When this idea started, it was January last year. I had dreamt about this world, about dark elves. I often dream or fantasize about a lot of things. But I truly believe that this idea stuck with me for days and weeks, because it was a good idea. So I began to write about things. I had written about the world. I had thought up reasons about why it exists, and why it's possible (theoretically and religiously). And about the characters. Their stories. What their personalities are, what happened to them in the past to make them this way. I had a heap of notes, and around the middle of last years I seriously considered writing a VN.
Before I got into VNs. Before I even really got into anime, or Japanese related media. I was playing RPGs. I was building my own worlds and campaigns. I wasn't very good, but I've always been far more interested in creating rather than doing fanworks of other people's projects. So I was always writing my own. I had been writing stories, characters and worlds for almost 15 years at this point, some erotic, some not. Some were good, some. Not so much.
My prior experience with VNs have usually been with Eroge, i'm a favorite of Sono no Hanabira, yuri stories and such. I liked the fact that VNs provide impact visually, mentally and musically. Rather than just doing comics, which are difficult mediums to tell complex stories. I had also thought about Light Novels. But I chose VNs because writing a story and putting it out in public is very difficult. Not many people read books any more, and unless it's based on an existing series, it's a very hard sell (in the abstract sense). But Visual Novels tend to thrive on original stories, and they are not hard to do with proper dedication.
A few months ago in later 2011 I started actively setting up websites for Dizzy Hearts. Some have proven better than others. With this blog being my most consistently viewed site. I began working on character concepts, and placeholder sprites. I set up story scripts and began to run test dialogue in Ren'py. Setting up dimensions and image sizes. I decided at this point that I was going to finish writing the actual script before I began to work on art assets. And over the past few months, I have completed the overall story. What's left now is bringing it down to dialogue and character interaction. Turning what I have into a script.
Most recently I have begun to talk more and more on other websites about this game. Not just here but /jp/ as well. I had asked for critique and feedback and I got it. And I realized I had probably been a bit over ambitious with how far reaching I was being, for a first ever, personal project. The story will stay the same, Dizzy Hearts will continue. And it will probably be even better because of it.
