White Flag: A Visual Novel set in a Hospital

Okay so... of all the things you said you'd do... all the things you want to do... all the things you pretty much have to do... you started writing a visual novel?

Yes.

Uh, alright.

I don't remember how this got started, but my former roommate (now exchange student in Japan and thus luckiest man alive) and I started a sort of memetic thing where we'd try to come up with anime plotlines or VN plotlines when we were bored. Eventually the VN ideas just got more and more sad, we were trying to “outsad” each other I think. One idea I had was a VN set in a hospital and I got thinking about it a bunch again and here's the basic premise and such. Really this is more just for Daven to see so he could come up with ideas and such too 'cause for all I know we are actually going to make this game. He has friends who can draw (in legit Japanese style!) and probably voice act to?? And I'm sure they'll help us for some reason??? Daven can make music and hypothetically I can write dialogue. So there we go.

Basic Premise:

You are a high school aged boy whose girlfriend falls into a coma somehow. You visit her often in the hospital, where you meet other girls that you can fall in love with, date, etc.

The cast:

Genki Athletic Girl: Typical sports tomboy genki mild tsun etc etc. Short spiky black hair? Of course the twist is that she broke both of her legs badly somehow, balling too hard or something. She's gotten the casts off and is receiving physiotherapy, but is struggling with the fact that she may not be able to run or play soccer or whatever again, the muscles are too damaged. Is this a thing that can happen? I have no idea. So you help her come to acceptance of that, you get to the root of her passions, you uncover the circumstances of her accident (she was trying too hard at something for some reason? Parental appeasement issues? I dunno), that's basically her route.

Girl whose brother is in a coma: You meet her as she comes to visit, you connect because you're going through the same thing. Stuff about the sort of things she used to love to do with her brother, do you take her on the same experiences or is it futile to try to replace him? That sort of thing. Maybe they come from a rich family too and there's a sense that before this everything was very fairytale and she felt like they were invincible. Circumstances of his accident – something to do with her? Him defending her from something? I don't want this to be “princess tsundere” sorta thing though that's overdone. Long red hair maybe I dunno. Guy in coma could be her boyfriend for maximum parallel but that has issues too. Could be sister for overlap with bonus route we'll get to later but that might be unrealistically “small world”.

Girl who is volunteering for her school: You meet her as she's doing like cleaning and stuff. Kind outgoing girl, dreams of being a doctor. Maybe genius character? Hair like Madoka's in Lagrange? She works herself to the bone at the hospital, sometimes too stressful, she can't handle hearing about deaths etc. You uncover why she works so hard, probably something like family history. Does she need to try so hard? Is she being too naive about how medicine works? 

Girl who is volunteering for her church: She visits sick people with a group from her church. Friends with previous girl, but they're also sort of rivals. Faith vs. science sort of thing, undercurrent of tension, they have very different reactions to death in that this girl is very accepting right away “feels she understands God's plan” or something. Here you work to make her understand death more humanly so she can understand people's immediate sadness, get to the root of her church experience, make her “confront death”, crisis of faith but in the end she gains some sort of compromised understanding that works for her. I like the idea of “twinned” characters where you interact with both of them a lot but ultimately have to choose. I'm thinking long blonde hair for this one, maybe slight drills? I dunno.

Girl who is terminally ill: Of course. This is the sort of archetypical route. Maybe there's a connection with the genki girl and girl with comatose sister e.g. “they have it better than me, I'm for sure gonna die, why are they so upset?” Like church girl an idea of strong facade masking inner weakness that you expose, probably same “fake acceptance – turbulence – real acceptance” cycle. Conflict between self-pity, strength, strength for self vs. for others? If we really wanted to go ham she could actually get sicker as the game progresses, I think this is rare even among sick characters, usually they're fine the whole game and at the end it's like “lol they died”, here we could have her lose her hair, become weaker, etc, through the route, that'd be BRUTAL.

The MC: Who cares.

Other ideas?

-Girl from the mental ward? Has this been done before? Or has it never not been done before? Bdum tiiish joke being that animes girls are usually designed in such a way that they seem appealing through the screen but would probably end up institutionalized if 3D.

-Volunteer gardener girl? Prolly too much overlap with volunteer girl but I like the idea of gardening characters and I like the idea of a “good girl” sorta character. Her route could be about her being very adverse to working at the hospital, it's too sad for her, but you help her see what a wonderful and noble and whatever place it actually is, despite it being sad.

-If there wasn't an age gap issue doctor/nurse would be an obvious good choice, and maybe there's away around that issue, I dunno. Worth considering.

