Dating Sim programing question

[HaruhianSakurai]

I recently downloaded Renpy, and I was a little afraid of the coding. However, after looking through the tutorials and trying it out, I am so psyched. I was hoping to do a dating simulation game, and for the most part I'm fairly certain I can make it happen as it is in my head. Aside from one thing: I would like to make it possible for the audience to have the ability to choose to play from a selection of characters.
Is that possible with this program? If so, how would I go about it?

[Misfile]

The short answer to your question is yes, the longer answer would reflect on how you're using the phrase "selection of characters" do you mean something along the lines of generic arts guy who gets +5 to painting vs generic sports guy who gets +10 to soccer, or do you mean a choice between being Bob from Burlington vs being Alice from Alberta?

P.S. I think this should be in the general programming section and not here

[HaruhianSakurai]

Well, if I'm reading correctly, the latter.
And thank you for redirecting me, I'm new to the site and haven't fully explored all categories.

[Auro-Cyanide]

I don't program, but I'm pretty sure it's possible (just a lot of work). If you had a choice of characters at the beginning I think you would just need labels for each character. So when a player selected that character they will jump to the label that belongs to that character to start the story, just in the way other choices work. I think it would be best to have seperate rpy. files for each characters script to stop the story getting confusing though.

[HaruhianSakurai]

That is a very good suggestion, about separating files. For my first VN it's quite ambitious, from my script, I am a bit worried that the story is too expansive to put into a program. ha ha

[Misfile]

Depending on how different you want the two characters to be you have two options. If you are making a game where the two characters have largely the same dialog you can set a flag for which character is talking and the unique text for each is triggered via a check of the flag. The other way is to in effect have two different games in your project with a jump when you select the character, but this way is a pain, and I'd just suggest going with the first way I pointed to, unless they really are two different games beside one another.

[HaruhianSakurai]

Like I said, the idea is very ambitious.
The story has eight characters, I was hoping to make each character a player so you could see a relationship from both perspectives. But in my head, the player always initiates the relationship, so for the most part, each path of a player would be different from one another even if it is the same couple as another.

[Taleweaver]

I've moved this thread to a place where you're more likely to find help with coding.

Also, you may want to check out http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 11&t=12895

[athenastar17]

Eight different playable characters is going to be SO much work, unless each story is extremely short. It's technically possible, but it will be two things: 1) completely impossible to do by yourself, 2) a long, long haul. Luckily you can use the same art assets for what is essentially eight different games wrapped into one, but...if you're really going to make all of them playable, do yourself a favor and make the story short...and limit the player's possible endings as much as possible. Because if each of the eight characters can romance the other seven.... That's 7*8 endings...or 56 separate possible endings (56 stories, even if they're short! That's well over a novel!), assuming you only have one possible ending for each relationship from each perspective. For your first Renpy project, it might be better to start from ONE character's perspective, or, if you really want to experiment with multiple possible characters, pick two.

I dunno, maybe you're good at keeping stories short and you write novel-sized collections on a regular basis, lol. But yeah, you're right - that's really ambitious

[CaseyLoufek]

If this is really your first project either expect to re do a lot of stuff and take forever, or you should do something small first.

There is a thread on path structure that should help you think about how you want to lay this out: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... =branching

There are a few ways to do this. Since it's 8 playable and non-playable characters I assume the events are mostly set. So Character A is going to talk to Character B is Scene 11 if Scene 11 occurs. If are A or B you see the scene and it alters the scene slightly based on the variables you've set. Otherwise the scene happens where you don't see it (if it happens) if you aren't A or B.

So with this approach you're look at adding details and branchs to scenes rather than more scenes. You will need more scenes too to cover scenes that would be behind the scenes for a different character, however at least you don't need completely different paths.

Really this is the sort of area where HOW you go about doing it is very open and depends on how much work you want to do and how you want the game to flow.

[Ryouzanki]

Like the others said already, I really think that for your first VN, you should make it simple. Using différent file will allow you to add other character's path later. So, for the moment, do not care about it.