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Visual Novel Development Resources Sticky

A topic by Crystal Game Works created Aug 17, 2023 Views: 1,274 Replies: 8
Viewing posts 1 to 5
Jam Host (1 edit)

Writing & Design

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More resources for making your own VNs

Submitted

Since I’m using Godot and it doesn’t have VN accessibility features built-in, I tried implementing those myself. I’ve been trying to make it support the same keyboard shortcuts as Ren’Py (though I realize I didn’t add H to hide the UI, but I guess people who want that could add it themselves, or I guess so could I during the jam if I really want). Here’s the GitHub repository with the Godot 4 project: Basket Letter Vibe (the name means “the whiff makes (a?) lapwing take off” in Danish. People will probably need some knowledge of Godot’s scripting language GDScript to use this, since the would have to write a few lines of code for each sprite they add.

It’s localized in Danish, Spanish and English, but most people should probably remove Danish and Spanish (edit the function get_initial_language to force the language to English (“en”), then remove the language option from create_main_menu), then delete files with names ending in _da.txt or _es.txt. The reason I’m including the localization is because I alredy made it for Sheep Monologue and I don’t want to retranslate text I already translated (my new translation would probably end up being kinda similar to the old one anyway).

Also, people might want to change the value of vn_savedata_filename to something specific to their game.

You are aware of Dialogic? It's a visual dialogue builder specifically created to create (for example) visual novels. Version 1.5 works with Godot 3.x. Version 2 is still in alpha and works with Godot 4.x. Easy to use.

https://github.com/coppolaemilio/dialogic

Submitted

I wasn’t, but now I am. Looks like version 1.5 should be usable although it might lack rollback. Version 2 seems usable for things like RPGs as long as you don’t enable the history button and don’t show any other buttons on screen during dialogue (because clicking on the screen advances the dialogue, and guess what happens if you click on a button on the screen: it does whatever the button does and then it advances the dialogue too). Until they fix the click handling (and probably add built-in support for rollback), I don’t think Dialogic 2 is ready to be used in VNs, especially if you want those VNs to get shortlisted in the competition aspect of this jam (lacking rollback will be a serious disadvantage, as will the double-handling of clicks on buttons, and while history might sometimes be an acceptable fix for lacking rollback, a history screen that shows lines from previous playthroughs probably won’t cut it).

Another tool, Dialogue Manager might work better than Dialogic 2. But yeah, these are primarily designed for games like RPGs where things like rollback and skipping are less essential.

My own tool does support rollback, skipping and auto, but the only way it can currently play audio is to play animations that play it. And if you add choices you’ll need to make changes to how rollback and history work. I’m not even using my own tool in Spooktober this year, although one of the reasons for that is that its documentation is a bit limited atm and if I’m the one that made it I obviously know how to use every feature including features the documentation doesn’t explain well, so I don’t want to have such an advantage. I do plan on using it in some less competitive jam after this one, and in the process I’ll probably make it easier to use.

Hello. Can you make visual novels with TyranoBuilder for this jam?

Jam Host

Yes. These are just a handful of resources available to developers.

Okay. Thank you.

Hey is it ok if I make one in gDevelop using their visual novel system?

Submitted

I am working on Visual Novel game in Unity Engine, Is it ok to use Unity?