Gr. 12 Culminating Project

Ideas

Shimeji - A computer program that creates animated characters who walk and crawl along the sides the monitor, perform a set number of animations, and multiply.

Visual Novel with sample route - A visual novel is an interactive game genre, which originated in Japan, featuring text-based story with narrative style of literature and interactivity aided by static or sprite-based visuals, most often using anime-style art or occasionally live-action stills (and sometimes video footage).

Other Research

Ren'Py

Ren'Py is a visual novel engine – used by thousands of creators from around the world – that helps you use words, images, and sounds to tell interactive stories that run on computers and mobile devices. These can be both visual novels and life simulation games. The easy to learn script language allows anyone to efficiently write large visual novels, while its Python scripting is enough for complex simulation games.

Need to download the program for the school computer.

I may have to learn some Python for the game, but plan to keep the sample route simple.

Ren'Py includes a quickstart guide (https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/quickstart.html), and a comprehensive, and complete guide of the full program. (https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/)

Python

Many videos, and websites online to learn Python.

Artist Research

Team Salvato

Team Salvato, (consisting of Dan Salvato, Satchely, and Velinquent) is a team that has made one visual novel, the psychological horror hit, Doki Doki Literature Club! Doki Doki Literature Club was the first main stream visual novel to break conventions of the genre, and show how Ren'py (the visual novel making software it was made on) can be broken in interesting, and sometimes terrifying ways. There have been horror visual novel, and even dating sims before, but I've never seen one that reaches out the player themself as the game breaks more, and more.The way Doki Doki Literature Club breaks typical conventions for the visual novel genre is inspiring, and something I want to take into my own work with this culminating project. It has an interesting, and compelling narrative, and makes full use of all of it's resources in the program it was made it. It shows how much Ren'py has to offer as a game making program.Seeing such a professional looking game be made in a free to use program is inspiring to make my own professional looking product. The game is also able to react to files in the game being deleted while the game is open, recover said files after being deleted, and also disable saving in the game under certain circumstances, to just name a few of the ways Doki Doki Literature Club messes with the player, and feels like more than a game. I hope to learn enough coding, and use my previous coding knowledge to push Ren'py to it's limits when making this game.

Screenshot from Doki Doki Literature Club!

Nami NomNomNami

Nami, or 'NomNomNami' is a 25 year old indie game developer. Her game library includes 15 games currently, from visual novels, to role-playing games, kinetic novels (a linear type of visual novels where there are no narrative, or game-play choices), and a flash dress up game. She self identities as a 'girl who makes games about girls liking girls', and currently works as a senior cleanup artist at Lab Zero games.All of her current games are short experiences you can play in one sitting, and feature a cute, and often simplified art style. Don't let the simple style fool you, her games aren't simple, and have a lot of polish, and flare in the finished products. Many of her longer visual novels feature multiple endings, requiring multiple playthroughs to get the full experience of the game. I aspire to create a product that seems simple at first, but turns out to be more complex, and filled to the brim with easter eggs, and other hidden fun things. It's inspiring to see one person create wonderful, and expansive games all by themself.The simple, chibi art style is one I plan to incorporate in my own visual novel game. I want to use a simpler version of my style to create a traditional 'anime' aesthetic, and characters. Some of her games also have small, interactive 'minigames' where you select parts of the background to find something. I hope to do something similar to that, and have more interactive elements to the game than just text choices.

Screenshot from Romance Detective

Screenshot from Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet

Final Plan

Sample Route

The protagonist is running late to school. They have a mysterious encounter with a mysterious person.

Script

LYDIA: "Oh no! I'm running late for school again, ahh--"

You run out of your house so fast you almost forget to shut the door behind you. The call of your mother wishing you to have a good day is lost behind you as you rush off to school. Half-finished toast hangs from your mouth as you run. You slow down briefly to mow down the rest of your food, and adjust the bag in your hand before speeding up again.

LYDIA: "My first period teacher is really going to kill me this time--"

*CRASH*

You topple over, your bag flying out of your hands. It takes you a second to realize what happened. You're not hurt, you think, as you look around. Your bag is in front of you, while a person sits behind you, rubbing their head.

LYDIA: "OH--!"

You jump up, ready to apologize. The thought of being late to school again crosses your mind. You almost couldn't take the look of disappointment on your first period's teacher face last time you were late. She warned you your grade would suffer the next time you were late. You fidget slightly, unsure what to do.

CHOICE 1:
RUSH TO SCHOOL [1.1]
MAKE SURE THE PERSON IS OKAY [1.2]

1.1:
You really don't want your grade to suffer. You apologize to the person quickly, grab your bag, and run off to school. You arrive with 5 minutes to spare, and feel guilty for not taking the time to check on the person you ran into.

FRIEND: "Just on time, Lydia!"

Your friend patting you on the back interrupts your thoughts, and you perk up. You chat with her as you two walk to your shared first period. Hopefully you'd run into the person again so you could apologize. You don't, and they slip from your mind.

NEUTRAL END

1.2:
This person's well-being is more important than your grade. You're sure your teacher would understand if you explained the situation, and just checking on this person shouldn't take too long.

LYDIA: "I am so sorry, are you okay?"

You approach the person, and kneel down next to them. You get the first real look at them since you crashed into them. The first thing you notice is how tall they are. Even sitting on the ground, they almost reach your eye level. They look back with dark brown eyes.

Person: "Yeah

[SAMPLE OF SCRIPT]

bg street /bg school /bg outscene ice cream store [get rid of]bg inside ice cream store /cg toast runcg fallcg hand pullcg cookie doughcg strawberry55 / 2 = 2.5 / 3

Characters

Protagonist- Default name is Lydia. Renameable. A 18 year old nearing the end of highschool. Short dark blonde hair. Wears a school underform? Extroverted, wants to help people, and make sure everyone is okay. Drawn in by the unknown.

Protagonist's friend- Minor character that only appears if you end up going to school. Unnamed, no set personality needed.

Mysterious person- Tall. Makes a lot of jokes. Isn't forth coming about information about themself. Long hair tied back into a bun with braids going into it.

Setting/Backgrounds

Outside protagonist's house

Street protagonist's house is on

Outside school

Park with a bench

Entrance to the woods