r/vndevs

My artistic skills allow me to draw my characters, but I really struggle with backgrounds. On top of that, my story constantly shifts to new locations, so I need to find a way to speed up the background creation process. Does anyone use a particular method for this?

Share your victories, progress and releases! Here you're welcome to share screenshots of your visual novels, update progress, devlogs, and even new releases!

Hi everyone! I work as a data scientist and occasionally play visual novels in my free time. I really love when the player's choice influence the story like in Fate or Steins Gate. However, sometimes I notice that for example in chapter 2 of some game I was mean to a character and then in chapter 3-4, this character behaves the same way as if I was nice. I think it ruins the perception of player's choice.

So, I was wondering how authors keep track of all branches and specific player choices. Do you maintain a massive personal wiki/bible, or do you just rely on aggressive proofreading and alpha testers?

I’m currently experimenting with a parsing engine that builds an NLP-driven semantic continuity graph of a script to automatically flag tone drift and narrative contradictions before compilation. I'd love to know:

1)Is plot-hole/continuity tracking an actual time-sink in your development flow, or do you have a system that already works perfectly?

2. What's the hardest logic bug you’ve had to untangle in a branching narrative?

This has been an issue for me for years and I feel like I just need to express it to someone other than my close friends.

I have loved VNs as a medium since I was a teenager. I've made bits and pieces of them over the years, but I always quit before finishing anything significant. I do my own art, know how to code in Ren'py, and do my own writing. Things I don't do, like music and sound effects, I know where to find. I've purchased a lot of game making assets over the years but never use them. I have tried to collaborate with friends many, many times and the projects always fall apart, too. I'm extremely frustrated with myself.

My issue is every single project I try never feels "worth completing". I'll draw a bit, write a bit, but then I see flaws and just give up. It's not even boredom with a project that stops me. I'm worried I'm wasting my time making something that no one will like. It's not rational imo, still I've been stuck in this loop for years. I desperately want to make a VN but it has to be a "good" VN. I don't even want to sell what I make, I just want to finish a project I can be proud of.

Does anyone else feel this way? Have you broken through a loop like this and just, well, found peace finishing a VN on your own that wasn't "perfect"? 😅

I have ideas and characters but I just have no idea how to start writing in a non cliche way. Any tips?

To start off, I've been juggling game development and my thesis. I'm pretty far into my scriptwriting, I have a few sprites set and will do backgrounds shortly, and I am set to have my first thesis defence in a week or two.

Unfortunately, since life is funny like that, I had a brief psychotic break from Wednesday to yesterday, launching into a whole conspiracy about Egyptian deities and the letters B and G/Gj, and at some point, both my thesis and the script looked suspicious to me because 1) my thesis advisor's name starts with G, and 2) I used BG as script tags for backgrounds.

Anyway, I'm okay-ish right now, and I'm working on my thesis. But considering how my VN involves heavy themes like totalitarianism and assault, should I immediately return to working on my VN like I feel like doing, or give myself a break?

This is the simplest way to implement narrative combat.

Here’s the idea... Combat begins:

Options:
1 - You charge in and attack.
2 - You keep your distance and wait for an opening.
3 - You focus on assisting your allies.

When the scene transitions, the character(s) accompanying you comment on your fighting style, and the story continues.

If there are relationship stats, we could add points depending on which character prefers which style.

Now, this is the absolute bare minimum. How can I improve upon this?

Hi everyone!

I’m a software developer who has recently been experimenting with the idea of building a new visual novel engine. I’d love to hear feedback from anyone interested in visual novels, especially those who have experience creating them.

One of the core ideas I’m exploring is separating script logic from visual editing.

The story script, branching logic, conditions, variables, and other gameplay-related controls would remain in code. Visual elements such as backgrounds, character sprites, CGs, UI layouts, and scene compositions would be edited through a graphical editor. The script would then switch between predefined visual states by referencing IDs.

My goal is to improve workflows for larger projects by:

• Allowing artists and designers to preview and edit scenes visually.
• Reducing the amount of visual setup that writers or programmers need to maintain in scripts.
• Keeping narrative logic and presentation relatively independent.

For the scripting side, I’m also considering a language where VN-specific features are integrated directly into the language itself. For example, dialogue and narration could be written naturally inside control structures such as if statements, loops, and functions, rather than being separate commands.

I’d love to hear your thoughts:

1. Does this workflow sound practical to you?
2. What are the biggest pain points you’ve encountered when developing visual novels?
3. If you’ve used engines such as Ren’Py, Tyrano, KiriKiri, Nscripter, or others, what did you like or dislike about them?
4. Regarding scripting languages, what would you prefer:
   • Something close to an existing language (JavaScript, Python, etc.)?
   • A new language designed specifically for visual novels?
5. Would you prefer:
   • A stricter language with stronger static checks and error detection?
   • A more flexible language with fewer restrictions but less tooling support?

I’m still in the exploration stage, so any opinions, criticisms, or ideas would be extremely valuable. Thanks!

TW : alcohol, sex addiction and gambling

Me and my friend wanted to make a visual novel but i would like to know if you guys think it would be interesting is about a girl whos is addicted to sex , alcohol and gambling and shes your neighbor and you got multiple choose to help her recover maker her worse etc. I take this seriously bc i mine am an addict to one of these and those topic are really important to us. I would like to know if you guys would like it :D Thanks

I've been trying to get a few different vn's I have idea's and some writing for off the ground, but can't seem to find any writer so far that understood what I was trying to go for. I'm willing to pay for the writing as my previous writers were from Fiverr, but I'm branching out now trying to find someone who can actually write the story I need and hopefully keep working with them into the future. The three projects I have currently that I want to work on are a kind of fallout visual novel (nothing from the universe but gets the basic idea of the setting across), a goblin in modern times novel, and a cow girl farm novel. the list is based in the order of how much lore I have written for each and how solid the idea is. I don't see it in the rules for the sub so I assume it's okay to say that all of these games are focused on being 18+ stories.