visual novel toolbox | Hananezumi HQ

welcome to the visual novel toolbox.

"okay, where am i now?"

shocker! you're in the toolbox page. this is an entire page where i list all of my stuff where i make my visual novels from, much like a digital swiss knife for making visual novels. if you want to create something to show your original characters and their story, then this is the right place! this is a step-by-step process, so please read them in order. (or not, if you want to keep it that way)

do note that this page might be "mucho texto", but it's fine if you read it carefully. it takes a lot of patience and a decent reading comprehension to make a visual novel. remember, it's not a horse race, there's nothing you can rush with your own stuff unless it's under the schedule. this toolbox will be mixed with resources available and my own thoughts and reviews on the stuff i've listed here.

before we get into the development stuff first...

we're gonna need some essential tools in order to maximize some of the productivity and unlock some of the possibilities. in order to create your first visual novel, a piece of software like an image editor and an IDE is required! free software tools are highly priortized here, since this toolbox is meant for cheaper ways to create one without ever spending a dime and a lot of paid software here might be unlisted. the tools are as followed:

  • Photopea (photo editor)
    • a free alternative to Photoshop, pretty much has most of it's features close to the original Photoshop. only ridden with banner ads on the right, so the UI might cram itself on 4:3 or 5:4 square monitors. ad blockers might be recommended, but it's gonna annoy you a lot.
  • Visual Studio Code (IDE/code editor)
    • the main code editor for making visual novels. not to be confused with Visual Studio 20XX, that's the resource-heavy one that's only needed for C/C#/C++ development. it also lets you install extensions, so if there's an editable file that contains code, the extension for that file exists in the Extension Marketplace. do note that it's AI focused, but who uses AI anyways? only that matters with this software is to edit the code and maximize the productivity.
  • VSCodium (IDE/code editor)
    • if you don't like Microsoft's data telemetry slop, then VSCodium will be the answer to that. this is the open source version of Visual Studio Code, with all of the telemetry disabled.
  • Kdenlive (video editor)
    • now why would we need a video editor for a visual novel? well, here's the thing; you need a video editor in order to create some of the cutscenes where a specific effect (eg. glitch) is needed. you can also use this as a way to create simple vendor splash intros if you happen to have a studio or needed an introduction to the game.
  • DaVinci Resolve (video editor) ($*)
    • if you want something advanced than Kdenlive, the answer would be DaVinci Resolve. though, it might be resource-heavy, but it'll get the job done anyways. it was used in professional video editing, so it may offer more VFX than Kdenlive does.
  • Tenacity (audio editor)
    • when it comes to visual novels, audio is important, but why Tenacity when Audacity exists? apparently, Audacity went into some controversy after Audacity 2.4.1, so it become a data telemetry slop of all things. Tenacity is THE alternative to this, just without the data collection. here's a piece of information from Tenacity's history:
    • "In April 2021, Muse Group acquired the famous audio editing application Audacity. Their goals for Audacity were to bring much needed improvements to Audacity. However, not too long after, there was an attempt to add telemetry to the program, spurring controversy among its community. Luckily, the new developers backed off on their proposal, only maintaining basic error reporting and update checking where no personal information is collected.
      However, in May of 2021, Audacity was embroiled in controversy once again when Muse Group imposed a new contributor license agreement (CLA) allowing them to reuse Audacity code in proprietary software, bypassing the copyleft protections of Audacity’s GPL license. Shortly thereafter in July 2021, Muse Group introduced a new privacy policy, recommending that users under the age of 13 not use the program. This raised concerns of violating Audacity’s GPL v2 license. While the new privacy policy was updated to address these concerns, the community already had enough."
  • Audacity (audio editor)
    • just use Audacity 2.4.1 (or below) if you don't like the telemetry stuff, please. otherwise, you might aswell just install the latest version for VST support.

"alright, what engines and tutorials do you recommend?"

the only first thought would be Ren'Py, since the Quickstart documentation is easy to understand and you'll get the hang of things by just reading the documentation carefully. you can find Ren'Py via renpy.org and it's documentation, but you shouldn't go too much on the advanced things yet. if you're getting used to coding Ren'Py, then i have more tutorials to show, which are curated by other people in the Ren'Py community. i'll list them below here:

however, not all things are explained, so you might have to stray yourself with the Ren'Py documentation and experiment some things before utilizing them for general use. or, go to the Lemma Soft Forums for more information. the forum is locked behind members only, so you need to register on the forums and join the Ren'Py Discord Server for the password. also, please do not leak their registration password and be professional around other Ren'Py developers. failure to comply will leave you helpless, so please do not blow your chances.

if you want some tutorials curated by me, check the bottom right of this webpage, but you can still rely to the tutorials above, they explain and understand more than i do with tutorials.

"what if i don't wanna use Ren'Py-"

use TyranoScript instead. if you want to create one of those Japanese visual novels, then TyranoScript it is. you can find it via tyranoscript.com and there's a tutorial/documentation about using it. fun fact is that; TyranoScript is the same as KiriKiri (though stated to be similar in the FAQ), so it's basically the same engine as Nekopara and Koikuma uses! if you want to add more features, there's a plugin library for that, but all of the text is in Japanese, so you might have to translate that before curiously downloading those plugins. most plugins are free, some are paid.

there's another Tyrano related tool called TyranoBuilder, but that's paid; and the only pros with TyranoBuilder is to make visual novel creations easy than typing the entire script in VSC. you may stick to TyranoScript, but you can pay them to make your life easier.

"what's next? i'm missing something..."

oof, i think something that's missing is... characters. backgrounds too, if it's included here. don't worry about it! i have found some sources where you can find them. for the character part, this should be skipped if you knew how to draw your own characters, otherwise don't skip the character part if you're getting desparate for character images.

as for character images; character creators are going to be your Plan B if Plan A (aka. drawing characters yourself) isn't gonna work at all. i've listed on what character creators are recommended here, but be warned; i don't have much of those characters creators lying around.

  • Gacha Club
    • basically the real deal when i was making my own visual novel. it has the Save PNG feature, which is the only feature for getting those images without the pain of screenshotting every pose and expression. sadly, Gacha Life 2 doesn't have that feature, so this is the maximum of it.
  • Gacha Nebula
    • it's just Gacha Club, but cooler. it has advanced customization, and the ability to save those poses and expressions as PNGs; unlike Gacha Life 2 where it has the same customization as this one but doesn't have the ability to save PNGs.
  • Mannequin ($*)
    • if Gacha isn't your thing or you want something different, then Mannequin will be the answer to that. paid, but has a free version if you're okay with the limited features and has all of the DLC content on the free version. however, if you want to tween or use it for something else, you'll need to pay them 40$. you can only export it as a PNG file (for visual novels or PNGTubing tools such as veadotube) or an INX file (for Inochi Creator for creating VTuber models using Mannequin), so certain exportable files such as PSD files are locked in the full version, but this shouldn't be the case for visual novel development, as it's highly reliable on those PNG files.

"okay, and those backgrounds you mentioned?"

(the background part of this guide is unfinished; the website is currently shifting into a stable state rather than this cutting edge state. this piece of guide will be filled with resources and information once the webpages go stable.)