Nyu Media (Japanese game publisher) and the devs of TyranoBuilder (a game engine specifically made for VN) are organizing a game jam which will last one month where you have to create a visual novel made in TyranoBuilder (currently 11,24€ on Steam). Game must be around 30 minutes with no copyright-infriging assets (obviously). The jury is composed by some VN professionals and the grand prize is 350$.

Official page and details here:
http://itch.io/jam/tyranojam15

Hmmm, that might be interesting to try out. I've got free time before heading back to school anyway, and it'll be good preparation for me for Narrative Design classes.

Yeah, from what it looks like it's fine for "straight to ending" stories or multi-branching stories (I wouldn't recommend TB for anyhting more complex). An advanced Twine so.... Feel free to later post your entry here if you jump in ;)

I should try it. I can write a story but working on a VN is another thing.

Interesting. It allows branching too. Also the engine looks like really simple to use, which make story written for the game is the most decisive factor. Well, let just see what kind of game the winner would be.

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like a cool tool. Unfortunately I lack artistic talent, so I guess I'll stay with RPG Maker. :)

Well, only pen&paper is needed for story (and TyranoBuilder to build up your VN of course)

For music, you can dig into the common licenses but it can be legally tricky. Paid alternative can be audiojungle as it's affordable and the cheapest license is up to 10.000 dowloads of the product (game in this case), if you beat this cap limit, you're famous then ;) Or you do the music yourself ^o^

For art visuals, I directly asked on twitter one of the jury and Nyu Media and there is no restrictions on art style so if you feel like you're the new Picasso or Andy Warhol, feel free to go ahead ;)
https://twitter.com/alfrancke/status/633605140000473088

What's a good engine for complex stories? I don't need graphix, only open pseudocode that I'll be eventually stuffing into a custom interpreter.

Ren 'Py is good enough to implement advanced stuff like in Winter Wolves RPG's and such. But needless to say you'll have to learn some Python coding ;)
http://www.renpy.org/

Not scared ;) I've used it for ages to process plaintext and fake financial data (hell, last week, after a rival referee requested GPS data, I wrote a demo tool to fake some, simply to prove our way is the best way and a paper trail is still the best documentation). My original tool uses a Python interpreter, it's just not good at dialogue.

I'm bumping this thread as the winners of the contest have been announced and presented:
http://tyranobuilder.com/summer-jam-15-winners/

Not in the final line-up but here was the favorite entry of the creator of Cinders: "Zugunruhe"
http://nazerine.itch.io/zugunruhe
Far from the classic VN's as it's about World War 2

Thanks for updating, catpower! I look forward to trying these all out, but especially Zugunruhe.