Author: Star Mishra

ok just so i dont forget to mention stuff, im gonna split higurashi and umineko into seperate posts, and also split their vn and anime/manga adaptations into seperate posts too (I did a lot of research w this so please bear w me, im excited to show process related stuff too but yea hgfjdkhfkds)

OK SO… higurashi when they cry was written by R07 and made on a program called NScripter, which basically means vanilla higu is really, really jank… but i swear there is a genuine charm to it that just cannot be replicated in the console port or the modded pc port. I did also forget to mention that both higurashi and umineko are sound novels (when they cry series has a third instalment called ciconia but i have not read that as of yet and so can’t give much information on it. i wont be including more than maybe one post on it as i only really used it as inspiration for character design)

OK ANYWAY back on topic… ngl adfter the amt of medical withdrawals i was in ive stopped medicating for adhd bcs i rly just can’t deal with it so.. it rly shows i fear DFSHJKGL anyway. higurashi vn.

Higurashi runs in whats known as NVL Mode vs ADV mode (attaching visual examplees of this rn)

i think its best explained in this post here.

I’m also linking a post from my blog last year that goes into more detail on both higurashi’s visual novel form here.

anyway yeah so vanilla higu runs in NVL mode, which is pretty good for long form stories with less interactive elements like higu. the issue is that its not really clean and it Really makes the doujin part of the production clear. which isnt such a big deal for a niche game but higurashi got Really Popular especially after the anime adaptation’s release (which I’ll get to in a later post)

because of this, the console ports got released, which look VERY different than base game. I go into this briefly in the blog post i linked earlier, but while it looks cleaner i personally find that the original has this character to it that gets lost when made to look more like your typical vn. i wish higu had stayed niche im ngl dfsghjks

ANYWAY i keep going on tangents i love being able to focus guys its rly fun.

I started off my initial research for this project by looking into the When They Cry series, a kinetic doujin visual novel series written by Ryukishi07 and released by 07th Expansion. I looked at Higurashi and Umineko, as theyre my favourite visual novels of all time.. fgdhjsk

umm ok im ngl i rly dont know how formal this blog as to be but basically I really wanted to do a kinetic novel (so a visual novel with little to no ingame interactive elements) in a similar format to wtc. I know i mention in my brief proposal that i want to have an interactive medium for my work, but i find the way wtc gets you to be involved in the game rly intriguing- the player is shown multiple fragments/alternate retellings of the events that take place in the same space of time, and without having any say in the course of the game itself, the goal is to solve the mystery of the culprit essentially.

Of course in the answer arcs of each game this structure is broken down and it becomes more of a narrative based commentary but i find the formula in the question arcs to be really cool, and i wanted to make a game similar to that.

as well as the actual game mechanics, i really really enjoy the doujin visuals of the games- R07’s artstyle is really unique and it brings a lot of character to both games. Here are examples of umi and higu sprites by him:

A huge chunk of the research I did for the visual novel demo I had decided I wanted to make came from my SSP 2 Outcome from second year, where I had made a game demo for a seperate visual novel. You can find the game and download it from here.

The game followed my characters Varuna (based on the Hindu deity of the ocean, with a strong tie to asuras) and Yama (Based on Yama, the Hindu God of the dead). I used ren’py to code the game and made all the visual assets myself. I really enjoyed the interactive aspect of visual novels, and so wanted to translate more of my work into that medium.

Here are some of the visuals from Grapefruit, the dating sim visual novel I made last year. (This is relevant I promise, i built a lot more on a lot of the research i did for that project and also was able to identify a lot of things to improve on as a result of going back to study it)

This was a pretty strong starting point, as it also helped me start on a very specific area of research as a result, since I’d done a lot of base research on visual novels in the previous project.

 umm ok where do i start with this ahaha

Please bear with me, im only just adjusting to this new blog site- I’ve been using tumblr till now so its a big change hfdjk..

ANYWAY

I started this project off by filling in the project proposal form- I was pretty confident and set in what i wanted to do for it- I really enjoyed my final project in second year where I made a visual novel demo, so I decided pretty early on that I wanted to make a more fleshed out visual novel game with a new storyline and with new characters. Here’s a pic of the project proposal form i submitted:

 Its lowk so over for me but umm anyway aaaaaa fmp fmp um 

right ok so 

I started out this project with a pretty clear goal in mind- i really wanted to pick up where i left off last year with my game and make a better visual novel with a new storyline and new characters… which ofc didnt end up happening because in typical star fashion i was like ‘ummm actually lets make this 7 times harder for myself’ so . 

ANYWAY this project is centered around my characters, which are all doomed lesbians, and how they play into my own inability to stay within reality (so i break my identity into fragments and throw them at these characters). I think the biggest struggle ive had this year has been navigating being a nonbinary lesbian in the current political climate, not just here in the UK but also back home in India with family, where even those who i am extremely close to will likely never be made aware of this part of me. 

I initially wanted (as I said earlier) to explore this through the medium of a visual novel with a narrative showcasing this kind of experience, but like jsut as i finished researching stuff for this i changed my mind… I’ll go into it more in fuerther posts but please be aware that that is why this submission is a little bit all over the place.. .that being said i do think the work i did helped supplement the final outcome i ended up with quite a lot, so i will be including it all as it is relevant (at least… i think it is…)

YEA 😀 

ok lemme start with the actual posts!!

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