Visual Novel, showing passage of time

Mikethe3DGuy

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Mar 14, 2019
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Developing a VN, and while pretty much all the other events unfold in a natural time progression with no breaks, there's a point where I have to skip ahead as much as 3-4 months to avoid a stretch of construction (actual building construction) and character training to avoid boring the player. I can think of some good cinematic ways to transition, but I'm wondering if this is something others have seen before, and did it seem OK in the game, or was it an awkward irritation?
 
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Playstorepers

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Depends on execution, but a cinematic slideshow to express a passage of time is the correct choice, imo.

If worse comes to worst, you can just use a black screen with:

Four months later...

I've seen that shit before and no one got irritated or upset, so I'd recommend you to try to make a good slideshow, where the building slowly gets constructed, maybe with some bits of your character enjoying their time and if you absolutely can't do it, just use the four months later black screen, problem solved.
 

Mikethe3DGuy

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Thanks. Yeah that was more or less my idea but maybe a little different, like a slide show playing maybe 8-10 frames with the dialog box narrating below.
 

anne O'nymous

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I can think of some good cinematic ways to transition, but I'm wondering if this is something others have seen before, and did it seem OK in the game, or was it an awkward irritation?
It's definitively something that have been done before. But is it ok, or awkward, when not irritation, it all depend on you. Some of the few games using this time passing method are pleasant, some other really annoying, depend of the quality of this transition.

It's not exactly the same thing, since it's supposed to depict a way shorted amount of time, but there's this game, (isn't it Triple Ex ?), where the MC suddenly start to rush outside and you're facing a bunch of static renders for way too long, without really understanding what is happening. The pause between each images is too long to effectively represent an animation, and in the same time too short for you to have the time to understand what you're seeing. This is totally awkward and annoying.
But there's other games where it's done right, even to depict a long time passing, and therefore where it feel totally ok.
 
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MissFortune

I Was Once, Possibly, Maybe, Perhaps… A Harem King
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Just to add to what's already been said, if you go the slideshow-esque route with it, you can subtly add things that change/grow over time.

If it's first-person POV, then show a female's character's hair getting (noticeably) longer or changing color(s), or if you show your MC some, then give him a lengthy beard and show him shaving it near the end of the time jump. It doesn't have to be with characters either, you could always show a new car or changing furniture. You can show time progressing rather than explicitly saying it to viewers. Maybe you could have a short dialogue where a character brings something up that happened in the VN prior to the time skip. Could be anything, "Remember that storm that took out the power a couple months ago?" (of course within the context of your own storyline), this gives the viewer some idea of how much time has passed.

There's a hundred different ways to Rome, you just have to find the one that works best for your plot and its setting.
 

anne O'nymous

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Just to add to what's already been said, if you go the slideshow-esque route with it, you can subtly add things that change/grow over time.
It's a really good idea.

Lets say that it's a good old trainer game. You can show images of the girl in her cell/room, slowly passing from a straight proud standing position to a more submissive one, while her clothes also slowly change to reflect her increased corruption ; the room itself can also change to reflect this lewdness. And on top of this you would have a text saying something like, "You continued training her days...", that change to "... after days ...", then, "... witnessing her slowly give up ...", and finally (for the few last panels), "... until the moment she was finally ready."
With a slow fading transition for the images, it could give a good result.

For a game where the MC start to live with a new roommate, the images can be scenes of the day by day life, with the girl being strict and shy at first, then slowly getting used to MC's presence. At first she's always fully dressed, then she drop the sweater at home, then the shirt isn't necessarily fully buttoned, then its sometimes unbuttoned, then she can just show up with a maxi t-shirt, then eventually don't care to be seen in underwear or just wearing a towel. This taking part in more than just one room of the house/flat, and the room themselves have some changes. In the kitchen there's sometimes dishes waiting to be washed, or to be served. In the living room books are moving, there's sometime a bag. In MC room (or the girl ones if she's the one that moved in), there's more and more furniture and objects (showing that (s)he slowly make it his/her room).
As for text, it could be something like, "It was strange at first, none of us being used to live with a stranger...", "... but with time it was getting less awkward ...", "... until the day it seemed that we were always living together."

For a game where the MC will corrupt his female coworkers, it could take place at works, with scenes took an MC's desk, and in the break room. At first MC is relatively tense, and generally alone, then he become more and more relax, and there's people going to see him at his desk, and talking to him in the break room. Those peoples also become more and more relax, showing that it slowly pass from professional relation to something more friendly. You can also start to add scenes took outside of the work place, like an after work session in a pub, some karaoke night, or just the MC talking with few coworkers in front of the building.
And so on depending of the context of the story.
 
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