OsirianObsidian
Newbie
- May 9, 2021
- 47
- 211
I'd say that you got it exactly spot on with both scenes.I just want to say, cutting corners is the last thing either GIL or I will do. We (in part) do this for our own satisfaction, desire to work together, and love for the process. My approach to making a visual novel has been about balance. You can always do better, you are always improving... so it's about finding the sweet spot between what's important to you, what you are satisfied presenting to the world, and getting things done at a reasonable pace. That has been our philosophy since the start, and it is why you'll never see us go back and "remaster" anything while there's still a long road ahead of us. Every update you get better; if you're a perfectionist, it would just simply never end.
With that in mind, animations tend to be a trade off. They take time to make, but they also make some of that time back from the huge swathes of text they eat up which would otherwise require static images, while adding immense production value to the project. If the script gets to a point where not doing an animation would be a glaring omission, that would not sit well with either of us. I just love GIL's animations. It's one of the things I derive great joy from, so I don't want less of them.
Instead, our discussion(s) center around my side of the things: the way scenes are paced, designed, and structured. In my pursuit to make a perfect game for me, I have a tendency to complicate scenes, which ends up running contrary to my own selfish goal when things begin to play out unevenly. selberdreher is astute when he mentioned exhibition 2; the free roam section served the purpose of continuing the club as a character, but things suffered in the back half. There was certain potential developments in the Felicia and Rosalind events that I would've like to portrayed, but ended up not doing so because of a combination of fatigue and our desire to actually see people playing our hard work. That's another impetus for the discussion: beyond finishing at a sustainable pace, releasing has become an enjoyable stage of the creative process for us.
I mean, it's not like very many people are complaining about the time our updates take; in fact, most people tell us to take our time, but it can't be discounted just how much seeing people playing, reacting, and enjoying your work is good for the soul. Having people discuss an update is like a renewal of spirit. It's invigorating, educational, and is overall good for the health of the project. I would veeeeeery much like to be a 3 updates a year kind of game. However, I also recognize that being rigid with frequent updates is not the solution, because cutting an update at an undue time just adds to more operational downtime over the long run with testing and PR'ing and other stuff.
So, I really do just think the answer is reining in my impulse to get fucking crazy at the first chance I get.
Take two of my favorite scenes for example: the Felicia sex scene in Elias' office and Mina's "all you can eat buffet." The Felicia scene has a ton of branching: vaginal or anal, and then positional choices after that. The Mina one is a lot more straight forward, you just choose the kind of tone you take with her and how you finish. I love both these scenes, but there is an argument to be made that a more unified, singular Felicia scene would've been more potent than any individual branch while also taking less work.
Anyone got any thoughts on that?
Felicia's scene absolutely NEEDED to be branching because of the type of girl she is. She knows what she wants and likes to be in control of the situation. The opportunity to kiss her while fucking her ass and the look on her face where she's like 'that's not in the rules of the game we are playing' makes her a more compelling character and takes the scene out of just someone having fun into something deeper and more intense. You might say 'Well, the internal narrative and what the MC says to her could change that', but anal sex is far more submissive than vaginal sex and you could really feel the animalistic desire to destroy her soul in that scene. In short, the Felicia scene was about her internal state (even though we don't get to see it, her reactions to what is happening are what make it).
The Mina scene, on the other hand, was more about the internal state of the MC. Mina is just 'going along for the ride', so there isn't the need to create multiple branching paths because the story behind the sex is the fact that he's going to fuck his best friend's hot as fuck girlfriend. You don't need a more compelling narrative or branching stories for this. This internal state concept also works for Hana. Both of these girls aren't part of the competition so they are essentially blank canvases where it's not so much the sex that is hot but why they are having sex (I just wish you had made Hana calling the MC Daddy more like the scene with the girl rockstar and have her actually submit and call him Daddy instead of tricking her into it...but maybe this is just a precursor).
My suggestion would be to keep the Carnations as branching sex scenes (i.e. the sex is about their internal state, since they are only in this situation because they are Carnations) and everyone else (Hana, Mina, Kath, house girls) as linear (i.e. the sex is about the MCs internal state).