{"id":4475,"date":"2023-12-01T08:50:33","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T07:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/?p=4475"},"modified":"2023-12-01T08:50:34","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T07:50:34","slug":"plan-for-the-next-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/2023\/12\/plan-for-the-next-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Plan for the next years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Recently I tweeted about the challenges of making pure visual novels and I want to share more insights on this topic. Let me be honest: pure visual novels are one of the easiest types of games to make, as long as you have access to a good artist (or you are one) and a good writer (or you can write well!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Indies! Explore the world like Dolores; don’t just churn out games continuously!<\/em> \ud83d\ude09<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the time of writing this post, there are almost 9000 (yes you read it well) games with the “Visual Novel” tag on Steam…!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The art and the writing are the main components of a visual novel. Once you have them, you have done most of the work. Music is also important, but\u2026 unfortunately for musicians (this is not just my opinion) it is easier to find good music and it is not as crucial as art (which attracts people to your game page) and writing (which determines the quality of your story). Having good music is like a bonus, but I never heard “I’m going to buy that visual novels only <\/em>because I like the music”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, there are some visual novels that sell well on Steam. But usually, they are made by people who already have a fanbase (either in the gaming industry or elsewhere), or they make adult games (which have a higher demand than normal visual novels) or they get lucky on Steam (but that’s very rare nowadays).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what happens now?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As a full-time indie developer, I want to keep making games until I retire. So I\u2019m planning to move to Bali and cut my living expenses by two-thirds\u2026 haha just joking (but I would love to go there someday!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seriously though, I\u2019m going to experiment with different things. I\u2019ll still make the usual visual novels because I still think that releasing only one big game a year is not a good strategy. But I\u2019ll also try to mix some gameplay elements with the visual novel format. Not only RPGs, but other genres as well. A good example is the adventure gameplay and minigames I’m adding to House of Chavez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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the “rotate tiles” minigame. A friend commented saying that looks like a complex Captcha LOL!<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In summary, my goal in the next years will be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n