Fake story: a new experience and mistakes

Hello, Habr! In this article I will talk about the results of publishing a visual novel and tells of a second, the development of which I have tried to learn from the experience...
Before intensive development of small game (aka hackathon), it is important to decide what you want to program, to have fun, or create a finished product? I have a friend who really wants to make a game, but over and over again he begins with the creation of graphics engine, based on libgdx. Perhaps this path leads to masterpieces like {$TitleCoolIndieGame}. In my opinion, he just wants to Oprogramowanie. So, Reader, if You really want to make the game better not to start from absolute zero or read this article, and to start concrete work! Moreover, under the cut is not success story, and the coordination of the layout of half naked girls, vacuum muffins in horse crazy translation work of dubious humor and even more dubious references, description crazy solo development, but a little programming to fit the theme.
Under the cut a dozen megabytes of graphics and more than ten pages of text.


In the meantime, we are still under the beautiful girl from the promo pictures, I thank Lertmind, veshurik, lain8dono, PapaBubaDiop, jehy, kekekeks, SamVimes and everyone else who gave me their time, providing advice, criticism and comments. (Except the guy who called me a student in the public Habr) by the Way, you still have a chance to read serious material MrNixon on the development of a kinetic novel, not my race.

As promised, I will first tell you about the results of the last run of the game. Read about it the link.

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Results of running the simulator Chan

In my estimation, hundreds of installations per day past the limit for a game, but the game started better than I expected!

Apparently, the impact that I left a link to the game in many groups of VC and websites...
At first I focused only on the public about the development of games and visual novels. Then added to the list of anime community groups about indie development. But the surprise for me was the fact that after the “slipping” of published posts (published approximately every fifteenth record; all want money for “advertising”) is the main source of traffic was organic market!

However, it's played a joke on me. Invite me audience (men between the ages 20-40 years) were “prepared” for an unexpected outcome and was assessed a game on 4.8: in the description for the link, I always pointed out that this application is a joke and a prank. The app description in the market lacked this nuance... Organic traffic (women aged 16-20 years) lowered the rating to 3.5. Especially, acutely ill endings reacted to foreign users. In their understanding, this would be justified only if there is a hidden good ending, which I was not. Low percentage of "organic" installations only confirms my suspicions.
But, you know, all this pales compared to the fact that foreign YouTube blogger recorded a walkthrough of my game. And left a pretty good review! This is really cool... I saw that people had fun: I was able to convey emotions!

Factoreries

And yet Google blocked the game due to achievements with the maid, hands covering his chest in the screenshot. And then apologized for unban, but the breast is removed has asked.
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the Plot

The game consistently brought in 2-3 muffins a day. This is quite enough, I think about the development of another novel. Need to prove I'm not sexist! And how to make it better than creating a game about a strong, but naive heroine? Moreover, organic traffic obviously would be happy Otome (visual novel with flirting for girls) in Russian. But what is the Fake story, if it's a normal Dating SIM for girls? It was necessary to identify a fake element, and to choose this setting and to outline the plot... I saw the passage of more than one dozen Otome on Youtube, almost permanently killing your a list of recommended videos, but decided on the plot: monsters. Vampires, werewolves and other creatures that should inspire the representatives of the human race! But in my game the monsters are monsters: they will eat the heroine. In some sense it's even an educational element: there is nothing to stir up novels with those who might try to eat you. Left to figure out how to combine such different characters under one story, but the answer was already around me. A place that unites amarantus, Chinese, Belarusians and Kazakhs; the hostel!
Roll the credits... Before you is the story of the game's development “Fake story: Hellish Dorm”.

Factoreries

Most popular girl became a “Sister.” Second place was taken by the Maid, and the third divided Yandere and Tsundere. An interesting coincidence was that the breast size of a character was directly proportional to its popularity.

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Introduction

Of course, for development, I once again chose the usual Unity3D instead of RenPy, which is a kind of standard in the field. Use your own engine for the game with a couple of phrases were quite justified, but this time I wanted to add more action to the denouement. And wrong choice of architecture even within the small game generated a variety of errors. Fortunately, Lertmind told me about Fungus — framework contains many tools for creating visual novels. At first I was hesitant: after all, I had a great desire to write code, and Fungus seemed very casual. However, stifling my pride, I have studied the documentation and have not regretted: it contained everything I wanted. The only drawback was the lack of a built-in serialization system to save/load. (promised in new versions) Test it on cats, I began developing a new Fake Stories.

Factoreries

Analysis of feedback from foreign users showed me that female logic is international, and I raised a topical issue in many countries.

