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Can You Spare Some Advice For An Aspiring VN Dev?

A topic by Kokolei created Sep 27, 2023 Views: 732 Replies: 10

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Hiya!

I want to make a VN, but need a tiny bit of direction.

I may have broken my brain by over researching. I was out here crawling through dusty forums dating back to 2013. So much info and it’s kinda overwhelming.

A lil info:
I have a background in editing and writing scripts. Along with VA experience, audio & video editing, very basic knowledge in python, dabbled in graphic design, but suck at creating characters. HANDS ARE EVIL.

I want to start small then work up to bigger projects. Something I can do on my own. Right now, I have 6 fully fleshed out scripts, but nothing simple. I plan to adapt one into a 2-3 character short story.

Is Renpy still the go to? I also have Visual Novel Maker, but I heard it’s buggy as hell.

If I wanted to maybe purchase some art elements like sprites ect, are there other sites I should consider besides itchio?

I wanna bypass working on directly with an artist to customize anything my first time. I want to simplify the process and focus on actually finishing my first game.

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redonihunter1 year ago

It is a matter of taste, skill and target audience, among other things.

If you know a bit python already, you are of course aware, that the py in renpy stands for python.

I saw vn in renpy, unity, rpg maker (of all things), custom engines, visionaire, twine and probably other stuff that did not bother to identify the engine used. The requirement for basic vn style storytelling is just not that big, so you can bend just about any engine to do that. Show pictures, show text, rinse, repeat. Maybe some scripting to do branching.

It is the things you wanna do beyond that, if any, that would favor one engine over the other. And of course, licensing and stuff. Unity currently is in bad favor among the gaming comunity. And I do not understand the people making vn in rpgmaker. Yeah, that is possible, but that thingie is catered to making characters run around and do fights. Ok, ok, it has maybe benefits, in certain circumstances or for certain story telling techniques. Also, this godot seems to be unpopular for vn - so far. Maybe unitys disgrace will change that.

But renpy gives you all those nifty features like rollback and saving. Of course, if you do not want to have rollback, you have to disable it (can be done). And I guess sandbox games have to do some more python to get their buttons working, but I saw some pretty advanced stuff done there, that might have been easier in another engine.

I can not speak much about visual novel maker. There are some games here on itch that tag that, but not very many. Either it is not very popular with the publishers on itch, or it just does not get tagged. It is not even on the list below. I guess it is unpopular here, because it is a paid product and most of the other stuff you can use for free in certain situations.

https://itch.io/game-development/engines

This is of course all from a gamer's perspective. I would tend to use renpy because you already know python or to that visual novel maker, if you already have a license and are familiar with it.

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p34nvt1 year ago

hello I can help discord: peanut7157

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Snakey331 year ago (3 edits)

Kokolei

First of all, if you want make a wood work, dont get a spoon for cut the wood ..... i meant that much of software things, depends in much of what class of "tool or languaje" you use for build it

if you want make a Visual Novel i recommend you for example RAD Studio C++ Builder (and Delphi (turbo pascal))

Rad Studio is a Hibrid languaje IDE + Compiler for develop apps for some systems in both languajes at your disponsal (C/C++ or Pascal)

The thing, is this development tool can build the EXE app for windows systems and have all class of controls and programming features for you can deal with near all you need for develop an app or a 2D Videogame (like a Visual Novel)

The requirement?? you have know something about C or C++ languaje for programming it

Then finally, you can mount with a TImage component the screens for visual novel and if you play with that for example with a FX component you can make some class of effects on image for example for FADE ON and OFF and other kind of image effects...... even you can make more advanced things if you deal with Canvas manipulaton of the TImage for example for make a LOOP in the app that redraws all and draw in the TImage variety of things (example a background decoration, then a character over the background and then with a TIMER's component make the character blinks his eyes randomly)

Also you can add with libraries added, things as Mp3 music, WAV sound effects (with just 1 line short call to windows PlaySound() function) and much more other things, but remember, learn C/C++ gives you hability for make a lot of things with a C++ compiler/IDE like Rad Studio

for example, where you seen a VN able to be played in multiplayer online mode?? yeah, with Rad Studio and MySQL online database you can do it

the only thing is more complex for do with Rad Studio is 3D things cos not so easy like Unity or UE but also capable of that, only you need knowledge of OpenGL or DirectX and mount all from scratch

if you need help with this im here around

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redonihunter1 year ago

The idea behind using an engine is to not do most of what you describe.

Clobbering all this together in c++ is equal to making your own engine. While there might be situations where this is a good idea, it mostly is reinventing the wheel.

While you can carve wood with an axe, a chainsaw, a chisel and a sharpened spoon and even a blowtorch, what you propose is smithing a wood-carving tool.

