A few days ago, I started on a brand new game.

This game is a Visual Novel game called This Dream Is Good But I Don't Like It. It uses Renpy. My page for it also has a short demo:

https://themetalcarrotdev.itch.io/this-dream-is-good-but-i-dont-like-it

About the game:

The game has two main characters, a woman who works for the carnival who is named Clarabelle, and you, the player, who ends up working as Clarabelle's assistant after being invited as a crowd volunteer for an act at the carnival.

About the progress so far on development:

The script to this game now has 2000-2500 words (the demo has a bit less), and the code is starting to come along pretty nicely too.

Today, I worked a bit more on the UI, and here are before and after photos:

Before:

After:

Also, here is what the game looked like 1-2 days ago before additional tweaks:

What I'm looking to accomplish from this game:

I wanted to make a Renpy Visual Novel game with mini-games and text inputs. This game is still a little rough around the edges, as it stands. But I feel I've been working hard, especially with planning and programming. Though, it will still take awhile to get that "finished" feel to the game.

Other info:

Today I fixed a bug involving text input. Though, I haven't uploaded that change to the demo yet.

Also, I thought I would mention - not every art asset to this game was made by me. Some were licensed, and I tend to only license assets which allow tweaks because sometimes, I do touch-ups when necessary, to further affect the look of the game.

The script might also still be a little rough around the edges, but I'll evaluate that more at later stages.

Today I tweaked some colors a bit more:

I also tried a custom font, but reverted back to the old after the custom one had some issues.

As I try to make minigames in Renpy using Python, I have a few observations:

1. In certains ways, making a minigame in Renpy isn't hard. Making a simple minigame only requires about a page or page and a half of careful code. I feel this is even less code than some other solutions, even ones that advertise themselves as "easy to use" or "relatively code-free".

2. That being said, in other ways, making a minigame in Renpy is hard. One small error, such as including an extra space, can make the minigame not work until that error is corrected, and there are also moving parts to the process that might overwhelm a beginner, such as understanding what modules need included/initialized when adding in code that really should just "work" but doesn't work without a skilled touch and troubleshooting skills.

So I'd say that making a simple minigame (clicker game, collect coin game, etc) in Renpy ends up being a bit hard, but not really the hardest thing I've done. I'd rate it at about 6/10 difficulty.

The current script to the full version of this game is now at 3,000 words. Honestly, I am fairly happy with this progress.

This isn't planned to be a particularly long game, but I still want the script to be in the 5k-10k+ range in length. Possibly even in the 8k-10k+ range but we'll see.

I'm also thinking about introducing a new character 🤔 - but I haven't decided yet. As it stands, the game has a total of two primary characters.

In this thread, I've shown you multiple screenshots to a particular scene, now. Hate to say it, but I have one more picture to show of the current look to this scene now:

Sorry for focusing so much on this one scene. I'm using it as a benchmark to try new styles. I'd say the demo has a bit more variety to see than this, though - it has a few different scenes, and a bit of text.

Anyway, for some statistics:

This game is now 3,000 words into the script. Development started 7 days ago. About 5-6 hours a day are being spent on making the game, and I am a solo dev. So far, there are two different primary characters, 1 very small minigame that's finished, and a text input that's been programmed where you name your character. Also, the first 10-15 minutes of gameplay are done, however the demo is only about 1/3rd of that. If all goes well, I plan for this to be a paid game once finished, but one at a very inexpensive price. I wouldn't really want to charge too much with larger Visual Novels going for some pretty decent/affordable prices as well. But, we will cross that bridge further when we get to it. Til next time!

Just wanted to show this and update the game to being 30% finished: