Hi, Habr! In this article I will talk about the results of the publication of one visual short story and tell you about the second, in the development of which I tried to take into account the experience gained ...
Before intensive development of a small game (aka hakathon) it is important to decide what you want: to program, have fun or create a finished product? I have a friend who really wants to make a game, but time after time he starts by creating a graphic engine based on libgdx. Perhaps this path leads to masterpieces like {$ TitleCoolIndieGame}. In my opinion, he just wants to program. So, the Reader, if you really want to make a game, it is better not to start from absolute zero or read this article, but to start a specific job! Moreover, it is not a success story under the cut, but the coordination of half-naked girl mockups, vacuum muffins in a horse, crazy work on translating dubious humor and even more dubious references, describing an abnormal development solo, and a little programming to fit the subject.
Under the cat a dozen megabytes of graphics and more than ten pages of text.


In the meantime, we are still under the beautiful girl from the promotional pictures, I thank Lertmind , veshurik , lain8dono , PapaBubaDiop , jehy , kekekeks , SamVimes and all the others who gave me their time, providing practical advice, criticism and comments. (In addition to the guy who called me a schoolboy in Habra's public) By the way, you still have a chance to read the serious material MrNixon about the development of a kinetic novel , and not my fuss.

As promised, first I will talk about the results of the launch of the last game. You can read about it on the link .
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Run Simulator Tian Results

In my opinion, hundreds of installations per day is the last limit for such a game, but the game started better than I expected!

Apparently, the fact that I left a link to the game in many VC groups and sites ...
At first, I was guided only by the public about game development and visual novels. Then added to the list of anime community and groups about indie development. But the surprise for me was that after the “slipping” of published posts (they published about every fifteenth post; everyone wants money for “advertising”), the main source of traffic was the market's organics!

However, this also played a joke on me. The audience I invited (men aged 20–40) was “prepared” for an unexpected denouement and evaluated the game at 4.8: I indicated everywhere in the description of the link that this application was a joke and a joke. Description of the application in the market was made without this nuance ... Organic traffic (women aged 16-20 years) lowered the estimate to 3.5. Especially, foreign users reacted sharply to rough game endings. In their understanding, this would be justified only if there was a hidden good ending, which I did not have. The low percentage of “organic” plants only confirms my suspicions.
But you know, all this pales in comparison with the fact that a foreign YouTube blogger recorded the passage of my game . And left a pretty good review! This is really cool ... I saw that the person had a lot of fun: I managed to convey emotions!

Fact breaking

Google also blocked the game because of a game with a maid covering her chest in the screenshot. And then he apologized, unban, but asked to remove the chest.

Outset

The game consistently brought 2-3 muffins a day. It was quite enough for me to think about the development of another story. It is necessary to prove that I am not a sexist! And how to do it better than by creating a game about a strong but naive heroine? Moreover, the organic traffic would obviously be happy to otome (a visual short story with flirting for girls) in Russian. But what a fake novelty, if it is a regular dating simulator for girls? It was necessary to determine the fake element, and to do this, select the setting and outline the plot ... I watched the passage of more than one dozen otome on Youtube, almost irrevocably destroying my list of recommended videos, but decided on the plot: monsters. Vampires, werewolves and other vermin, that should succumb to the charm of the representative of the human race! But in my game monsters will be monsters: they will eat the heroine. In a sense, it is even an educational element: there is nothing to stir up romance with those who can eat you. It remains to figure out how to unite such different characters within one story, but the answer was already around me. A place that unites afrofranzuz, Chinese, Belarusians and Kazakhs: a hostel!
Let the credits ... Before you the history of the development of the game “Fake Novella: Hell of a Dorm”.

Fact breaking

The most popular girl was “Sis”. The second place was taken by the Maid, and the third was shared by Jandere and Zundere. An interesting coincidence was that the character's chest size turned out to be directly proportional to his popularity.

Introduction

Of course, for development, I again chose the familiar Unity3D instead of RenPy, which is a kind of standard in the field. Using my own engine for playing with a couple of phrases was quite justified, but this time I wanted to add more actions before the outcome. Yes, and incorrectly chosen architecture, even in the framework of a small game, generated various errors. Fortunately, Lertmind told me about Fungus, a framework containing many tools for creating visual stories. At first I doubted: after all, I had a great desire to write code, and Fungus seemed very casual. Nevertheless, having suppressed my pride, I studied the documentation and did not regret it: it contained everything that I wanted. The only drawback was the lack of a built-in serialization system for saving / loading. (promised in new versions) Having tested it on cats, I began developing a new Fake Novels.

