Behind the Scenes (Chapter 13.3)

Today I’m sharing some behind-the-scenes content from the making of the scenes for the latest chapter. I’ve shown you the storyboards I use to visualize and structure the scenes before, and they keep getting more complex over time.

At first, I didn’t really need to use this method, only for very specific situations, but as I’ve progressed in developing visual novels, it’s become an essential step in my creative process. One of the key turning points in this process was when I started reusing illustrations from previous scenes. With just a few adjustments and the right context in the writing, they’ve allowed me to enrich scenes more effectively. When you already have multiple illustrations of characters in similar poses or settings, it’s much more efficient to repurpose an image and dedicate more production time to creating fresh artwork that explores new directions.
That’s also why storyboards have become increasingly important: to help me innovate and improve each scene.

At first, writing these scenes was fairly straightforward. But after a game and a half under my belt and nearly a hundred scenes written, it’s hard not to feel like I’m repeating myself, after all, there are only so many actions that can take place in this kind of context!
On top of that, it’s important to me that the scenes feel interactive and reflect narrative development in the characters’ relationships. Their intimate interactions should shift and evolve over time, serving as a core storytelling element, because, at its heart, this is an erotic story.

All of this, combined with the time and effort it takes to create each new illustration, has made it increasingly important to carefully choose which images to create from scratch, which ones to reuse to fill gaps or add beats, and how to sequence the scene so it feels fluid, natural, fresh, and interactive. I often have to go through several iterations of the same scene before settling on a final structure, and even then, the final result usually ends up drifting a bit from the original plan. Some scenes have been a real headache, and it’s taking me longer and longer to figure out the best way to approach each new one… but honestly, even after doing so many, I feel like they’re turning out better and better.

What about you? Which scenes have stood out the most for you, felt the most engaging or memorable? And what kind of behind-the-scenes content would you like to see next, if any? Let me know in the comments!