Will you start writing immediately, or will we plan out the scenes before any actual writing is done?

Depends on the writer, really. For example I like having a general idea of what the scene's trying to accomplish before I start writing out dialogue and whatnot

It sounds like it's going to be hard as shit trying to keep the reader from knowing that the guy himself was the murderer.

Of course not. During the story you don't even know GIRLFRIEND was murdered, let alone that it was you who murderered her.
Although the reader will obviously suspect that something is wrong and that it's related to the night the protagonist has lost his memories of.

Sounds good to me, bro.

Seconded.

yay. But I suggest it's because Protagonist doesn't drink. So the whole experience is new to him, <etc, etc> he kills girl.

...Or what you just said. Both works, actually.

What do you mean by Lead Engineer?

I'm new here, but I guess I can help you with 2 things:

- Music
- Programming

I'm not god as a musician, but as I've said in other posts, I've already participated with original songs and remixes in commercial level Japanese CDs; and worked on mastering jobs. Problem is, I never worked in VN-ish music but I guess I can give it a try. I can also play the Piano, Guitar, Bass, Drums and Violin.

As a Programmer, I can handle KiriKiri/KaG and its documentation so it would be better to use that. Aside, I can handle C++, Java, Python, Perl, ASP, etc.

Lead Engineer is either a programmer or a scripter. Basically, the Lead Engineer takes the text, images and music and turns it into a visual novel.

We haven't decided what engine we'll use, though..
Some possible engines:
*ONScripter (Narcissu, True Remembrance): Really easy to use but simple VN engine
*Ren'Py (no notable games AFAIK): Seems easy to use and pretty good
*Kirikiri (Fate/stay night): I don't get this thing at all, and it's in Japanese, but it seems to be capable of pure awesome, as shown by Fate/stay night
*And technically, we could build the whole thing from scratch without using a VN engine, but that would be difficult

My opinion would be Kirikiri. I've done some stuff with it, I can read most of the documentation. By far better than the ones you mentioned.

I've edited the plot outline to include the new details.
Plot outline
Differences between first version and second version

First BG request: Roy's dorm room, with and without empty beer bottles.
We'll have to decide on one thing now, though: What resolution will we use? A 640x480 BG is hardly useful if we're using 800x600 resolution.

I think 800x600 would be a nice resolution.

I'll try to get a rough sketch done by Wednesday. I'll be quite busy from today till Tuesday.

Yeah, 800x600 should be fine.

Now, how are we going to differentiate flashback scenes from present time? Alternative lighting/coloring? Or some kind of border around the screen?

Hm, maybe Kirikiri has some good effects for this? I remember f/sn used lots of effects, but I'm not sure if they were custom-written or default Kirikiri features.

I'm thinking the usual grayed-out from technicolor difference thing. Unless there's something cool and original we can do to show this...

I think grayed out for flashbacks would work fine. Just make sure they aren't too long.
Also corncerning an engine, Kirikiri maybe be "better" but will we really need it? This game doesn't seem like it's going to be too long (this is a good thing) and I sort of wonder if we need to complicate things by using a Japanese engine. Sure, some of us (including myself, who will be around as long as the project doesn't turn into faggotry) can read the documentation but it still feels like an unnecessary hoop.

Um, it will only complicate things for Dahdah, and it was him who suggested it in the first place.

How about a new name? With the current title you're just spoiling the game for everyone who is not involved.

Yeah may be true. I worked with KiriKiri before but,
What if we make a poll about this? I'm willing to learn any engine anyway.

I have an idea. What if we shorten chapter 2 (identity) by a day, and add that day to chapter 3 (school)? The protagonist doesn't really need 3 days to figure out he can't remember stuff, but the school chapter (the 'main part') could use another day.
This would also cause Emma's absence to be brought up earlier, which is nice as that's pretty much what the story is about.

Another idea is that instead of the school calling Roy, we could have David calling Roy (we could even do it on monday morning then, after Roy's been absent for a day (the call can be further motivated by some reason why he should've been there: he'd promised to bring <something> that David could borrow that day, he missed an important test, he and David should've been working on something together, etc)).

Yay or nay?

Yay.

David could call Roy on Tuesday, asking about stuff that Roy and his girl should have brought over on Monday (dateline or 'progress-check' or something). That could later spark David's question on Roy's girlfriend's whereabout: "I tried calling Emma too, but she never answered my call. Have you tried contacting her?"

This, except I think monday evening would be a better time for the phone call than tuesday morning (tuesday evening would make the identity chapter 3 days long).

I guess so. The story shouldn't span too long across though. Wouldn't her body start to rot/stink?

As discussed in the Emma topic, Roy probably has some really good closet that keeps the smell in.
But we could go with
Saturday: Confusion
Sunday & Monday: Identity
Tuesday, Wednesday & Early Thursday: School
Thursday: Conclusion

^ I like that schedule. That should let the body enough time to rot... However, nipanya's picture would then need to look more... decomposed.

Ugh. How grotesque are we talking here? Are we getting a full shot of the body?

Sure, why not. It would certainly add some shock value.

It depends, how grotesque we can make it and how grotesque we can take it.

I was thinking it would be something like this: once Roy opens the door, you see his a close-up of his face with an 'O-M-F-G' expression, then you get the part of the flashback where he hits Emma until the point where he actually hits her and she drops dead, and then it returns to the present with a clear full shot of the dead body in the closet.

Also, plot outline updated.

Although the corpse has been there for several days, the rotting process shouldn't be that fast. With that in mind, her corpse shouldn't be grotesque at all, maybe just a bad gash on the side of her head with dark, blackish dried blood.