Hanako Games: Date Warp

by Hanako Games and Spiky Caterpillar.

So, before I begin my demo review (there's a special discount offer for those who do - we poor college students appreciate said discounts!) - I want to say a bit about Hanako Games and Indy Developers in general.

Hanako Games is run by the lovely Papillon, a female developer who has created such games as Cute Knight, Fatal Hearts and the latest release, pictured above. Fatal Hearts is one of my favorite OELVNs - it's really innovative in terms of gameplay and writing and in general is really fun to play. I found myself playing for HOURS on end to get all the endings - it's a great game and pretty affordable in price nowadays. If you haven't picked up a copy, you should.

This is going to sound really sycophantic, but I really admire Papillon and her studio. I'm sorta trying to emulate it with MG Studios. Not necessarily in the types of games I put out, but in the professionalism and care that Hanako shows in each of their projects. I also really admire Papillion as a female game developer. No surprise, most game developers are men. The Eroge/Ren'ai market is dominated by men, and it's to be expected, as the audience for most of the material is male. But to see a lady come out of the woodwork and create her own VN/Indy Game/Ren'Ai influenced studio is really inspiring. There's nothing more exciting as a hopeful developer than to see someone who came before you succeed. That goes double as a female developer.

Also, in general, Papillon rocks for taking a chance and developing games in this niche genre. The OELVN community deserves some awesome contenders and I honestly believe Indy is the gateway to commercialism and wide-spread popularity. Anyone ever heard of this little Indy MySpace DJ "Owl City"? Nah, didn't think so. He's only like super famous or something with them thar Fireflies song.

So yeah - in short, Hanako Games rocks, buy their stuff, I'm a suck-up, but I am HONEST in my love, go me. o_ob Read on for the review.

I Get By with a Little Help

Magical Girl Studios is a one-woman studio. ALMOST. I have an editor who reads through my scripts and gives me opinions/corrections. She's indispensable as I'm a pretty horrible editor myself - I've turned in papers for school after a simple "spell check" just because the prospect of editing intimidates me intensely. Having a second opinion on my writing is VERY important.

Last night, as she was editing Project G and I was writing Project O, she turned to me and said:

Editor: "Besides editing, is there anything I can do to speed up the process? It seems like so much work."

To be honest, I had no idea how to answer her. I am the sole writer, artist, and coder for this project. All of these are skills I've been developing for years outside of the VN medium.

But she's right - I could use more help. But what kind of help? I have no idea. Any ideas readers and developers? What kind of help are you looking for in your VN projects?

Writing Out of Season

It's May!

That's wonderful news for a lot of people, especially students. I'm a Freshman in college and I'll be flying home to Los Angeles a week from today. It's exciting, to say the least. One paper is separating me from summer break. Said paper will be written this weekend. HUZZAH!

So I finished two of my other classes' work yesterday. Both were extremely stressful, for the record. But now that those are done, I can get back to all the vapid, relaxing stuff I love to do. Read: writing dating sims.

But Project "O" is currently taking place in winter. That's right - the dead of winter. On the East coast. Meaning SNOW and freezing temperatures. And I'm finding it strangely tough.

All I want to do is draw my characters in pretty sundresses and swimsuits, but I'm stuck at the end of December. SAD, I know. Snow is pretty in its own right, but I love summer as a season SO much more. So when I look outside as I'm writing a scene that takes place in three feet of snow, I can't help but feel my inspiration zapped a bit by the pretty outdoors.

I wonder if that's normal. For an author to feel zapped of inspiration writing a story that takes place in weather so different from their own. It would be so much easier and more fun to write a story about kids sitting out in the sun, soaking up the rays, a glass of lemonade in hand...

Aahhh...summer break, here I come. <3

Moe Muffins Can Go Die, K Thx

So I'm currently playing "Da Capo" courtesy of MangaGamer. I enjoyed the demo enough to want to buy a copy during their big sale. It has some likable characters, my favorites being Mako, Moe and Nemu. Kotori is also interesting. But this girl up here drives me BONKERS.

She's annoying, to put it bluntly. Also the fact that she looks like she's twelve freaks me out even if it's a plot point. Sakura shows up to harass the hero and I'm supposed to find this somehow endearing? Luckily if you manage to avoid her you see very little of this character after the beginning of the game.

I'll tell you one archetype you'll never see in a game I make: the moe-blob. That is, the loli, wide-eyed, annoying uber kawaii baby-doll of a girl. I personally HATE these types of girls, and while I know Japanese VNs are full of them, I just can't stand all the "desus" and "Uwaaaahhs!".

Da Capo has a few characters who do dangle close to the moe-blob edge. I mean, they're all pretty wide-eyed and have been known to make cute, uncalled for noises at times. But at least Nemu has a sense of responsibility that's very likable and anti-moe-blob and Moe's charming if only for her narcolepsy.

I have no problem with a younger character. I have no problem with a cute or ditsy character. But a character who literally behaves closer to a newborn kitten than to a human being? No thank you. I like my women with little to no fluff brain, thanks so much.

