Industry Practice - Week 1:

In this blog I will talk about a few games that I chose to look at for when I start our group project making a game about mental health. I found that these games would help me understand what a visual novel and inspire different things that I can use for our game. I will talk about the pros and cons I find with each game and what I like about them with ideas that I can present to my team. 

Games for research:




I found that the style they had for the text was really cleanly laid out with a very simple design. I really liked the name bubble to as its a simple way to display the name without it being too distracting. I think having a simple name bubble to show who is talking above the text box will help to show who is talking without taking too much attention away from what is being said.



I like how simple the preferences menu is as it is easy to get around as there aren't several different menus that you have to look through just to change the volume for example as its laid out in a simple but effective way that is easy to find what you want to change. I feel that having a really simple settings page / pause menu / start menu will be really beneficial as it will be easier to find your way around.



These two images use colour theory well and you can tell that the bottom image is quite a cold and dark place however the top image is warm and a bit friendlier. I think that it would be a good idea to show this in our game to help the viewer understand different scenes. 

EVERIUM, 2024. Under the Thorns [online]. Itch.io: Visual Novels. Available  at: https://everium.itch.io/underthethorns [Accessed 4 October 2024].




I really like how simple the pause and settings menu looks and it is really easy to find what you are looking for with easy to use sliders and and easy font to read.



Each picture is taken at a different point in the story, the first is when its really happy and is at the start of the story however depending on the choices you make may go to the dark image at the bottom. In the dark image there is little specs of red which show that there may be danger but at that point you don't know whats about to happen until you continue.



The text bubbles at the start are quite cute and simple looking like clouds however as you progress through and depending on the choices you make throughout the story can lead to the choice bubbles being more chaotic. I think depending on where we take our game we could include a similar concept if we have the game take a darker turn.


I really like the art style in missed messages, its a really cute and simple style whilst the message of the story can be quite dark at times and it is quite a contrast to how the story is however I think it works really well. If we have our game art style simple and a more complex story it may mean that the players will find it easier to understand the story as they aren't being too distracted by a more realistic style that could be off putting or make them feel slightly uncomfortable.

He, A., 2019. missed messages [online]. Itch.io: Visual Novels. Available at: https://zephyo.itch.io/missed-message [Accessed 4 October 2024].

About the brief:

For the game we will be using is Ren'Py and the game will need to be 5 - 10 minutes long. We will be learning how to make visual novels using the program and then going on to creating it. We will have to research different visual novels to give us an idea of what they look like and it could influence what we include in our own visual novel. We were given a few examples in lesson to some visual novels that we could look at and take inspiration for. 

Examples given in class:

Colossal cave 

Zork Collection

The Walking Dead

Over the Hills and Far Away

A Letter of Challenge

The eSports Visual Novel

Tiny Bunny

Beacon Pines

What is an Visual Novel:

A Visual Novel is similar to reading a book however its as if each page has illustrations of how the character looks and their expressions for everything they say or do. "A visual novel game often combines elements from other video game genres, including RPGs, dating sims (simulations), and mini-games." () all the sounds and images help to convey what the words are trying to say. The readers still read the story and just because it is shown with sounds and visuals doesn't make it any less of a book because the reader reads the story it is just presented in a different way to a traditional book. () 

MasterClass, 2021. Visual Novels: 5 Characteristics of Visual Novel Video Games [online]. MasterClass: Sports & Gaming. Available at: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/visual-novels-explained-plus-notable-visual-novel-video-games [Accessed 4 October 2024].

Dale, L., 2022. Visual Novel Accessibility Vs Books [online]. Access-Ability: Laura Dale. Available at: https://access-ability.uk/2022/04/25/visual-novel-accessibility-vs-books/ [Accessed 4 October 2024].

What is Ren'Py:

Ren'Py is used to create Visual Novels and allows you to create them with sounds visuals and other aspects that make a Visual Novel however you will need to learn Python which is a scripting language to be able to create Visual Novels using Ren'Py. Ren'Py is used by many well know Visual Novel games such as Doki Doki Literature Club.  I know the basics of Python which will help our group to be able to create the basics of the game however Python is quite easy to learn so it will be quite easy to teach the others in my group how it works. 

Ren'Py provides a list of some features that players want to see in Visual Novels:

(Rothamel, 2019)


Rothamel, T., 2019. Why Ren'Py? [online]. Ren'Py: Why Ren'Py. Available at: https://www.renpy.org/why.html [Accessed: 4 October 2024].

Rothamel, T., 2019. What is Ren'Py? [online]. Ren'Py: Home. Available at: https://www.renpy.org/ [Accessed: 4 October 2024].