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jack1974 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 14, 2018 12:23 pm I'm almost finished with Enok's storyline and I'm around 254k words unedited. So at this point, since there's also half of Jasper storyline and then the last act (which is shorter but still) I think a better estimate will be 270-280k words total

So just a typical Winter Wolves RPG game!

Haha no, actually this is the biggest one. Loren was 240k-something, SOTW much less (I don't remember now but even with the DLC was around 200k). Of course this has also to do the way the game is made with different plot branches in particular in the first stages depending who you recruit first. Well at least should encourage replaying it

Finished Enok and Jasper's storyline, plus added some more scenes and two of the epilogues. Since I ran that poll on twitter I want to make the endings satisfying, no matter your choices (and there are some and in particular ONE choice which will change everything in this game).
Total wordcount 267k, unedited (editing usually increases the wordcount since my writing is very simple in many cases). I still have to write all the romance epilogues, albeit they're short scenes
Definitely the biggest and most complex game I've ever done so far!!!

jack1974 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:21 am Finished Enok and Jasper's storyline, plus added some more scenes and two of the epilogues. Since I ran that poll on twitter I want to make the endings satisfying, no matter your choices (and there are some and in particular ONE choice which will change everything in this game).
Total wordcount 267k, unedited (editing usually increases the wordcount since my writing is very simple in many cases). I still have to write all the romance epilogues, albeit they're short scenes
Definitely the biggest and most complex game I've ever done so far!!!

How come the game is much longer than the others when it has just 6 LIs while Loren had 12?

jack1974 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:21 am Finished Enok and Jasper's storyline, plus added some more scenes and two of the epilogues. Since I ran that poll on twitter I want to make the endings satisfying, no matter your choices (and there are some and in particular ONE choice which will change everything in this game).
Total wordcount 267k, unedited (editing usually increases the wordcount since my writing is very simple in many cases). I still have to write all the romance epilogues, albeit they're short scenes
Definitely the biggest and most complex game I've ever done so far!!!

Also would you play a visual novel with over 750k words? I feel like mine may reach that since I have finished the recruitment missions only for half of them and I already reached 50k, but the story focuses on the characters and speaking with them is optional even if you would miss a lot of story, so I guess it probably won't be that long i have 3 acts in mind and considering that act 2 involves going through the seven levels of the underworld and the third involves destroying an entire realm you would have to read at least 300k probably, I think I aimed "a bit" too high but I also plan to make an anime with this story after I release it and also release the full story of Crystal as a mini VN or DLC, she's a very important character, she almost destroyed the world and was the mastermind behind a lot of dark things and controling nations without them knowing is a deed few are capable of.

Player00013 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:29 pm

jack1974 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:21 am Finished Enok and Jasper's storyline, plus added some more scenes and two of the epilogues. Since I ran that poll on twitter I want to make the endings satisfying, no matter your choices (and there are some and in particular ONE choice which will change everything in this game).
Total wordcount 267k, unedited (editing usually increases the wordcount since my writing is very simple in many cases). I still have to write all the romance epilogues, albeit they're short scenes
Definitely the biggest and most complex game I've ever done so far!!!

Also would you play a visual novel with over 750k words? I feel like mine may reach that since I have finished the recruitment missions only for half of them and I already reached 50k, but the story focuses on the characters and speaking with them is optional even if you would miss a lot of story, so I guess it probably won't be that long i have 3 acts in mind and considering that act 2 involves going through the seven levels of the underworld and the third involves destroying an entire realm you would have to read at least 300k probably, I think I aimed "a bit" too high but I also plan to make an anime with this story after I release it and also release the full story of Crystal as a mini VN or DLC, she's a very important character, she almost destroyed the world and was the mastermind behind a lot of dark things and controling nations without them knowing is a deed few are capable of.