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Concept

“Lion king 1” was in the plot outline of hamlet; “the lion King 2” took the story of Romeo and Juliet; “the lion King: the Lion Squad” is this some kind of superhero story. To me, Disney is far, therefore, the plot of my story was “little Red riding Hood”. Young (but of age) the girl has a beloved grandma pies. She carries them through the dark forest late at night (because everyone loves to eat after six) in bright red shoes. (not to be ashamed in front of the search engines) that my creative genius has ended and followed by Deus ex Machina writer — bummer: eagles “unknown magic fighting” brings the character into the main scene.

To describe the current disposition in the game include the character “the commandant of the Hostel,” she has several endings (including a secret) and at the same time through it is selection of men's character.

The conversation with the male character I made is pretty obvious: the monster shows his true character and the player is given a choice: attempt to tame the monster or escape. Any attempt of domestication of course fails, and the escape leads to a small scuffle.

After the battle the player must choose the way to escape. I also decided not to philosophize: jump out the window or escape through the exit. Escape through the window will repeatedly lead to death: the girl is not strong enough to take it out and eat it. By the way, has a window and is one of the secret endings: if in a few passages to try to break it, in the end, the attempt will be successful. I'll give a hint.
Well, escape through the entrance will lead to a good ending: the commander sees running through the territory of the girl and sends her home.

Factoreries

Originally I wanted to give the girl the name of one of the characters The Path, but then decided that it's overkill to do a reference to such a fantastic game in my treshachok. A little, on reflection I named her in honour of the Princess Sissi, and the hostel was called the name of her ancestral castle.

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the Plot

In a slightly failed podcast about developing visual novels, said that the writer should rather be a playwright than a writer. I fully agree with this point of view.
For the development of the plot, I used Google Docs. In moments of inspiration, I described the key scenes: the dialogue and the dispositions of characters, and then drawing them into the game engine, connecting filemime transitions. Despite the fact that in estradno-dance Institute don't teach writing, I know how to pour.


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Additional mechanics

From the very beginning, I would like to add something in addition to selecting the answer. This "something" was protecting from the monster made in the style of clicking fighting game.
The mechanics of the fight clicking I was inspired by Sakura Clicker.

Factoreries

In General, this is a game I did while artists drew the graphics for my version of the game. (clicker) I wanted to make a massive adventure in the dungeons and fights with the girls-monsters themselves... And then Sakura took it and announced a complete copy my ideas! Not cool in General (

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costume Design

In Google Play screenshots must be appropriate for the age rating of 3+. Indeed, children weaned from the breast and to see them now simply taboo.
I'm making a game with obvious fan-servicom (etty/softcore software) and this causes problems with outfits. After multiple locks on censorship for me was a sick place and I'm very paranoid in some areas. For example, here's the original sketch of the costume of the Mistress of the Commandant.

Although the suit and closed, but opened buttock and it may seem that your ass is entirely exposed. In the end, using Paint I created costume design that passes my inner censor! The final look of the character can be seen below.

In addition to changing basic elements was added a badge as an element of uniform.

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Summary

There is such a thing as “summary”. It is a process in which all the characters are placed on one large canvas to compare proportions and style. The earlier this process occurs, the less likely that a dwarf in the game will be more of a giant. I thought about this and asked the artist to monitor the size of the characters; she followed. Moreover, also the background was scaled relative to them. Only here...

I'm on my impatience embedded in the demo version not sketches major versions of the sent documents, and cut out characters directly from the screenshots the graphics editor. This led to the fact that the size of characters with whom I tested the game turned out to be a half to two times the size of the characters prepared by the artist.

This has led to the fact that in some places, the elements of the interface covered by an important elements of the characters. Interface I moved, but the scale of the backgrounds flew to Tartary as were located taking into account the different relations of permissions and didn't correspond with the scale of the characters...
His contribution made and the demon that is due in excess of the long horns were asked the proportions of growth of all the other characters. Damn complexes about the size of the horns! Had to cut the guy's legs and the front horns to achieve an acceptable scale, but alas, his head still seems too small.

The scale of the backgrounds were saved by the fact that the artist asked me why this is the highest character does not occupy all the space in height. And really, why? This was due to the Fungus mechanics: for graphics it uses Unity UI. The images of the characters have activated the option to maintain the aspect ratio. But since the width was smaller than the height, the picture was compressed. Increasing the width allotted for the character, I achieved the desired result.


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Locations

Of course, the scale I have is not very large: I treated five locations: dark forest, hall dormitories, the boys ' rooms. For some diversity has been added to the sprites of the Windows and doors.
The room of the werewolf shows that he is such a great dog who loves his parents and does not shun human flesh.

In the abode of the vampire of course there is a coffin, laid by blood and a plush bat.
The demon still littered with books and the room in General working disorder reigns. So it wasn't all boring, he has a candle, which generates the smoke with magic style, teleportation.

But of course, the devil is in the details: whether it's a plush bat, the foot in the bowl or floor lamp in the shape of a skull... in addition, it is important to choose such colors that the locations were clearly visible, all the characters that can appear.