General route comments:

Pretty much all of them have the MC helping them deal with/eventually accept or overcome their struggles. Maybe the “okay good” end for each route is having them accept the bad thing as inevitable and the super gambit secret end for each is where they somehow overcome the bad thing e.g. terminally ill girl gets better, genki girl runs again, whatever.

But yeah each route would be basically:

-meet the girl, eventually uncover her schtick

-start to notice that whatever facade they're putting up is masking some inner pain

-expose inner pain

-path to acceptance: as trite/inaccurate/cliche as it is, the denial/anger/bargaining/depression/acceptance cycle makes for really good development and can easily be masked so it doesn't seem obviously that

-and through it all they grow closer and such

It seems formulaic but I'd argue that each route should have a sort of formula since the overall themes of the game ought to carry over into every route. Plus it won't seem formulaic when you play it since that very basic skeleton still allows for a lot a lot of variance.

Also like I don't want to see this as a competition to Katawa Shoujo or whatever. Like only two of the girls are actually injured, neither of them were born with disabilities, I think the hospital environment/aesthetic/plot potential is strong enough without having to bust out every sick girl trope.

Secret routes:

Comatose hidden girl: This one is pretty neat and actually the main memetic drive for me and Daven to think about this particular premise so much. When you visit your girlfriend, there's a girl in like the next bed over, also comatose. Through the game you can manage to get some events where you overhear people visiting her, see things left for her, and you can sort of piece together her history. If you follow this enough, she wakes up at the end, and although you've seen all these flashback-presentation stories of her and learned all about her personality and are presumably in love with her, she doesn't have any idea who you are. TRAGIC! Or maybe she does 'cause she heard you when she was comatose. CREEPY? Or romantic I have no idea. Or maybe she never wakes up and they have to pull the plug or whatever. Either way I think a route where you never actually interact with the girl is a sort of neat idea.

Girlfriend in a coma route: Somehow through the game there'd be a secret sort of meter that you can subtly influence that determines whether or not your girlfriend wakes up. And if she wakes up and you haven't like, committed to another girl, you can go off with her. Or maybe you'll see some heartbreaking NTR scene where she wakes up and looks out the window and sees you canoodling with whatever new girl you chose. Oof, that's rough, yo!

The huge huge problem with this premise

Maybe you noticed it in the last section but there is a huge gaping flaw in this whole plot premise. You probably thought of it much earlier and were hoping I'd cover it somehow. Well NOPE, but I have some ideas.

Basically yeah the idea of you, the MC, going on and forming a romantic relationship with some new girl while your girlfriend sits in a coma is, at best, extremely morally ambiguous. At average I think people will consider it insanely assholish. Here's my ideas on how to address this:

1. Actually address this. Have the MC think it through, have him struggle with the temptation, the desire to help the “target” girl vs. the guilt of his own pleasure at the relationship, faithfulness to his girlfriend vs. feeling like she'd want him to be happy, etc, etc.

Pros:

-Could actually produce something poignant and interesting

-Invests you in the MC a little more

Cons:

-This thing would be dealt with on every route in basically the same fashion, which is pretty redundant for people replaying etc

-People are here for the girls, not the MC whinging

2. Ignore it completely. Easy, like, really easy. Just don't mention it! If you choose to go visit your girlfriend, you'll do that and reminisce and whatever, and the secret girlfriend route is still available, but the whole girlfriend thing is like never mentioned in any of the other routes.

Pros:

-Easy, so easy!

Cons:

-It's just such an easy way to completely dismiss the game. It's like a big flashing weak point on the game. “I dunno, I don't really like that game, it makes you cheat on your girlfriend, I don't want to do that”

3. Change girlfriend → sister.

Pros:

-Easy

-Now having her wake up could like combo into other routes instead of being an ending unto itself: "Hooray, my sister's awake, but I'm still gonan go2 hopsital... 4u, girl <3"

Cons:

-We'd have to ditch the girlfriend route, or make it incestuous, or make it aromantically happy. None of these seem great.

-Now the MC doesn't have a previous romantic history that he can reminisce about while pursuing new love. This could be good I guess too though.

4. Ditch comatose relationship altogether, give him some other reason to be there. I don't know what, maybe he's volunteering too. Or maybe he's sick himself? That could be interesting.

Pros:

-Easiest probably

Cons:

-Have to lose one secret route altogether

5. Make it clear somehow that the girlfriend told him to move on and find new love

Pros:

-Enables the dilemmas of option 1 without having to expound on them

-Get to keep the girlfriend route, perhaps even better than ever

Cons:

-I have no idea how this would work without supernatural cheesiness or some other bizarre crap

6. Make the MC a girl! Boyfriend in a coma! There is a fun loophole in NTRism that if a girl moves on from a guy and also moves on from her sexuality there is no harm no foul. I have seen it many times in my yuri comics.

