Over the course of the last 10 years, visual novels have become a popular choice among players. It is a narrative style that covers all sorts of game genres within an interactive, dialogue driven story.
The romance genre of visual novels, which has a large number of games that include queer representation, means that players are free to pursue a variety of different characters in a romantic sense.
While visual novels alone aren't the only kind of game where players can find queer romance stories, they do seem to be more plentiful in the visual novel space As of December 7, 2022, Itch.io has 1,289 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer visual novels.
Extra care can be given to stories like this. When taking on the task of creating stories that represent the LGBT+ community, they can present unique requirements for writers. There is a blend of elements that come along with writing queer characters and the writing struggles that writers face on a daily basis.
During the discussions we had with creators about working on queer romance stories, the early development process stood out due to its scope and different approaches to player agency.
The launch trailer for boyfriend dungeon.
One of the most important things to keep track of is scope and timelines, according to Aeene Schumann, who wears several hats on the First Bite Games team. The First Bite team is made up of seasoned writers and they are used to it. Knowing when to cut back or how to keep your project on a certain timetable is what we all need to be on top of.
Determining scope was an important part of how Kitfox Games prioritized early on. The development of Boyfriend dungeon took a long time. The director and designer at Kitfox Games says that it saved them a lot of time when it came to deciding what the scope and impact of choices would be. We would prioritize the feeling of emotional agency of the love interests, rather than the player agency and their control.
The creators and writers of First Bite shared that different choices and routes a player might take can affect their writing decisions early on.
It is dependent on you and your process. I tend to compose my stories around certain experiences that I want to provide, so I angle them that way, for example.
When drafting, I usually map out my choices in a very basic way. It's just figuring out what experiences we want the player to have. When I get into the meat of writing the story, I try not to get too attached to those choices.
There are a lot of different identities within the LGBT+ community. When writing queer love interests in visual novels, it's important to keep in mind the romanceable characters that can be found in their games. Taking into account how players themselves may identify and how that may affect their choices while playing is part of that.
We as queer people are not a monolith.
There were similarities and differences in how each creator approached writing the characters and romance stories in the visual novels they worked on. According to Short, each potential love interest had at least two flags that the creators would set based on a player's choices.
The most basic and frequent check was whether the player had confirmed they wanted to be Romantic or Platonic, but for example, there is one character that notices if you reject their offer of tea, and will always offer you another.
Romanceable love interests are what the focus is when writing for Short. I focus on the character and what they are interested in. The gender/sexuality of the player wasn't important because they're almost more of a supporting character than the love interest is.
The creators can feel the pressure when creating queer characters. The video game industry has seen changes in representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer people over the last few years, but that doesn't mean that the pressure is gone. That reminds Wise of a key thing to keep in mind during their writing process, which is centered around player choice and seeing the player character as a blank slate.
When creating queer characters, there is a lot of pressure to provide good representation. Although we might not be able to offer every queer person who plays something to fully relate to, they might be able to see a bit of themselves in the characters and their stories.
The payoff at the end of the game gives the player more satisfaction. Our player character in First Bite is kind of a blank slate in terms of motivation, they want to have some fun with some vampire, so this particular instance of game writing isn't necessarily that deep, but it's fun and horny and brutal.
In terms of challenges that creators face, the kinds of stories being told, and the kind of pressure that Wise mentioned, the queer visual novel space is constantly changing. Writing struggles still exist when it comes to the creation of queer characters. "For me, my struggles are just regular writing struggles, which can be just finding the ability to push through mental blocks or life stuff and just writing." Al-Samkari made the statement.
The only thing you can do is give an authentic experience. It has to be more than that.
In addition to your everyday writing struggles, there seemed to be consensus on approaching writing characters with authenticity.
The more diversity and inclusion you try to account for, the more you have to be wary of tokenism and stereotypes creeping in. Adding at least two examples of every type of character/marginalization is the main solution to that. You can't provide all the representation because there are either infinite sexualities or uncountably finite amounts. The only thing you can do is give an authentic experience. It needs to be enough.
Short pointed out that creators should be aware of how much scrutiny they get. It can feel unfair to hold larger stories to higher standards than smaller ones. The more you signal that you are trying to do something, the more people will evaluate you for success or failure.
Even if it isn't always kind, that's fair.
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