Why a Visual Novel? (or The Evolution of Pseudomé Studio)
Our Journey through Visual Storytelling
Growing up as a kid who loved Saturday morning cartoons, I’ve always been interested in animation. As I got older, I ultimately found myself getting into Anime, since it didn’t have that “just for kids” stigma that cartoons in the U.S. are typically saddled with, and I was able to find characters and storylines that were targeted towards an older audience. There’s just something about the entire package of animation that drew me to it over other forms of media; the abstraction of drawings help us suspend disbelief with characters and situations that would seem ludicrous in live action, and the combination of art, color, motion and music that can make it all very compelling when it’s done right.
My creative side has always been fueled by a bit of a, “I want to do that, too!” kind of inspiration (regrettably leading me to create some work that’s more derivative than I’d care to admit), so, at some point in college, my associate and I founded Pseudomé Studio for an experiment in creating our very own pseudo-anime.
Animation
The three-year project that followed was a fantastic learning experience. It taught us both a lot about art, writing, direction, pacing, etc. Some of the best and worst aspects of working on it was the collaboration between us, the actors and composers; sometimes fueling our inspiration, and bringing the project to a level we couldn’t have attained on our own, while other times putting us into binds when our collaborators lost interest, dropped out, or didn’t work to their full potential.
While I could easily drone on forever about our experiences on this project, for the purpose of this post, I’m going to focus on one very important aspect that we learned: With only a couple of people involved, we discovered that animation is a very inefficient form of storytelling.
Indeed, after about three years of working in our spare time, we had only produced about eighteen minutes of animation, and barely scratched the surface of the story we wanted to tell. While we knew that, as an experiment in our free time at college, we likely wouldn’t be producing more than one film, we were both rather disappointed in just how little of the script we were able to get through.
Comics
Partially as a way of promoting our work in animation by providing regular updates to our website, we had been working on a webcomic on the side. I had first discovered manga by coming across Ghost in the Shell, and, intrigued by how much it felt like reading the storyboards for the film, thought it might be an interesting avenue for us to explore. At first, a bi-weekly comic seemed like an easy enough way to try it out.
While manga dropped much of what I liked about animation―color, motion, sound, music, acting―it still retained a lot of what was really important. Furthermore, it required a lot less in the way of resources in order to make, so, when provided with the opportunity to turn our webcomic into a graphic novel series, we jumped at the chance.
Three more years and another big learning experience followed. Sure enough, graphic novels proved to be a far more efficient form of visual storytelling than animation, allowing us get a lot more through to our audience with roughly the same amount of time and effort (though, given the comedic nature of the series, there was never really a lot of actual story there to tell). By the end, however, we realized that, over the course of three books, we’d only covered about ninety pages of script. As fans of epic stories with evolving characters (the kinds better suited to a TV series than a movie), we came to the realization that telling such a story in graphic novel form would require a significant portion of our lifetimes to accomplish.
And, Finally, Visual Novels
Since our interest in anime was one of the driving forces in our desire to create, I started looking into more of the source material anime was derived from. While a few were created as anime to begin with, many shows were originally based on manga series, very similar to the kind of graphic novels we were creating.
There were also a few that were adaptations of Japanese light novels. I wasn’t very familiar with these, but it seems that they were just series of short novels with a handful of manga-style illustrations inserted throughout. This was certainly something we’d be able to reproduce fairly easily, but, on one hand, most of our writing experience thus far was limited to character dialogue, and, on the other hand, light novels were so far removed from the kind of visual storytelling we were interested in that neither of us were terribly enthusiastic about the idea.
The other source material for anime that I’d seen mentioned occasionally were visual novels. While I didn’t find much that interested me in visual novels by way of content, the medium itself appeared to have quite a bit of potential.
Whereas comics focus on a lot of artwork and fairly minimal text, visual novels skew in the other direction; lots of text, with only some key pieces of art. Not limited to being something that the reader would look at for under five seconds before turning the page, most of the character and background art is reusable, with a stronger focus on quality over quantity. Furthermore, visual novels bring back some of the aspects I’d been missing from animation (such as music and, optionally, voice acting).
It has other interesting virtues as well. The audience can simply be shown something that might be difficult to describe with text, but by not showing everything, it could also tap into the ability of a novel to use the reader’s imagination to fill in the blanks.
They’re also fairly unique in the way they can incorporate interactivity. Since visual novels can allow the story to branch―much like the Choose Your Own Adventure books of old―we can now explore a number of “what if” scenarios that would end up on the cutting room floor, otherwise. This presents one of the few instances where, as authors, we can delve into things like the real consequences should our heroes fail at whatever they’re trying to accomplish, without having to cheapen the story by having them awaken to discover that it was all a dream, or fly around the Earth so fast that time inexplicably reverses…somehow. While the current incarnation of Errant Heart may not use this aspect of visual novels much, it’s still something I’d really like to play around with more in a future project.
