May 01 2008
RenAi Blogger: Working with backgrounds.
So the last couple days I’ve been hammering along at the script and working out the paths and menu choices. I even bugged Tom, the Ren’Py creator, to help me out at the beginning when I realized that there would be possibilities of going on a character’s path without being properly introduced to them. Thankfully he helped me get that working so all is well in that aspect. While I haven’t really done any new artwork, I’ve been playing around with photoshop filters to achieve a less photoey but still a nice background to use during the character dialogue. For event CGs, I was actually going to draw a background, but perhaps do it otome game style where it’s a flat color with sparkles & bubbles all around lol. 
As far as status goes, at this point I got the “main branches” done, and Jen and CJ’s routes also done, bad ends inclusive! The next 2 routes are going to be difficult for me but I can’t go into detail to avoid spoilers. And for the inquiring minds, yes I plan to stick Impz in there as a resident trap. (He does already have some dialogue early in the story.)
Here’s a question I bring to you. I began to write a little dialogue here & there (although it’s mostly placeholders) and I found myself going “holy shit this is SO CORNY.” Is corny ok? I mean aren’t these kinds of things supposed to be corny? I wanna bang my head against the desk when I write some of these sentences XD The other thing is, how does one express love in English? I mean in Japanese you always have your おまえのことが好きです！ but then in English do you say I love you? Or I really like you? Or I want to be with you? I mean I’m having difficulty deciding on what the heck to write. I’m gonna have JP proof read my script since he was an English major after all but for these kinds of things I wonder what’s the best way to approach it?
Tags: artwork, reader opinion, renai blogger project
43 Responses to “RenAi Blogger: Working with backgrounds.”
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biankita on 
padfoot135 on 
My favorite typo from when I was proofreading this earlier was in that scene in the picture, which was “You should see the prics in the man section!”
Wouldn’t an “I love you” suffice? I think corny’s OK… but I’ve never played an otome nor a visual novel in my life
Allow me to beta test, yeah?
Corny is fine. That is how the dialogue usually goes. Just let your story flow. And what about these prics I’m hearing about in the man gallery.
Is this an eroge?
Sabrina> it was supposed to be prices, JP is just being a dumbass
Icy> I haven’t decided beta testers yet xD I’d probably want my female leads to beta test it first to make sure they were ok with the dialogue ^^;
Maybe you can make it so hamfisted and corny that it be awesomely awful…
You could just insert every love dialog you can think of as a parade of homages. I love you ought to do fine, but i suggest that at least one response to the confession should be “I know” then said fraulien gets frozen in carbonite errr… gives some sort gesture of affection.
On second thought just a boom box blasting “in your eyes” out side a window will do fine since otaku suck with words.
Though being over the top hot blooded idiots that we are I doubt most otaku would confess with a simple “I love you.”
It would be more like:
THIS HEART OF MINE BURNS WITH AN AWESOME LOVE!
ITS LOUD BEAT TELLS ME TO CONFESS TO YOU!
TAKE THIS! THE FLOWERS, THE CHOCOLATE, AND ALL OF MY PASSION!
GO OUT WITH ME PLEASE!
Whenever I see corny love dialogue in a movie/TV/anime I just to try to “rewrite it” in my mind it to something more “indirect”. For example, have them talk about something else that is somewhat similar to their situation, with the characters being aware at some level that it is them what they are talking about. That’s one way to go.
Corny itself is OK, but corny is usually too blunt so it would be better to keep it at a minimum.
…or so I think.
I’ve only played one love adventure game fully (Yo-Jin-Bo), and the first end was so corny that I was cracking up instead of “melting” (or whatever you’re supposed to feel). It was great, though, so I very much encourage corny
As for the expression of love part … I’d say it’d be good to vary it on the character/situation too. I mean, even in Japanese there’s the 大好き characters and the 好き characters and the 愛している (*swoons*) characters. I’d say don’t worry about it too much; from the stuff you’ve put up so far, it looks like this game will be a blast
as long as i don’t choke you’re good to go.
