Just to get an idea of how big my updates should be. Information regarding demo quantity is appreciated too.
Others Ren'Py Daz For a renpy VN using DAZ, how many words and renders do you guys write and render for monthly updates? Also how many words necessary for a demo?
- Thread starter immortalkid69
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- Jul 2, 2017
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A game I do in my free time as a hobby: About 5k words and 150 renders per month.
Hint: That my updates are small is a very common complaint
aaah would 2.5k be small or big for a demo in general?A game I do in my free time as a hobby: About 5k words and 150 renders per month.
Hint: That my updates are small is a very common complaint
- Jul 2, 2017
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Very small or monstrously huge. Depends on if it's words or renders
Then again I have no idea about what kind of volume makes a demo good or bad. If it's a proof of concept it probably doesn't have to be that big? I think of a demo as something you do during development, just to see what people think of the art style, writing style, ui, etc. As such, it could be small. Take this as one opinion only, quite possibly a minority such. Who knows
- Jul 20, 2018
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There is no right answer but here are a few things to consider:
- What is possible for you? It's not great to do 3 big updates, burn out and never finish the game. Nicke might get a lot of "too small update" comments but if that is what is sustainable for them that might mean that eventually the game will be completed.
- What is your word to render ratio? I'm currently working on a project that for every line of dialogue might have 3 renders. This means that you won't have as many words in an update compared to the number of renders (btw this ratio is too high. you want the ratio to be 1:1 or lower. It is a lot more easy to write a line of dialogue than to make a render).
- How much does your story progress? If you are like Mr Dots' team who write a lot of dialogue with little progression (not an attack just an observation) might mean you want to have more words per update but if you are on the other side and only use words sparingly to get from sex scene to sex scene you might have only a few thousand words per update (and more renders).
- What is possible for you? It's not great to do 3 big updates, burn out and never finish the game. Nicke might get a lot of "too small update" comments but if that is what is sustainable for them that might mean that eventually the game will be completed.
- What is your word to render ratio? I'm currently working on a project that for every line of dialogue might have 3 renders. This means that you won't have as many words in an update compared to the number of renders (btw this ratio is too high. you want the ratio to be 1:1 or lower. It is a lot more easy to write a line of dialogue than to make a render).
- How much does your story progress? If you are like Mr Dots' team who write a lot of dialogue with little progression (not an attack just an observation) might mean you want to have more words per update but if you are on the other side and only use words sparingly to get from sex scene to sex scene you might have only a few thousand words per update (and more renders).
- Sep 5, 2018
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My goal is 350-450 renders per update
That said lol
My next update is a double sized 750 render update.
My technical skills are probably at best average and my pc is old and hates rendering day
With my current settings my record is 60 renders done in one day. With 500 iterations and denoise after 450.
My initial release was a bit over 800. A good sized release is a good start. It gives your new fans some confidence in your seriousness
Best of luck to you pal
That said lol
My next update is a double sized 750 render update.
My technical skills are probably at best average and my pc is old and hates rendering day
With my current settings my record is 60 renders done in one day. With 500 iterations and denoise after 450.
My initial release was a bit over 800. A good sized release is a good start. It gives your new fans some confidence in your seriousness
Best of luck to you pal
Woah those are some huge numbers lol. I render at least for 3500 iterations at 4k and then downsize to 1080p. 500 has noise for me, otherwise I would have stopped at that. 60 renders a day is like a dream for me.My goal is 350-450 renders per update
That said lol
My next update is a double sized 750 render update.
My technical skills are probably at best average and my pc is old and hates rendering day
With my current settings my record is 60 renders done in one day. With 500 iterations and denoise after 450.
My initial release was a bit over 800. A good sized release is a good start. It gives your new fans some confidence in your seriousness
Best of luck to you pal
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Don't get hung up on the quantity. If you're pumping out 60 a day, I'd wager the actual quality of the render (poses, expressions, subject matter) is suffering greatly.
The first comment of 5k words and 150 renders per month is pretty typical. I did 23000 words and 700 renders in 3 months for my last release, and that wrecked me. Don't go overboard.
god damn that is a lot. how much do you think would be needed for a demo? just to get a feel of what people think
My first release was 280 renders and 6000 words. Most people thought it was a good start, but I did have a few comments that they thought it was too short. This was the outlier, though.
- Aug 17, 2019
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Something many of the posts here are kind of missing, and what TessaXYZ was alluding to (or starting to, at least), is that the first releases are far and away the most important. It doesn't matter if it's 250 renders or 1,250 renders. You're introducing your VN/game, the concept, the characters, the story, and everything else to the players. What matters is the quality and what's done in all of those renders and words. Give them something to bite into, to understand, to see and feel. Maybe you can do that in 200 or 300 renders, maybe you need more. It depends on you and the story you're telling.
I've seen much shorter 'demos' out there than 200 renders, and they often rightfully get criticized for that. It also depends on the scale of your VN/game. Are you making a short VN to get your feet wet? Then a few hundred might be fine. If you're putting out a non-sandbox, wide-scale fantasy VN? You might need several hundred to get the opening of your story across.
