ViNoWriMo stands for Visual Novel Writing Month, and is a jam inspired by the annual NaNoWriMo event.

"National Novel Writing Month began in 1999 as a daunting but straightforward challenge: to write 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days. Now, each year on November 1, hundreds of thousands of people around the world begin to write, determined to end the month with 50,000 words of a brand new novel."

This Jam is for folks who want to dedicate themselves to writing a visual novel within the month of November. You'll set personal word count goals with the intention of writing a little bit everyday! Submissions aren't limited to the typical visual novel format, you're welcome to participate and write any sort of interactive story.

💖 How To Participate

• Sign up for the jam on this page!
• Join our ViNoWriMo discord! This is optional, but it provides dedicated channels for feedback, tech support, and friendship!
• Set a total word count goal for the month, and then break it down into daily and weekly word count goals.
• Submit your visual novel here on itch by Nov. 30th at midnight CST! Submission instructions: https://itch.io/docs/creators/game-jams#the-submission-process
• Check out the other stories and leave nice comments!

📑 Rules and Guidelines

• Be mindful of your health and set goals and working hours that are okay for you.
• Extend kindness to all jam participants.
• Our intention is to encourage everyone to write, the final quantity and quality doesn't matter as long you enjoy the process! We are all learning.
• If jamming in a team, credit must be given to all contributors. If you want to use art/sounds/code that was created by someone else, please make sure you have the permission of the creator and credit them appropriately.
• If your story contains any topics that may be sensitive or triggering to others, please include content warnings on your game page.

❓ FAQ

Is there a theme?
There is no theme, you're welcome to write anything you want in any genre. If you're looking for prompts to help you get started, we recommend checking out Magic Realism Bot and Sci-Fi Story Spinner Bot.

I don't know how to code/draw. Can I still participate?
Absolutely! Jammers are encouraged to focus on their writing during this jam, you can always continue working on your game and add art and sound later. As for coding, there are lots of easy to use interactive writing tools that require little to no coding. Please see below for a list of resources to get started! Our Discord also has a tech support channel to provide additional help.

Do I need a team to participate?
While small teams of writers are welcome, NaNoWriMo is usually an event focused on individual growth and personal achievement. Writing is always better with friends, so join our Discord to share your work, get feedback, and hang out with other writers while we create our visual novels!

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Don't know where to start? Don't worry! We've compiled some resources for those who don't know where to start making a visual novel!

General Tutorials and Helpful Links: 

Guide to Making a Visual Novel

How To Survive Game Jams

Interactive Guide for Choose Game Engines

Standalone Visual Novel Resources: 

Here are some resources that require little to no coding, and are their own standalone programs / engines.

Ink: This is a very powerful interactive scripting language. At its most basic, it's a very nice program for Choose-Your-Own adventure or branching narratives. There's no coding necessary for the base program, but it does have Unity integration! The Ink documentation is also a very helpful place to help learn the program.

InkWriter: Similar to Ink, but with an interface more similar to Twine. This is a web based program, so no downloading needed! It also has a built in tutorial.

Ren'Py: A python based engine that is made for visual novels. No coding required, comes with a built in save system, menu system and has default characters to use! The documentation is very wordy, but goes through the engine very thoroughly. Here is a video tutorial if that helps you learn better!

Twine:  A very basic interactive fiction web-based program! If you have experience with CSS and HTML, you can use those skills here! If you want to add visuals, Bitsy is a small program that can be combined with Twine through JavaScript programming to make a cute little game! Here's a link to a tutorial on how to link the two together!

RPG Maker: Less of a visual novel program, but a program to make short RPGs! All the coding is similar to drag and drop, but with the option to code in Ruby to really customize the project! However, this is a paid software. RPGMaker XP is $25 USD, but there is a free trial available for you to try out!

Tools and Plugins for Unity:

Unity is a free, powerful game engine that can be used for both 2D and 3D. The engine is used for coding either in the C# language, or in their new visual scripting language, Bolt. Here are some resources that are extremely helpful for making Visual novels in Unity that reduce the amount of scripting you would normally have to do!

• Bolt - Visual Scripting Unity Tool (Now Free!)
• Playmaker - Visual Scripting Unity Tool
• Fungus - Make story games with in Unity 3D using nodes and visuals instead of scripting
• YarnSpinner - Tool to help build a branching narrative and dialogue
• Ink - Story game tool, integrates with Unity and Web Games
• Ink-Fungus Gateway - Tool that combines Fungus and Ink to make story games
• Shader Forge - Make beautiful shaders with no code