Oh my gosh, this is such a wide question!! I will try my best 😂 Though a lot of these will really depend on the type and style of VN you want to make (and I would be the last person to say that the way I work on games is in any way good alsdkfjaskldf)

Coding:

When it comes to coding, it’s hard to give much advice without knowing exactly what you want to do (and it sounds like you’ve yet to dive in yet). I think my best advice to someone just starting out and wanting to figure out how to code a VN is to start by going through several tutorials? I really recommend Ren'Py especially if this is your first VN as it’s pretty easy to jump into and there are a ton of tutorials and guides and questions about it answered online (I’ve only found the answer to many of my questions through harried Google searches LOL). When you download Ren'Py, it’ll come with a tutorial game you can play through that will teach you all the basic functions and how to code things like sprites, dialogue, images, music, etc. There are also a ton of video tutorials out there. So overall my main recs for getting started are:

• The included Ren'Py tutorial game
• This beginner’s tutorial vid from Vimi
• This other beginner’s tutorial vid from Zeil Learnings

A big part of figuring out how to do all the coding stuff is really to just jump in and start messing around with things. Start out by making something super simple that just has some dialogue and a sprite and a BG or something and see if you can make everything appear on the screen. And then bit-by-bit, try to add other things as you start to understand the basics and how things work. I’m not really sure what else to add here without knowing if you have any specific questions, but I can always try to answer anything more specific if you want!

Pacing:

Oh, gosh… this is hard. Mostly because I don’t even really know how to describe pacing and a lot of it is more just feels rather than anything specific or tangible. 💦 Also because pacing is kinda something you learn intuitively through both consuming stories and creating stories (reading/watching lots of stories with good pacing will help you start to pick up on things that have bad pacing, for instance). I don’t actively think about things like pacing when I write or when my mind is haphazardly coming up with story beats in my head. But I think my experience in writing and reading over the years helps me somehow feel like I know where to speed things up, where to slow things down, and so it just kinda happens as I start to write (not saying it is perfect in any way shape or form tho adlkjfasldk). I’ve also done some work as a developmental/structural editor for stories and taken a few classes in developmental editing in the past. I feel like a big part of pacing is really finding a rhythm that allows for highs and lows, but that also keeps getting bigger and bigger leading up towards the main climax. Like if you have a series of intense story beats in your head that you want to include in your story, make sure that each one feels bigger and more intense than the last, leading up to the biggest one at the end. There are some really good books out there you can read that talk about story structure and story beats and pacing, etc. Some various books I’ve read that I’ve found useful and helpful in writing and editing and stories in general include:

• Save the Cat by Jessica Brody
• Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne
• On Editing by Helen Corner-Bryant and Kathryn Price

But there are also lots of other great books out there depending on what specific aspects of storywriting you want to learn more about.

Music:

This one is a bit more straightforward! 🤣💦 I’ve gotten my music from a variety of different sources. Towards the beginning of production, most of it came from individual composers’ sites, for instance:

• Amacha Music
• Vita-chi Sozaikan

Then I discovered DOVA-SYNDROME, which is really great and has a huge selection of music. And more recently last summer, I discovered a bunch of my fav composers had even more music available on Audiostock, so I bit the bullet and got a subscription there (which wasn’t cheap) and have been using mostly Audiostock music since. There were a few other paid places I’ve used, as well, including Epidemic Sound and Storyblocks, but ES in particular has caused more issues than it was worth as it was both expensive and sends up copyright flags sometimes on YouTube videos, so I stopped using it.

Sprites:

Oh, gosh, I’m not really sure if there’s any kind of set answer for this. You can really have as many sprites as you want! I feel like no matter what you’ll want a sprite for each main char. Then you can choose for like secondary chars if it’s worth it to have a sprite or not (in my case, I don’t have all that many secondary chars to begin with, but mostly decided whether to make a sprite based on if that char actually had a name and/or if they were in integral to a scene or involved in more than one scene).