Fact breaking

An analysis of the feedback from foreign users showed me that women's logic is international and the issue I raised is relevant in many countries around the world.

Concept

“The Lion King 1” walked along the plot of Hamlet; “The Lion King 2” based on the story of Romeo and Juliet; “The Lion King: Lion Squad” is some kind of superhero story. I am far from Disney, therefore, “Little Red Riding Hood” has become the basis of my story. A young (but adult) girl carries her beloved grandmother's pies. She carries them through the dark forest late at night (after all, everyone loves to eat after six) in bright red shoes. (so as not to be ashamed in front of the search engines) This is where my creative genius ended and the scriptwriter Deus ex Machina follows - lazy: the eagles “unknown magic figoten” takes the heroine to the main scene.

To describe the current disposition, the character of the Dorm's Commandant was included in her own endings (including the secret one), and at the same time the choice of a male character was made through her.

I made the communication with the male character rather banal: the monster shows its true nature and the player is given a choice: an attempt to tame a monster or an escape. Any attempt at domestication of course fails, and the escape leads to a small scuffle.

After the battle, the player must choose a path to escape. Here I also decided not to think too much: jump out of the window or escape through the exit. Escape through the window will lead to death several times in a row: the girl does not have enough strength to knock him out and eats her. By the way, one of the secret endings is connected with the window: if you try to break it in several passages, then in the end, the attempt will be crowned with success. I give a hint about this by playing means.

Well, escape through the entrance will lead to a good ending: the commandant sees a girl running around the territory and sends her home.

Fact breaking

Initially, I wanted to give the girl the name of one of the heroes of The Path , but then I decided that it was too much to refer to such a fantastic game in my treshchak. Not much, having thought it over, I named it after Princess Sissy, and the hostel was named after her family castle.

Plot

In a slightly failed podcast about the development of visual stories , it says that the screenwriter should be the author of the play rather than just a writer. I fully agree with this point of view.
For the development of the plot, I used Google Docs. In moments of inspiration, I described the key scenes: the dialogues and dispositions of the characters, and then transferred them to the game engine, connecting them with filler transitions. Despite the fact that the variety and dance institute does not teach screenwriting skills, I can pour water.

Additional mechanics

From the very beginning, I would like to add to the game something besides choosing an answer. This "something" was the protection from the monster made in the style of clicking fighting game.
Sakura Clicker inspired me to the click click mechanic.

Fact breaking

In general, I did this game while the artists were drawing graphics for my version of this game. (clicker) I wanted to make a massive adventure in dungeons and fights with monster girls ... And then Sakura themselves took and announced a full copy of my idea! Not cool in general (

Costume Design

In Google Play, screenshots must be acceptable for a 3+ age rating. Indeed, children are already weaned and to see her now is a strict taboo for them.
I make a game with unconcealed fan service ( etti / software erotica) and this leads to problems with outfits. After multiple locks, censorship has become a sore point for me and I am very paranoid about some issues. For example, here is the initial sketch of the Mistress Commander's costume.

Although the costume is closed, but the buttock is open and it may seem that the butt is completely bare. In the end, using Paint, I created a design for a suit that is going through my internal censorship! The final view of the character can be seen below.

In addition to changing the basic elements, a badge was added as an element of the uniform.

Summary

There is such a thing as a “summary”. This is the process by which all characters are placed on one large canvas to compare proportions and style. The earlier this process occurs, the less likely it is that the dwarf in the game will be more giant. I thought about this and asked the artist to monitor the size of the characters; she watched. Moreover, the background was also scaled relative to them. But…

By my impatience, I embedded in the demo version not the sketches of the major versions sent by the documents, but cut the characters straight from the screenshots of the graphic editor. This led to the fact that the sizes of the characters with which I tested the game turned out to be one and a half to two times larger than the sizes of the characters prepared by the artist.

This led to the fact that in some places, the interface elements covered up the important elements of the characters. I shifted the interface, but the scale of the backgrounds flew into tartra as it was located taking into account the different relationship of resolutions and did not correspond to the scale of the characters ...

The demon also made his contribution, and because of the extra long horns, he set the proportions of growth to all the other characters. Damn complexes about the size of the horns! I had to cut off the guy part of the legs and the very edge of the horns, in order to achieve an acceptable scale, but alas, his head still seems too small.

The scale of the backgrounds was saved by the fact that the artist asked me why this tallest character does not occupy the entire place in height. And really, why? This was due to the mechanics of Fungus: it uses the Unity UI to display graphics. Character images have an activated aspect ratio option. But as the width was less than the height, the picture shrank. By increasing the width allocated to the character, I achieved the desired result.

