The Official "Somnova Pls" Thread

[raithfyre]

Part of my recent goals as a Somnova member is maintaining a stronger public presence, as well as updating you guys on the things that you want to know about. While the question has been posed on the subreddit before, it only makes sense that we give an opportunity to make requests here. The function of this thread is to let you guys tell us what you'd like to know more about - more frequent numerical posts, updates from a particular member, anything. That said, I ask that you be serious and reasonable in your requests. There are a number of details that we've refused in the past to make public, and that policy (most likely) isn't going to change. Just for the sake of quality discussion, please limit yourself to "real" requests here.

List of Prohibited Topics (this will be updated as needed):
-Nature of any character's disabilities

[Divinewargod]

We actually don't have much information about side characters. If you can tell us, will we be receiving any information about some of the prominent side characters before the demo is released? Possibly in the form of a blog post?

[brainy_kevin]

We barely have any artwork of Erik, it would be nice to see a bit more of the MC.

[Steinherz]

Someone must hum/sing a part of Der Freischütz.
It needs to happen 'sides, it's a good opera.

[raithfyre]

We actually don't have much information about side characters. If you can tell us, will we be receiving any information about some of the prominent side characters before the demo is released? Possibly in the form of a blog post?

I think the general policy on this is "probably not." Maybe closer to demo release, though. Try nagging Alabaster a bit and see if maybe you could get him to change his position, at least on some of the characters in the art gallery.

We barely have any artwork of Erik, it would be nice to see a bit more of the MC.

Coming soon, I think. Within the next three blog posts, at least.

Someone must hum/sing a part of Der Freischütz.
It needs to happen 'sides, it's a good opera.

Unlikely to happen, but this does give me a kinda neat idea. Not gonna say more than that for the time being, though.

[zaku]

is there some easter egg?
or what isolda and bohm annalies are constellation?

[ILY]

What is the name of Renee's bird?

[Mr Immortal]

And what gender is the bird? If there's a chance of a chick being laid, I think we have the right to know.

[Gloom]

And what gender is the bird? If there's a chance of a chick being laid, I think we have the right to know.

We did mention chicks with dicks, didn't we?

[sky]

And what gender is the bird? If there's a chance of a chick being laid, I think we have the right to know.

We did mention chicks with dicks, didn't we?

Utterly brilliant.

[Fifedrum]

I stumbled upon this a few days ago, and something's been nagging me that I haven't seen an answer too in the blog posts. Do you have a general idea of how large an area this game occupies? As in, how many distinct areas are we likely to see?

Another question, granted that it's taking place in the Mediterranean area of Europe, do the character's appearances reflect this, or will it be more traditionally anime - or even further, just plain old multicultural?

Similar to the above, how do you plan on encorporating english into the project? I know it's written in english obviously, but do you plan on doing a simmilar thing KS did with english?

(You know, when I started this post, I was having difficulty coming up with one thoughtful question)

And finally, how thorough is the research in this, medicinal or otherwise? I'd be interested to see a blog post on the process now that I think about it.

I hope I don't come across as nosy or anything, I'm just immensly curious as to the developement process. Honestly, the entire concept of creating a visual novel from an internet dev team astonishes me. I loved to learn the story of the Katawa Shoujo devs when I stumbled upon Four Leaf's game a year ago, and now I have a living example right in front of me. It's almost irresistable to poke it with a stick and see what happens.

[gekiganwing]

... granted that it's taking place in the Mediterranean area of Europe, do the character's appearances reflect this... Similar to the above, how do you plan on encorporating english into the project?

I can't speak for the Missing Stars writers. But in my opinion, a good general rule for portraying places where you have not lived is "Do your research, but don't let your research overwhelm your story." Be willing to learn enough so that you get the details of a setting correct. However, the story should not read like a tourist guide or an encyclopedia entry. Make the setting believable without infodumping. This is much, much easier said than done!

Honestly, the entire concept of creating a visual novel from an internet dev team astonishes me. I loved to learn the story of the Katawa Shoujo devs when I stumbled upon Four Leaf's game a year ago, and now I have a living example right in front of me.

This forum is just a part of the English-speaking visual novel community in 2014. You can find a bunch of active products in the VN-Devs Project Repository, and even more on the Lemma Soft forums. There are a few miscellaneous places where people are creating VNs, such as Deviant Art.

In my opinion, the English-speaking visual novel community is still a small fandom. It started in the early 2000s, and for a while, it wasn't clear if there would be anything more than Tales of Lemma and the fan game SimGirls. As recently as 2004, you could count the number of finished visual novel projects on one hand. But since then, the fanbase has grown, and things have slowly improved. Creators have gotten their freeware and indie visual novels released on iTunes, Google Play, Desura, Steam, and Mangagamer's site. I expect that in the near future, a VN written in English will have a major retail release.

[Divinewargod]

How many player choices can we expect to make in Act 1 on average? Perhaps a margin like, 10 to 16?

[sky]

How many player choices can we expect to make in Act 1 on average? Perhaps a margin like, 10 to 16?

Plot twist, there are no player choices. You knock all of the girls up in random order.

[Bismarkus]

Similar to the above, how do you plan on encorporating english into the project? I know it's written in english obviously, but do you plan on doing a simmilar thing KS did with english?

I see two possibilities on how English will be incorporated into the story:

1) Seeing as the story will be taking place in a school with many international students, many of whom probably wouldn't know German, all students may be required to speak English due to it being the international language.

2) Students are required to speak/learn German. Although I doubt them speaking German would have any significant effect on how English is incorporated in the story, as English and German are in the same language family (West Germanic) and share many words in common. At most, you may see some gratuitous German lacing the dialogue (i.e. a character saying "Hallo" and "Guten tag" instead of "Hello" and "Good day").

[Steinherz]

Please don't touch Steam when it comes to a release.

Steam is a killer for VNs. Like, Grisaia no Kajitsu was essentially ruined because they made it remove the H-scenes because of some weird thing Steam has.
And in one of the routes the H-scenes are very important to the plot.

If plot is important, don't do Steam. I know I won't when I get to working on my projects.

[Hamadyne]

As much as I love Steam (and based Gaben), the fact that it doesn't allow sexually explicit content disappoints me.

We do plan on releasing Missing Stars on Origin.

I kid, I kid.

[Steinherz]

As much as I love Steam (and based Gaben), the fact that it doesn't allow sexually explicit content disappoints me.

Yeah. I mean, it allows more morally wrong things *cough*ManhuntAndHatred*cough* than sex. What gives?

We do plan on releasing Missing Stars on Origin.
I kid, I kid.

[sky]

I nominate uplay.

[Mr Immortal]

As sure as I am (almost 98 and 3/4%) that Missing Stars will just be released for free through their website, I nominate that you release it in monthly chapters through the use of pirated cassette tapes.