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Kinetic novel and minimal visuals: is entry valid if no graphics and/or branches?

A topic by komehara created Sep 23, 2023 Views: 103 Replies: 3
Viewing posts 1 to 2
Submitted

Hello, I’ve been writing a novel that takes place in a fairy-tale-like setting and then heard about this jam. According to the descriptions, VNs and IFs are accepted. I’ve been thinking about adding branching to my story and make it run under Ink (as I’m not sure there will be enough visuals to justify Renpy, although if I get some background, it could run in full NVL mode all along).

I have been thinking about adding some narrative branches and graphics, but I’m not sure I will have the time / budget to to make it myself or find a collaborator for this.

Would the entry still be valid if:

  • I end up with no graphics (if I have, it would just be backgrounds like sound novels, and maybe the main character since it would help with cover art)
  • I end up with no narrative branches (aka kinetic)
  • both: I end up with a standard novel that happens to be distributed digitally ?
HostSubmitted

Hi! Thanks for asking. To answer your questions:

  • Yes, your entry can just be sounds or text (or even just text, like some interactive fictions do, see this example).
  • Your story doesn't need to have branching paths (the project I'm preparing for this jam is kinetic too!).
  • If it's just a PDF of a written novel, it wouldn't be a valid entry for this jam, it still has to be reminiscent of Visual Novels and/or Interactive Fictions.

Hope it can help you! Good luck with this story of yours, however you choose to share it to the world!

Submitted (1 edit)

OK, thanks! So it will probably be an Ink story without the branching paths.

I just tried it today with a longer text and realized that it prints everything by default on the same page, and you scroll through it… which is great for a novel, but then it’s close to a PDF. You’d only click at the end of chapter. It doesn’t pause after every block of text like Renpy, nor detects when page is full. The only way to make it pause is to add a choice apparently.

I suppose I can use a trick: add a single choice that says “Continue” at the end of each custom block (e.g. a few paragraphs that is smaller than a usual screen height) so the next chunk of text appears on a new page, like Renpy “clear”. Unfortunately, it’s less elegant than what is done in traditional 1st person IF, where “you” do something everytime, and the “Continue” button always says something interesting like “Enter the room” even if there is only one choice. Since my novel is 3rd person, I could write something like “The princess entered the room” but I have no idea if every block of actions will start with something actually done by the main character.

If I don’t have time to personalise the buttons, I hope “Continue” won’t be too bad. And yes, Renpy can get away with no button at all because pressing Space/Enter/clicking anywhere on screen will generally advance to the next block. The need to have a choice seems to be a limitation of ink. Maybe I’ll have a look at other IF engines…

EDIT: after playing around a little more, I hit limitations in both Ink (web export, no engine) and Twine, although Twine is definitely more your standard IF thing, so why not if you don’t need keyboard support. I’ll have a look at Renpy again and see if my novel fits NVL mode.

HostSubmitted

Well, I know some interactive fictions just use the last sentence as the continue button. But a continue button is fine anyway, as it doesn't feel that different from just clicking on the screen to move forward, like it's the case in VNs.