I am currently in the process of "testing the waters" of what is needed to make a game like this, myself. I would say that making a VN is composed of 3 different sections: Story, visuals & coding (with a possible 4'th section being Audio, but this is not a nessecity)
- Story: What is overall idea of the game and how do you break it down in smaller bits? I would advise you to outline your story in microsoft word, or notepad, or even a piece of real life paper and try to make as much of the dialogue as possible, so you have it ready when you need it.
- Visuals: How do you make the visual representation for your game? If you are good at drawing, you might be able to do your own visuals, or perhaps you can hire someone from Deviant art or similar to do it for you. Alternatively, you can do what I am doing and use Daz studio. There is a learning curve to daz studio, but I have found that the best way to learn how to use it, is to follow a couple of the tutorials in the program and then just mess around inside the program to figure out how everything sort of works. Be warned though: Making art with daz studio is NOT cheap. I have already spent several hundred dollars, just to have the materials for the testing I am doing, and that is including the massive discount from platinum club membership.
- Coding: How do you combine story and visuals into a cohesive unit, which people can then play? As a beginner, I would say there are 4 options available (unity and such are not worth looking into if you are new to coding): Cloud novel, Tyranobuilder, Visual novel maker and Ren'py.
Cloud novel is by far the easiest, and it is free to use for both non-commercial and commercial products, but you pay by being severely limited in your options.
Tyranobuilder is a step up in functionality, but it costs a bit to buy it, and it is still pretty limited in what it can do and is known to be plagued by bugs. However, it can be used for both non-commercial and commercial use.
Visual novel maker is a fairly new addition to the family of VN engines, but it holds great potential in both being easy to learn without knowing coding, but still has coding as an underlying layer, for those who desire to make more complex things inside the engine. It is also developed by the team behind RPG Maker, which means these guys knows how to make a good engine and, with time, they could make certain assets from both these engines work together, for even more functionality. However, since the engine is only around 6 months old right now, documentation is still lacking in many aspects, but this will improve with time, and the devs themselves are pretty helpful when people are having issues. This engine is by far the most expensive to buy however, but can be used for both non-commercial and commercial products.
Ren-py: This is the western industry standard for visual novels, and for good reason. Ren'py is more than 10 years old and has a highly dedicated userbase and there is massive amounts of documentation to use. On the bad side, Ren'py is strictly code based, which means you HAVE to code to use it. It is the most stable choice and it is free to use, for both non-commercial and commercial products.
I decided on Visual novel maker, as I am just starting out and only have a very basic knowledge of coding, so in my eyes, VNM was the best choice to start with, as it allows great freedom while still being pretty easy to use for an inexperienced person, in comparison to ren'py. Don't let this fool you into thinking that VNM is better than ren'py overall, because most experienced ren'py users can do what VNM does in half the time. However, I am still new to VN engines, and I am going to hold off on ren'py until I feel more comfortable around coding.
I would advice you to try writing a general idea of your game in word, or notepad, or heck, even a good old piece of paper and see how it looks. Then you can try downloading daz studio and mess around with the free materials they offer and see if you like the feel of the program and the results it gives. Finally, try cloud novel first, to see if you can make a couple of your puzzle pieces fit together. If everything fits and you feel confident in the results, then step it up a notch and begin to get more ambitious.
Small steps. Remember: New guys like you and me, we need to learn how to crawl, then walk and THEN we can run and jump around with the cool kids.
Good luck to you.