My first VN (We Were Just Kids) was about 550 or so for 0.1. With close to 3000 lines of dialogue and code (as I've said, ain't gonna count it all.). Move The Chains (my upcoming one) is sitting around 850 or so renders (without animations), which will likely be around 950 or a 1000 or so by the time of release. It's currently at 1500 or so lines of code and dialogue, sitting at about a quarter written. But that isn't and shouldn't be a reference. It was a choice on my part and certainly not something everyone should do. Do what feels right to you. Not to me, John Doe, or anyone else.
Yes, you never get a second chance at a first impression. For a start, get "demo" out of your head, make a first chapter thats complete.
- Sep 5, 2018
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Yeah but it was in 24 hours because I was getting too far ahead with setting up scenes. I don't like to do that many because if there's an unnoticed error somewhere then it can turn into a lot of wasted time. Still that time at least I got away with it
When I'm in the rendering phase then 10 to 20 a day is better.
Like the guys are saying. It has to be big enough to showcase your VN. Get the story going and introduce the characters sufficiently.
A pilot more than a demo
A "demo" is a terrible idea.
In an ideal world, this is what you want.
A complete first chapter/episode/whatever. For reference, mine was somewhere around ~250 renders, ~10k or so words, and I feel like that was short personally. I really should have waited until I had a solid ~5-700, with like 20-25k words but that's specifically due to the nature and structure of my story. Doing the smaller batch like I did, left it feeling like more of a demo than a 1st chapter, and I feel like that was a mistake. If you can tell an entire opening chapter in 100, then that's fine, if you need 2k to tell an opening chapter, then that's what you go for - it really just depends on your story and how its structured.
You DO want some sort of demo - maybe 5-10% of what your opening chapter will be, (but be sure to include important stuff. Example if your game is a strict VN, then all that's important is a bit of sampling of the pacing, dialogue, and renders. If your game contains a lot of mechanics, those should exist in the demo). The demo is not something you release though - it's something you show to a very small number of people to get initial feedback. This isn't always an option for everyone, but it's certainly ideal. You don't want a first release to be riddled with grammatical/spelling errors, poor renders, or broken game mechanics, so you definitely want to have people look it over before release, so finding a handful of people you can trust and tossing a demo their way is gonna be helpful overall.
Ultimately, you shouldn't get hung up on things like render count, word count, etc. What you should concern yourself primarily are two things:
#1 do the renders look like shit? Are they passable? Are they good? Honestly what you're happy with releasing is pretty fucking subjective, so that's the sort of thing you'd decide for yourself. There are some visually stunning games out there, and yet there are others way more popular, that.... well... aren't. Obviously the better they look the better off you are, but also it doesn't need to be perfect, but you personally definitely need to be happy enough with them to release it all.
#2 How is my story? Is it well-written? Does it flow the way I want it to? Is it compelling/interesting, or is it rather boring? This is much harder to judge, and one of the areas feedback helps a lot if you can find it. Most people are convinced their story is the greatest thing ever - but honestly? It's usually not. There are a lot of stories written that, quite frankly, suck. As the writer though, that's usually a hard thing to judge, and even harder to admit to yourself. But even if people read it and find faults, doesn't mean it needs to be scrapped. Sometimes it's just a matter of figuring out where it falls short, and improving it all.
Those 2 things are the biggest things that will make or break any game. (When you start designing actual game mechanics, those matter as well, but not quite as much).
So how many words? How many renders? It depends. There's no right or wrong universal answer. And as far as quality? Obviously the higher it is, the better. But you also shouldn't spend forever striving for perfection. At some point you have to say "It's not perfect, but I'm happy with this". You want to try to get that pre-release feedback if at all possible just to find any glaring errors you missed, and address them, but ultimately "I'm happy with this" is the metric you should be going for. No one will ever achieve perfection, and how close you can get is very limited by ones own talents/ability. And since you're not doing it to get rich (Well, you shouldn't be since the chances of that happening are ridiculously small, no matter how good it is... there are some amazing games out there that lose money, so quality while it improves your chances, isn't always a measure of success.), whether or not it's something you as the creator feel happy with, is the most important thing.
The guy above me said something that is 100% on point though - your first release should not be a demo. It should be a pilot. In TV world, this would always be ~23 or ~44 minutes long. In the VN world, in theory you'd want ~1hr of gameplay or so, but at the end of the day, you really want enough to introduce the characters, the story, and give people a reason to care and want to see more. So like I said. If you can do that in 100 renders and 3k words, that's great! If it takes you 2k renders and 50k words, well then... probably consider restructuring your story, but until then, 2k/50k it is.
In an ideal world, this is what you want.
