u/Michahyu

Hey, I have this Papa Louie dating sim visual novel project I talked weeks ago in case any one remembers, and I wanna ask, if you remember it, how should I set the story as? Should I have mature themes or should I keep it light-hearted? And what kind of themes were you hoping for in my project game?

I initially planned for some occasionally heavy themes like moments of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and couple arguments—nothing too graphic or extreme like DokiDoki Literature Club, but just in the right realm of believable realism. And then I remember that these are characters from our childhood! They canonically look like wacky cartoon characters 😅 I want to expand their characters and backgrounds, giving a bit of “comfort game… that sometimes hits a little too close to home” vibe but it might be too much. This is a weird position, now that I realize. So, should I rewrite my script, especially for Mousse's (because I said months back that his route, compared to the others, is the darkest(BUT NOBODY GETS HARMED!!)) and make it PG? Or should I keep my initial plan?

BTW I wanna ask, if I do make it PG, does that mean I should cut all the kissing scenes? like maybe a brief kiss on the lips only at the important scenes and then mostly just kisses on the cheek?? 😅

View Poll

Hi there! I want to ask a question and your insights if that’s alright?

So I am making this romance fan visual novel game for a fandom, there’s going to be a solid storyline for each of the love interests but the problem is I need to incorporate a few original characters into the story because I can’t exactly use other canon characters to fill their place because I don’t want to mischaracterise them (especially since some roles my OCs fill in are antagonistic; think of dangerous mafia boss, envious rival, etc). There’s also one OC whose role is being the coworker of the MC, so they’re often seen no matter which route because they’re there to remind the MC that they still have work to do and romance with the love interests mostly starts after hours.

So it’s established they’re important but I’m afraid if people are going to get annoyed seeing my original characters into the game because, well, there will always be people who will cringe at OCs and file them as “the creator’s self inserts for wish fulfilment”, which is not who they will be; their roles are too bold, too story-driven to be given to canon characters without running the risk of mischaracterising them. I promise I will never give them excessive screen time other than necessary moments so they will never be the center of attention and I’ll NEVER make them romanceable, but I don’t know.

If somebody make a fan game visual novel of your favourite media, and their OCs are there playing important roles, would you drop the game completely? If so, why? And if not, why not?

Hi hi! Sorry for late update but here it is! Sorry for linking you to a Youtube link but it’s just too long to turn it to a GIF 😅

I’ve been tweaking the code and rewriting the script a bit because I had this talk with a friend who didn’t grew up playing any Gameria or any other Flipline games but was curious about my project. Now I’m going to try making the game appealing to both Papa Louie gamers and non Papa Louie gamers, as in you don’t need to play any Papa Louie games if you hadn’t but there will be references that only Flipline gamers would understand—like the Crushida Pepper dialogue from Papa in the video! In the general public perspective, it sounded like it implies Papa Louie had a messy and bumpy chef learning arc in his youth, but it’s actually a reference to “Papa Louie: When Pizzas Attack” because Crushida peppers did, in fact, literally save his life in that game 😆genius?

Also yay there’s sounds now! All rights goes to the legendary composer, Kevin Macleod. I spent 2 days scrolling through 80% of his music for the perfect soundtracks 😵‍💫😵‍💫 there were so many I swear

The next scenes, you will get to meet the love interest so hang on tight! 😊 this video marks the official demo story progress, and there will be more of these soon.

Having to grow up believing I'm not worth a damn, someone will always be better, and I'll always be just the last choice really takes up a toll on my mind subconsciously. I can't enjoy my friendships or my relationship anymore because I feel like they deserve someone more talented or something and they'll eventually get tired of me I can't but help but secretly dread about my desire to become a game creator because people will start disliking my projects, and a better game creator will come along and they'll prefer them instead. I know it's probably just my overreacting mind, but honestly? I've just grown up in this mindset for so long that anything that isn't dark and lonely is undeserving. But at the same time, I'm scared. I don't want to die, but what happens to my life after this? The future just doesn't look bright for me if I keep doing this and I know this, I keep pushing out everything and everyone and I just can't not do it, because as lonely as it makes me, it's also a familiar comfort. Where do I go now after this? I just hate myself in every direction; keep friends and wife, continue my projects but hate every second of your life for it because you're wasting everyone's time, or drop everything and actually do everyone a favour, but now you're lonely and sadder than ever been and your mind blames you for that.

