Ideas/Drunken Rants Book

TBatG: The Visual Novel

I've been thinking about doing this for a long while now. An anime-style visual novel based on the first The Bird and the Garden.

The story would roughly remain the same as the story, but there would be changes depending on who the main character decides to romance. Or, the main character can choose not to romance anyone and the visual novel would be the exact same as the story here on Wattpad.

Routes: I've already got a few ideas for the routes the player can take. I already picked all the characters they can choose. Warning, some are incest routes. All routes are completely optional, so you do not have to pick one with incest. These routes are:

1. Lie Ren: Choosing this route, Ren will survive Vacuo. It's the childhood friend route, essentially.

2. Weiss Schnee: In this route, Weiss would contact the player much sooner. Basically, she would know the player survived the Vytal Festival Incident, and would keep on touch. Vao and Cinder will still kidnap her in Atlas, but the player would be granted the option to save her.

3. Velvet Scarlatina: The player would get to know Velvet much sooner than the original story. On top of this, Velvet would be there for the player in his adult years, and there would be heartwarming moments as she helps him through his stress.

4. Neo Politan: It was canon in the original story, but this would further that relationship. And of course, there are changes to the story if her route is picked by the player. One possibility that I haven't fully decided on is that if she's picked, the player would have the option to save her from Vao at the end of the story.

5. Verde Forest: This route cannot be started until much later in the story. However, this would delve more into Verde's personal thoughts, as well as why she rarely shows any sort of emotion: her backstory - which I haven't gone into detail about. Trust me, her backstory is absolutely horrifying, and I feel bad for creating that backstory for her character.

6. Ruby Rose (Incest): If the player chooses Ruby, she'll survive Vao's attack in Vacuo. She won't die, but she would still be in a wheelchair. But should the player choose Ruby, Yang will die in Atlas.

7. Yang Xiao-Long (Incest): If Yang is chosen, the player helps her recover from her amnesia. Still, she wouldn't regain her memories until she encounters Vao, but the player helps her through her depression. On top of that, in the original story the main character became physically abusive towards his family in his desperation to keep them alive. If Yang's route is chosen, the player would stop himself, unable to harm her.

8. Vao Branwen (Incest): Throughout Beacon, the player and Vao would be great friends, and it will be hinted that they both want a relationship. When the player is drugged at the Beacon dance, Vao won't be angry with the player, but rather terrified of him. This would also lead to the player fighting Vao at the Vytal Festival championship before he kills Summer, as well as afterwards. Choosing his route, the player would also be able to talk Vao out of fighting at the end of the game because they would realize by then that they didn't want to harm each other. This route would change how the player character and Vao feel about their adventure.

9. The Abstinence Route: The player does not choose any of the routes. The way characters interact with the player all depends on his Friendship Level with them - which leads on to the next thing.

Friendship Levels: I was thinking about a "Friendship Level" mechanic. Depending on the player's dialogue choices, a character could grow to hate the player, or care for them. At five stars, the player has the option to romance the character. Basically, let's use the Vao Route as an example: if the player has four stars with Vao, then Vao would not hate the player during the Beacon School dance, and fear him instead. So basically, the player could be a nice person, or a total dick.

WARNING! Being a dick to Ruby would lead to her committing suicide in Beacon. This would be unavoidable, and Ruby will be dead throughout the rest of the story. This would also destroy several routes and Friendships the player may have gained: Yang will fall into a depression she can never get out of, and Vao will despise the player and his boss fights will become much harder. Yang and Vao's Friendship Levels will be permanently locked in the negatives and the player will NOT be able to raise them. The Neo, Velvet, Weiss, and Ren routes will also be unavailable, but the player would still be able to raise his Friendship Level with them.

Battle System: Of course, given the nature of the story, there will be fights. I have two ideas for this: turn-based system, or bullet hell.

1. Turn-based battles would basically play out like an RPG battle, with stats and everything. The player would have five options in a turn-based system: Fight, Tactics, Item, Talk, and Flee. Fleeing would not be available in boss fights. Of course, as turn-based battles are, it's RNG-heavy. There would also be an experience and level system, and progressing the story can move at the player's pace.

The Talk option is one that I am very interested in. If turn-based combat was implemented, talking to certain characters while battling against them could have an effect on the way they fight. So say that the player chooses talk, and then insults their opponent. The opponent becomes angry, which boosts their attack, but makes them more likely to miss.

2. When I say Bullet Hell, no, I'm not talking Undertale battles here. I'm talking more along the lines of a Touhou-like battle. Vertical, takes up the whole screen. This would eliminate any options for the battle, but it also means that whether the player wins or not depends on their skill level. However, this also could potentially stop a lot of people from playing because as I mentioned, some of the boss fights can get harder depending on the player's actions.

Voice Acting: Not sure if I would put this in the visual novel, but it's an idea that crosses my mind every now and again so I'll put it in here. No, I would not be voicing any of the characters myself.

Sensitive Content: I assume you guys read the story, given its the only one I have finished. So yeah, you could probably guess it would have a lot of content that would require viewer discretion. There would be suicide, a lot of death, smoking, severe depression, alcoholism, physical abuse, sexual abuse (which I will NOT include pictures for. I am not okay with paying someone to draw that shit, and I would rather stick a cactus up my ass then do it myself), and a lot of gore.

In the options menu, there would be a little checkbox to censor the gore. Gore Censor would black out any severe wounds (such as if someone had their chest ripped open, it would be covered in black), but minor wounds such as cuts and scrapes would not be censored.

That's all I really got for a visual novel right now. Again, not sure if I am going to do it because I would have to buy a lot of stuff to digitally draw it, and I'm not sure if anyone would even be interested in helping me out (they would be paid, of course).