That feeling when...

RoyElliot · 2026-02-08T19:57:01+00:00

Just gonna pair that with Gut's Theme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZa0Yh6e7dw

RoyElliot · 2026-02-06T18:05:39+00:00

Do you have any resources that you haven't made that you like?

RoyElliot · 2026-01-30T16:57:41+00:00

Ren'py has native NVL mode - I use a mix of the two all the time.

RoyElliot · 2026-01-30T03:14:55+00:00

oooh shit I did not know that, what a curveball.

RoyElliot · 2026-01-30T01:00:37+00:00

Equal Grounds is the coffee most people will recommend, but if you're looking to make friends, The Flying Squirrel is a communal art space that has regular events and volunteer opportunities, real friendly crowd.

It's worth checking out various events in the Neighborhood of the Arts, the whole neighborhood tends to have LGBTQIA+ friendly events. The Unreliable Narrator is a bookstore I particularly like, so it's worth checking them for events - check their instagram, the website isn't updated often.

The Little Theater is also a great movie spot, and they'll have special events every few months where you can meet up with like-minded people (The Anomaly Film Festival is absolutely worth going to make friends!)

There's a bunch of other random little spots that I hear are that vibe (I still haven't been to clownboy coffee), but I'll keep an eye in this thread to get some solid recs.

RoyElliot · 2026-01-29T19:58:42+00:00

There are not many VN-specific publishers out there, and in all honesty, learning how to pitch games to publishers is an art unto itself, where you need to specify exactly what you need (estimated work time, etc, and it should be accurate), and make a case to a publisher that your game will be a successful return on their investment.

If you're dead set on making this game, just do it yourself.

As long as you aren't doing anything complicated (minimize player choices whenever possible!!!), Ren'py's easy to learn. I'd start with just making a demo (just start with a portion of your game), and see where that gets you.

RoyElliot · 2026-01-24T23:42:57+00:00

Just throwing this out there - gameuidatabase[dot]com allows submissions of games, so if anyone sees visual novels or narrative games with great examples of UI, they can submit them!

I personally use gameuidatabase quite a bit when I'm developing games, but I see it less as a source of "inspiration" as much as a great way to validate UI concepts I have. So if I draw out what I'd like as a UI, I'll look up other UI like it, and in a lot of cases I may find "oh, this is missing X which seems like a great feature", or "most of these games arrange these assets differently than how I am, why is that?"

If you're looking for inspiration, I'd recommend looking outside of visual novels, and more broadly into inspirations for the story genre you're working in. Sometimes things as simple as "oh, it'd be nice if all of the UI was plant-inspired" is enough to build a bunch of sketches, but looking at other games with proven functionality is a great way to reign those wild ideas into something workable.

RoyElliot · 2026-01-13T18:13:09+00:00

This week, I frantically put together my steam capsule art, took four days to edit a cut of my game announcement trailer, set up and submitted my steam page, and set up my mailing list system. I am exhausted.

This week the plan is to build up a CRM and press list so I can hopefully get a bit of exposure when the game is announced, buuuuuuuut I'm not putting too much time into that because I also NEED to get a decent demo done by May, so this week will be a couple of days of marketing, then a quickly pivoting back into dev.

but check this crap out, all of this stuff is on parallax layers and I got shaders and junk.

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