Asking for...well, me 😅 because I have this visual novel project, and I'm willing to make the sprites and UI, all the visual jazz basically but I can't invest myself onto coding because I don't have enough storage or time to do that. I'm willing to spend money and hire a programmer but I'm currently on a tighter budget so I want to ask all you good folks, how much would you charge as a coder if I were to hire you for my game?

There's nothing extremely complicated like mini games in my visual project—it's mostly all standard where choices occasionally matter gameplay-wise and maybe some visual and music transitions from scene to scene. I'm currently getting everything ready for a demo instead of a full game right off the bat. I think the complicated part is the custom UI I have planned and in the menu, I'd like a "profile" option where you can go and learn more about the love interests within the game and a "credits" option where our names are displayed. But I'm really trying hard to make it as simple as possible like in the profile option, you just click on the love interest's sprite and their texts of their descriptions appears. No animation whatsoever by the way, I'm too broke to afford that ;-;

I don't know if all these sound simple or not but how would you estimate personally? :')

Why is it that whenever I vent to people about my parents, they quickly jump to my parents' sides? I told my friends or even vent forums like these that my parents are making me want to just die, and they said so many things to me just beat up every self worth I have in me, and I get, "maybe they're just over stressed", "it's not easy being parents, you know", "stop being overdramatic, you're their kid and they've provided everything for you; you're not starving or getting beaten up, right?"

I'm not even saying my parents are physically abusive, I'm just saying they've emotionally damaged me that I'm thinking of divorcing my wife and asking my friends to stop hanging out with me because my self worth constantly plummets that I do truly believe everyone else is better off with me. People will say, "oh but that's a you problem, I don't see why your hardworking parents have anything to do with what you're dealing with. You're a grown woman, aren't you? Act like it"

I'm evaluating how on God's green earth manage to be so screwed up in the mind that I start digging out what's the cause of my low self esteem, and most of them goes back to how my parents drilled the fact I'm like this. Yes they're physically good parents; they provided so much for me that it's also the main reason why I can't complete cut them off from my life cause I do still love and care for them...

but they're also the same parents who NEVER let me wear what I wanna wear and it's not even the "that skirt is too short, try something else" problem. It's the "you can't wear that because it looks terrible on you/because I said so, now wear THIS one instead.” And you know what? I actually WANT to wear longer dresses? I even told you that, not just once. I told you time and time again! But no, I have to wear that knee-length dress because you think it fits your style? I didn't even pick out those knee length dresses, I don't want my legs to be shown but you just keep buying them for me! You keep saying "I think knee length dresses suit you!"—what about me? Don't I have a say on what I think looks good on MY body? Or am I just your living doll?? Is my comfort an afterthought to you?

And they always say to me “you’re not trying at all; you're just lazyl” whenever I try my best on something and say “I’m trying, it just can’t work”. I'm sorry I just CAN NOT do it, I've already done my best on this and I'm tired, what do you want me to do? call Superman and ask to give me superpowers to do it?

And then I'm in a bad mood, they make it like it’s my fault and yell at ME for being in a bad mood. Like maybe I'm on my period or just don't want to talk because I'm dealing something internally, but that's somehow illegal that they have to yell and be angry at me for being angry that doesn't even involve them?? they can freely express anything and everything but I can't?!?! Literally just hours ago, my mother cried at ME and accused me for being overdramatic and a traitor to the family, and when I try to defend myself because I AM NOT?? I never even talked to any other relatives for years, she said "you're raising your tone on me! You know you're being so disrespectful to your own family, you know that? you're just like all of them traitors"

and yeah you'll say "oh she was hurting! She didn't mean that!" what about the times when I AM HURTING?? They took any mental breakdown I had when it didn't involve them like it's a personal attack and I'm not allowed to take this personally when it's clearly, explicitly, and directly targeted to me?

They also practically blame everything on ME—they left the stove on while they're clearly both downstairs and able to turn it off on their own? My fault, even if I was upstairs, entirely not involved when it happened.

And talking to them? It feels like talking to them is to have a mental list of the “correct” answers. I even have a default answer to whatever they say, it's: "yes, I agree with you. You're right. I'm wrong."

