I’ve been on this platform for a while now (though I never made an account) and I decided to start working on a visual novel myself. I want to make it long enough to be enjoyable while being short enough so that it doesn’t get tedious or repetitive.
It would be a slow burn story where the goal is to make your girlfriend gain a few pounds (or more than a few) by nudging her into more fattening habits. I plan on making 6 weight stages, each with their own dialogue, clothes, poses etc. It will cover a nice range or weights, but I do appreciate the more subtle padding so don’t expect a 500lbs ending or something like that. There would be quite a bit of denial, wardrobe malfunction and that kind of stuff; it’s something I haven’t seen all that often here (at least not in this form).
I would also try and include a feature that allows the player to go through the images of the girlfriend (different outfits and clothes) and make a side-to-side comparison; that way, you’d be able to make your own before and after.
It’s VERY early in development and I am a full time student, so don’t ask me if it will be out soon; it won’t. I plan on making the whole thing before releasing it; I know some people prefer early access but I prefer the idea of having a release that you get to just enjoy from a-z without having to wait for updates every month.
I’m gonna be making the models in virt-a-mate and the visual novel with ren’py. Below you’ll find a picture of the character I made; these are weight stages 1/6 and 3/6.
I’d like to hear your advice / opinion / ideas if you have any; anything would be greatly appreciated!
Responding to the open call for advice :
I think your goals are excellent! Clearly defined, achievable, with a reasonable pathway forward towards completion. You’re already on the way to success if you keep up your current (apparent) approach.
The Ren’Py official forums are great, with the sections on Cookbooks (ie pre-hashed-out code) and Q&As/Troubleshooting particularly wonderful. Excellent toilet-time reading material.
My advice for working with Ren’Py is to segregate out ‘chunks’ (labels) into different files to make navigation quicker and more intuitive once the size of the program starts to swell. Ren’Py looks at every file in a game’s directories right away, so it’s basically 1:1 as far as the program is concerned to have everything is one large script or in a hundred rpy files. When programming, it’s a LOT easier to navigate purpose-designed files.
Generally, I’d recommend trying to set aside scheduled time at least every other day to chip away at the project. 30min to 2 hours works for me - less and I don’t make progress and start to lose the thread on how what I’ve already programmed works, more and it starts to stifle the process and make it ‘work’.
I’m glad to hear that! I’ve been focusing on the writing and the models for now and it’s shaping up nicely. I’m trying to find the right balance in terms of character depth; I want it to feel like a real relationship while also making sure it doesn’t just dilute the weight gain aspect.
I love pear shapes, but the proportions often get ridiculous to the point where it doesn’t look real. I think people often just focus so much on the hips and legs that they forget the rest of the body. I’ve been messing around with VAM quite a lot and I think a lot of people will be pleased with it. I even made her my profile pic lol.
