Vapourware Vampire Visual Novel with PUBLIC DOMAIN resources.

[Lance Treiber]

Hello. You may know me by my previous thread where I failed to make a game. It was a 2d mobile MMO, in which I lost interest:

Then I decided to make an NWN style MMO based on SRD 3.5 with a friend, but he lost interest in it when he realized how difficult level design was.
We spent 2 months on it, too bad he bailed. This is how it looked.

And so now it's time to move on to yet another vaporware project, which I'll fail at as usual. I have a new quirky idea that intreagues me.

The idea is simple. Work alone, do not hire anyone, and use public domain assets.
Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, many others - all public domain: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?sort_order=downloads

British library digitized a million images from public domain books. Some examples:

Look at these spooky skellingtons. The story writes itself, doesn't it?

I want to make a visual novel (kind of like coteries of new york) using these assets, and I want to draw inspiration from public domain books. All of which points to the 19th century as the setting.

I don't want to bore you with my ideas for gameplay. Let's leave it at that for the moment.

I'd appreciate any public domain sources you may have heard of, or any other suggestions.

What themes do you think fit a gothic 19th century narrative? What books or other types of art do you think you would research?

 

[AdolfSatan]

I don't want to bore you with my ideas for gameplay. Let's leave it at that for the moment.

Gameplay is what games are made of. If you don't have that you've got nothing. Then —given you'll be doing a novel—, the story. And no, stories don't write themselves, it's hard work. Setting comes only after all that, and if you haven't got the meat and potatoes to back it up, you'll be bored by it soon enough to drop it.

Sorry to be such a killjoy but you need to set yourself straight if you're ever hoping to see any project you start finished.

 

[Lance Treiber]

I always thought story would be the most difficult part, and without story I wasn't even going to start coding or looking for art.

Researched a lot. Learned about character arc types, types of conflict, traditional story structures, themes, tropes, then I started reading Victorian writers to get a sense of their writing style and language, then researched Victorian period from the technological point of view, e.g. how did they do autopsies, how a typical investigation went, etc, but after 2 weeks of doing all that research, I still didn't have a story. Started binging various series with "monster of the week" type episodes to get ideas for the main story or quests.

In the end, I still have nothing, even if I have a decent theoretical understanding of how it should work. I can't will my imagination into working.

I suck.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Relax dude, you're throwing the towel after two weeks of research —even if you spent every waking hour that still isn't a lot— and not being able to come up with an idea. Take a look at the development time for the great literary works, how many of those took a decade of hard work to well-established writers. Sure, there's the story of Dickens writing the Christmas Carol in a couple of weeks, and who knows? You might pull that shit too, but after you've got a couple of titles under your belt.

My point is, it's too soon to give up, you haven't even given yourself the time to process what you've learned. If you haven't got any experience writing, try to join an online course, teachers will give you prompts to help you get the ideas flowing.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I suck.

 

[vlzvl]

I still have nothing, even if I have a decent theoretical understanding of how it should work. I can't will my imagination into working.

What is nothing? It seems you're trying too hard to get something perfect & workable from the very start, instead of building it piece by piece. Your project is going to look like shit in the first days or weeks, but you should at least try to love it to be able to continue with it. Take it easy, make it a goal that you must have something at the end of the day to work on the next day & you should be fine.

I want to make a visual novel (kind of like coteries of new york) using these assets

Do you really? Self motivation is a serious issue for development & it sounds your main problem. One can make a rock simulator & make a buck out of it just because he is motivated.

 

[Lance Treiber]

Guys, thank you for the pep talk.

But let me tell you something. When talking about motivation, I'd be the first to tell you that we all have good days and bad days. Anyone can perform miracles on a good day. It's what you do on a bad day that matters.

Let me tell you. My professional career as a motivated game developer ended 10 years ago. I then worked for 8 more years off of something called discipline.

Let's say on a good day you wake up at 7, make coffee, take a shower and drive to work, put in 8 hours, then stay after everyone else leaves and work on something of your own.

Then on a bad day, you: wake up at 7. Make coffee. Take a shower and drive to work. Put in 8 hours. Then stay after everyone else leaves and work on something of your own.

If we could control our minds, we'd be all be psychopaths. We can't always be happy, motivated, and feeling great. What we need is not motivation, but discipline.

I have rationally determined that this project takes more than I have. I would still love to make it, but I have decided to go back to my 2D MMO project for now. For the last 2 days I worked on it, despite not being into it. I've now come up with an even better idea today and I'm switching over to it. I love this new idea, I'll show it a bit later.

I don't sit around doing nothing when I'm not motivated. I always work, because at the beginning of the year I've determined that my finances will start running dry by end of this year. So I'm not idling. By end of year, I have to release something, and that's not optional.