VN Ren'Py Game Dev Journal: Neon Nights

[Nithhogg]

Hi everyone, I have been working on a game for a while and want to start a journal for it. I'm hoping that by sharing my thoughts and updates online it will give me some accountability and satisfaction in my work.

I started working on in late 2021 and haven't really gotten too far in it. Work has kept me busy and so sometimes I struggle with motivation in developing when I have free time I have taken a few weeks off of work recently so now I thought would be my chance to put my head down and do some work. I've given myself a deadline to release a demo or at least initial prologue to the game by the time my break from work is up in order to make sure I actually do some work on my game.

The story takes place in a cyberpunk fantasy world, similar to Shadowrun. If you aren't familiar however the setting is a future dystopian world where magic and advanced technology coexist. The story is focused on a group of main characters doing odd jobs to survive and each chapter of the game will be a different job, with an overarching background narrative that ties some of the different jobs together.

I like the cyberpunk/fantasy genre meeting here because it allows for a good amount of freedom in terms of characters and missions. I have been reading a lot of cyberpunk/cyberpunk adjacent books recently and I find the themes and topics to be interesting (transhumanism, social and economic inequalities, politics, consumerism). I think the cyberpunk label is used too freely and for some people it just means "cool neon lights" and I hope my game doesn't just stick to that side of cyberpunk.

The first chapter of the game has the main characters doing a dataheist from a small company that recently got bought out. Their employer for this job has heard about a prototype the company was developing and wants the relevant files for it but needs you to go in and recover the data. I'm going to have a couple of choices in this chapter but I think they may just purely be textual and based on how you want to approach a conversation. The game is going to be linear (with choices and potentially branching story paths) rather than sandbox. I'm trying to take into account both what I want to do and what I think would appeal to other people and personally I'm not a fan of sandbox games where you have to grind for money or stats before you get to story content. It does increase the playtime but I don't think the value is worth it because it isn't really fun (for me at least).

I hope I have enough time to finish this first version of the game before my break is up. I'm trying to not let perfect be the enemy of good (or released at all haha) and I have been sitting around a lot so I want to use this thread to motivate me to get my head down and put in the work.

 

[Nithhogg]

Here are the three main characters(they are as of yet unnamed). The man is the player character/MC. He's a hacker and is the face of the group when it comes to conversations as well. Personally I like to play as a fighter character in combat heavy games but for a visual novel someone with the ability to gain information and who can talk seems like a no brainer to be the MC.

The woman on the left is a fighter who is the go to combat specialist of the group. While she isn't the smartest person in the room, she has a good intuition to make up for it. She's sincere and straightforward, usually preferring to be direct with people.

The woman in the middle is an elven mage who is (unsurprisingly) the magical expert of the group. She's socially sheltered and so sometimes doesn't pick up on cues. She can be a bit smug but also airheaded and miss the meaning of other people's words.

 

[Nithhogg]

Here are some random pictures as well! I've learned a bit of DAZ since I started working on this game but haven't actually got any pinups of the girls for this game yet so maybe I'll have to do that soon as a break from working on the game.

 

[Saint Blackmoor]

I'm not a fan of sandbox games where you have to grind for money or stats before you get to story content. It does increase the playtime, but I don't think the value is worth it because it isn't really fun (for me, at least).

Your project looks interesting. I'm not a fan of sandbox games, either.
Good luck. I'm a proofreader here on F95. If you think I can help, let me know.

 

[Nithhogg]

Your project looks interesting. I'm not a fan of sandbox games, either.
Good luck. I'm a proofreader here on F95. If you think I can help, let me know.

Thanks, I'll send you a message if I need some proofreading done!

 

[Nithhogg]

I've done some renders now for the data heist. The context for these scenes is that the mage is allowing them to magically communicate and the main character is currently in the matrix while hacking so he can actually see the others in the matrix (I'm thinking about having him be a technomancer so like a magical hacker where there is some cross functionality between the mage's spell and his spell which allows him to see this more fantastical stuff).

I'm struggling a bit with both making the matrix renders look interesting and make the mission interesting though. This mission isn't too difficult for the team to do but I don't want it to feel too easy but also I don't want to have a hacking minigame in there as I generally don't like stuff like that but maybe I will include one optionally and give the player a pinup or something if they choose to actually do the minigame but have the ability to skip it as well. Mainly I just don't want the game to be simple and just say "ok you hack in successfully and avoid the guards easily and win".

 

[Nithhogg]

I've been getting a good way through the next scenes I cut the matrix renders for now though, I feel like they didn't fit.




The actual office scenes I don't really like. I need to go back through them and fix the lighting and some poses as well. Overall it was just a bit of a pain to do the office scenes but that was mostly the lighting.


After I finish these scenes I have a couple more I want to do and then I'll put it together and play through and see how long it takes. I already have a feeling it may be shorter than I want for a first release but if that is the case I'll go back and add some more scenes and/or dialogue where needed and maybe add some side content as well before the next main "mission" in the story. I don't want to add meaningless padding however, I just want to make sure the game has a good pace and doesn't rush or drag too much.