>wanna try making a romance VN
>no experience in love at all and all the characters I think of are basically one dimensional cardboard cutouts
how the fuck does those single retards on /v/ managed to do this?

>>716458904 (OP)

>>716458904 (OP)
dont worry your target audience has never had one either

>>716459715
>>716458904 (OP)
Also I forgot to add that despite being fictional, “I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability” has never been proven wrong.

>>716458904 (OP)
Might be a bit of a black pill, but the best eroge are all made by teams of people including many people with relationship experience

You can't draw a good sex scene as an artist if you've never fucked someone, tbqh

>>716458904 (OP)
I'd recommend finding a premise you like and then just writing around it. DDLC's girls aren't three-dimensionally fully complex beings, but the creator just took a premise (literature club with four different archetypes where the popular girl is secretly a yandere + meta fourth-wall breaking shit) and just built and fleshed out the characters around it.
Hell, even that game was apparently inspired by another VN with similar fourth-wall breaking tropes.

>>716459927
ok, so how do you flesh out characters

>no todd VN with him trying to seduce you into buying Fallout 76

>>716460165
Like I said. Figure out what your VN's going to be about and then figure out how characters react to different things in your premise.
You have any ideas what you're going to make a VN about?

>>716460165
Man if you can't figure that out you're hopeless. Read more books before you come to me with this insipid shit

>>716458904 (OP)
It's all Fantasy.

>>716460297
ok, how would you write a character like this?
>orphan
>fucked up childhood, basically lived in the slums, like the lowest pits
>gets beaten by the head of the orphanage daily
>almost tries to kill herself but MC(on vacation) was actually painting some shit that day at that spot and successfully talked her out of it
>became friends with MC slowly
>slowly heals from her le trauma and opened up.End up sharing about her abusive orphanage experience and how cops wont even care because its the fucking slums with MC
>MC tell her to cheer up and whatnot, but after seeing her beaten to a pulp(And possibly molested idk) he just straight up stole his parents' gun and tell her to shoot the guy with it
>news later showed the orphanage head being dead and the girl missing
>years later
>MC was transferred somewhere else
>Met the girl again
>She is like all cleaned up, with a new identity and shit
>but she was still the same girl who got traumatized and killed a fucking guy so she's still a bit fucked up in the head
how the fuck am i supposed to write a character around this idea?

>>716461000
Well, it looks like you got the hard part of creating a compelling backstory down already.
Have the VN take place entirely in the present, with the MC trying to deal with this weird girl that's suddenly coming onto her out of nowhere while reminiscing about the girl he was friends with when he was a kid. Then it builds up to the big reveal that she was the girl from the MC's childhood this whole time.
(Also, I'd recommend cutting out the molestation part. You'll likely get plenty of people accusing you of adding it in for sympathy bait, or calling her a used goods whore)

>>716461000
that's horrible

>>716461554
You shouldn't structure your story around potential criticism from dipshits. Include the molestation if it makes the story better, don't if it doesn't.

>>716461554
Forgot to add: the MC sounds like he's a little crazy himself, so if you wanted to go that route, you can have them both be fucked up together (a la Coffin of Andy and Leyley).
>>716461725
Yeah, that's right. Follow this anon's advice.

>>716458904 (OP)
follow Nasu's footsteps and just write a man instead, if the girl is too manly you add some moe shit to her
reading romantic shoujo stuff also helps.

>>716458904 (OP)
Love is a scam that does not exist so just make whatever you like.

VN where your mc on a roadtrip across the country and picks up hitchikers, romancing them. The travel vibe gives plenty of opportunities for different locales and the car's close environment gives you an excuse for dialog

>>716461000
rape

>>716461824
MC is just an introverted nihilist, like straight out gloomy for no fucking reason

>>716461000
Is this a good premise, /v/?

>>716464931
No

>>716458904 (OP)
fiction is always more interesting than reality.
there's really nothing interesting about most people's relationships.

>>716465745
so how to make a good romance game?

>>716466576
/v/ doesn't know

>>716461554
>You'll likely get plenty of people accusing you of adding it in for sympathy bait, or calling her a used goods whore
That's me. I don't mind used goods in a story. But when it's a romance story, and she's a love interest? Who the fuck wants to read a story about a cuck?

>>716458904 (OP)
Could you make it with anthro women

>>716461000
Unless the story is making full use of this earlier time period, this past stuff should be drastically reduced and the focus should be on the here and now. Beginning writers often think that it's really important to extensively develop their characters' childhoods, but it's pretty much always to their story's detriment.

