Technical question about writing a script for the game

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Jate
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Re: Technical question about writing a script for the game

#16 Post by Jate »

noctos wrote:
trooper6 wrote: I don't use Google Docs because my understanding is that Google claims copyright over the things you store in Google Docs. And while I can't imagine that the courts would uphold that claim...the question would be, do you have enough money to beat Google in court if they decide to take your stuff?
Oh, I didn't know about this at all. I'll definitely take a look at their ToS and consider moving my stuff elsewhere. I don't imagine they'd want to take anything I've written, but still... Thanks for the heads up.
I use OpenOffice for writing, which is free and pretty similar to google docs, so I'd recommend it as an alternative.

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Re: Technical question about writing a script for the game

#17 Post by Katy133 »

noctos wrote:
trooper6 wrote: I don't use Google Docs because my understanding is that Google claims copyright over the things you store in Google Docs. And while I can't imagine that the courts would uphold that claim...the question would be, do you have enough money to beat Google in court if they decide to take your stuff?
Oh, I didn't know about this at all. I'll definitely take a look at their ToS and consider moving my stuff elsewhere. I don't imagine they'd want to take anything I've written, but still... Thanks for the heads up.
To the best of my knowledge, Google Docs/Drive uses the standard Terms and Conditions that most online sharing sites have. They don't claim ownership over the work you post there. If they did, most people wouldn't want to use them. Informative links about this can be found here and here. Hope this helps! :)
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Re: Technical question about writing a script for the game

#18 Post by 4nh »

Hey guys,

I have a technical question about writing visual novels here.

How do you write your script? Directly on Ren'Py or on another processor then "program" it later?

I was thinking that since writing Ren'Py requires a lot of quotation marks on each of your sentences among other things, it can take away the immersion of the writing process. On the other hand, if you write outside, in a normal and linear style, on a Word document, you'll have to spend a decent amount of time converting it to fit the codding format. And the longer you write the more this is going to be tedious.

I just came back to writing and still experimenting around with all of this.

I would love to hear your take and experience. :)

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Re: Technical question about writing a script for the game

#19 Post by Taleweaver »

I'm one of those guys who write directly into Ren'Py for the sole reason that I hate to do menial chores, and manually copy/pasting text out of a manuscript into a file of code is one of the most menial chores I can imagine.

Initially, I was a little put off by the formatting you have to do as well (i.e. quotation marks, italics with little{i}{/i} tags around them etc.), especially since I had to do this for every single sentence. Then, after a while I suddenly realized that, in fact, I DIDN'T have to do this for every single sentence, especially not with the narrative/descriptive parts of a script. Instead of single sentences, I could write an entire short paragraph into one set of quotation marks, and that would be perfectly alright. It would even benefit the readers who didn't have to click-to-advance that much any more.

By now, I'm so comfortable writing directly into Ren'Py code that my "coding speed" is almost the same as my usual "writing speed". So I'd say from experience that you don't really need a word processor to be productive. You only need to get accustomed to working a certain way.
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Re: Technical question about writing a script for the game

#20 Post by wyverngem »

Is there a way to word wrap jEdit or Editra? That's the biggest reason I use an outside source because it breaks my train of thought to scroll while I'm writing. Sadly the programs I've used don't have a collapse choices options that could make it easier to see branching.

Since I've yet to find a program like that, I still use Word. I give myself more spacing for branching by turning the layout of my paper to landscape and narrowing the margins. I then use tabs and blocks to simulate menus and choices in Word. It's been working well enough. If it branching truly goes off and doesn't return to the main branch I will then create a new file, copy and cut the content, and then link it in the choice branch. Otherwise I keep it all organized with the tabs.

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Re: Technical question about writing a script for the game

#21 Post by Taleweaver »

wyverngem wrote:Is there a way to word wrap jEdit or Editra? That's the biggest reason I use an outside source because it breaks my train of thought to scroll while I'm writing. Sadly the programs I've used don't have a collapse choices options that could make it easier to see branching.
There's no real reason to word wrap in an .rpy script. When you reach the end of your screen, just press the Return key and continue to write, and so on, over multiple lines. Ren'Py will still compile it.

To explain myself better, this:

Code: Select all

me "This is an explicitly overlong line of text, or rather one sentence of a very long paragraph, that would probably not fit into one single line of Ren'py code and would lead to you normally having to scroll the text, which you want to avoid."
is exactly equal to this:

Code: Select all

me "This is an explicitly overlong line of text, or rather one sentence of a very long paragraph, 
   that would probably not fit into one single line of Ren'py code and would lead to you normally having 
   to scroll the text, which you want to avoid."
Scriptwriter and producer of Metropolitan Blues
Creator of The Loyal Kinsman
Scriptwriter and director of Daemonophilia
Scriptwriter and director of The Dreaming
Scriptwriter of Zenith Chronicles
Scriptwriter and director of The Thirteenth Year
Scriptwriter and director of Romance is Dead
Scriptwriter and producer of Adrift
More about me in my blog
"Adrift - Like Ever17, but without the Deus Ex Machina" - HigurashiKira

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Re: Technical question about writing a script for the game

#22 Post by juunishi master »

4nh wrote: How do you write your script? Directly on Ren'Py or on another processor then "program" it later?
I'm actually new to renPy (but I'm familiar with programming for at least 2-3 years total).

In my first attempt to use renPy, I wrote down the story outline first. On paper. With ballpoint. Sometimes I'm going all manual because I don't need to start up my laptop/desktop to view/edit them. Just grab the notes, re-read, scribble something if needed.

*I do use GoogleDocs, but it's for a longer work that I want to do in between work or daily routine and if I need to share the outline/story to other people.

And then I wrote them down in renPy, but focusing first on the narration and dialog. No scene and sprite changing at all. It's faster that way, IMHO.

So far I don't really have a problem with that, probably because I'm not doing a complex game with many branches. Choices player could take comes up later during the writing process in renPy (maybe this would be a problem later ... I haven't gotten into that point, though; hopefully not).

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