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Project Ven

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nvekmauvia Fuwa Novice

nvekmauvia

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Hope this is in the right place - if not, let me know and I'll move it. Long time lurker coming out of his shell, so please let me know if I'm breaking forum etiquette V_V

Anyways, hey all! My Name is Kevin, and I'm here to look for writers for a project me and a few others have been working on! Here's a demo video to get things rolling.

 

Edit 2: Demo is up!

 

Edit 3: We have a writer!

Many thanks for all the people who applied, and to all those who commented/gave us feedback. We'll be sure to keep you guys updated on the project as it matures in the coming months!  :)

 


Download link (40mb): http://www.mediafire.com/download/y1kb4 ... .4_win.rar
Only windows build up for now, working on mac port

Notes about the Demo:
Once again, I must stress the fact that we don't have a writer (which I suppose is kinda the point). As such, expect the writing to be fairly dodgy, as it was put together by a bunch of artists and a programmer. The build is intended purely as a tech demo demonstrating the capabilities of our system - I'm sure the writers out there can already envision better uses for it!
Optimization for lower-end computers is still on-going, so it might lag a bit on older laptops/desktops.
If you guys find any bugs with the build, or have any comments, please let us know!

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHiQ8veXLns
: D pretty snazzy eh? For the more astute, you can see the influences we've drawn from studios SHAFT and Trigger in particular.

Project Ven
What is Project Ven? We like to call it "a visual novel on crack" (You can see that we're not very good with words - probably why we need a writer).
Our goal is to make a visual novel that demonstrates the capabilities of the medium to a mainstream audience, while remaining relevant to existing fans of the genre.

Examples of some of the elements we are exploring:

  • Player agency and its role in dictating narrative pacing and content
  • Usage of textual and visual assets in complementary ways
  • Page/link system ala Twine
  • Kinetic typography
  • Experimental rendering systems to simulate 2d "hand-drawn" animations
  • Exploration of space as a narrative device

While it's still too early to spill the beans on all the stuff we have planned (nCart rendering system I'm looking at you), suffice to say we have a lot of exciting stuff coming - all of which you can follow throughout the coming months on this blog.


Our studio: Title pending
The team behind it all.
In the latter half of 2014, a group of nerds got together and asked themselves the question: why haven't visual novels grown as a medium since its 2000s heydays? Compared to other "niche" genres such as voxel games, rogue-likes and simulators, the genre hasn't seemed to have progressed as much, and still remains a budding industry in the West. While we salute the folks at Dischan Media, Freebird Games, and Sekai Project - examples of companies that have made great strides in furthering the genre - we remain deeply dissatisfied at the state of the medium, for we know that it's true potential has barely been touched.

So we decided to do it ourselves, and that is how Project Ven came to be.

Overtime, we have formulated the following Manifesto:

  • Expand and evolve Visual Novels as a medium for a universal audience.
  • Explore new ways in which Visual Novels can be used as a story-telling medium.
  • Raise the quality bar for Visual Novels not only in the West, but worldwide.

I hope it doesn't sound too presumptious - but we really want to (like Fuwas' tagline) "Make Visual Novels Popular in the West".


We need a Writer!
We have the technical know-how. We have the visuals down-pat. We have the programmer, the designer, the artist, the animator…but we're still missing one crucial element - the writer.
This is why we have created this "tech demo": not only to show what we want to do, but to show what we can do - the capabilities of the team and the quality we are aiming for.
So if you're a writer interested in creating a high-quality, "next-gen" visual novel, please apply!


What we are looking for:

  • Fast and loose writing: Due to the nature of our game, you will be expected to create a large number of text assets - however, you will also be given a large amount of creative freedom in what you write: as can be seen in our demo, we have anything from poems, jokes, anecdotes, screenplays, to recipes.
  • Collaboration: As fellow creatives we understand the pain of having to compromise your vision. That being said, a few of us on the team are also quite keen on the world-building and character design aspects of the game, so be ready for some collaboration! That being said, for our project the story trumps all, so don't be afraid of having to compromise due to artistic or technical constraints - it will be our job to match the story.
  • Volume: We must once again stress the importance of speed: specifically, we're looking at around 180 pages of work (100 pages for the main script, 80 for all the side stories/objects) in 4 months, leaving 2 months for polish/QA.

Setting
Though the plot and setting of the game has not yet been finalized, we are currently leaning towards magic realism as the genre. We are also steering away from romance; this is due to a variety of reasons, but mainly due to oversaturation from existing works.


Scope
We wish to start off by testing the grounds with a smaller project: our goal is to release a ~1 hour long novelette within 6 months. The system and pipeline has already been set up for easy integration with text assets - the bulk of the work will not be integration but creation and editing. By aiming for a smaller release we can also focus on quality of execution and polish. The fast release will also let us know on how to progress with the eventual "larger" game, depending on how the initial release goes.


Finances
We are working with a revenue share model. (Most of us are just students or recent graduates). That being said, we plan to apply for various funding bodies such as the Indiefund & Film Victoria - if any funding is successful, all members of the team will immediately get a share of the funding.


