So, after a fair few years writing erotica on various sites, I've decided I want to create an erogame for a specific concept I can't get out of my head.
What I have in mind is a pretty unambitious and linear visual novel, with no particular "gameplay", no combat/boss fights/whatever and interactivity basically limited to which girls the player chooses to interact with in a limited number of 'days', with the main factor in determining the ending being which girls are chosen in the limited number of slots, and how many times each one is "interacted" with, to give some minimum replayability. And the particular combination of girls chosen is what leads to either a "Good", "Bad" or "Neutral" ending. I'm envisioning a very short experience, a couple hours or less.
I have absolutely zero ability to draw or make 3d models, and no interest in spending months or years learning to do it. I'm just gonna commission artists to do 2D work. I envision needing about 15 character portraits (5 waifus, a main character, and one or maybe two 'special' girls who feature in endings, with 2 or 3 standing portrait variations each), plus another 2 or 3 sex images for the 6 girls involved each. I also want to include a pregnant version for each girl, because That's My Fetish. So, looking at probably 30+ 2D images total, with backgrounds and minor characters being handled with AI art, and text (and maybe some stock sound effects) doing most of the heavy lifting in sex scenes.
I know that can get pricy quickly, but I can afford to spend a few hundred bucks on art. I'm less worried about having to spend money, than finding an artist who will actually be able to produce as much as I need, in a consistent artstyle, without flaking out partway through. Maybe I can recoup some of the expenses using a subscribestar but I have no ambitions of making a profit or even just breaking even, I'm fine ending up in the red when all is said and done.
My main question is - what to use, for somebody who has no game developing experience whatsoever? As I said before I don't have any more ambitious plans than basically picking from a menu of sex scenes and keeping track of which ones have been played to determine an ending. My first thought is that I should use RPGmaker for this, so that I can focus on the writing part with a minumum of worrying about the programming side.
But maybe I shouldn't even mess with that? I've heard about "Twine" - should I be looking into something like that instead? Or Ren'Py, which I... know really nothing about?
Any advice would be helpful. Obviously, I'm going to wait until I've got a lot of the writing and the 'game' side working before I start shelling out money to commision artwork.
What I have in mind is a pretty unambitious and linear visual novel, with no particular "gameplay", no combat/boss fights/whatever and interactivity basically limited to which girls the player chooses to interact with in a limited number of 'days', with the main factor in determining the ending being which girls are chosen in the limited number of slots, and how many times each one is "interacted" with, to give some minimum replayability. And the particular combination of girls chosen is what leads to either a "Good", "Bad" or "Neutral" ending. I'm envisioning a very short experience, a couple hours or less.
I have absolutely zero ability to draw or make 3d models, and no interest in spending months or years learning to do it. I'm just gonna commission artists to do 2D work. I envision needing about 15 character portraits (5 waifus, a main character, and one or maybe two 'special' girls who feature in endings, with 2 or 3 standing portrait variations each), plus another 2 or 3 sex images for the 6 girls involved each. I also want to include a pregnant version for each girl, because That's My Fetish. So, looking at probably 30+ 2D images total, with backgrounds and minor characters being handled with AI art, and text (and maybe some stock sound effects) doing most of the heavy lifting in sex scenes.
I know that can get pricy quickly, but I can afford to spend a few hundred bucks on art. I'm less worried about having to spend money, than finding an artist who will actually be able to produce as much as I need, in a consistent artstyle, without flaking out partway through. Maybe I can recoup some of the expenses using a subscribestar but I have no ambitions of making a profit or even just breaking even, I'm fine ending up in the red when all is said and done.
My main question is - what to use, for somebody who has no game developing experience whatsoever? As I said before I don't have any more ambitious plans than basically picking from a menu of sex scenes and keeping track of which ones have been played to determine an ending. My first thought is that I should use RPGmaker for this, so that I can focus on the writing part with a minumum of worrying about the programming side.
But maybe I shouldn't even mess with that? I've heard about "Twine" - should I be looking into something like that instead? Or Ren'Py, which I... know really nothing about?
Any advice would be helpful. Obviously, I'm going to wait until I've got a lot of the writing and the 'game' side working before I start shelling out money to commision artwork.
