


Even if your direct sales usually can't compete with Steam, you keep 90% of the profit (depends on the vendor you use to sell them) and you can also affiliate the game.Īnother big advantage of using Ren'Py is that now it can export the games both to Google Play, Amazon and iOS. All games on my site are sold mostly directly. Now, there are a LOT of visual novels on Steam, showing that there's surely a market for those kind of games even in the west. Indeed, I still remember when I put my games on Greenlight back in 2013, and a lot of users were complaining, saying that Steam was no place for visual novels. Nowadays getting on big portals like Steam is much easier than in the past. Good examples are Sakevisual which released a very popular otome dating sim called RE:Alistair and later went commercial making more games, even on Steam. This is a good choice if you're just starting and don't have much money. The basic idea here is first to gain popularity and a following through a few decent free VNs or dating sims and then try to sell new games to your fans. There are several ways to sell your VN or dating sim (or games in general) and I know people who are successfully making a living using very different methods. When people ask me for advice, I always tell them there is not a single, universal, valid answer.

Once you have a decent product, it's time to sell it.

I won’t go into too much detail for the standard usual development process, so here's the quick rundown: Test the game, test it again, ask other people's opinion, polish it and test it again. The light-comedy dating sim Roommates (2014, Mac, Win, Linux, iOS, Android) includes an original soundtrack, manga artwork and lots of crazy humor! SELLING IT Learn to use it well enough and you can also create a visual novel role-playing hybrid much like my RPGs Loren The Amazon Princess
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That tool combines the powerful Python language with a full set of commands that lets you easily create a visual novel or dating sim. There are many free visual novel tools but, if you want to have flexibility and power of coding your custom stuff, there is simply nothing as good as Ren'Py. You have a great idea for a story and all of your characters are fleshed out so now it is time to make the game. It's a lot like achievements in other genres. In fact, the more the better because it is normal to replay a game several times to unlock them all. Those games are also famous for having many endings. Usually the endings all feature a beautiful art moment but you can also use it for other particularly important points of the story. Those games usually have several characters that you can date and, through gameplay, you advance every subplot scene by scene.īoth visual novels and dating sims usually have a "Gallery Screen" where you can replay previous scenes which are typically still images. It's not always necessary to use them - especially with good tools like Ren'Py available - but they can help.įor dating sims, the best way is to split the story into scenes. I did everything with a spreadsheet program but there are also other useful "mind-mapping" programs including FreeMind. Bionic Heart was perhaps the most complex visual novel I've made so far (and the only one to be featured in some popular Japanese websites).