I still demand hamsters.
You will probably have more fun writing dialog for the bad ends than for the corny scenes. Just write down whatever you and jp say!
Or find out what tj and his gf say to each other. 
Or me and Sat-chan 
These are good examples, because it is supposed to be a game about nerdy anime blogger types, right? Not that anime bloggers are nerdy that is…. 
I want my image up. Where’s my screenshot!
Demanding demanding~
Oh, are we going to have a fan CD of rabu rabu ~
Well I think it depends on what you want to do with the story. I mean, most RenAi games do get pretty corny at times, but I guess they reflect some sort of idealized Japanese otaku form of dating and relations. I mean if a girl told me “I love you” within like a week or two of meeting each other I’d be bolting most likely. The “L” word, at least in my experience, is something a lot more serious. Now I don’t know what kind of stories you are writing, length, drama and style wise, but it may sound better to think up something more complicated than a short, one sentence declaration. I dunno, maybe like: “I can’t explain it, but I’m just crazy about you Jen. Whenever I think of you my head…it…it just won’t stop spinning. All I want is to be with you…”
Corny is good, because I like corn. But seriously, nice project.
Hmm…..well what do you say to JP?
If you want to trigger Jen’s flags, you better take her out for some Deep Fried food!
Or how about this: “I think I met you and fell in love with you long ago, but I forgot about it and now I remember.”
Or for otaku, how about:
“Please be my full-time hug pillow” or “please take the place of my figures.”
Since this is a sort of a semi-parody/homage to bloggers and otakudom alike, it won’t hurt to be cliched every once in a while.
Just keep the yandere (if any) away from their targets.
The words of Austin, “Shall we shag now or later?” seems to express love in a groovy way.
BTW, will there be a nice boat ending?
I think you should write a general script, then edit the leads themselves edit the style to sort of fit their own linguistic-style. Might make it better. Or you could just imitate them.
I’m sure every couple has a different way of talking to each other, which is based both on their culture and their personality types. An MBTI test might help you here lol.
You mean to say, Where are the Pricks in the man section?
How can there be bad ends if the Yandere doesn’t get to cut? Considering that it’s a parody, it probably should be corny. That way we can laugh at it. If it isn’t corny then you might tread into serious business, which isn’t nearly as fun.
What about: “Would you be interested in a life-time job?”, or “Would you like to be the mother of my children?”, or for something less obvious, “Please never leave my side.” should do the trick nicely.
I see that your project are going about nicely. Keep it up!
If you want serious business:
“We’ve been together for a while now, and I wonder if you ever wonder what my intentions are…” or “You should know by now why I’m doing this/I’m always here for you”.
Actually you can add up a punchline after these dialogues to stay the comedy course.
It is OK to be corny if there are enough development leading to the scene. One example I use is how corny some dialog from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ sounds if taken out of place: ‘O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?’
While maybe not every line should be cornerific I think you should definitely go all out with one of the storylines (maybe impz’s) with lines like “i WILL DIE WITHOUT YOUR LOVE” OR “EVERYWHERE I LOOK IN THIS DARK TWISTED WORLD THERE IS DESPAIR, DEATH AND NARUTARDS BUT THEN I SEE YOU AND YOU ARE MY BASTION OF HOPE, LOVE AND MOE!”
or you know, whatever.
oh noees bad endzzz D:
*suddenly remembers that this is not a crappy otome-roge with abominable bad endings*
*breathes a sigh of relief* XD
also, LOL @ Crusader’s suggested lines. That’s realllyy scary though, that’ll be the lines of a guy you can’t take seriously >_>
@Kabitzin: eww oily fooddd, I only deep fry for the consumption of other people :p
hmm don’t worry about the sentence being corny. I think it’ll be just fine
Hey I think usagijen just gave her stamp of approval for a hot blooded confession.
THE SCHOOL OF THE UNDEFEATED OF CONFESSIONS!
THE WINDS OF LOVE!
ZENSHIN!
KEIRETSU!