But let's say this story is evenly split between the MC making friends with some girls as a child and surprisingly reuniting with them later as an adult. Initially we want to define these girls with a couple strong traits, at least one of which should leave a positive impact on the reader.

Let's call your example girl Jenny. Leading off with Jenny's mega abuse is a terrible idea, because it's probably going to cause the reader to close themself off from investing in her. Instead, let's say Jenny is the type of girl who takes interest in new things and quickly excels at them. She meets MC when he's trying and failing to learn to skateboard, and when he notices her watching he talks with her and offers to let her try, and after a little experimentation she's joyfully nailing fluid movements and basic tricks. MC and Jenny form a fun friendship based on trying new things together over the summer, which is the early focus. But we plant seeds of trouble beneath as we go. MC remarks on their second meeting that Jenny dresses heavily despite the hot weather, but she brushes off the subject casually, and it's not until their third or fourth meeting that MC walks in on Jenny when she's changing out of a dirty shirt and sees her back and arms covered with bruises.

Cont.

>>716461000
>>716468370
Then we go from there, maybe with something a little less extreme than MC stealing a gun and giving it to Jenny to blow her abuser's brains out. Instead, Jenny secretly decides to run away from home, and in her final meeting she obliquely asks MC what he would do if she asked him to leave their lives behind and go away together; regardless of the MC's answer (though she'll remember it), she disappears without a trace.

In the second stage of the story (adulthood), MC encounters Jenny again. Their initial reunion will (and should) be a bit awkward and standoffish, but successive meetings should develop how Jenny has changed and how she's stayed the same. For example, she's more resistant to trying new things now, but with a little pushing she embraces the experience and we see glimpses of the girl she used to be. Her abuse is far in her past now, but she retains some insecurity and fear of intimacy. As MC convinces her that she can let him into her life, though, she ultimately opens up and throws herself into the relationship, and MC quickly realizes that he needs to decide if he's serious about her because he will really hurt her if he's not. This leads to the final stretch to the conclusion.

If we must keep the plot element of Jenny killing her abuser, make that her choice alone, and make it something she could actually get away with (like her abuser "accidentally" falling down the stairs a year after she left). How you decide to work with that would be up to you, but it's really heavy baggage for both of them and unless it's relevant to adult events I really think you're better off dropping it completely.

>>716458904 (OP)
Just write your idealized version of romance. You don't need to write about realistic bitchy roasties.

they have sex

>>716469756
No

>>716458904 (OP)
They don't.
They make fantasy shit up the the other bunch of virgins, 'playing' the game eats it up since they have no clue how romance works in the first place.
tl;dr you just have to sync your delusions with your possible customers

>>716458904 (OP)
Read romcom manga

>>716459715
FPBP desu

>>716458904 (OP)
the real vantablack pill is, you make BETTER romance VNs without experience in love because then your view is untainted by the real thing

>>716461824
It’s way more compelling if both characters are a little off. People don't want perfect romcom anime bullshit, they want two weirdos fumbling their way into something real. That “Coffin of Andy and Leyley” vibe works because it's dark, it's messy, it feels uncomfortably human. Give your MC some darkness too-trauma bonding is cliché, yeah, but clichés exist because they hit something true. Just don’t forget to add some levity or it turns into a slog of edge.

>>716458904 (OP)
Some of the best media about certain topics is made by people who had no prior experience in that topic, isn't it? Movies in particular

>>716464931
Yeah, it's a solid premise, just depends on the execution. A roadtrip setting gives you natural pacing breaks with new locations, character introductions, and opportunities for MC-reflection. It’s ripe for character-driven stuff if you actually use the journey to change the characters, not just as a backdrop. Bonus points if the MC also has a reason to be traveling, not just collecting waifus like Pokémon. Make it feel like a trip with purpose, not just a dating sim with scenery.

Forget 1-dimensional relationship dynamics, i dont know how to socially interact with another human period.
I don’t understand the point either, every interaction I have with someone feels so performative, fake, no one acknowledges anything I say.

I barely even feel like a human anymore.

Noo

So

>>716458904 (OP)
It just seems that way when you are writing it because you are the man behind the curtain. When you are making it, you know "they are saying x, because I need the player to know this for y" instead of having the illusion that they are saying it because they are a person. If you feel lost, watch things that you feel have good characterization to draw inspiration from, and compare to yours, and add what might feel missing.
Anyone saying it's impossible to write something good without experience is retarded and has no imagination.

>>716476821
Ok

>>716458904 (OP)
who cares about realism in vn? you just have to make them interesting. your average woman will scoff at vn reader - that's not the experience people crave when reading romance vn.