Ren'Py to E-Book converter

[C_Classic]

Hello everyone,

I have an Amazon Kindle E-Book-Reader and a few days ago I thought about reading Visual Novels on it. Of course it would lack a few features such as music and effects, but the basic things like images and text should work.

Therefore I started programming a converter from Ren'Py to pdf. I will switch to epub later. My current version is able to convert quite simple VNs. As an example, I converted Yandere-Chan. If you want to take a look, you can download it here: For e-book-readers or for PC.

For those of you, who are interested in playing with the software, you can download the sourcecode on bitbucket.

A quick list of the current features:

• * Converts spoken text and thoughts
  * Converts images
  * Converts decisions using "menu"
  * Output-Format: pdf (via latex)

Is there any interest in such a program or do you think this project is useless?

Regards,
Markus

[Sapphi]

Is there any interest in such a program or do you think such a project is useless?

I'm interested, more for the future potential of something like this though. Right now... though you have found a way to incorporate choice, the Kindle still can't play music or sounds, something I consider to be a unique feature of visual novels as compared to regular books. So it seems that converting visual novel to pdf makes it effectively a regular book, albeit a CYOA one. Since my projects are linear stories, at the present I wouldn't find much benefit in converting them from VN format to this. I would probably just write with the Kindle already in mind.

I see you were able to incorporate an image there... that's the game background, right? How does the pdf handle the sprites? (I would download and see for myself, but no Kindle.)

[C_Classic]

Thanks for your reply.

I agree that music is in important part of VNs, but the only way to do this at the moment would be to show the user a message like "Change song to ..." and he'd have to do it manually.

Sprites aren't implemented in the current version, but I tested it and pdf does support overlaying images, so it is possible. I will add this feature asap.

[C_Classic]

I just tried implementing sprites. The new version can be downloaded here: MEGA
It still has some errors but for now it'll do.

This version completes my proof-of-concept application. Therefore I will start rewriting the program in a more structured approach.

Regards
Markus

PS: The new project can be found on SourceForge.

[Janto]

Hi Markus - that looks very interesting! (Albeit I am at such a basic state in getting to know Ren'Py and Python it'll be a while before I fit into the 'target demographic' for this.)

[sake-bento]

This looks really cool! I've got some friends with Kindles, so I'll give it a spin.

[muggy8]

As much as I like this idea, I cant say it's a very good idea. Sorry. The reason is because we are moving away from paper media and people are moving into tablets like iPad, Android tablets and windows 8 tables and so on so e-readers although were cool for a bit, people never jumped it. As someone who works quite a bit with PDFs they are still quite limited in what they can do. a better approach is to make a android, iOS and windows 8 app that can run ren.py games.....

[C_Classic]

You are correct as far as print media is concerned, but I believe that there's quite some potential in the e-ink technology. I see the major problem in the price of e-book-readers. People see no reason to spend 100$ for an e-book-reader if they can get a tablet for only a couple of bucks more. Whether there's any future for that technology, only time will tell.

PDFs they are still quite limited

Yes they are, but I don't see any other solution to get VNs onto these devices. Because of everyone had to hack their Kindle to play the VNs, the audience would basically be zero.

However, I will keep on writing the application to support some basic features and then I'll take it from there.

Regards,
Markus

PS: There already is a port of Ren'Py to Android.

PPS: Regarding the filetype; I just stumbled upon the kindle developer portal. Maybe that would be a usable replacement for PDF since it allows code execution on the device itself. Sadly it's just a limited beta but I'll definitely take a closer look at it.

[pwisaguacate]

In addition to what muggy8 mentioned, such a VN would be VERY simple in order to have a "proper conversion without needing many adjustments." What if it looks like I'm just reading a script (long NVL)? If I, for some reason, tried to open the PDF on a pc, wouldn't there be a mess of images appearing every time an image changes? It would become a "novel with some graphics" on an e-reader, and that's not what we were going for.
. . . . [potentially more comment here]

PPS: Regarding the filetype; I just stumbled upon the kindle developer portal. Maybe that would be a usable replacement for PDF since it allows code execution on the device itself. Sadly it's just a limited beta but I'll definitely take a closer look at it.

I suppose it may be possible to create a simple VN interface. Even audio may be played on few devices albeit probably bad support in general. However, because of the difference in writing style, I believe e-readers are best left to conventional works. Besides, everything just won't be the same. Trying to port over VN's to e-readers to potentially grab a tiny bit extra audience may be a double-edged sword gimmick; I think I heard a comment outside of here remarking about the flood of lesser quality works coming from LSF.