If somebody wants to help out with the writing workload and are willing to pitch in for free, I think you should allow it, even if someone’s only pitching in for one or two scenes. Any progress is still progress. Maybe that’s not how you want to run your ship, but I think the solution to this problem definitely involves either A) Removing yourself from the writers chair and having a dedicated writer who can get the stories done quickly or B) Opening up to the community to pitch in to help with writing scenes. Without either one of these, I would very much reconsider financially supporting Aria on patreon because I’m not convinced what happened to Forks isn’t going to happen again.
I mean, I don’t want to sound like a dick, I’m an art student and I know how difficult art block can be, but the fact of the matter is that from our point of view, Toro got all whatever-ungodly-number of portraits and backgrounds + 5 cgs done in about the time you got the intro scene rewritten and about another eight of the story done. So if Aria is going to be as big and wide scoped as you say its going to be, alarm bells are already starting to go off.
If your gonna go with option B, I really do recommend just for shits and giggles release your guideline to just one upcoming scene, doesn’t have to be anything really spoiler-ly, and allow for submissions for a fully written scene. That way, if you find someone you like and you think you can gel with, you can bring em behind the scenes and give them a lil more info and scenes they would like to help with. I think this would be much better than the nuclear option because you would be able to have the community finish the game for you without having to spoil everyone and not have an official release with cg’s.
I agree it makes no sense for forks to have a second writer because forks is a single plot/theme/vision.
However, there might be room for additional writers on Aria, because different writers could specialize in different fetishes and potentially if needed even different houses. Like in harry potter by “house” I mean something akin to “wing” or different dorm buildings. Since Aria plans to include multiple plots it’s not important that each of those plots coordinate as closely as they would have to for a single plot.
I think this is a really good idea/compromise. I know what you mean about Forks, as a creator myself I can get kinda clingy on my stories, when you make something entirely of your own it’s like “your baby” and I understand it might be hard to let people in. But since Aria is pretty new right now, getting help sounds like good idea to me
Those are both good suggestions, and they share the idea that I should take some time to distance myself from Forks- the questions are for how much and how long!
For the moment, I think the best thing to do is let things rest a while, rather than immediately transitioning to another/communal writer and trying to stay full-steam ahead. It feels like a lots happened quickly, and I’d hate to pile more on! You’re not being a dick, you’re being honest and I appreciate it. Toro’s got a lot more experience as an artist than I do as a writer and I’m dang lucky to be working with him, and someday I’d like to be able to keep up with him too.
That, and I’m not yet at the point where I feel comfortable having others clean up my mess. I learned a lot writing Forks, and currently Aria is fresh/different enough that I think I can at least pull the intro off. I’d like to give it a try, though it’s true that different writers could probably write some fetishes better than I could! However, having multiple writers on Aria would be a bit like having multiple writers on Majora’s Mask, and I hope that’ll make a little more sense once you can start playing it
So far, the only public Aria writing are the character bios on Patreon. I hope they’ve at least been a fun read
Ha! Good lord, I knew I should’ve checked that . I thought about it~!
I didn’t even know Miyamoto wrote for Majora’s Mask, I thought his direct influence ended with Ocarina of Time. Neat!
Shoot, having multiple writers on Aria might work out fine then . Should it get to the point where I feel it’s necessary to open it up to others, your post will make me feel a little better about it! Thanks
Edit: I took a lot of influence from Four Leaf Studio’s Katawa Shoujo when I decided to first try writing a VN. I believe it had five writers (one for each route), though those routes were also treated as very separate stories. Forks doesn’t have many characters, and I think (hope?) that one of my strengths is writing a humanist story. Rea, Hannah, Alex, and Grace stick together across every route, and multiple writers might complicate that.
Funny enough though, having multiple writers for Hisao (the MC) allowed for different sides of him to express themselves. I plan for Alex’s personality to change a little depending on who she’s with, but there’s a piece of her in everyone.
Yea another option could be you just working on Aria and having another writer and toro finish up forks in the meantime. It seems like your hearts into Aria more anyways.
The thing is, Toro’s very much in Aria now too . He’s knee-deep in designs and he’s estimated that it could take up to a month to spin back up to Fork’s different art style (as Forks has never been his “default” and it’s always taken time to adjust to it). That’s one of the reasons there aren’t any more CGs or assets beyond character portraits.
If Forks’s art were to continue tomorrow, it’d mean having communal artists draw the backgrounds and CGs, and making sure they gel with his art style. One of the biggest positives we received was that Forks had a singular, unified art style, where literally everything you see was drawn by him. We’d like to carry that into Aria, as well as Forks once he’s ready to switch back to it.
Very well, then. I’d like to be able to at least try to rewrite or edit the intro, where you’d give me what you were trying to do with the rewrite, and I’d attempt to edit/rewrite it to see how it pans out (not for money of course). And then, when I’m done, we see if my work could be considered for this. Basically, we’d be trying to see what happens when you leave me to my own devices with minimal input from you.
I really loved what this game turned out to be, and I’d love to keep working on it to achieve some progress on it until I can pass the torch back to you when you feel like it, to not fully stall the progress on this, because that’d truly be a shame, as far as I am concerned.
I think best thing to do is let @Tron work at their own pace and let them learn as a writer, too many writers can quite quickly delve into a fallout frontier situation and I’m sure no one here wants that.
For advice maybe try what Stephen King did to write his novels and take a shitload of cocaine? /s
This hounds advice is take a break then once its cooled refine at your pace
Ps I think I heard once that deleted stuff isn’t fully deleted and can be recovered if one knows how
Let Tron work at the pace they need? It’s a passion project they’ve devoted themselves to for free and y’all hounding it on like you paid 60€ for it, if it takes 2 years to finish writing then so be it, I’ll stick around nontheless
It absolutely blows me away that this project is still going. I could’ve sworn the universe would never allow something this great
In all seriousness though, Tron and his team should tackle this project however and whenever they want! When working on something like this, a big chunk of the “reward” is loving the thing you’ve created and all the ways in which you’ve perfected your message/story/vision. The best way to realize something like that is to work at a pace that doesn’t burn you out, and to not burden yourself with onboarding supplemental team members just to fit arbitrary deadlines!
P.S. Just finished what I think were all the routes in the Demo and I’m seriously speechless. This is a game-changer for this type of content IMO. The characters are surprisingly deep and interesting for WG content and Toro’s art is always stellar. I hope you guys are having fun making this, and I can’t wait to see more. I’d happily purchase the final product and may even jump on the patreon-wagon
aaah my patience is breaking down :p, this only makes me more anxious xd, but anyway, all I can do is wait . As one of my friends said “the best things are always gifts for the most patient” .
. Should it get to the point where I feel it’s necessary to open it up to others, your post will make me feel a little better about it! Thanks 
. As one of my friends said “the best things are always gifts for the most patient” 
.