TurbanatorUK

Was there anything you enjoyed about that lifestyle? Good food, hotels, perks? Or was it such that the work took over your life fully leaving you little time to appreciate those things?

This may seem like a silly question, since I'm not familiar with the prison systems in the US. Is the prison government-owned and the employees thus employed by the government, or is it just the building owned by the government and the guards from a private security firm?

Not that it would make any difference really, violence is violence, but I can imagine either private employees being free to do what they want if they are just on an anonymous contract, and even with government employees given that jobs are hard to lose once you're 'in'.

Another quick question, was everyone involved with the beatings? Were there some guards who didn't partake in this like yourself (aside from not standing up and objecting)? Were you encouraged to join in?

In any case, I'll avoid that region for the near future, and I thank you for helping out those who cannot help themselves. :)

Well, looks like this has been going for a few hours. I have three questions as I'm coding my own VN. If you can't answer these due to the time, I understand.

Since I'm not an artist at all, how would someone hire an artist in general? The same applies to music. Aside from money, would there need to be a special contract for earnings, copyright or usage of the images or tracks (as in, the person chooses not to come back for a sequel, could I still use their images etc). If you have any info on this, that would be appreciated.

I'm coding the novel in Ren'Py as well, and have an initial goal for 500,000 words, moving up to a million, so you can imagine there's going to be a fair number of pictures!

Secondly, you created your site and company. Did you have to formally register it in your country? What other legalities did you have to go through and were there a lot of fees involved? I'm thinking of creating my own company one day for the game I have planned, but feel daunted by all the business matters.

Lastly, congratulations on getting your game into Steam! Magical Diary and Analogue have been there for some time, but newer ones are appearing now, and even old classics like Higurashi will be released soon. How do you feel that visual novels are finally making their way into the public eye more (in my opinion) via Steam?

As a writer who loves gaming, how does one enter the field of game development looking to use that ability?

I have an idea on planning a visual novel with hopefully a million words but I need capital etc and time.

Yet I rarely see jobs advertised for story writers in game studios, mostly coders and so on, which is expected to be honest. Is it done in-house always and by one or two people only? Do you occasionally hire a third party?

You really love your Cthulhu Mythos! Nice to see Lovecraft inspired situations.

Thanks for your detailed responses, sorry for asking the boring business questions. Hope things work out for you in the Kickstarter and your future projects!