Apr 08 2008
RenAi Blogger Project: Character Introduction Part 1
So for the non-believers, I really am going through with this (j/k Sixten I still love ya). I’ve spoken to my token females and gathered some info I will use to build a game personality. Some chose to change their age in game or their nickname etc. Here are some character cutouts for the protagonist & CJ:
I don’t have profiles written up but I figured I’d do that once I have all the character cutouts ready. I’m having a little problem right now coming up with a name for our hero. I know I originally said he’d be some anime otaku with a weeaboo name (like Himura Josh) but after fine tuning story details I decided a regular name would suit him. (Like John or Bob would work…but a Japanese name would not because he is a student studying Japanese…and it wouldn’t make sense for him to have a Japanese name.) So at this point, I guess I’ll take name suggestions because I’m having trouble settling on a common American name XD; (And please dear lord no Yuppie names.)
Although to be honest, I planned to add a feature (hopefully it exists) where you’ll be able to input your own name in to be used in the game. 
In regards to story and features & all that I’d like to keep it a secret for now since it will make the game play interesting. I got some great suggestions in the comments from the last few posts on this project. I even came up with a route hierarchy so the next step would be to put actual events into the blank circles I drew. (I’ll have to make an excel spreadsheet or something.) While I wish Sixten was doing my backgrounds, he’s busy working on a loli manga with Jason so I’ll have to settle with filtered photos of mine instead.
Anyway still waiting for Jen to give me her doll design so I can draw something. Hopefully I can get Part 2 up tomorrow or Thursday. Thank god this anime season sucks butt, I have more time on my hands these days.
Tags: artwork, renai blogger project
42 Responses to “RenAi Blogger Project: Character Introduction Part 1”
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miki-sama on 
Lily on 
His name should be “Cameron,” named after the biggest weeaboo of all from my Japanese classes!
Maximus, Magnus, Marvin, Merril, Milhouse, Newhouse… ah, they’re just getting worse
Stephen, Mateo, Leo
Good Job~~(￣ε￣〃)ｂ
The protagonists are looking really good. I’m definitely looking forward to the end result.
As for the common American name, I fail at that since I’m not American.
But maybe something along the lines of George or Tom would be OK…
Name him Jeff. It’s one of those semi-common names.
actually, xephonia and I are also working on a VN currently. thing is we got troubles with the programming side and all. D=
Wow your project’s looking sweet!
As for the name, maybe Chris would work based on the artwork. He looks a bit girly and weak with those glasses, stereotypically otaku… but wait till he removes those glasses, he can be a bishie too lol!
Greg; Ryan; Mike; Andrew; Aaron; Eric; Chad; Tim…
Remember to make the girls as moe as you can, so guys will like your game. It can have the most moving story in the world, but the girls MUST be moe…
I’m pretty sure that Renpy lets you program so that the player can input their own name over a default name if they want to.
As for names, er…Mark, Tom, Huck, Jim…
But, actually, the first default name that came to mind when I saw the protagonist was “Charles”..though I don’t know if that qualifies for “yuppie” or not
Btw, really cute sprites…!
Note: that pen could explode at any second and ruin his shirt. GET THAT MAN A POCKET PROTECTOR STAT!!!
Can’t wait to see the useless trap side characters.
The problem with common names is simply that. They’re too common. I recommend that whatever full name you come up with that you also use a nickname to go along with it and kinda fits his persona.
When I first saw him, I thought of Pat. I wonder why.
After thinking about it, I can see him as a Lucas. Maybe the nickname Lucky or Louie? I don’t see people calling him Luke. Or how about Leonard and the nickname Lenny?
Well, hopefully this will help with the name process. Good luck with this.
Well, I think John Foster would be ruled out as a good name!
Hinano> Have you already named your character for the pic (girl one)?
has to be american name? my suggestion are david, sean, and wallace
He needs a name that is impossible to say correctly in Engrish, or is horrendous to spell in katakana.
I can’t think of it .. but other odd ones are like Theodore or Chase or Bartholomew or George. Larry would be fun. Or Lionel.
And then the girls can come up with an endearing nickname that’s easy to say.
@Crisu
LOL….Bartholomew? Oh god I REALLY want to barf now….
But I guess those all fall under “yuppie” though…
The guy needs a really…………plain name. Like Jim.
A Japanese-American name might work, perhaps? Like, oh I don’t know, Mike Shinoda?
Oh BTW, for the male protagonist….who came up with that look?
*thumbs up* APPROVED~!
Uh, guy names… I second Chase, and maybe Peter would fun (his nickname could be Pii-chan~!). But can I veto Trenton right now? Some might consider it a yuppie name anyway, but I have my reasons for hating it with a passion. ^___^
Creating characters is easy. But getting a game/story written and done? Not so easy…
If you look through the history of the Shira Oka game project, you’ll see that the characters were created early on. But the team has put many more months of effort into creating their game system.
Ascaloth> I did, cause it turns out when I changed the premise of my store, everyone’s avatars didn’t fit the image I had in mind ^^;
CJ> I kinda like Chase haha
I was thinking Chris is a pretty common name.
dorkatlarge> I have a lot of ideas for the story and I’ve pretty much mapped out how it’s gonna go and where the paths will meet. The only thing I’d need to come up with is some creative dialogue and a good end for all the girls.
Ren> That’s CJ..and she will go by…CJ
bj0rn> That’s cool, good luck, what’s the game gonna be about?