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name

Of course, with the first part of the name matters not; it's “Fake novel”. But what is the name? It would be intriguing to use a slang and not to scare the guys; and of course, a little bit to describe the game itself.
I decided to focus on the scene: Dorm demons. Initially I stopped at the “Demon Community”. But this name was too long and insufficiently expressive. In the end, I settled on “the Fake story: Hellish Dorm”; well, in the translation of “a Fake Novel: Infernal Dormitory”. Although I very long thought not to cut Lee "Dormitory" to "Dorm" to make it more slang, but decided to stay on full form.

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Design description

The description should contain a maximum of keywords (but not banned) and a little description. Why a little? Because most users (not to be confused with users) descriptions are not read.
Let's look at the description of the game that I made:

I noticed red Bulletin you know what. Orange tagged meme: what's that without the meme? In blue I marked the plot and features of the game, and the green-marked keywords.
In General, try to cram maximum functionality in a minimum of text.

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Localization

I think this is the most ambitious work for me in terms of translation is a bunch of stupid jokes, references, and even descriptive names. Scary to think what would happen if I did a full novel on a thousand words...
Due to the fact that Alconost still does not accept muffins as the primary means of payment, I was asked to help translate to English his friend, and featuring your favorite company resorted to only in difficult cases like the adaptation of names. Who likes the translation? It is enough to see one video to grasp the extent of the problem...


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English Translation

The first difficult point was the translation of the phrase “And traveled and pie saved!”. It was necessary to convey subtle rustic humor and cater to the ban Google Play... Thanks to the help of the hall when translated into English the pie turned into a cherry, but despite such an innocent decision, I have removed this point from the final release.
It seems that with the translated name of a werewolf problem would be: choose a popular name for a dog, and be happy... But for example, a “Friend” of someone who eats human? In the end, intolerant “Friend” became active “Ball” and then neutral “Bobby,” well, the translation turned into a “Spikey”.

How could I not mention the name of the protagonist? In the Russian version it is a reference to Elizabeth of Bavaria. (Empress of Austria) So it is possible to notice the similarity of her name with some physiological characteristics. (I as the author of the concept say it's just a weird coincidence) in addition, the Bavarian Duchess specifies the name of the hostel “Possenhofen Castle”. (her ancestral castle) translated version and begs Sissy, slang description psycho heroine!
A huge amount of blood drank translation handling “the Mistress”. The fact that the original version was two ladies: Mrs. Commandant (referring to dominatrix) and “Lady sissy” — an appeal Atasusky to GG. When translating this led to ambiguity. The article on Wikipedia stated that to save a questionable reference for the transfer of the status of the Commandant is necessary to use the term “Mistress”. But English was not agree...
When "Ms." is an influential citizen, or the lady of the house/office/dog kennels is a "miss" if unmarried and "missis/mrs" if married (or have been).
When "lady" is someone's mistress is "mistress". So when Asadauskas refers to GG he can call her just "mistress". But the commandant is suitable both for the treatment. Process of elimination says that the commandant should be a "miss", but then lost the reference. Unfortunately, this problem has not been solved... In the English version there are two “mistress”. In the Russian text he has become a “Mistress”, although this word did not really fit in the story, but was the best analogy.

Ahead, there were references to Harry Potter, Zeropolis, Gravity falls, and even Louis de Pont du Lacu. Due to the fact that the translator was taken from other cultural contexts (Camus, Lovecraft, David Bowie...) strings with the same content were supplied with small notes and links on various Wiki. Fortunately, the csv schema Fungus by default has a field for notes.

Factoreries

You know how dogs bark in English? To know the truth, just ask Google!

Seriously, sometimes the simple requests are very helpful to choose a phrase for translation.

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Spanish Translation

Spanish is the third language on the Internet and at the same time one of the "cheapest" among ningsih. But the translation of it I decided to do more because I have the "similar" hanging Spanish visual novel with ten thousands of installations. I'm impulsive... by the Way, there is a Spanish (Mexico) but we are talking about Spanish (Spain).
When translated into Spanish it is worth remembering that the language provides a kind of punctuation marks and non-Latin characters. It is important to make sure that the font supports them.
With the preparation of the texts is also not so simple. For example, you should specify a context by using "You". Otherwise, it may turn out awkward.
It just so happened that I awfully know English (It is in any case not the fault of my favorite and oldest electrotechnical University in Europe) but a year at work I have to create jobs for translators. The best help I got Wikipedia: it is convenient to refer to it under certain terms. (Although there is a special Wiktionary)
Unfortunately, the Spanish Wikipedia less English. Some words I had to look at the better known context. For example, the word "Plan" is the article description English. In Spanish I need the value not transferred. But, there is a page about D&D containing the Supplement "Planescape" which contains need I term "planos de existencia".
For me it is always Che Guevara was "Comandante" and "commandant" meant purely custodians of the hostel. Only when the Spanish learned that the word "Comandante" does not exist! Cruel world.
Very big problem is that some of the references at the beautiful translation will be lost. For example the phrase "I can't rate this item" is logically translated as "I can't understand what makes this artifact". In the opinion of the interpreter, everything is OK, but lost the reference to the spell "Rating" from D&D.
I have not once written, as it is important to specify any jokes and references. Even the most obvious in your opinion... for Example, I forgot to specify the context for the word "bread" in the phrase "bread loafing". As the heroine went with a basket of pies, was chosen the word "empanadas" although my taste is more to come the word "bollos". (Do not see that it is; just take my word for it)
To be honest, I was very worried for the Spanish version. First, very long searched for a translator in thematic communities, but all attempts were in vain, and then gave up and turned into a regular group of translators. Although Eugene and was not familiar with some of the references, it is really well-tried not to miss them, and I got a cool experience with Spanish. Although the results of our work to judge players of course.