Conclusion
Like the projects before it, Errant Heart has been a big learning experience for us. With a word count upwards of 100,000, we’ve found that, yes, this format does allow us to tell a lot more story than anything we’ve tried previously. It’s also come with a number of its own challenges. One of the biggest, unfortunately, may be finding an audience.
Visual novels are still a small niche product, but with tablets on the rise as media consumption device, and independent games and projects rising in popularity of late, I’m hoping we might find a way to reach people with it…and hopefully have enough success with it to be able to further explore the medium.
What is Errant Heart?
Well, put simply, Errant Heart is a Visual Novel. It’s being constructed with Ren’Py, which is a very flexible program designed to help creators make their own Visual Novel game. If you’d like to read a synopsis of the story and of character bios, as well as get a chance to glance over some artwork and screen shots, then please continue reading.
PREAMBLE:
In ancient times, Gods and Demons dwelled among man. But as mankind developed and his power grew, the influence of the Gods slowly receded. One culture—the first great civilization of humanity—chronicled the exploits of the Gods during their waning time among man.
The ancient Egyptian civilization knew of the Gods. They also knew of men who walked with the Gods. Men who were not men. These were the Servants of the Gods—and of Demons. It was these Servants who were charged with the protection of the order and tranquility first divined by the Gods. Yet, despite the rise and fall of the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans and countless other civilizations, these Servants, these men who are not men, walk among us still, vying to keep order intact and keep the forces of chaos at bay.
STORY:
Lira Moretti, a shy, young artist from a small island in the Mediterranean makes her way to the mainland city of San Moritz in pursuit of her career as a painter. There she encounters peculiar people whom she never before thought could exist, nor would she befriend.
As Lira spends more time in San Moritz, it becomes evident that she’s being pulled into a world that she can scarcely comprehend, much less desires to be a part of. However, her developing friendships will help make her become a better person and prepare her to meet the ultimate destiny that awaits her.
PRIMARY CHARACTERS:
Rather than a temperamental, bombastic creative figure, Lira is a shy, demure, introverted artist who is unsure of her talent. She’s a very private person—preferring to keep her thoughts and feelings to herself whenever possible. Typically, only her paintings allow her inner self to show through.
Being such a reserved introvert, dropping her mask and confiding her thoughts in others is truly a special privilege bestowed on only the closest family and friends.
When faced with the challenge of stepping into the world of Gods and Demons, only her developing relationships will help prepare her for the life that fate has bestowed upon her.
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Lira’s younger sister, Priscilla is almost her polar opposite. A talkative, social butterfly, Priss cultivates relationships with myriad people and has developed an information network that is quite impressive given her age. She talks to anyone who looks the slightest bit interested, about any topic under the sun. A truly gregarious young woman, she’s also a talented violinist at the age of 16.
Apparently more excited about Lira’s trip to San Moritz than Lira, she pines to follow in her sister’s footsteps. The prospect of moving from such a small, isolated island to a large city, filled with diverse people excites her to no end, and hopes dearly to move to the big city once she graduates high school.
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A fourth cousin to Reme Girard, Karl works as an assistant in a veterinary hospital in San Moritz. As luck would have it, Karl was visiting Reme for his graduation celebration and is returning to the city at the same time as Lira is moving there herself. Being a very handsome young man, this makes him a very intimidating person to Lira and someone whom she would prefer to avoid.
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An archeologist from San Moritz, Cassandra met a local girl—Salima—at her latest expedition. Because of Salima’s assistance, she managed to make a number of spectacular finds. Finds, not just in regards to artifacts, but also in regards to herself and her own latent abilities.
After tragedy befalls her expedition, Cassandra takes Salima and what remains of her finds back to San Moritz. There, she tries to determine the cause of the tragedy. But misfortune has followed her back to the city and threatens to snuff out her and Salima.
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A young Egyptian girl who befriended Cassandra during her latest expedition. Her parents, having died a few years ago, lives with her uncle in her home village. Wanting more out of life than existing as virtual chattel, she takes an interest in the newly arrived archeological expedition by the Europeans.
Despite the need for strong, male backs, Salima catches the eye of one of the expedition members; Cassandra. Or rather, Cassandra catches Salima pilfering some of her findings. Rather than an antagonistic response, Cassandra finds the young girl intriguing. With her help, Cassandra makes a number of discoveries in the area. She also learns about the wider world, of which Salima is a part.
