Feel Free To Send Me Asks About This Or My Process LOL Visual Novels Are My Special Interest - Blog Posts

How To Make Your First Visual Novel

I'm yet again in a talkative mood, and as someone who has made/helped make over ten visual novels, I figured I would be Qualified™ to talk about it!

Step One: Pick Your Fighter... er... Engine!

Deciding the game engine you want to work in is the first step to having a game! Ren'Py is the most popular, free-to-use engine for visual novels, with tons of add-ons done by creators such as Devil Spiδεr and Feniks. Other commonly-used engines include Naninovel (an extension to Unity) and RPG Maker.

Step Two: Wait, What Goes In The Engine?

Whodathunk that for a visual novel, you need a story and visuals!

Clip Studio Paint has a series on making visual novel sprites, though any old art software works for making visual novel art. As for writing, I highly recommend Better Fountain, an extension to Visual Studio Code which enables to you to write in Fountain syntax. For music, I recommend Audiostock which gives access to hundreds of thousands of songs with their subscription service.

Step Three: But What Do I Do With All Of This?

Spoilers, your first visual novel... probably won't be your best. You have to make it to break the first timer's curse. Study your favorite visual novels, listen to other developers' processes, learn more about art/writing/music/etc., and remember that it doesn't have to be perfect. In a year of making visual novels, my work went from the left image, to the right:

You can do it too! Now go out there, and make visual novels!