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I never even realised that some of the old mobile VN games I used to play years ago before I discovered VNs were a thing on PC were such huge cash grabs until years later >.< Now I look back at them, I wish I had discovered PC stuff sooner. It got to the point with those apps that I would start reading a new release and think, hang on a minute, this is practically the same story as X game they released X years ago, but with different sprites x3 That was when I felt kinda foolish for spending money on those sorts of pay-per route games when I was younger. Even worse, I would later discover that one company in particular who I must've spent a fair amount of money on, treated their writers awfully :( They were sorta named and shamed in a big whistleblowing article when they threatened to fire all their writing staff if they refused to accept a cut in pay. The company just claimed they could easily replace the lot of them with folks who would work for cheaper o.O

I mean, I was semi-aware of the fact that some people working for larger games companies weren't treated fantastically, but it never really occurred to me until then that it was also an issue involving the creation of VNs cos I'd always thought of them as being small team affairs. It makes sense though that the kind of apps that churn out regular content have a who team of overworked, underpaid writers at their disposal >.<

Hehe, yeah, I grew up just reading regular novels too. Then I discovered these 'Choose your own adventure' books, which I fell in love with :3 I never quite played the proper way because I couldn't be bothered to roll a dice during battles x3 and I always kept 1 finger wedged in the previous page in case the choice I made wound up sending me to a page where I died xD but they were a lot of fun! When I first found out VNs were a thing, and basically those books but with audio and visuals, I pretty much lost my shit. VNs rocketed right up there to be my joint-favorite game genre next to RPGs, haha.

Well, you can do better than me then! I'm hopeless >.< I can just about copy a basic image, but it'll come out kinda wonky, and similarly to what you said, I'd never be able to duplicate anything. My mum, who is pretty good at art to the point that she's had no formal tutoring, but can pick up a pencil and sketch a perfect image of Sailor Moon >.> claims that art is a skill anyone can learn. I feel as though while that's true, it's one of those things that you either have a talent for or you don't in the same way that you can technically teach anyone to sing, but some will still sound pretty awful. Cos I studied art for a few years, practiced, and just didn't get even remotely better at it xD I'm pretty sure I completely lack the talent to draw.

You could always jump into a jam with a theme that catches your interest sometime just to dip your toes in the water and see if you enjoy teaming up on something for a short while :3 The main thing that put me off of ever looking for a team for that sort of thing was the fear that people might drop out and leave you in a sticky spot for finishing a project cos I've heard that happens fairly often >.<" But for me personally, it all went great :3

But yeah, self-funding is an issue if you don't have a decent income >.< If I did have an income, I'd probably put almost all of it into my projects x3 Keep enough to survive, spend the rest of making gubbins, haha. But I'm perma-poor, so I've had to rely on the generosity of others in terms of direct help with stuff like art and voice acting + general support to go towards paying people in the future for their work. The only reason I place quite a high priority on voice acting is because I love it so much myself that it's one of my huge motivators. Not being able to afford voice acting for CiQ is one of the reasons I wound up having to put the project on hold. Cos of the lack of interest in the project, I'm just gonna have to see if I can somehow fund partial voice acting myself or something. Either way, I'll get it released eventually cos there's no way I'm abandoning a project I've already written x3

Having various endings might be a bit of a nightmare, but it's super satisfying when it eventually all comes together :D