Locations

Of course, my scale is not very large: I have managed five locations: a dark forest, a hall of a hostel, rooms of guys. For some variety, sprites for windows and doors were added.
The werewolf room shows that he is such a big dog who loves his parents and does not disdain to be human.

In the abode of the vampire, of course, there is a coffin, a blood store and a plush bat.
The demon is inundated with books and in the room as a whole there is a working disorder. So that everything is not so boring, he has a candle that generates smoke with the style of teleportation magic.

But of course, the devil is in the details: whether it is a plush bat, a foot in a bowl or a floor lamp in the shape of a skull ... In addition, it is important to choose such colors so that all the characters that can appear there can be clearly seen on the locations.

Name selection

Of course, there were no questions with the first part; this is “Fake Novella”. But what is the sub-name? It was supposed to be intriguing, use slang and not scare guys off; and of course, at least a little to characterize the game itself.
I decided to concentrate on the scene of action: the hostel of demons. I originally settled on Demonic Dorm. But this title was too long and not expressive enough. In the end, I stopped at “Fake Novella: Hell of a Dorm”; Well, in the translation of “Fake Novel: Infernal Dormitory”. Although I had been thinking for a very long time whether to cut Dormitory to Dorm to make it more slang, I decided to stop at full form.

Description Development

The description should contain a maximum of keywords (but not banned) and a bit of description. Why a little? Because most users (not to be confused with users) do not read descriptions.
Let's look at the description of the game I made:

In red, I noted the memo for you know what . Orange tagged meme: what description without meme? In blue, I marked the plot and features of the game, and the green marked keywords.
In general, try to cram maximum functionality into a minimum of text.

Localization

Perhaps this is the most ambitious work for me in terms of translation is a bunch of stupid jokes, references, and even speaking names. It is terrible to think what would have happened if I made a full-fledged short story with many thousands of words ...
Due to the fact that Alconost still does not accept muffins as the main means of payment, I asked for help with the translation into English of my friend , and resorted to the services of my beloved company only in difficult cases like the adaptation of names. Who likes the translation of names? Just watch one video to understand the scale of the problem ...

English translation

The first difficult moment was the translation of the phrase “I traveled and saved the pie!”. It was necessary to convey the subtle rustic humor and not to go to the Google Play ban ... Thanks to the help of the hall, when translating into English, the pie turned into a cherry, but in spite of such an innocent decision, I deleted this moment from the final version.
Many options have been proposed for the translation of the name “Azazayushka” (Azazel + Azazaz + Zayushka). In English localization, it turned into “Lucipal”. (Lucifer + bro)
It seems that with the translation of the name of the werewolf problems should not have arisen: choose a popular nickname for the dog, yes rejoice ... But for example, what “Friend” from the one who eats the person? As a result, the intolerant “Friend” became the active “Ball”, then the neutral “Bobby”, but in translation it turned into “Spikey”.

How not to mention the name of the main character? In the Russian version it is a reference to Elizabeth of Bavaria. (Empress of Austria) It is also possible to notice the similarity of her name with some physiological signs. (I, as the author of the concept, declare this only a strange coincidence) In addition, the Duchess of Bavaria is indicated by the name of the hostel “Possenhofen Castle”. (her ancestral castle) In the translation of the version, Sissy suggests itself, the slang description of the heroine psycho-type!
A huge amount of blood drank the translation of the message “Mrs.” The fact is that in the initial version there were two Mistresses: Mrs. Commandant (reference to the dominatrix) and “Mrs. Sissi” - Azazayushki’s address to GG. When translating this led to ambiguity. The Wikipedia article stated that in order to maintain a dubious reference, the term “Mistress” must be used to translate the status of Commandants. But the English language did not agree ...
When “mistress” is an influential citizen or mistress of a house / office / doghouse, it is “miss” if not married, and “missis / mrs” if married (or was).
When the "lady" is someone's mistress, it is a "mistress." Therefore, when Azazayushka refers to GG, he can call her only “mistress”. But the commandant fit both treatment. The exception method says that the commandant should become “miss”, but then the reference is lost. Unfortunately, this problem could not be solved ... In the English version there are two “mistress”. In the Russian text, the GG “Mistress”, although this word did not quite fit the plot, it became the best analogue.

Ahead there were still references to Harry Potter, Zveropolis, Gravity Falls and even Louis de Pont du Lac. Due to the fact that the translator was torn out of a different cultural context (Camus, Lovecraft, David Bowie ...), the lines with such content were provided with small notes and links to various Wiki. Fortunately, the Fungus csv scheme by default has a note field.