Factoreries

The word "commandant" can be translated as "pilot". So the Spaniards will play with the lady pilot...

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Audio CDs

I absolutely do not understand the music. Therefore, it would be logical to ask for help from someone who understands and even makes her own tracks: the girl, the translator, sisters or neighbors of activtrak. But what's the point to always do the right thing?
To this question I came up with the same plan as in past times; searched on opengameart the music with the emotion that wanted to pass in the tags; choosing a few options, consulted with those who understand. Was the man who offered his services as producer for music, but not developed.
It was more difficult with sound effects. I don't always competent to put your thought in Russian. what to say about English which I have an obvious problem? It's one thing when looking for a “magic teleport” and another when “male groan”. Why not just post it on freesound... Ugh.

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Web icons

From the depths of the session I was called the author of the previous icons! This time she worked not just on the verbal description, but the reference (made by me) with detailed comments.

Oh it was something! A few hours together, we made the icon of my dreams... of Course, enough intermediate sketches, but this time they were smaller.

Quite an interesting experience: I listened to a lecture about admission to graduate school and tried to understand how to fix the Breasts. (did not understand) You will notice that the characters are not very synchronized with each other and with the environment in terms of lighting and shadows, but the sharpness only a attracted look on demo page.

The icon was put into production without any changes in this dissonant.


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Promote

This time, I already have the database of public servers that have published information about the previous game. Now, they will be first in the queue to publish "announcements". In addition, I will create threads in the community dedicated to visual novels, but not limited to VC and GameDev sites.

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user experience

Page in Google Play is nice, but I wanted a little more interaction with the players. So, I decided to start a Twitter for English-speaking players and the page of VK for Russian speakers.
To drive traffic I decided to make a small website. Or something similar on the website. (Well, we all know the jokes about design from techies...) of Course, basic knowledge of composition and deployment landingon I had (thank you dear Altego) but it's definitely not my specialty. However, a couple of days I managed to collect something running on good old Wordpress. It turns out that under CMS is really easy to do themes and all issues are easy Guglielmi. I decided to do one-column page by Bootstrap; layout does not always behave perfectly, but by me.

To make the website look more fun even invented for him a little legend well, full of fun added to the stream of news from social networks. I guess I chose the longer engine and picked up the developed domain than the site itself... I Think that is familiar to many.

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Fungus

Could not help but write a little about the framework... It is very convenient in terms of interfaces and APIs, but unfortunately, the implementation is lame. Window Flowchart kills I have all the RAM for a few hours work; accelerated the movement of the characters works inadequately (streaking); the normal displacement works through alpha...

This project got me thinking about designing your own bike or customization "Fungus" for my needs at a more sophisticated level than the development of custom commands.
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[CommandInfo("Social", "Achievement Report", "Full open Achievement")]
public class ReportAchievement : Command
{
public string Achievement_ID;

public void override the onenter()
{
if (Achievement_ID != null) { 
OpenAchievement();
}
Continue();
}

public void OpenAchievement()
{
AchievementsController ac = AchievementsController.GetInstance();
ac.AddAchievement(Achievement_ID);
}
}

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PostScript

Well, that ended my next article. I had fun releasing the game and relaxed, writing this material. I hope that I was able to show that any game is a lot of work.
Ahead of me waiting for replies to inappropriate feedback, calculation of losses... But most importantly, I can better understand the result of the popularity of (above average) last novel. I'm not sure that was the main source of traffic, “a visual novel in Russian” or “SIM girls”...
Thank you, I appreciate you taking the time. I will be glad to answer any of your comments. I hope that my publication did not offend the presence of a few questionable humor. Moreover, I'm afraid I've lost your style in comparison with the previous material, and in some sense "used up".

P. S. All graduates with diplomas and certificates!
P. P. S. Imagine, this time the game was in the market for the first time!

Article based on information from habrahabr.ru