Last November, we at Degica released the long-awaited Visual Novel Maker. It had spent a long time in development, but it was finally here. The perfect engine to allow anyone to make Visual Novels. Easy to use, no coding required, and tons and tons of customization.
Then, in March, The Pirate’s Fate, a Visual Novel made in the Engine, hit Steam! The game is getting rave reviews from the Steam userbase, so our community manager Nick decided he would catch up with the designer for the game, T.F. Wright, to see what he had to say about his game, Visual Novel Maker, and what it’s like making a game for the first time!
Nick
First of all, from what I’ve read, you are the designer and writer for The Pirate’s Fate. Is this correct? And what all does that entail as far as the work itself?
T.F. Wright
Yes, I did the writing and the coding for the game. My business partner, Volkenfox, did the artwork.
Nick
So, tell us a little about the game itself. What kind of game is it? What do you feel is the main focus?
T.F. Wright
The Pirate’s Fate is a visual novel that defies the norms of its genre. It has over 300 choices, which are so meaningful that they transform you – literally.
The moral consequences of your decisions physically transform you and the crew, and the story along with it. There are 8 unique branching plot paths, and over 2 dozen endings.
In The Pirate’s Fate, you play as Mila, the newest member of the Dread Pirates. You’ll navigate stormy seas, seedy saloons, and monstrous coves in search of loot. And be warned: you aren’t the only pirates seeking this treasure!
Nick
You mentioned moral consequences. Being a story about pirates, are these moral choices going to skew towards the grey, or more black and white? With two dozen endings, it sounds like the decisions could be very complicated.
T.F. Wright
Yes, my goal was to create a game which had “grey” choices. Lots of games (like Fable) have a binary good or evil system. But I think that’s boring – there’s no real case for being evil, so there are no actual moral dilemmas involved. Plus, the fact that you can clearly be on either the good or evil path means you sort of decide beforehand what to do.
In The Pirate’s Fate, each of the 8 different plot paths have their own justifications and their own downsides – you can make a case for why the choices that lead to them are right or wrong. So you have to stop and think about what you are doing with each step along the way. It’s a bit complicated, but I also think it’s fun to play a game that actually challenges you to think about your actions.
Nick
It does seem like a lot of games give you the option of “be a reasonable human being” vs “being the jerkiest jerk”. Can you give an example of a decision you might have to make in your game that highlights how your game is handling it differently?
T.F. Wright
Sure. One example is you’re looking for a coin, being kept by a dishonest baker. You try to buy the coin from him, but he won’t give it to you. One of his former employees talks to you, tells you the man is bad news and suggests that you break into his business and rob him. You have two choices – do you rob him, or do you tell the baker about the former employee, and let her get arrested for conspiracy to commit burglary?
One character, arguing for the former option, says “I’d rather be known as a thief than as someone who betrayed a friend.”
Lots of choices are like that – you have to weigh which type of transgression or difficulty you are more comfortable with
Nick
That is a difficult choice. So, what inspired you to make a game like this?
T.F. Wright
I’ve wanted to make games since I was young, and I’ve always really liked the ‘choose your own adventure’ genre. When I was young, I learned to read on the Goosebumps books, I really enjoyed their ‘choose your own’ style adventures.
Nick
I read a lot of choose your own adventure books as a kid, too. Do you see Visual Novels as the video game equivalent of the old choose your own adventure books?
T.F. Wright
Sometimes. I feel like there are some visual novels that are basically just linear stories, with only endings that are different. Sometimes, visual novels focus too much on juggling stats – basically, just a math problem with dialogue choices in front of it. I tried to create a story that could be enjoyed on its own terms, where the choices are the game and you don’t have to think “well, I don’t want to do THAT because my evil stat might go up…”
Nick
Kind of discouraging the idea of gaming the system, then.
