Soutarou Sunderland [i'm Sorry]

Soutarou Sunderland [i'm sorry]

I think I understand what you're getting at. Your comment about wanting to play a ynfg, not a fangame of ynfgs gets it down.

With the original Yume Nikki, you're given a game where you try to piece together a character and their history based on vague clues. The worlds and effects aren't just random, you are supposed to ask, "What is the dev trying to say about the character with this?"

Fangames can change the tone and character, but at heart it's the same concept of trying to tell a story or understand a character based on what is in the game. It's not about how well something is drawn or how pretty the worlds are, it's about what the dev is trying to say with the world.

The issue is with something like 2kki being so large and online, the experience of wandering around on your own and trying to understand the character kind of gets lost. People get more interested in how pretty the maps are instead of WHY the maps are there per say. [Seeing people trash talk and fight over one dev being better technically over another dev really left a sour taste in my mouth about this. An alright artistically world that has a story to tell is far better than a world that is pretty and nothing else]

So down the line you get people making a fangame based on "making pretty areas" as opposed to "makes areas that have something to say behind them." because that's what their experience with fangames is.

There's a difference between a dev adding a forest because they saw another dev make a forest versus because there being a forest in the characters dream says something about the character. Even if you don't know how to draw trees and need to reference other devs, there is still a point where you want the trees to look a certain way to help express what you're trying to say as opposed to just being a tree.

It's okay to reference, but at the end of the day you need to have some motive behind what you're doing besides "make a pretty world" that makes it your own so you're not just copying others.

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I'm still really out of it due to life stuff, so if I completely misunderstood you or am making zero sense I apologize!

Also admit that my experience is limited as I haven't been very active for a while for a variety of reasons so I could be entirely wrong.

Some things about YNFG

I've tweeted before about 'some people have no self-expression and only know how to copying' and I've gotten a lot of comments that are way off the mark. I know there are a lot of people who no longer have the patience to read long posts, but if you want to discuss it with me, PLEASE READ ALL OF IT and then discuss these issues with me.

It all started when my friend told me about a new ynfg release, but after I opened the game I was shocked, speechless by the poor imitation. From the design of the map, the protag's sprites, the pixel style, I couldn't see any style or idea that belonged to this guy at all, this developer just combined a lot of ynfg and yn stuff together and didn't even bother to change the tone or angle.

I'm not saying that character names can't be same with others, ynfg has more than twelve years of history, and it's not that easy to come up with a name among hundreds of -tsuki these days. But if your game is copying everyone else's style, even the names are the same, doesn't it seem like you're lazy? You don't really think you can get your own style by copying everyone's style, do you?

I think every developer encounters some similar situation, there are so many ynfg's out there already, so how to make my ynfg different from the others is a very difficult subject. If we has thought deeply about the theme of the game, the personality of protag, the plot of the game, the worldview when creating the game, it would be impossible that they would make content that is similar to other ynfg.

Suppose someone wants to say that they just want to make a protagonist who has no personality and is just dreaming some absurd dreams, their game has no specific theme, etc.. Actually this is already become a theme, what you think is absurd can't be the same as what someone else thinks.

So don't use that as an excuse, think about what you like and what you want to create before you create it. Every sprite in your work should be more distinctive shouldn't it? There are plenty of authors with 0 drawing skills and production games, and it's the point of creation to try to express what you want to express with the level you have. There are no shortcuts to creativity. No experience in drawing is not an excuse.

DDJ have rules that we can't use material from other people's games. But if someone just copy, colorize, and horizontally flip other people's sprite, then modify them, told other people "I made it"? If this can call 'originality' then other people who are serious about making ynfg are getting pissed off.

The sad thing is that both CU and DDJ tacitly approve of this behavior. And the player community, too, has chosen to remain silent.

CU is a big community and with a discord server, the fans and creators become very close, so I can totally understand that even if someone thinks it's weird, they're too embarrassed to say anything.

I'm not saying that everyone in CU is doing this, on the contrary, there are quite a few original maps that I find refreshing and quite a few developers with ideas. But SOME developers really make me feel disappointed.

Is it really only necessary to have beautiful graphics? Is it really enough for us to just replay content that other people have already done really?

YNO has turned yn and ynfg into multiplayer games, and at the same time, is gradually 'standardizing' ynfg. New players will only be exposed to maps that are popular in the community. People stop enjoying exploring and follow the route given by the wiki through other people's screenshots and community comments, and think 'if I make ynfg, then this is what it SHOULD look like'.

But ynfg has never had a standardized answer.

I've been playing ynfg for 12 years, and the reason I've been able to keep playing is because "I can see the devoloper's personality and personal thoughts in the maps"

There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's minds, so what I want to see is "YOUR" thoughts as a developer, and "YOUR" understanding of dream.

ynfg for me has always been a game that focuses on self-expression rather than pursuing graphic quality, there are many great ynfgs that are not really well drawn and I still love them , because I see in their maps the developer's thoughts, their preferences, their dreams, and the respect they have for yn.

I don't know how many people know about Yumenisshi. Because there are so many English developers who use and modify the sprite of this game, they feel disrespected by their work and have deleted the game, which is still passworded. Similar things happened in 2kki, devoloper delete their map, fights were started because they didn't respect other people, etc.

I sincerely hope that devolopers, players, YNO and DDJ will take this seriously and not set a bad example, more and more people will find it okay to do so in the future, we'd really be losing people who are actually serious about making ynfg.

If after reading this, you still want to argue with me

"Do you think we can't all make the same maps in the future?"

"Do you think naming -tsuki is wrong?"

"Other ynfgs also do that, why are you just saying one game?"

All I can say is, calm down, read it again. you really don't know what I'm talking about.

Beat SH2, got the Leave ending.

ouch ;-;

wip

head is a mess with everything going on recently

wip

oops i made it sad.

used maria as a reference heh

Made a Madotsuki charm/sticker/whatevs design for YN's ani.

might make a backside if i'm feeling better/if anyone's interested.

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