New Contributor: Aviala

by Aviala

Tell us a bit about yourself.
I'm Aviala, a game design student and a visual novel creator from Finland. I'm also the founder of Lizard Hazard Games, my group and soon to be business. Right now I spend a lot of time working on my project, Skyfish. When I have time, I also do art as a freelancer for other game projects.

Why visual novels/interactive fiction?
I don't remember how I first found Ren'Py, the visual novel engine, but I was amazed by how easy it was to learn how to make a simple VN. After my failed attempts to draw a webcomic I decided that a story-based game would be perfect to tell the story I couldn't bring into comic form.

What was the last thing you worked on?
Last night I worked on some commission work, and earlier today I finished writing a backstory for a Skyfish character. Skyfish is my first big game project so I haven't really worked on anything very significant before that.

Working on anything right now?
Yes, Skyfish. I've been working on it on and off for around 3 years, but there wasn't any significant progress before I started focusing on it a few months ago.

What are a few of your inspirations (artistic, literary, games)?
I don't have many inspirations that I'm directly drawing from, but when I was younger I used to read a lot of fantasy literature. The Hobbit is one of my all-time favourites, because my mother used to read it to me when I was little, and since then I've read it multiple times. Fantasy literature helped me read better and inspired me to try my hand at writing - though it's been a long time since I wrote a story before Skyfish, so I'm rusty.

The TV show Breaking Bad inspired me to write better morally ambiguous characters. The show helped me define some characters for Skyfish. As for art... I don't have many specific artists or works that inspire me. I just suck in inspiration from all around me, I guess. Having many artist friends helps.

Other interests?
Lots. I'm interested in medieval combat, and I'd like to try my hand at that someday. For now I only do boffering aka foam weapon combat. I also have other nerdy hobbies like tabletop roleplaying and LARPing. I have a fabulous sense of style and I love to shop at thrift stores.

Plant, animal or mineral?
Plant.

New Contributor: OokamiKasumi

From The Adventures of Prince Ivan

Tell us a bit about yourself; why visual novels/interactive fiction?
As an author, I saw Visual Novels as a fantastic new way to tell a story. I was already creating worlds with words alone. The idea of adding images, music and sound effects to a story fascinated me.

What was the last thing you worked on?
The Walk, a Psychoanalysis Game. It's actually more of a Quiz game than a Visual Novel. Truthfully though, I was testing some coding just to see if I could do it.

Working on anything right now?
I'm in the planning (plotting) stage of a couple of new ideas, but I'm either missing needed assets to complete it, or the idea is just to big for me to accomplish by myself.

What are a few of your inspirations (artistic, literary, games)?
My core inspiration for making visual novels is an older game called "Ballad of an Evening Butterfly" (link), one of the VN's translated by DejaVu. With only a handful of choices available, it was far more Story than Game. I played it and pretty much thought, "Hey, I can do that!" However, several years passed before I found the RenPy VN Engine and started making my own VNs.

I have two other sources of inspiration: The old "Choose Your own Adventure" books and Fairy Tales. Many of the older Fairy Tales actually have riddles and puzzles in them, so they work well as VNs, but studying the style of story branching CYOA books use is where I got my first ideas on how multi-path stories should work.

Other interests?
Photoshop. I became an addict after working with a couple of scanlation groups that translate manga from Japanese to English. I adore experimenting with ways to take photos and make them look like paintings.

After too many years of experimentation I finally figured out how to make VN character sprites. However, the 'paperdoll' technique I use is not a popular style. Unfortunately, I just don't have the drawing skills needed to make each character an individual work of arte, so I make-do with the limited skills I do have.

Plant, animal or mineral?
Animal!