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Mrs. Hinze’s granddaughter, Elena is a stern, stand-off-ish woman. She appears to have a single-minded tenacity. And that tenacity is directed at making certain the boarding house runs smoothly and that her grandmother is not troubled by any of the tenants.
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Noel manages Flower Shop Melchior and is something of an enigma. A large and aggressive-looking woman, her mannerisms and dress belie a desire to appear more dainty and feminine than she really is. A long-time friend of Eva, the two have an unusual relationship. Eva works for her at the flower shop, and is typically admonished on a daily basis for sleeping or otherwise slacking. Yet, at times, Noel almost behaves subservient to her. It’s unknown just how deeply their relationship goes and what path their affection for one another travels.
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Eva is quite the socialite. She’s a supremely confident individual who has a passion for antiquities. She has a hand in a number of prominent associations and charities around the city. And yet, she works the register at a flower shop as part of her day job.
She takes an immediate and somewhat unsettling interest in Lira the moment she shows up at the shop. Over time, she positions herself in such a way as to be there with a job offer at precisely the moment when Lira is in need of funds. And yet, for some reason, despite all the apparent planning and plotting, she doesn’t seem to care if her obviousness is exposed.
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SECONDARY CHARACTERS:
The mother of Lira and Priscilla. She’s raising her two girls on her own, as her husband died a number of years ago. She struggled quite a bit to make ends meet shortly after his death. However, she has gained some notoriety—some would say infamy—by becoming an illustrator for a popular “Gentleman’s Magazine”. By securing work with such a widely distributed publication, she’s been able to afford her girls a very comfortable life, and give them both a chance to strike out on their own.
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A talented young woman from San Moritz. Nina attends one of the schools near Mrs. Hinze’s boarding house. However, her talent doesn’t lie in academia. Rather, she’s very mechanically inclined—an unusual, and rarely encouraged skill for a woman in this time period.
Her father secured her a job at a local auto shop. However, the owner has no intention of letting someone so young, let alone a woman, actually take part in the tasks of repairing automobiles. Frustrated at having been relegated to custodial work, Mrs. Hinze gives her a chance to shine by becoming the boarding house’s “manager”. With that position, she has the opportunity to fix whatever might break or fail in the house.
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Reme is Lira’s childhood friend. Their homes are next to each other. And being from such a small island, they were classmates ever since they began attending school. Over the years, their relationship deepened. However, there’s some ambiguity over whether that relationship veered more towards a platonic, almost familial role, or whether they “experimented” with one another in a romantic way.
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The landlady of the boarding house in San Moritz in which Lira resides. She’s a kindly old lady, who apparently doesn’t speak a word of English. She primarily relies on her granddaughter, Elena, to impart her desires to the boarders.
She’s apparently a long-time friend of Eva Klein, and insists that someone always picks up a fresh bouquet of roses from her flower shop every Tuesday.
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IN-GAME SCREEN SHOTS:
The Kamehameha Effect
Some random observations I’ve recently identified in regards to working on a Visual Novel project…
Having worked with 3D modeling and animation in the past, Visual Novels seem very similar in the effort required up front, and the reusability of the art resources. But the most interesting aspect that I’ve found is the Kamehameha Effect.
As far as effort is concerned – Oy! It seems like such a long, difficult, never-ending process. But I suspect that completion for resources will proceed in a logarithmic fashion. So it’ll seem like very little progress is being made for a long time. And then all of a sudden, without warning, everything will be done. Oh, I’m waiting for that day.?
As far as reusability is concerned, it’s definitely a nice change of pace from doing comics. With sequential art, one really can’t reuse anything one draws. Oh sure, one might occasionally be able to swipe a panel here or there from some random, previously finished page. And there are instances where a panel needs to be repeated (usually for comedic effect). But those are rare instances that are far and few between.
But the best part of working on Visual Novels? The fact that one can concentrate one’s efforts onto such a small set of resources. Or as I like to call it: The Kamehameha Effect.
Basically, with sequential art, one has to be fast – damn fast. The pages have to be churned out as fast as one can physically stand (sometimes, beyond). Consequently, quality is usually not a high priority. So, while sequential art may highlight a person’s absolute speed and reliability, it doesn’t necessarily give one a chance to shine, as far as quality is concerned. And that’s something I’ve sorely missed over the years – the chance to concentrate and obsess over a “small” set of artistic resources.
Although, this process does highlight the fact that most of my skills are based around speed. I sometimes find myself at a loss when I need to add in gobs of detail on something. But hey – just like most things, I’m sure it’ll come in time. Maybe. Hopefully…