Fact breaking

Do you know how dogs bark in English? To find out the truth, just ask Google!

Seriously, sometimes simple queries are very helpful in selecting phrases for translation.

Spanish translation

Spanish is the third language on the Internet and at the same time one of the “cheapest” among non-negatives. But I decided to do the translation to it rather because I have a Spanish visual novel with ten thousand installations in “similar”. I'm so impulsive ... By the way, there is Spanish (Mexico), but we are talking about Spanish (Spain).
When translating into Spanish, it is worth remembering that the language uses unique punctuation marks and non-Latin characters. It is important to make sure that the font supports them.
With the preparation of texts is also not so simple. For example, it is necessary to specify the context using "you". Otherwise, it may turn out awkward .
It just so happened that I terribly know English (This is by no means the fault of my beloved and most ancient electrical engineering university in Europe), but for a year now I have to write assignments for translators. Wikipedia was the best help for me: it is very convenient to refer to it in the presence of certain terms. (Although there is a special Wiktionary)
Unfortunately, Spanish Wikipedia is less than English. Some words I had to look for in a better context. For example, the word "Plan" has an article - description in English . The value I need is not translated into Spanish. On the other hand, there is a page about D & D which indicates the addition of the “Planescape” material about which the term I need is “planos de existencia”.
English and Spanish are very similar languages. But they are as similar as Russian and Czech. For example, when translating into English for the Dorm, the word “Dormitory” was chosen. In Spanish, there is its counterpart, which even offers Google Translate - «Dormitorio». But in fact, the Spanish word would mean “bedroom.” In such cases, simply enter the word in Google. Pictures and study the result.
For me, Che Guevara has always been a “commandant”, and the “commandant” has designated especially the guardians of the hostel. Only when working with Spanish I learned that the word "commandant" does not exist! Cruel world.
A very big problem is that some references with a beautiful translation will be lost. For example, the phrase "I can not evaluate this artifact," it is logical to translate as "I can not understand what this artifact does." In the translator’s opinion, everything is OK, but the reference to the “ Evaluation ” spell from D & D is lost.
I have already written more than once how important it is to indicate any jokes and references. Even the most obvious in your opinion ... For example, I forgot to specify the context for the word "rolls" in the phrase with "hang out on the rolls". So, as the heroine went with a basket of pies, the word “empanadas” was chosen, although the word “bollos” would be more appropriate for my taste. (Don't see what it means; just take my word for it)
To be honest, I was very worried about the Spanish version. At first I searched for a translator in the thematic communities for a very long time, but all attempts were in vain, and then gave up and turned into an ordinary group of translators. Although Eugene was not familiar with some references, she really did her best not to miss them, but I got a great experience with Spanish. Although the results of our labors of course to judge the players.

Fact breaking

The word "commandant" can be translated as "pilot." So the Spaniards will play with the mistress pilot ...

Audio accompaniment

I absolutely do not understand the music. Therefore, it would be logical to ask for help from someone who understands and even makes their own tracks: from a girl, a translator, a sister, or neighbors from the sidelines. But what's the point of always doing the right thing?
I approached this question with the same plan as in the past; searched opengameart for music with emotion that I wanted to convey in tags; having picked up several options, consulted with those who understood. There was a man who offered his services as a producer for music, but did not work out.
. . ? , “magic teleport”, , “male groan”. freesound … …

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Fungus

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[CommandInfo("Social", "Report Achievement", "Full open Achievement")] public class ReportAchievement : Command { public string Achievement_ID; public override void OnEnter() { if (Achievement_ID != null) { OpenAchievement(); } Continue(); } public void OpenAchievement() { AchievementsController ac = AchievementsController.GetInstance(); ac.AddAchievement(Achievement_ID); } } 

P.S

Well, that ended my next article. I had fun releasing the game and relaxed by writing this material. I hope that I managed to show that the development of any game is worth a lot of work.
Ahead of me are waiting for answers to inadequate reviews, calculation of losses ... But most importantly, I can better understand the result of the popularity (above average) of the last novel. I'm not sure what became the main source of traffic “visual novel in Russian” or “girls simulator” ...
Thank you for your time. I will be glad to answer any of your comments. I hope that my publication did not offend anyone by the presence of a few dubious humor. Moreover, I am afraid that I have lost my style in comparison with the past material and, in a sense, “used up”.

PS All graduates with diplomas and certificates!
PPS Imagine this time the game went to the market from the first time!