Pros:

-Yuri!

Cons:

-Kinda weird to have just one heterofag route and a bunch of yuri routes

-Even weirder to have a male “target character”

-I don't think I'm seriously suggesting this but

Seriously consider this pro again:

-Yuri!

So yeah I don't know how to deal with that! But it really ought to be dealt with and I'm sure we could come up with something.

Other flaws with this premise

-I don't actually have any idea how things work in a hospital, and it'd be good if it was somewhat realistic, but that would require research and I'd probably find half the stuff I'm picturing is just outright wrong.

-Same with how comas, sickness, muscular atrophy etc work

-Just how often can a high school kid visit the hospital? And for how long? How do visiting hours work? These sorts of games work best if you can have the MC interacting with the girls on a daily basis at a variety of times through the day.

Things I like about this premise

-It's a place where you can meet up with people regularly and stuff's happening and it ISN'T HIGH SCHOOL YET AGAIN!

-All sorts of events can happen naturally at a hospital. Need a big plot switch? Somebody dies, someone lives, a baby is born, I don't know. Very charged symbolism all over the place, stuff can get dramatic very organically very quickly

-Tons of varieties of settings, side characters, jokes, little moments of sadness, etc. Lobbies, cafeterias, various wings, libraries, gardens, waiting rooms, etc, etc. Doctors, technicians, random sick people, the list goes on. Need a “wiseguy” or a wise guy? Depressing old man or adorable little tyke? All of these people can show up at a hospital very easily!

Abstract thematic/aesthetic qualities that I dunno if people would care about

So there's the plot theme of true acceptance emerging from facade. This would be mirrored with an aesthetic development of cold, impersonal sort of stuff replacing itself with more intimate, human things. You meet the girls in places like the cafeteria, rooms with all the machines and tubes and stuff, the rehabilitation gym. Then as you get to know them you spend more time with them in places like the garden, the library, the lounge, etc. Geez I hope hospitals actually have places like that, I think they do?

A big thing would be that everything takes place in the hospital, though, every scene. I don't think this would be too limiting and I think the thematic benefit is really clutch 'cause at the ending you'd finally leave the hospital under whatever circumstances. That'd be POWERFUL.

There's really easy gateways into philosophizing about death, life, etc. It can be pretty entry-level cause a little of that goes a long way. If I was gonna summarize quickly it'd be like:

Genki girl: Pragmatic/utilitarian struggling

Brother in coma girl: Existentialist in crisis

Volunteering girl: Humanist w/ vague transcendent aspirations

Church girl: Theologist

Terminally ill girl: Nihilist

Of course this would all change and refine as they break out of shells and such.

The aesthetics of the hospital itself lend themselves greatly to a lot of the structure of the game. I'm thinking heart monitors, dripping IVs, those rolly bed things... all of these make good iconic symbols. Katawa Shoujo did a lot of them first but oh well. As mentioned before you can create a sort of before/after development parallel, beeping heart monitor contrasted with intimate... clock ticking? Uhhmmm well that sort of thing at least. Lots of iconic “stuff” associated with hospitals is what I'm saying I guess.

Lots of really juicy aesthetic meat for soundtracks and art direction and such too in a hospital. Hospice by The Antlers and Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward come to mind as two absolute masterpiece-tier works that nail the hospital feel.

Why white flag?

I dunno, the name has been stuck in my head for a long, long time now and I've wanted to call something that. I'm pretty sure I first got it from the name of an AA group in Infinite Jest, but it might make more sense that I already had some reason to like it 'cause otherwise it seems strange that I'd remember it. Anyways it stuck with me and when I doodle in my notes (always) I often draw people holding white flags and write stuff like “#whiteflag2012” without actually meaning anything by it. It has meanings of surrender etc obviously but I don't really associate it with that. I just think it's a cool image.

Anyways I'm thinking White Flag is the name of the hospital and maybe there's a statue of a woman holding up a white flag that gets mentioned sometimes, and then there's some story you can find out by asking a doctor about it or something, about like, the hospital was founded/named in honor of a battle that took place there a long time ago, where some medic woman, overwhelmed and distraught by all the death around her convinces her side to surrender and then starts treating everyone indiscriminately and with great passion and the enemy is so moved that they retreat. I kinda like it but it's sorta dumb in a way. Obviously there'd be the theme of “are the girls following in the footsteps of this woman” but I don't know if that's such a great theme.

I have a bunch of other little ideas about events and endings and character traits and all that but this is long enough.

Please send me your thoughts Daven whom I hope to remember to link this to, I actually think it would be tons of fun to work on a VN if you're down for it. We can be like the Welcomes to the NHKs. Please send me your thoughts whoever else reads my blog, too. I think that's like Richard and my mom?