Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Con'Ai - An anime-convention-themed visual novel

Hello everyone, welcome to the new official blog of the Con'Ai Project.


What is the Con'Ai Project, you might be asking?


Put simply, this project is an attempt to develop and release a ren'ai-style freeware visual novel game, which will take place at a Western anime convention. (Exactly which country the convention will appear in is yet to be decided, but it will not be set in Japan.) The project hopes to leverage the strength of the OELVN community, which has been significantly expanded by the recent success of the ren'ai game Katawa Shoujo (http://katawa-shoujo.com/), and the subsequent uprise of other promising OELVN projects due to the game's success.


The premise of the project is that it will elaborate upon, parody, and pay homage to the international phenomenon of the anime convention subculture, recognizing the fans, creators, and other people who have been brought together by this strange Japanese combination of distinctive animation, intricate artwork, and edgy subject matter, as well as showing the excitement of the fanbase, which culminates at the many anime conventions held all around the world on an annual basis. What better way to immortalize the one-of-a-kind experience of an anime convention, than by creating a visual novel which imitates the style of the work being appreciated at anime conventions, for the purpose of representing the fans and their stories from a firsthand perspective?


That said, the central topic of the visual novel will be motivation: Why do people go to anime conventions? My theory is that there are five main raisons-d'aller (reasons to go) that drive the experience: Attention, Appreciation, Friendship, Competition, and Talent. The main character, a male college student, will have the opportunity to establish a relationship with one of five female characters during the course of a three-day anime convention, where each female character represents one of these five motivating factors. By attending events with each character, the player will be able to witness some core aspect of the anime subculture, as well as gain a further understanding of the motivations behind each character's actions, until they get to the point where a relationship can be established with one of the characters.


The Con'Ai project currently has very few members, but we are currently in desperate need of artists, musicians, and writers. If you are interested in joining our team, or would like to know more about the project, check out our development and discussion forums at http://con-ai.forumotion.com/.

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