True Endings

It's Lilah's first job, and she's pretty sure she's going to mess it up. To be fair, her work is pretty complicated. Lilah is employed by a company that alters the memories of the terminally ill, giving them one more chance at life. Diving into a client's memory is like diving into a dream world where time stops, and anything is possible. Lilah enters the memories of Theodore, whose biggest regret is losing the love of his life, Abigail Morley. Lilah's goal is to get Theodore and Abigail back together, but being a matchmaker isn't as easy as it sounds. Constant obstacles stand in her way. One such obstacle is Frank, Theodore's bad boy older brother. Frank is both a hindrance and a help as Lilah struggles to reunite Theodore with his lost love. He teases her, constantly smokes, never brushes his hair, and he refuses to believe she's a matchmaker from the future. Even so, Lilah finds herself falling for him... but is he even real? One part time travel romance and one part Matrix, True Endings is a different kind of science fiction romance.

This book covers the distinguishing characteristics and tropes of visual novels (VNs) as choice-based games and analyzes VNs like 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors; Hatoful Boyfriend; and Monster Prom, some of the best examples of the genre as illustrations. The author covers structuring branching narrative and plot, designing impactful and compelling choices, writing entertaining relationships and character interactions, understanding the importance of a VN’s prose, and planning a VN’s overall narrative design and story delivery. The book contains exercises at the end of chapters to practice the techniques discussed. By the end of the book, if the reader finishes all the exercises, they may have several portfolio pieces or a significant portion of their own VN project designed. Features: Discusses different aspects and genres of VNs, what makes them enjoyable, and successful techniques developers can incorporate into their own games Analyzes various VNs and choice-based games that use these successful techniques Shares tips from developers on portfolio pieces, hiring a team to work on VNs, and plotting and outlining VNs Branching Story, Unlocked Dialogue: Designing and Writing Visual Novels is a valuable resource for developers and narrative designers interested in working on VNs. The book will show them how they can design their own VN projects, design branching narratives, develop entertaining plots and relationships, design impactful and compelling choices, and write prose that’s a pleasure to read.