VN Ren'Py Working on a game. When should I release?

[Soft Whisper]

My new VN's first release was around a 1,040 renders, which is around 2.5-3 hours of playtime, depending on your speed.

Wow, that's a lot! How long did that take you? I'd probably go insane creating that many renders without showing anyone my hard work. 200 renders took me roughly 3 months, but I guess the first month was just character creation and writing. Maybe that's a bit slow, but I'm still learning how to use Daz and Ren'Py.

 

[MissFortune]

Wow, that's a lot! How long did that take you? I'd probably go insane creating that many renders without showing anyone my hard work. 200 renders took me roughly 3 months, but I guess the first month was just character creation and writing.

8 or 9 months. Maybe a touch longer. You don't need that many to see a successful initial release, to be clear. But the more, the better in my experience. But the more important part, imo, is introducing the characters, story, and why the players should care about either. Assuming your VN is more story-based than a free for all fuckfest. If it's the latter, then it's probably less dependent on the story and more dependent on the quality of the sex scenes themselves.

 

[Rafster]

Share it when you feel like it's ready to be shared. First impressions are literally everything in this space. This is the one time you aren't going to have pressure of a release date hanging over your neck, so pack as much as you feel you can in

This is a sound advice. I remember some devs gave me the same advice when I was on the early stages with my game (shoutout to Whaleshark , and Alcahest ) and I'm glad I didn't rush my initial launch (I went to the other extreme, I waited almost 1.5 year to release it here) but, given the ultra-niche nature of my game, it went well, I have a loyal core of patreons since then. If my game were released early, it would land with the thousands of trashy HTML games that get released every week.

 

[Meaning Less]

The size of the initial release isn't much of an issue in my opinion, what really matters is that you showcase at least the core mechanics that you plan adding into the game.

The issue I've noticed with your description is that it is still a kinetic novel for now, this will bring kinetic novel fans to your game, and they could get bummed the moment you start adding non-kinetic elements later on, similarly if the first version is fully kinetic you might put off visual novel fans at the start already.

As long as your first version gives people a good idea of what they are to expect of future versions I would call it a sucessfull introduction.

 

[Hidden Dreams]

I released Ch. 1 of my game back in March at about 11,000 words, ~360 renders, plus a few animations. The reception of the game has been mostly positive so I think the size was ok but there are two things I would've done differently that may have helped the release.

1. Had a marketing/social media strategy.

I focused all my energy on trying to make a good product but had no plan other than to release it on here. Having a social media presence and some promotion of the game established prior to release I think would've been the smarter way to go. Even now, I'm still really lost on this aspect of development so definitely look to wiser individuals for clearer advice on this.

2. Had Ch. 2 ready to go.

Quality development takes a lot of time, and you will continue to find new ways to make it take longer. I'm still constantly needing to learn new things in Daz and Renpy to achieve my goals. As others have said, with the first release there isn't much pressure on time. The moment you start getting support though, you'll feel the clock. Having your next update already finished gives you the luxury of not worrying about that next deadline. It will help you keep pace while maintaining quality.

Anyway, hope this helps and good luck.