BUNNIES ARE MOE!
LOOK, HER CHEEKS ARE BURNING RED!
Let me contribute one line to the potential corniness of the project.
“Please gattai with me!!!”
xD Corny is good in moderation… like anything in reality. xD;;;
Oh, if you’ve sent me anything since monday, I won’t get it until monday. Did something stupid and got grounded. =___=;; (At school right now. Yey 1st Period Computer Graphics Class~)
BTW, Hinano, you get me to testorz it, you realize half my friends will see it/play it too. xD And if I don’t willing give it to them/show them pictures, I wil be tortured. xD;;; Prolly burned x100 on FaceBook’s Heroes Ability thing. xD And have my head chopped off and blah blah blah. (Not like they won’t do it anyways. xDDDD)
If its for english speaking only folks who had watched fansubs all their life, that kind of englishized jpn is fine. (am I making sense?)
Oh its my first time here, love your blob
Don’t worry about bad dialogue. Just as long as it’s better than the “HEY GUYZ DRUGZ R FUNNYZ LOL” dialogue from certain Newgrounds games. (On the other hand, there’s three shoujo-style games on that site, and none of them have braindead dialogue.)
haha thanks for all the responses guys.
in regards to corny dialogue, I guess I wasn’t clear, but rather than “dialogue between the characters” it’s more on the lines of what the male lead is thinking that makes me bang my head against the desk haha. I’ll have to harass bluemist to help me with that one I think…
Corny is all well and good if you’re fine with it. If you can have fun with the corny lines (like the male pointing out to himself that those lines are corny for example), that will be even better.
You got off AIM before I could tell ya something
I left you an msg on LJ if you can check that x_x
Just direct translate 「おまえのことが好きです！」 and it will work out fine (J/K).
Actually, a simple “I love you” will do. 3 simple words. No need for some elaborate “OMG I LUV YOU I THINK I DO” ^^;
Actually, I think looking through the scripts of some of those english translated ero-games might help..
I’d suggest a team of dedicated QCers to help you with the dialogue bit.
Also, Crusader’s suggestion was hilarious and A+. I want to see something like that in the final product.
If it’s the boy’s thoughts, just remember, boys are all emo in their heads, the key is that they just don’t communicate it to the outside world.
I would say that 好き sounds more like “I like you” 大好き more like “I really like you” and 愛してる as “I love you”.
Well the problem is, the lead male is NOT the average anime otaku. I think that’s where people are misunderstanding the story of this game ^^;;…. he’s just an average joe who happens to be taking Japanese class. He’s not like a konoha headband wearing narutard who has pocky for breakfast lunch and dinner :p I hope that clears things up.
He might not start out as an otaku, but I am sure that exposure to his romantic interest will make him one…
By the end I am sure he will devouring pocky by the truck load. Besides how many of us actually remember life before descending into otakuism? I think the core audience for this thing is going to be Oskar Otaku rather than John Q. Public. Otherwise how could you include dakimakuras?
Even non-Otaku guys think corny lovey-dovey thoughts about girls all the time. Most emo songs are written and performed by guys after all. It’s just that most guy won’t spit it out unless they’re in private or want to get in someone’s pants. If you’re really worried about it, find someone who doesn’t know what this Japanimation crap is all about and ask him to read the dialogue
I demand a nice boat ending somewhere… maybe in Impz’ bad end. Or an ‘assisted suicide’ bit.
As for normal guys, would ‘I think I like you’, ‘ I really like you’, or ‘I think I’m falling in live with you’ work as cross-cultural/language equivalents? To indicate degrees of difference and type?
How about “You had me at Keikaku”?
I think it’s always corny if you write it, but possibly less corny if you read it. Plus, I’m sure any romantic confession we’ve ever made was totally corny … but when you’re in the moment of it and saying it to someone you really feel for, it won’t be corny.
That’s just kind of how it goes?
And other commenters are right; games like these need the direct I love you’s. Whereas some real life relationships may just start gradually or develop without those declarations, these fictional ones need those climactic lines.