Hung> When I think of Cameron I start to think of Kirk Cameron for some reason xD;;
Ryan> Maximus..LOL hm Max reminds me of a Goofy Movie
Scheris> I dunno why but George or Tom seem to make me think of like really old men XD
Rmx> but then Jeff Lawson is gonna be like “stop involving me in your sick projects!”
bluemist> Yea I figured since I have a good chunk of female readers, I didn’t think they’d want a dorky looking male protagonist anyway..kinda how in Nanatsuiro Drops all the girls were cute but the guy was bishie too XD
Kabitzin> I’m still deciding where to insert Impz. Maybe I’ll send him an email and ask for suggestions
Koll> Hmm problem is with common names there’s common names associated with celebrities like George Lucas and when I think of Lucky I think of the dog from 101 dalmatians xD
Ron> Sean could be interesting…Wallace makes me think of the kid from Digimon movie haha
Crisu> The point though is that he’s this american dude whos studying japanese xD;; As I said above though I do like Chase.
akon> Jim makes me think of farmers XD
DS> I can only make them as moe as my artistic skill will take me
Are the stories going to be entirely separate, or will there be some kind of interweaving going on?
Maybe a little bit of both?
“I dunno why but George or Tom seem to make me think of like really old men XD”
hehehe, and that’s why I fail with names. I thought of Allan and Elliot, but now I don’t know anymore. XD
Can we make him a half breed and give him an English name with a Japanese family name or vice versa instead?
Put Impz in as someone’s jealous senpai, who interferes with the pair, no matter what path it happens to be. Even the BL path.
As you know, Heart’s Content’s Eric Johnson (who does in some ways resemble a shota version of your boy character) is named after the famous guitarist from Austin, Texas. Following the famous guitarist theme, how does Paul Gilbert sound as a name for your boy character? In addition to being a flawless guitarist, Paul Gilbert is married to a Japanese woman (Emi Gilbert), was a member of a band named after an anime character (Racer X), and composed the ending theme of the samurai movie “Aragami” (directed by Ryuhei Kitamura).
Hinano, I dunno. I don’t want to be mean but the male character looks brain dead. Like, it looks like his eyes are looking in two different directions and I can just imagine the drool coming out of his mouth.
Oh, you totally need to call him Joe Bloggs.
mmmm
Some good American Names include
Blake! Evan! Todd! Chad! Patrick! Jacob! Alexander! Angel! Lucas!
haha These are the names of my cousins!
Koji> Well no one else said he looks braindead so I won’t use it as a “mass opinion to change things”. It doesn’t matter too much though, as he won’t be on screen except in event CGs anyway. The cutout here is just to show what he would look like.
He doesn’t look brain-dead, he looks normal. Maybe the eyes look weird because of the way he is leaning his head.
But now that I look at him, he reminds me of a character from either a manga or anime, but I don’t know who or which. o_O
Oh god, this is going to drive me crazy until I find out who it is.
He reminds me of Kaito from Mermaid Melody except with less messy hair?
Sixten> I don’t want him to be named after a guitarist…he’s just the average joe (who wont be named joe btw xD) who’s studying Japanese. There’s no complex history for this character or anything.
I think based on everyone’s suggestions I’m gonna settle on Chase…maybe due to all the Chase banks located all over Manhattan.
I think a lot of people are misinterpreting what the theme of my game is, and I don’t blame them since I haven’t made it clear. I’m trying to keep it somewhat a mystery to make the game play more interesting, but more or less I already have an idea of what the story will be about.
“I think based on everyone’s suggestions I’m gonna settle on Chase…maybe due to all the Chase banks located all over Manhattan. ”
I like that name Chase, but is there any last name that fits Chase coming to your mind yet?
The only last name is coming to my mind is Rivers, but I think that’s already taken OR that last name REALLY sucks on his complete name.
I don’t plan to have a last name actually. None of the girls have last names so I didn’t plan to make the male have one either. It’s not that complex of a game so I didn’t wanna go to deep on things like last names. Besides last names only matter in Japan where calling someone by their first name is a different level of closeness than calling someone by their last name. Here in the US nobody cares
Oh oh! If you need a random plot device or character, can I be CJ’s pet hamster? Kind of like a Botan to Kyou. But it doesn’t have to be a hamster; surprise me with whatever species you like.
I don’t even have to appear in art form, just part of the dialogue like, “Oh sorry, Chase, I have to go home to feed Crisu.” “Who?” “Oh, he’s my pet ____.” That’s all. XD
Hmm, now that you mention it he does look a little like Kaito, but it turns out he reminded me of my boyfriend, since he had that thin body when he was a kid. XD
A pet sounds like a nice addition. If there is a pet, it should be a dog like Potato.
This is looking awesome, I can’t wait to see the finished product!
And I agree, Chase or Chris seem like names that would fit him.
Crisu> I think CJ likes cats, so you can be her pet cat
There is a feature to imput names… Look at the “Demo” game in the Ren’Py’s files. The code for it should be in the script.
http://www.renpy.org/wiki/renpy/doc/reference/functions/DynamicCharacter
You can also have a character’s name change, since the protagonist won’t know the girl’s names at first. That’s shown…
http://www.renpy.org/wiki/renpy/doc/cookbook/Who%27s_that%3F#Who.27s_that.3F_Changing_character_names_during_the_game.2F
There. =3
I’ve been looking into it myself since me and my friend have an idea for an Ren’Ai game of our own. ;3
For some reason, Josh comes to mind.
So, who won the “make a dollie, protagonist thing” competition?
Lydia> No one
I couldn’t quite pinpoint anyone’s character on the image I had created for the protagonist (but thats mainly my fault for not really giving out too many details on the story.)
I don’t understand what makes a yuppie name, so pardon if I hit those, but here are some male names I like that I could see on that design:
Eli
Isaac
Michael
Tim(othy)
Theo(dore)
Patrick (MAKE IT SO)
Awww you’re not going for Kiwami Futaeno?
I was absolutely approving that name XD
I’m one of those waiting for this Renai game btw, good luck with it! 8D