VN Ren'Py F22'S WIP game development thread: I have made characters, but I don't have good story in mind and ....

[F22232425]

Hi, after being a long time user in F95zone, I have finally decided to create my own game.

However, I am not a native English speaker nor a good writier, so I was thinking if I could make a game with good gameplay
rather than good story.
Because of that, I don't really know how to make a romance game, and therefore I am planning to make corruption-based game
which is inspired the games I enjoy.

As for what kinds of games I enjoy, here is the list of games in the recommendation forum which somehow matches my preference: https://f95zone.to/threads/bdsm-mal...-spanking-rope-bondage-torture-devices.30972/.

Among those, one of my favourite games is "The Headmaster", and therefore I am planning to mimic its genre and content for my game.

So if you like them too, perhaps we are on the same preference to share ideas.
I would appreciate if you could give me some feedbacks.

Anyway, below is my current five LI characters development.
This means those characters should act as the love interests of the MC in the game.
They are still needing some improvements on their looks and the stories and personalities are still unsettled which is something I am not good at.

Introducing the first character is Alice.
Potential key personality traits: friendly, optimistic and submissive to the authority.
Body traits: Tall and thin.
There are two verions of here, the first is more realistic while the second is more anime-like.
I am still having problems adjusting her skin tone, eyebrows and the water-like glossy eyes.

Realistic version:



Anime version:



The second character is Donna.
Due to the base model for her look, she is somehow short but still within the average height of women and therefore shorter than Alice.
Her background is still unsettled.



The third characte is Eleanor.
No comments, as the character is still unfinished in terms of final look.




The fourth character is Olivia.
Again, background still unifinshed.




And finally, Rachel.
My first made character but with least modifications...

 

[Deleted member 1684328]

First of all, welcome to the developer club! It's always great to see someone else start this wonderful journey. The characters look very cute, and I think it's a very wise decision to make a corruption-type game if you are uncertain whether or not you can write a interesting story. I wish you the best of luck and hope to try out a version of your game in the near future! Good luck! If you need a tester, or something, you can always hit me up

 

[Deleted member 1684328]

You shouldn't worry about the story too much, just keep it simple. Of course everyone has his own preferences, but I think most people like to play a sexy game with likeable characters. I always prefer games with a simple storyline, but great characters above a game with a complex storyline where I don't like one of the characters (by their appearance, I mean). Are you going to develop it purely in RenPy?

 

[jezzoo]

as ThePornWriterDuck said, the characters look very nice, the faces do at least. The tricky part usually is keeping them natural-looking in real settings and with expressions, so that would be something to look out for.

I think your problem is, you chose a difficult path. Most determined people can throw together some DAZ renders, write a basic story and make a simple VN with Renpy, and that's why there's so many of them.

But if you want to rely on gameplay, it's all about design and implementation. That takes significant time and skills, and you say you don't have much experience. Doing a project is a good way to learn, but this might be an uphill battle for you, especially as your first project.

RenPy is simple to get into, but a poor choice for mechanically complex games. I have yet to see a RenPy project with actual "gameplay". They're fun, but not in this way.

My recommendation would be to reconsider the gameplay focus and try to write a simple plot with interesting characters, then do that in RenPy. You can even implement a simple corruption system. It won't be the best game, but you have a chance of actually finishing.

But if you still want to try for something gameplay heavy, you should focus on the core gameplay loop and see if you can get the most basic version running in any engine as soon as possible. Renders come later.