T.F. Wright
Exactly. I feel like lots of times when you play games with dialogue, the player thinks to themselves “okay, what do they want me to say here…” But in The Pirate’s Fate, every choice is potentially valid. If you veer too far away from the main story, you might wind up in a secret ending – some of which are also canonically tied to the main story. So I try to reward players for going their own way, instead of forcing players to figure out what it was that I decided was the “correct” decision.
Nick
So you mentioned having wanted to make games since you were young, have you made any games before this, or is this your first game?
T.F. Wright
This is my first game. Actually, when I was first planning it, I remember thinking, “okay, The Pirate’s Fate will be my test game, sort of learn how to make games, and then, after that, I’ll make a real game.” But when we debuted the idea, the response that we received from fans was so overwhelming that we knew we had to make this one count.
Nick
So with Pirate’s Fate, you used Visual Novel Maker. Was this the plan the whole way through development, or did you start with another engine first and move to VNM later?
T.F. Wright
I made the “proof of concept” demo on Tyranobuilder, another VN engine. Then I learned about Visual Novel Maker and knew I wanted to use that. I started coding on VN Maker around May of last year, after I was accepted into their pilot program for developers.
Nick
So what drew you to Visual Novel Maker as an engine?
T.F. Wright
2 things – first, I had very little programming skill before this project. I had to teach myself how to code to do this. So I was attracted to the fact that there was a drag and drop interface and it wouldn’t be too hard. Second, I liked the fact that there was so much support for things like special effects. I really wanted to push the limits of what could be done in a Visual Novel.
Nick
Being part of the pilot beta program, we know that there were definitely some bugs that you got to deal with while we were still finalizing things, but how was your experience working with the engine? What would you say was the easiest thing to do in the engine? What was the trickiest? Where would you like to see improvements?
T.F. Wright
The special effects support was the easiest and best thing about Visual Novel Maker. I was able to create fade-ins, masking, flashes, characters falling and moving about, and other really interesting effects. I was also able to have the interface evolve graphically as the story progressed, which was a goal of mine. All of these were implemented very painlessly.
Weirdly, the trickiest hurdles were often simple stuff. We had some trouble with things like saving and loading and making sure the skip and auto buttons worked the way they were supposed to. But the staff at VN maker has always been very helpful and I’m glad I was able to talk to them and resolve these issues. I understand that because it was a new engine there would be kinks to be worked out, so I know that the problems I experienced are not a weakness of the program itself.
Nick
Are you planning to make another game with Visual Novel Maker? Starting soon, or are you more focused on The Pirate’s Fate for the moment (perhaps planning some updates/dlcs?)?
T.F. Wright
Right now, we’re still making some updates, and we may create an expansion. After that, then yes, I certainly would like to make another game. I would like to use Visual Novel Maker again, yes, if I am the one coding it. I may hire a full-time coder to help me next time, so if they have a preference for a different engine, I would defer to them, though.
Nick
So having finished your first game, what advice would you give to someone out there who wants to make a game, but hasn’t started yet? What do you wish you had known before starting?
T.F. Wright
There’s so much that I could say! I wish I had known a few things. First, it took a lot longer than I thought. So plan for that.
In terms of game design, I would say try to create something simple, and then build upon that. If there are tons of extra features you want to do, first make sure things are working the way you want them to at the base level, then add in the extras one by one
Lastly, I would say know in advance what you want to do. If your goal is to make a game for fun, as a hobby, maybe as practice for becoming a pro one day, great! If your goal is to become a pro, then you probably need to devote full-time attention to the game right away.
Nick
Any final words for the interview?
T.F. Wright
I would say thanks for taking the time to talk to me! I hope all of you out there enjoy The Pirate’s Fate, and if it inspires you to do something creative yourself, well… that’s just great. :smiley:
Nick
Thanks for doing the interview, and good luck on the continued success of The Pirate’s Fate, and the dev of your next game!
Interested in using Visual Novel Maker yourself? It’s currently on sale for 25% off on Steam!
