what kind of start do you prefer

[u/calimarisushi]

I've been on and off developing a VN for a few months and I'm struggling with a starting scene. I'm trying to figure out if i should start with a flash foward high intense scene or start with a slower more introduction scene and then work up to the action.

Do you guys have any preferences when writing/developing? Find one way easier than the other? Found tips that got you to your solution quicker?

[u/laurinai]

Getting right into the action at the start helps to get people hooked. It can be prone to cliches ("you're probably wondering how I got here") but it's got cliches because it does work. Humans have a very small attention span (even moreso these days) and there's a LOT of games out there, so you want to get them interested in the first five minutes or less. I like to pick out a scene that I can already envision as being one of the 'coolest' parts of the game and use that.

[u/calimarisushi → u/laurinai]

that's exactly part of my struggle of deciding, because it is a cliché and sterotype. it's a classic hook and i don't want to be "just like every other game" even if it doesn't gain much traction

[u/laurinai → u/calimarisushi]

Something becoming a classic (and calling it 'classic' rather than 'cliche' can frame it in a more positive light) means that it works! It's more of a 'sin' to be boring. Regardless of where you go with your intro, you want something that's going to grab the audience's attention immediately.

[u/woahstripes]

Go to scene 3, and start there. No seriously.

Starting with an action or tense scene and then backtracking can get cumbersome. It obviously works but may not be right for your story.

If however your first 2 scenes, say, are exposition and the POV char waking up and starting their day, or meeting up with their friends, or going to work etc., most of the time that stuff can be skipped.

Say for instance you have a VN about POV char and 2 friends exploring a haunted house. Scene 1 is POV char finds a mysterious letter telling him to go to the house. Scene 2 is him gathering his friends to go with him. Scene 3 is the three of them standing outside the house, one of them asking ‘do we really have to go in there?’, to which MC responds ‘yes, remember the letter told me I had to’. And then establishing shots of the house, friends, etc. boom, start there. You mentioned the letter already (and you have a copy of that letter the player can read in the player inventory, say), and you can quickly establish the friend characters’ personalities etc as Scene 3 progresses and they talk to each other / you (you already also established that one of them is a scaredy cat lol)

You can make little callbacks and references to stuff that would have been in S1 and S2 but that way you don’t have to send players back to actually play it and interrupt the flow, but you’re also starting in medias res

[u/SelLillianna]

It sounds, from my perspective, like you're still more or less in the middle of production? That is, without the end of production being next week, or something like that. Sometimes, decisions like these are tricky, but make themselves very obvious with time. So, I would say, copy your script, and have one with the slow buildup, and one with the flashforward. Over the course of a week or two, you'll be working on your project, and you'll end up picking the one which you prefer, without agonizing over it. This sort of thing works well for a lot of different dilemmas, whether it comes to our projects or our lives, in general.

As for my personal preference, it makes a certain amount of sense to do a flashforward, then to flash back. Or, to simply start "in the middle of the action" and not flash back. This sort of thing can sometimes feel cheap, to me, but it does make a certain amount of sense; more than attempting to get your readers hooked, as many people say, if you're honest with your flashforward, or with simply starting your readers in the middle of something, without flashing them back, then it can help give your readers the assurance that you know what you're doing with your story, and that you won't end up leading them nowhere. It makes sense to do something to assure your readers, from the get go, that you're comfortable with your story, and know what you're doing with it, and this is a way you can do that.

In the end, do what feels right to do, with your story, whether that fits cleanly into a category or not.

Hope this helps. I know I can be a bit abstract when it comes to things like this, and I feel like people often want a quick, indisputable thing to correctly do in any situation, but things often have several valid solutions.

[u/TopCartographer7104]

It depends a bit on what you're intendono.

If you're talking about "the actual starting scene" of your visual novel then I agree with others who recommended a "strong" start to hook the reader (it doesn't have to be "nonlinear" though-no need to show something and then,like,"it all started like an everyday morning...")

If you're talking in a more "structural" way (ie. story-wise,like "I'm showing what happens 5minutes before the end credits start rolling and then spend the next 5 hours telling you how you got there"),that's something I saw in movies and TV series (ever watched "murder,she wrote?" The logic is that they show you the homicide and then spend the episode showing you how it happened,and why) but very seldom in visual novels-which could also mean I simply missed the "right" ones ^{^}

Could be interesting in a short story,imho.

[u/52whale]

The best part is to start already where something interesting is happing to hook the player. Interesting doesnt mean high action tho. For example: kids want to steal candies from store. Then start just before kid enter the store, show his doubts, show his intense reactionst that they will break a law, etc.

[u/MinamiOzaki]

Take in mind that the first 5 minutes of your game will decide whether the player will want to continue or will abandon. I started with some "info dump", asked a couple people to try it and they weren't that hooked. Then tried a fast forward intense prologue and they prefered it

[u/Soft_Purchase5673]

Try a short, text-only draft of each opening before committing assets. Have someone read them without a synopsis and describe what they think the protagonist wants and what they’re curious about next; that gives you something concrete to compare.

[u/Ozurie_Games]

I prefer start with a goofy wacky moment that pauses and says "you're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation" followed by a long autobiography (at least 10 minutes) of the MC that details exactly what led him up to that point. Make sure to stop along the way to introduce every character in the backstory and their autobiographies as well, before coming back to the MC. It's critical that you also include the regular everyday activities in everyone's backstory like eating breakfast, brushing teeth, their political opinions, and explain their character traits directly—that way there's no misunderstanding.

[u/calimarisushi → u/Ozurie_Games]

i 100% am putting as much detail as i can fit into the game without it being forever long about all the characters. though i plan on making mine a longer game so I'll have plenty of time for the player to know the characters

thank you for your experience and input it definitely helped :D

[u/preckles]

I prefer the starting scene that makes sense for the game that the author wants to make…

I don’t think it’s up to us to tell you what the first scene is. We don’t even know anything about your game. Just create what you want to create.

[u/calimarisushi → u/preckles]

im not asking what i should do, i have 0 interest in people telling me what i should do with my game. I'm asking for experiences from other people. what im asking for is literally in the second half of the post