A complete first chapter/episode/whatever. For reference, mine was somewhere around ~250 renders, ~10k or so words, and I feel like that was short personally. I really should have waited until I had a solid ~5-700, with like 20-25k words but that's specifically due to the nature and structure of my story. Doing the smaller batch like I did, left it feeling like more of a demo than a 1st chapter, and I feel like that was a mistake. If you can tell an entire opening chapter in 100, then that's fine, if you need 2k to tell an opening chapter, then that's what you go for - it really just depends on your story and how its structured.
You DO want some sort of demo - maybe 5-10% of what your opening chapter will be, (but be sure to include important stuff. Example if your game is a strict VN, then all that's important is a bit of sampling of the pacing, dialogue, and renders. If your game contains a lot of mechanics, those should exist in the demo). The demo is not something you release though - it's something you show to a very small number of people to get initial feedback. This isn't always an option for everyone, but it's certainly ideal. You don't want a first release to be riddled with grammatical/spelling errors, poor renders, or broken game mechanics, so you definitely want to have people look it over before release, so finding a handful of people you can trust and tossing a demo their way is gonna be helpful overall.
Ultimately, you shouldn't get hung up on things like render count, word count, etc. What you should concern yourself primarily are two things:
#1 do the renders look like shit? Are they passable? Are they good? Honestly what you're happy with releasing is pretty fucking subjective, so that's the sort of thing you'd decide for yourself. There are some visually stunning games out there, and yet there are others way more popular, that.... well... aren't. Obviously the better they look the better off you are, but also it doesn't need to be perfect, but you personally definitely need to be happy enough with them to release it all.
#2 How is my story? Is it well-written? Does it flow the way I want it to? Is it compelling/interesting, or is it rather boring? This is much harder to judge, and one of the areas feedback helps a lot if you can find it. Most people are convinced their story is the greatest thing ever - but honestly? It's usually not. There are a lot of stories written that, quite frankly, suck. As the writer though, that's usually a hard thing to judge, and even harder to admit to yourself. But even if people read it and find faults, doesn't mean it needs to be scrapped. Sometimes it's just a matter of figuring out where it falls short, and improving it all.
Those 2 things are the biggest things that will make or break any game. (When you start designing actual game mechanics, those matter as well, but not quite as much).
So how many words? How many renders? It depends. There's no right or wrong universal answer. And as far as quality? Obviously the higher it is, the better. But you also shouldn't spend forever striving for perfection. At some point you have to say "It's not perfect, but I'm happy with this". You want to try to get that pre-release feedback if at all possible just to find any glaring errors you missed, and address them, but ultimately "I'm happy with this" is the metric you should be going for. No one will ever achieve perfection, and how close you can get is very limited by ones own talents/ability. And since you're not doing it to get rich (Well, you shouldn't be since the chances of that happening are ridiculously small, no matter how good it is... there are some amazing games out there that lose money, so quality while it improves your chances, isn't always a measure of success.), whether or not it's something you as the creator feel happy with, is the most important thing.
The guy above me said something that is 100% on point though - your first release should not be a demo. It should be a pilot. In TV world, this would always be ~23 or ~44 minutes long. In the VN world, in theory you'd want ~1hr of gameplay or so, but at the end of the day, you really want enough to introduce the characters, the story, and give people a reason to care and want to see more. So like I said. If you can do that in 100 renders and 3k words, that's great! If it takes you 2k renders and 50k words, well then... probably consider restructuring your story, but until then, 2k/50k it is.
- Oct 1, 2018
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Just to give some perspective. We update our game by chapters. On average about 1500 renders and 40k words an update. However this also takes us about 4-5 months per release.
- Nov 11, 2017
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Hey there! I was also curious about this, so thanks for asking.
My perspective on this is to think back on the games / initial releases that really stuck with me, in terms of their quality and amount of content. The ones that really got their hooks into me from the get-go were 'My New Memories' and 'Chasing Sunsets'.
Make the type of game you'd want to play yourself, and balance that with the amount of work that suits your schedule.
Story-wise I'm about 15k words in for the first release. I'll probably end close to 30-35k with what I have planned out, but I also am a pretty wordy writer and pump out like 800-1500 words a day.
The main time-sink for me will be rendering (which I haven't started yet), but mainly because I'm building out an entire neighborhood worth of environments from scratch in Blender. I have story-boarded / thumbnailed a lot of it though, so I'll probably be in the 800-1200 render range (no animations) for first release.
My perspective on this is to think back on the games / initial releases that really stuck with me, in terms of their quality and amount of content. The ones that really got their hooks into me from the get-go were 'My New Memories' and 'Chasing Sunsets'.
Make the type of game you'd want to play yourself, and balance that with the amount of work that suits your schedule.
Story-wise I'm about 15k words in for the first release. I'll probably end close to 30-35k with what I have planned out, but I also am a pretty wordy writer and pump out like 800-1500 words a day.
The main time-sink for me will be rendering (which I haven't started yet), but mainly because I'm building out an entire neighborhood worth of environments from scratch in Blender. I have story-boarded / thumbnailed a lot of it though, so I'll probably be in the 800-1200 render range (no animations) for first release.