What's Attractive Anyway?

Guys.

I'm coming out.

I, Sammy, am a heterosexual female.

Now if you want to go and clicky that little "x" box right up there on your browser or de-follow me or something, I'd completely understand. Just know that your bigotry is not appreciated by the world at large and I don't need your acceptance to love myself. I know that maybe reading the blog of a straight girl who writes games for straight guys might make you uncomfortable. But I hope you can look beyond who I am as a person and see me for my ideas.

All joking aside, it sometimes weirds me out how much I enjoy playing and writing bishojo games despite being a straight lady. I guess the romance novel aspect of it just really hits home for me.

Don't kid yourself, I enjoy playing bishojo games, but hot damn do I LOVE playing Otome games. For ALL the wrong reasons. Read: 1.) the guys are hot, 2.) the guys are hot, 3.) Hot damn that's some pretty art and 4.) the guys are hot.

Now don't get me wrong, I can tell a bad Otome game just as easily as I can call out a bad bishojo game. And I hate suffering through either. But my libido just gets to me when playing super cute games about adorable heroines getting swept up by their prince charmings (or Prince Meganes, as I happen to often lean towards. =3=)

Still, Project "O" is an otome project, while Project "G" is bishojo. (Project G is my first title and is further along at this point). Project "O" isn't necessarily any easier to write than Project G was. Why is that? Shouldn't my perspective as a straight girl make it easy for me to develop some super likable guys that I just know will make girls' heads spin?

Yes and no. There are certain qualities about various characters that certain women find attractive and others consider a total turn-off. For instance, in Yo-Jin-Bo, a bunch of fans went crazy over little Yo, the youngest character in the game. I found Yo to be adorable, but not necessarily hot stuff. His ending, for me was "meh" at best.

So how do I approach making a game where I want each character to appeal to the player? Surely, I can start by making them all appeal to me in some way. But what about diversity? I'm certainly not the final word on what makes any person attractive, female or male. How can I make sure that I'm not just making a cast that appeals to me and people like me?

Well, I can of course pull from the tropes. They're tropes for a reason - they work. And to a certain extent, I've done that. But to make my characters more human, I've fleshed them out more, made them more down-to-earth, a bit more likable. I've also made sure to include characters who may not be super-OMG-hotstuff at first, but perhaps will grow on the player. Each guy is going to be super cute, don't get me wrong. But I want there to be a serious discrepancy in personality. I don't want carbon copies of my favorite Otome character, or anyone's favorite otome character for that matter.

I don't want to rely exclusively on the tropes and stereotypes because I don't want my player to write off my characters as "oh, the tsundere" or "oh, the tortured type" or "oh, the prince". That's not doing them justice. And it might be fun to play a game with your favorite guy in it once again (oh, Megane-sama), but that won't leave an impression - that won't make someone care.

More Writing, Project O

Been a while since my last update. School's been killing me, but I'm currently on spring break, so I think a blog update is in order.

I've been steadily chipping away at my latest project, codenamed "Project O" for now. After making major cuts to the script, I've now got a much more manageable way of going about things and actually have an end in sight. Well, not in sight exactly, but it's on the horizon. At least I know it exists.

"Project O" is comprised of five chapters and an individualized sixth chapter depending on the character you end up with. It's possible to not get a chapter six at all, if you play all the wrong cards. No matter how much you try to screw up your choices along the way, you will get to Chapter Five at least. With a game of this length, I really want to reward my player with an ending of some substance. I hate putting in a dozen hours on a dating sim and getting "too bad you died" at the end of it because I didn't pick the right lunch option back at the beginning of the game.

Right now, I'm in the middle of Chapter Three. Chapter Three has five sections, I just finished the second section and am now moving on to the third. Chapter Three is definitely the longest chapter - Chapters Four and Five don't hold a candle to it in terms of length.

So once I finish up Chapter Three the end really will be in sight.

The problem with each chapter is that there is literally hours of content that the player will not see on a first playthrough. So while there's lots of writing, the actual play time is a fraction of what I've written. I'd like to think that's a good thing in terms of replayability. I love dating sims that have tons of alternative content. That way I can really shape my own experience - my game would be entirely different from someone elses' depending on which character(s) I pursue.

Still, it's a pain in the butt for the writer!

Oh well, Project O is going strong. Hopefully edits on Project G, my first game, will be finished soon so I can move forward on that.

Thanks for the support everyone!

So...Eroge in Academia?

So besides working on my own Ren'Ai games as strictly a hobby, I've also managed to bring them in to my academics.

I'm developing a performance piece (I'm a theater student) that uses Eroge/Ren'Ai games as an element. I won't bore you with the details.

But hey - here are some pretties in progress.

BTW - I SERIOUSLY need an actual version of Paint Tool Sai. I love this thing, but the trial only lasts 31 days. ;_; $57... Well, my birthday's coming up.

This is a picture of one of my actresses as a Ren'ai game character. ^^ She thinks it's awesome, I'm really excited for how it's going to turn out. She really looks like she could belong in any Ren'ai game!