a new art form -- ren'ai

[miriam_e]

Well, new to me...

I happened upon ren'ai recently, quite by accident. I had no idea what a treasure trove I was uncovering. I found it through a program called Ren'Py, which lets you create ren'ai fairly easily.

So what is ren'ai? It is Japanese for romance and is a genre of romance games or visual novels. They are a little like the old Choose Your Own Adventure books, but are done in software, and rather than being a beat-em-up adventure it generally centers around a romantic tale.

I love it. I've played a number of them so far.

Did I mention how much I love working on computers?

http://renpy.org
http://bishoujo.us
http://renai.us
http://renaigames.net
http://lemmasoft.net

Comments

[gothxxangel.livejournal.com]

Ohh! So that's what you meant when you said you wanted to talk about ren'ai! I was wondering about that...hehehe!

Anyway, I'm back at home now (yay!) and gradually getting caught up with LJ. Those games look interesting, I also never really got into the "shoot-em-up-bang-bang" games either.

Definitely worth a second look! *makes mental note*

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Welcome back. :) Hope you had a hoot of a time in London.

Of all the ren'ai I've seen on the above-mentioned sites, only one ("Abigail") is GxG (girl-girl) form. Most are BxG (where the story if from the point of view of a boy who is interested in a girl), or a lesser number GxB (where the "player" is a girl). There are a couple of BxB ones.

I'm going to try my hand at making a simple ren'ai.

How cool is it to find an artform like this?? I've always got odd looks when I admit to having a weakness for romance stories, and here is a whole form that centers around romance! Ren'ai is supposedly quite big in Japan (you're better placed than me to verify that), but has not been a commercial success in USA or Australia, though there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for it among a dedicated fan base.

I'm rapt! I wonder how hard it will be... Ren'Py seems like pretty simple software to use. I think making the artwork is going to be the hardest, most time consuming part. Don't know what story I would do... whether I'll use one of my pre-existing ones or if I should write something new...