For anyone interested in the position, please include an example of previous work you have done.
As we are on an extremely tight schedule, please contact us by the 23rd of March.

pjqzKOx.jpg

Look forward to the demo, which should be up by this Thursday Friday - apologies for the delay - we realised the submission deadline for the competition is Friday, so will use this opportunity to polish it up further.


Feel free to contact us about if you have any questions, or simply ask us below! (I'll be sticking around)

email: [email protected]
twitter: @projectven
blog: http://projectvn.blogspot.com.au/

Darklord Rooke Fuwa Master

Darklord Rooke

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As someone who believes the visual novel industry (and interactive stories in general) has almost unlimited potential (restrained by tech and real-life limitations,) and also has great expectations of the OELVN industry, I'll be keeping an eye on you guys. Will definitely be purchasing your games when they're released.

 

Best of luck!

Tay Fuwa Master

Tay

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Thanks for writing this post! I just gave you Dev Project Manager permissions, so you have free posting access to the Project Updates and Help Wanted blogs. We're still implementing them onto the Fuwazette news blog and the reviews hub, but they should be a good tool if you'd like to use them. Let me know if you have any problems with the blogging system:

Updates Blog: http://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/blog/18-dev-boards-updates/

Help Wanted Blog: http://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/blog/21-project-recruitment/

XReaper Fuwa Elite

XReaper

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as far as i can see, this looks very promising to me. cant wait for what fine stuff you´re gonna show us (already drooling)

edit: LOOOOOOOVE your art guys

nvekmauvia Fuwa Novice

nvekmauvia

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Just a single word "SHAFT" and the shafty text bubbles and camera angles!!  :heart:  :heart:  :heart:  :heart:  :heart:  :heart:  :heart:  :heart:

This looks gorgeous. I'm sold.

As a fellow OELVN developer I wish you the best of luck!

 

Haha, hopefully it isn't TOO obvious we're emulating SHAFT's style... but yeah, love their stuff!

Also, got any tips for finding writers? :P

How did your project form?

nvekmauvia Fuwa Novice

nvekmauvia

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I might be able to help look for a writer, if you don't mind me putting the post out to a few other places. I would apply myself, but bit busy these days :P

 

Oh that would be fantastic, yes please! :D

Gabbynaru Newbie

Gabbynaru

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Hello! I was lurking around the forums here when I saw this post, which quickly grabbed my attention.

 

I would like to consider myself a writer, though, I suppose I have nothing major to show for it (some poems, short stories and four 100+ pages stories is all I have at the moment, all just sitting in my computer). Still, this project sounds interesting, so, I wouldn't mind helping. Before I sign up though, I have some questions.

 

- You mention the writers will have a lot of creative freedom, but, how much are we exactly talking here? Will it be like, whoever gets the job just get's told "write us a story based on these characters"? Or will it be along the lines of "we want a scenario like this *insert scenario here* that ends like this *insert ending here*, everything else in between is up to you"?

- You also mentioned 180 pages in 4 months time. That doesn't particularly give me any idea of how much you want exactly. 180 pages of what size, usin what font and font size? But even that is ridiculous for a writer. How many words are you exactly looking for? I think every writer will understand how much his work will take based on the amount of words necessary. Cause, let's face it. We can have 180 a4 pages using a 6 point font. That's a lot of words. We can also have 180 a4 pages using a 24 point font, and that's very few words. So, specifically, how many?

- Will there be more than 1 writer for this project? I'm asking this because I don't think a single writer can have a consistent quality for a wide range of styles. Particularly, I myself am a story writer, and hence don't particularly have the same quality in my poems as I have in my stories. I can also go further and say that my writing quality diminishes when I'm writing short stories, as they are limitative to me, and don't allow me to express everything the way I want due to word limit constraints.

- Do you have a particualr writing style you're looking for? My writing style usually involves the narration being told by one of the characters in the story, and that could be off putting to some.

 

I think that is all. If anything else pops up in my mind, I will not hesitate to ask. Thank you for your time and looking forward to your reply.

nvekmauvia Fuwa Novice

nvekmauvia

Posted
  • Author
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Hello! I was lurking around the forums here when I saw this post, which quickly grabbed my attention.

 

I would like to consider myself a writer, though, I suppose I have nothing major to show for it (some poems, short stories and four 100+ pages stories is all I have at the moment, all just sitting in my computer). Still, this project sounds interesting, so, I wouldn't mind helping. Before I sign up though, I have some questions.

 

- You mention the writers will have a lot of creative freedom, but, how much are we exactly talking here? Will it be like, whoever gets the job just get's told "write us a story based on these characters"? Or will it be along the lines of "we want a scenario like this *insert scenario here* that ends like this *insert ending here*, everything else in between is up to you"?

- You also mentioned 180 pages in 4 months time. That doesn't particularly give me any idea of how much you want exactly. 180 pages of what size, usin what font and font size? But even that is ridiculous for a writer. How many words are you exactly looking for? I think every writer will understand how much his work will take based on the amount of words necessary. Cause, let's face it. We can have 180 a4 pages using a 6 point font. That's a lot of words. We can also have 180 a4 pages using a 24 point font, and that's very few words. So, specifically, how many?