I can't even enjoy my own music taste! I like rock, and you know what my mom said, "your music sucks, it gives your dad a heart attack. Stop it." and so I begin to not play it around them, and then suddenly she frames it as "you're so secretive! why do you always turn off your music whenever we're around??"

and it's not just music! I can't tell them literally anything because anything I like is a crime! Friends? No, we have filter out who's your friends and who's not. What are your interests? well why don't you find something better to do than that? I want to wear my own clothes? Blasphamey! And now I'm not telling them anything (not even my marriage cause heaven forbid if they learn), and suddenly they're like "Why is our child not sharing anything with us? >:'("

They also tell me, time and time again, that anyone would be unfortunate to date me. They said that more than once, in different fonts and different situations. But all same, they meant it. And so now I don't want to be open about my love life, they're acting surprised and like I personally betrayed them.

But no, no. Clearly I am the one who is problematic, everyone thinks so, right? I am the one who's overdramatic for even remembering little snippets of memories, right? Everyone thinks of it! Online spaces, my friends, maybe I'm the one who's actually the problem, right?

Then so be it. Why don't I then take my stupid overdramatic ass out the world and just end it? After all, I'm just being overdramatic and maybe a little crazy for even trying to get the root to my mental problem and found that most of them are paved by my parents, right? I should've taken it all with grace and elegance like a normal person so I'm just one crazy theatre lady! Drama has an end at some point so why not plan the curtain bows soon?

Haha I think I regret playing DDLC(Doki Doki Literature Club) :') I never spiralled this bad about my mental health before. I don't want to be labelled as someone with depression but I realize just how much Sayori from DDLC and I have in common. I'm not saying the game was awful by the way, it's just...it got too personal for me :')

If you don't know who Sayori is, Sayori is basically a game character from the game "Doki Doki Literature Club". And the game basically tackles on subjects like low self esteem, depression, suicide, self harm, etc. Sayori, the character, has depression and she even hanged herself.
I don't want to admit it really, but aside from the suicidal act or wanting to act on suicidal thoughts, I relate to her so much. It's actually very unnerving to see how my feelings, the thoughts that I don't dare to speak out is now laid out by Sayori. It's like looking at a mirror, seeing your own reflection even though you don't want to see it. Sayori knows she has depression but I don't be labelled as someone with depression, because that would imply something really is wrong with me and I need a therapist?? I don't want to burden another person even if it's their job. Nobody deserves to go through that torture of overbearing my feelings and thoughts.

But what really hits me so deeply is Sayori not wanting to burden the MC and even pushes him to forget about her. That's what I'm trying to do with my friends honestly. I want them to forget about me, I want them to stop thinking about me, I want them to just push me away--because what am I even good for? Why should their care and time and effort be wasted onto me when they could hold space for someone more interesting? Better than I am? What am I even good for?

Maybe it's already starting. Maybe they're all starting to forget about me because they're all much closer to each other now, and that's good. That's exactly what I want. But it also felt like...that scene when Sayori found MC and Natsuki/Yuri together after their project? She's happy to see he's making friends, but at the same time, it hurts. It hurts also seeing a group of you were once part in slowly shrinks that there's no room for you anymore. But that's also nobody's fault, if anything, it's your fault for making a big deal out of it. What's happening is natural, just a natural social instinct to leave out the worthless ones and stay with the actually interesting ones.

I just want everyone to be happy, to live their lives happy without me. Because I know for a fact everyone will be happier if I wasn't there as a burden deadweight. But I'm here moping about it and being selfish.

Gods...I wish I never met them, giving them the peace they deserve without me around. Or maybe I wish I didn't play DDLC because now I see the things that are wrong with me. I can't now excuse it as just a me thing. Looking at Sayori was like the world telling me "do you feel like this? you feel like this, don't you? you don't want to confront it but it's a thing, it's real, we see you." and it's not really comforting as I expected. I feel seen in the most uncomfortable way.

Hello!! I want to ask about this because I’m planning on making a game but I’d hire a Ren’py coder because I don’t have the time and storage to learn how to code myself, but I would be doing the story script and all the art assets. That said, is there any ratio size I should know about? Can the game ratio size be custom? If so, I’d like my game to be 1600x900 because the coder might charge me more anything beyond that? I don’t know, this is my first time planning to hire someone 😅 Plus my game isn’t anything too fancy with mini games or animation, this is my very first game so everything is mostly standard—I don’t wanna blow over my budget. Any guidance would be deeply appreciated. Thank you!