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Snakey331 year ago (3 edits)

jejeje, possibly i can mount a VN with Rad Studio in 1/4 of time you can do it with that engines......so dont talk if you dont know what means RAD ..... and what problem with make your own code?? oh yes, you need engines cos you dont know how code it ..... i forget it

for put you in situation, people making games with that engines is like the "modern" singers (that dont sing a shit) making miracles with the auto-tune machine.....well......all said (im not going to continue this conversation cos at end sure the moderators ban me for said a couple of truths)

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redonihunter1 year ago

Oh, did I misunderstand and rad is not an ide for c++/delphi?

Because if it is, maybe read up what a game engine is and what it can do and what it can not do.

Do you need to code a save game mechanism and dialogue rollback yourself in rad? If yes, maybe really read a tutorial of those engines before you brag with your rad skillz.

I suggest this one

https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/quickstart.html

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redonihunter1 year ago

It is hard to reply since you change your post and your english is hard to read.

Your singer analogy does not fit. Developing a vn is tool usage. Singing is skill and talent. The wood analogy was better, but a game engine is actually a valid tool to make a game, and not some spoon. Of course one might build a custom tool that might be even better. But why? The story will not get better because of it.

It might be of interest to you, that you absolutly can supply your own code to use in most of those engines, even developed in rad. You use libraries, why not use the game engine library?

Do not scoff on developers for wanting to use an easy to use tool that was designed for the task, instead of using a general purpose tool. They have to do the writing and art and many other things as well.

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Snakey331 year ago (3 edits)

i put in situation again:

imagine the following, a guy with a music software, he select and paste patterns of samples for build a song and the song sounds like heaven but really he not a musician in usual way, as can be Joe Satriani or Steve Vai that yes have skills, accuracy, knowledges and know play a instrument and make music REAL, the first guy only take advantage of incredibly advance on technology for make things that if depends of his own talent or practice for doing it in the REAL way possibly not able to do it...... and this is what happens with Unity, Unreal etc, are just advances of technology that give people opportunity of make things incredible complex but following the law of minimal enffort cos they normally have 0 idea about programming or nothing related with that.... they obtain "Games" so easily with the engines without know nothing of the usual game programming techniques (page flipping, animation, 3d things, cameras, collisions, even something so simple like play a sound......absolutely all is solved by the engine) and in the opposite side, theres REAL programmers that yes know how make this things cos they worried of learn this techniques and much other things and also we enjoy coding our own stuff because there is the challenge of it...... use Unity or Unreal is not a challenge cos you only have add some assets and configure some other things for have working a 3D game........ and im not saying this bad, but only remember if people like us dont developing things like that, you never able to make videogames, is a thing much people tends to forget, that people like us was who was all life fighting for things like internet, software etc growns to a higher level when 1) nobody knows nothing about computing 2) the things was near "prehistoric" compared with what you have now in your hands

Note: i started code my own programs at 5 years old in year 1977 and just "kind unix stuff then" neither MS-DOS was there

Note2: the challenge is not run the marathon mounted in a harley davidson, the real challenge is make the 40 km running with your legs and sweating the tshirt.

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redonihunter1 year ago

I do not understand what you are getting at.

You use a high level programming language. You use an ide. You use libraries that someone else made. Do not belittle people doing the same. It does not lessen a game.

Using a game engine is literally using a high level programming language and using the specialiced libraries and framework that the engine provides.

Bitching about wich programming language is best, is nothing new. But you act, like it lessens or enhances the game made with it.

Also, you should not forget the topic. This is about vn. That reads visual novel, in case you forgot.

What do you think is more important when making a vn: the writing of the story or the programming of displaying pictures and sound and reacting to user input?

Of course it is usefull to be able to code on lower level, but as I said, in most engines you can include your custom made code if desired or even needed. Because of that, one should carefully decide the engine to be used. For some projects a self made engine might even be best, especially if it is easy tasks and you already know how to programm. But get used to reinvent the wheel a lot and have common pitfalls and mistakes and flaws, like fullscreen issues, corrupt save games and a plethora of other tiny details you did not think about before starting to code. All those things are pre-solved by a good engine, so you can concentrate on the needed writing and logic for telling the story. And maybe even doing some Art, instead of using premade assetts.

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redonihunter1 year ago

the challenge is not run the marathon mounted in a harley davidson, the real challenge is make the 40 km running with your legs and sweating the tshirt

If you create a game for your own fun of creating a game and maybe learning new skills, by all means, go ahead, run a marathon. It is a challenge you made for yourself. Your "game" is making the game.

But if you create a game to tell a story, maybe hope of makeing a game that other people will like to play, what use for the player will it be, if you spend energy to run a marathon? Will the game get any better by doing it the hard way? Will your story telling techniques improve by this? Will your art get better? Will you chose better music, or even make some?

Making a game is not the same as being able to code an app. You need parts of one to do the other. But high skill in coding does not equate high skill in game making.

If this were a rpg, your skills might be Coding, Art, Story. You propose to max Coding, but for a good game you still need Story and Art, and Story is most important for a visual novel, followed by Art.

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