Hello folks. I’ve been a fan of Choice-of-Games but yep, I decided to go the Ren’Py route to inflict–I mean–share, my artistic talents with the world.
I ended up making a demo for a gay male dating sim.
If you’re interested, please check it out. I’ve used the various helpful articles from this site to help me map out routes to my game. The game will be available December 2013 and is called “Coming Out On Top.”
It’s another game being crowdfunded through Kickstarter. At the moment, it’s gotten a lot of support. Additional support is welcome of course, but if not, critiques from actual fans of the multiple-branching-storyline model would be excellent. I think there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy the demo too if you like m/m romance/games/fiction.
While the game is story and character based, it is an 18+ game due to some erotic content. Please check out the demo if you’re interested. (Link is on the Kickstarter site.)
And yes–the main criticism is not the writing so much as the fact all the guys look like models. I’m afraid that’s due the fact I just drew the guys that way before the game started getting popular. And I was seriously more interested in covering ethnic diversity vs. different body shapes. (Also, I just figured nobody was going to play this…so I indulged myself.) But writing criticism is especially welcome!
I never really liked dating simulations and a gay one is completely out of my interests…However, I wish you good luck with your game, your art seems good enough to attract attention (although you are right, it is just too “perfect” - characters don’t seem to have a very original look)
Haha, thank you for your comments. Hopefully someone will be interested in the gay male dating sim genre enough (what do you mean, not everybody is?!) to try the demo.
I like the concept and the look of it so far but the price your asking for on the Kickstarter is INSANE!
Look up ‘Katawa Shoujo’ - That was made without any financial support whatsoever (as far as I know) and is by far one of the best Ren’Py games out there in terms of quality and production… It’s also free.
Oh hey–CJW–Katawa Shoujo was made over a period of five years with a large team of artists and writers.
VNs are huge productions in Japan, often costing consumers 50-80 dollars a pop.
If you’re wondering why there aren’t a lot of high quality VNs in the West…that’s one reason.
Right now there is primarily me, doing the art and the writing, and I don’t want to take 20 years to produce it. I’m paying anybody and everybody who is helping me. Even with the 5K I asked minimally, I would still be paying for expenses out of my own pocket. Several VN developers kept telling me 5K was very low, and they were concerned I would not be able to cover my costs.
There are also other commercial VNs on the market, asking for far higher prices than 10 bucks. If you believe VNs should always be free, that’s certainly your opinion to hold, but I’m afraid there aren’t going to be too many of them around, gay dating sim or otherwise.
My apologies, I actually read the currently pledged amount as the asked amount.
I didn’t mean to offend you and by no means do I think VNs should be free, hell, I would’ve paid to play Katawa - no problem.
If you’re going that route though I just hope it’s a Visual Novel not a Visual Game as alas more than half of WinterWolves offerings seem to be these days.
I.e. more story and choices and less of the ‘What do you want to do today?’ mechanics.
Oh, no worries CJW. Yes, the campaign is doing far beyond anybody’s expectations, including my own. And I’m sticking to Visual Novel–doing a game (like a bonafide stat sim) would be far more complicated than I can manage in a year. There is a simple relationship stat, but that’s it.
I am told the strength of the game lies in the dialogue and characters in any case. Even though the game is just meant to be fun and lighthearted, I strive to keep up the writing quality. If comes anywhere close to the quality of many text-based games I’d be thrilled.
I like the concept, then again coming from me that’s hardly a surprise, but like CJW already said keep it visual novel and please no twitch based mandatory mini-games.
Other than that I fully support this product, even if it isn’t purely text based and relies on art instead of imagination to power the vision.
I really really want to try this game but I only have iPod please make it an app so I can go ballistic and I love the football player and the marine yummy
I recognized the title and think I have an older version of this game already? I downloaded it months ago and never got around to playing it… is this a sequel to that game or a remake? Either way I’d love to play the finished product!
@Blackheart–hahaha, I would love to get this on ios but because of some of the adult scenes, it would have to be a “clean” version and it would also take a while to program.
@Eriedanna–WOW! You must have the old version! This one has updated art and erotic content, with some additional scenes. It’s also a lot more polished (though it doesn’t have the entire story line with Alex like the old one does.) The finished version will be ready in a year. Thanks for your interest!
