Hello all, and welcome to the first among many soon-to-come Dev Diaries! Jack and I wish to accomplish a lot in these entries, whether it's updating all of you with progress on the game to giving a behind-the-scenes look of how we're making the game, to whatever little tidbits we feel like discussing. For future reference, due to the nature of the game, there might be entries discussing spoilers, but have no fear! Any spoiler-inducing entries will be cut behind a "Read More" link so one does not accidentally read anything they don't want to.
For my first entry, I wanted to talk about what exactly I wish to accomplish with this game. As of now, it's very vague as to what this game even IS, so let's shed some light onto what PRIZE is and what we wish to accomplish.
PRIZE is in every sense a visual novel. It mainly focuses on the protagonist Unicorn-Chan, but the other characters such as Chito and Queen HB will have their chance to shine as well. After the concept of PRIZE, I set aside a few goals I wish to obtain with the final product of the game.
1. The game is more of a visual novel, but that doesn't mean it can't have interactivity. This is a fine line to balance, as I want it to be story-driven, but I don't want the readers to be completely passive as to how the story plays out. PRIZE will at random times have key decisions as to how Unicorn-Chan will respond in a certain situation. These actions will carry on to the other acts, and will overall affect your ending. I want the reader to have some input, like a game, but without making the novel "gamey", such as requiring you to play pointless mini-games to progress.
2. The visual novel should expand the medium of choice to a higher potential. When people imagine a graphic novel or a book, in most cases, the story has a clear beginning, middle, and end all panned out by the author. I want to expand the fact that this is made in Ren'Py, and allow a multitude of scenes and possible endings. Your choices will directly affect access to these scenes or endings, making each playthough of the novel different.
3. No choice should feel "artificial". This will be difficult, but possible to accomplish. Many games that employ a multiple response system where the few answers you have are extremes to replicate the few endings these games have. Since PRIZE will have a vast amount of endings, I don't want readers to feel stuck choosing the answer that sort-of-kind-of matches their intentions, but rather have an answer they would pick thought out.
4. Speaking of endings, there are multiple ways the story can end, but I don't want to just stick various endings in arbitrary boxes labelled "good" or "bad". Like real life, every choice you make can have ups and downs. For example, making a choice involving Chito might improve your friendship with her...at the cost of upsetting Fem-Tan. Some choices will be easy to make - others might involve cutting someone down.
5. And finally, this story does involve abuse, and the goal is to paint a realistic picture of it. While on the surface the characters are goofy with animal characteristics and anime-inspired tropes, this story should have more of a purpose than that. This story will cover many different forms of abuse perpetrated by different people. I realize this may be upsetting to some, but the goal isn't to go out of its way to offend, but rather show how these relationships may form, how the characters are affected by it, and how the characters, namely Unicorn-Chan, can overcome it.
With those few pointers in mind, I hope I painted a better picture of what PRIZE will be about and what it hopes to achieve. I look forward to doing multiple dev diary entries where I take said points and explain them further in detail. Until then, folks!
-Mezzo