As for expressions, that’s also really up to you 🤔What I tend to do when creating a new sprite is to start by just drawing a few general expressions I feel like fit with the char in question to get started and have a few to work with. These are often different depending on the char and their personality and the types of faces I know they would make. After I have enough to kinda get started, I’ll then start scripting scenes and see if I need any more based on the feeling of the lines? I even make new expressions even way later when I realize I need something new that hasn’t come up before. Like I didn’t make a shocked expression for Genzou until I was working on Arc 3. And I just made him a new disgruntled and embarrassed expressions for Arc 5. One thing I have noticed is that if I have TOO MANY expressions to choose from, it actually starts to make the scripting even harder because I can’t decide which subtle version of an expression I should use 🤣 In general, though, I like to have it so that I have enough expressions that I could use a different one for each line that a character says, so that it keeps things fairly active and engaging on the screen? This doesn’t always work and there are times I use the same expression even for multiple lines, but it’s a somewhat good ballpark I think.

Backgrounds:

My backgrounds are all from royalty free images I get on Unsplash mostly! It took a ton of messing around in the beginning trying to figure out how to make them look ok and mesh well with the game and art and everything. I eventually worked out a process that I run them through in GIMP that involves having multiple layered copies of the image with different filters applied and different transparencies that I then add a layer mask on top of with watercolor brushes to create the paint-like white outline. This helped me create something I was happy with and that had the storybook-style vibes I was going for. However, it’ll be different for every type of story and VN! If you’re going to use photo BGs, a lot of it is really just messing around with filters until you find a combo that meshes well with your game.

You can also of course work with a BG artist or buy BGs, too! For OFW, I bought BGs from Minikle on DLSite, who is a really popular source of VN BGs. I liked that they gave the game a more cinematic feel that set it apart from the main game.

CGs:

Well, one thing I can say is that you definitely shouldn’t go my route!! My route is literally just whenever I feel the urge to draw a scene as a CG, I do it. But that then led to me drawing so many CGs and I just can’t stop DLAKFJSD It’s why the game has literally hundreds of CGs and CG variations 😭 But, uh… MOST VNS DON’T DO THAT BECAUSE IT’S A BIT RIDICULOUS LOL. Most VNs just use CGs for like, super important scenes and will just have a handful, especially as they’re often much more detailed and ornate than mine. I think I can only make a lot of CGs because 1) I draw them myself, so I’m not bothering anyone else with them, and 2) my art style is pretty simplistic, so drawing them doesn’t take me ages (though some of the more complex ones, especially with multiple chars, do take me a while). In the end, though, it really comes down to the vibe you’re going for and your capacity to draw (or your artist’s capacity to draw).

I also like to use CGs for setting up like, cinematic-style scenes sometimes. Or to help provide more impact to a scene or moment.

As for stuff about mood and tone…… this is another one that is really hard to answer/describe/explain. I feel like it’s another aspect that will kind of develop as you consume more media, practice writing and creating stories, etc. Because there’s often nothing super specific that you can say “this is how I set the tone” and is really more in how you structure the story or in how you word things or in the themes of the story, and a lot of that just comes through a lot of practice in writing to develop a style. I look back on a lot of my old stuff and it makes me cringe now. But it was only through my old writing that I was able to learn more about writing and how to really get inside stories and characters’ heads. And style especially—developing a writing style/voice takes a long time of just writing, writing, writing, experimenting with different things, writing different types of characters and stories…

So it’s a tricky one. I would recommend some of the same books I recommended above just for getting some general tips about story and structure and how to make your writing itself flow better, etc. But in the end, so much of it is really just practice more than anything else.

Anyway, I hope this helps a bit!! This got really rambly LOL but hopefully there’s something in here that is useful to you. I wish you all the best of luck in making your first game!! And if you have any more specific questions about anything, I’d be happy to answer!