- Will there be more than 1 writer for this project? I'm asking this because I don't think a single writer can have a consistent quality for a wide range of styles. Particularly, I myself am a story writer, and hence don't particularly have the same quality in my poems as I have in my stories. I can also go further and say that my writing quality diminishes when I'm writing short stories, as they are limitative to me, and don't allow me to express everything the way I want due to word limit constraints.

- Do you have a particualr writing style you're looking for? My writing style usually involves the narration being told by one of the characters in the story, and that could be off putting to some.

 

I think that is all. If anything else pops up in my mind, I will not hesitate to ask. Thank you for your time and looking forward to your reply.

 

Sorry for the lack of formatting, there's a reason I used to only lurk...

1. Though we have some ideas of where to take the story, they are more like "mood-board" guidelines - for instance, we know we want to have elements of magic realism and action. Otherwise, the entire story is up for rewriting - if the writer comes up with a brilliant script, of course we'll take it!

2. We're following industry standard - 250 words/page. So in total 45,000 words.

3. Unfortunately, our budget means that currently we can only afford to hire a single writer. In terms of writing in different styles, we can aid in asset creation for side items (jokes, anecdotes, etc.) Also, the example styles are just examples of what is possible, not requirements (you don't have to make poems if you don't want to).

4. Due to the nature of the presentation, dialogue heavy prose will be preferred. Narration is fine.

Gabbynaru Newbie

Gabbynaru

Posted
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Sorry for the lack of formatting, there's a reason I used to only lurk...

1. Though we have some ideas of where to take the story, they are more like "mood-board" guidelines - for instance, we know we want to have elements of magic realism and action. Otherwise, the entire story is up for rewriting - if the writer comes up with a brilliant script, of course we'll take it!

2. We're following industry standard - 250 words/page. So in total 45,000 words.

3. Unfortunately, our budget means that currently we can only afford to hire a single writer. In terms of writing in different styles, we can aid in asset creation for side items (jokes, anecdotes, etc.) Also, the example styles are just examples of what is possible, not requirements (you don't have to make poems if you don't want to).

4. Due to the nature of the presentation, dialogue heavy prose will be preferred. Narration is fine.

 

Only 45.000? I expected you to say at least 100.000 words.  By my speed, that would have at least posed a challenge to me to keep up with the deadline. But, I'm confident I can do 45.000 in 4 months easy. Even if I do take in account one or two writer's blocks along the way.

 

Well, thanks for clarifying. I definitely want to join this project now. PM me if you have any questions or want some samples of what I can do (pretty sure that's at least a requirement anyway).

nvekmauvia Fuwa Novice

nvekmauvia

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Just realized that the submission deadline for Freeplay (local game award) is Friday, so will be taking an extra day to polish it up further - apologies for the delay!

Emries Fuwa Senior

Emries

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Oh that would be fantastic, yes please! :D

 

Alrighty then. I went ahead and shared the information to a few universities known for writing through a 3-time Emmy winner professor I know. I noticed that the link was also shared by a couple other places through facebook. Maybe you'll get some interesting applicants! :P

nvekmauvia Fuwa Novice

nvekmauvia

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Demo is up! Check the original post for the link!

 

Also, it appears to lag quite severely on older laptops/computers - if any of you experience heavy lag, please let me know your specs and give me an indication of your FPS (bring up the debugger by pressing "Q" in-game)

Gabbynaru Newbie

Gabbynaru

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Though I'll have to replay this a few more times to completely understand the story set up in here (wasn't fully paying attention thanks to some friends), I find the premise really intriguing. As for everything else, well, I certainly like the graphics and how the engine works, though, it seems a bit bugged (I could do without the game showing the the table/fridge information when I'm trying to click the advance button). For just three people, you have done a really amazing job with this demo. Keep up the good work!

Desulishor Newbie

Desulishor

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Since this demo is mostly about what the engine can do, let's discuss some questions from the perspective of storytelling...

 

- While you can examine items and such, it's story's job to make those examinations meaningful. Say, a teddy bear in a normally callous  girl's room is pretty self-explanatory, a framed photo on 'her' desk... all manners of items have their own stories, but there's always numerous things to consider, like what kind of information ought to be left as examination-driven and what should be conveyed more directly... And what the protagonist should be able to deduce realistically vs. what kind of information you want to give...

- To what degree is the engine able to sense the player's input? For an example, other characters might get funny ideas if you keep examining stuff while they're talking to you, there's limits to what one should examine and so on, so forth.

- While 'examined things' are saved as text links, perhaps these can also be used as triggers or different ways to advance the story. i.e. certain actions might only become available after reading some other bit. Collecting text links could also be used as means of learning more about the world, characters, history etc, perhaps similarly to Analogue: a Hate Story.

- Of course, animated sequences are a highly expressive way of storytelling, while creating highly expressive characters and explosive situations is one thing, it doesn't need to end there, either. Even stuff like daydreams (or those murderous intentions of your shuraba love triangle maybe?) could be projected into an animation, it's about mixing 'reality' and imagination and blurring the line in between.

I'm sure there's stuff I'm missing too, but it's never the less interesting to see this kind of development. 

 

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