GMing and VN Writing (part 2)

For the past year, I’ve been trying my hand at video game development, which is a change after my 8 years of tabletop RPG development and publishing. I decided to keep it as “simple” as I knew how, and started working on a visual novel. Visual novels (VN’s) don’t usually involve complex programming, intensive animation, or complex physics engines. Instead, they focus on telling a text-based story told through character “sprite” art over artistic backgrounds with accompanying music. Though VN’s vary and some do involve animation, most of the time this game genre is focused on storytelling. As an experienced GM, the idea of writing a visual novel immediately appealed to me, because I could focus on the story over almost everything else. I began writing the Star Legation story in August of 2018, and I’m happy to say that I have finally finished writing the script for the story! Looking back, I can now see how much my time as a GM helped me put together this dialogue-driven tale that is full of choices to make along the way.

The Solar Echoes table-top RPG

The Star Legation visual novel