I solo-dev as well! I meant more that a visual novel can be done with original writing and programming, but original art's a nice addition, not a necessity. You can still do a really good visual novel with just some tight writing, interesting mechanics, and some tactfully placed third-party royalty-free art assets. Now that I think about it, you could probably also make a really good narrative game from adapting existing writing, but that's a bit more complicated...
I used this video to get started for nanoreno 2024, and I have a tip for anyone on team pinata (me): Calibrate to a shorter deadline, like 2 weeks. If you use that, it forces you to boil down your story to its necessary core and make sure that gets in. I did this by enrolling in multiple game jams at once, one of which being 2 weeks long. Also, letting another jam dictate your theme can help alot in the ideation phase. I only had 1-2 days to pre-plan for nanoreno, and had to plan accordingly. It also meant most of my actual writing was done on the fly. This can work, if you scope to your known abilities, but no further.
This is an insanely high quality video! I love how the two scenarios meet at the end. I guess that's what you get when a visual novelist makes up hypothetical scenarios 😂
I appreciate how you mentioned that even though you made the scenarios about two kinds of teams, the same points can still be applied to two kinds of solo developers. I can't wait for NaNoRenO!! (I also love the lighting and editing of your videos, great work!)
I really wanted to join NaNoRenO this year, honestly. I eventually decided my idea would've been too slow for one dev in one month, but I did plenty of writing for my VN in that time and a handful of character sprites, so it's not a complete loss. ^^
Just recently got into making visual novels. I look forward to throwing my hat in the ring next year! This first one... Oh boy. Take a list of "What Not To Do" and I basically did all of that.
Awesome video, thank you! I don't think I'll ever be able to handle NaNoRenO but I am doing much more relaxed game jams (ones you can work on ahead of time!) and this has given me good insight as a solo dev of how to be my own production manager and keep me on task haha
The programmer from Team Pinata should've been working lmao That's the problem child right there. I'm learning from working by myself just how powerful setting up before I even have assets can be, thanks to channels like yours. With a clear vision, I can move a few elements into position and prep them for future changes. Then I can implement those changes without much issue because I already know what I want there, and I simply worked around the absent asset. Was it risky? Yup. Is it working though? Also yes. I only need to add multimedia and I already know my resolution. I'm on the same page with myself. I even got a head start on the script, made sure that it works perfectly, and caught any issues with story progression early without getting inundated with text. I was already chewing away at it. I would've been breaking down the script as quickly as I could get it, building my character document, setting up my labels, and drafting my UI layout already. There was plenty of prep work to do.
This year will be me and my friend's are doing (first time) NaNoRenO- We've gotten a coder (me), writer, background artist, sprite artist, audio and a everything person. I think we are somewhere between organized- and messy xD
I do want to participate in the upcoming NaNoReMo but I barely know any programming and I will be going at it alone so that can really affect the production so I hope to learn some programming with the program and hope to tackle on it next year (i take a good while to get adjusted/learn new things)
That's coming up soon! Try making some smaller games in the meantime, and try out as many different parts of Ren'py you think are interesting, and when you start planning stuff for NaNoRenO, just stick to the things you know!