When you look at word count of Japanese VNs I think you will see that people generally are ok with long VNs and there are examples of popular VNs that have around or over 750k words, Clannad for example has 734,029 words and most other Key's VNs are around the same length. The important thing is is text interesting or not, the rather short VN can feel very stretched out and too long if it has bunch of uninteresting trivial text, on the other hand a very long VN can still leave you wanting for more if it's good. Personally, if I like a VN I want it to be as long as possible.

Also not to burst your bubble, but you probably won't be able to afford making anime. Making even a half decent anime is VERY expensive, so don't count on being able to afford making anime from sales of VN, average 12 ep anime costs around $2 million to make, a very few VNs earn that much, even more so when it comes to indie devs, I mean it's not completely impossible but it's a very rare from what I know (For example, if steam spy is to be trusted even WWs biggest hit Loren only earned about half that much).

Player00013 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:19 pm

jack1974 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:21 am Finished Enok and Jasper's storyline, plus added some more scenes and two of the epilogues. Since I ran that poll on twitter I want to make the endings satisfying, no matter your choices (and there are some and in particular ONE choice which will change everything in this game).
Total wordcount 267k, unedited (editing usually increases the wordcount since my writing is very simple in many cases). I still have to write all the romance epilogues, albeit they're short scenes
Definitely the biggest and most complex game I've ever done so far!!!

How come the game is much longer than the others when it has just 6 LIs while Loren had 12?

Loren had eight. Anyway, the romances are a small chunk of the writing, far as I know.

Well first of all this game has two versions of each recruitment mission. Making an example with the dwarves: if you recruit Dasyra first, then you can go on "Galan rescue mission". On the opposite if you recruit Galan first, you'll then be able to go on Dasyra recruit mission. Each mission is unique, and some are fairly long (like 3-4k words split in different scenes).
The boss fight have more cutscenes because of the social talents. Each scene is not that big but all adds up.
So there's more replayability, also based on some big choices in the story, the endings will change, and so on.
Then in general there's more main story events beside the romances, which aren't too small in the end. I never made the calculations to be honest but I think they're at least 100k words. So they're not as big as Loren but only because Loren has more overall

Regarding length of games I don't know, but I believe that doing a game over 300k words is a bit crazy. I don't think big games are a good idea in general but because I know the production costs of sprites, CG, music, etc. I mean you can do it, but I am not sure if players like such big games. Also depends if is a pure VN, or a RPG. But personally such a big game should really capture my interest, or I wouldn't have the time to play it.

DarkWolf wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2018 2:55 am When you look at word count of Japanese VNs I think you will see that people generally are ok with long VNs and there are examples of popular VNs that have around or over 750k words, Clannad for example has 734,029 words and most other Key's VNs are around the same length. The important thing is is text interesting or not, the rather short VN can feel very stretched out and too long if it has bunch of uninteresting trivial text, on the other hand a very long VN can still leave you wanting for more if it's good. Personally, if I like a VN I want it to be as long as possible.

A lot of it also depends on the type of game. Long VNs can be okay because it's like reading a book. It's a little trickier when you add gameplay, because in most games you tend to be introduced to all the mechanics by the halfway point. So the second half can start to get pretty repetitive and grindy if the game is lengthy, unless the developer was able to find ways to keep changing it up.

Are those numbers - real wordcount - though?
I ask because Ren'Py "Lint" function give you the REAL wordcount. While I found out that often in those other games they include CODE in the wordcount, or use "wordprocessor" method: which means they include everything, even speaker names, and it adds up.
For example every line with:
Loren "I'll kill you all"
they include Loren in the wordcount. If the game has a lot of dialogues, it adds up.
And also code used to program the game. If I have to include that, for example, only Jasper.rpy file/route is over 25k words But it's not, because there's a lot of code in it as well.
As an example, a document that in word shows 500k words, once "converted" to renpy (the exact same text) shows 300k or less. So while is possible that those VN are really that long, I wouldn't be 100% sure.
I only trust Ren'Py wordcount and that's what I use too when I post the updates on CL