New Free Bishoujo Engine

[comifera]

Hi, this is my first post.

I have created an program called StoryEngine to allow for the (relatively) easy creation of english bishoujo dating games. It has many features, but currently runs only on Windows.
I need somebody to host it for me, as I have limited access to the internet.
It comes with an example game that I no longer have the time to finish, which should help demonstrate how to create games.

With luck, there should eventually be many games that are made for it.
If anyone is interested in hosting, please email me at:

comifera(at)hotmail(dot)com

I will collect emails and then in about a week I will send the file to everyone who is interested.

Thank you.

[Watercolorheart]

What does it have to offer different from Ren'Py? Any advantages on the programming or bundling side?

[Megaman Z]

*crosses fingers*
GUI, GUI, GUI...

what? one can hope for a less notepad-style format of scripting image transitions, can't they?

still, we'd at least like to know what this has to offer.

[Watercolorheart]

Really? Once I got used to it, I never minded using SciTE ... (can't stand NotePad, my computer has a bug that when I try to save a text file it will delete the last 2 lines for no apparent reason.

Thanks, Windows XP. Only you can break something as simple as Notepad.... )

[RedSlash]

*crosses fingers*
GUI, GUI, GUI...

Solution: Macromedia Flash.

I think if we could program a striped down version of Flash tailored to VN games, that'd be neat. It could use ren'py as the main engine, ie. generates renpy code. I'd expect that be quite difficult to do (or atleast get correct in design).

[monele]

You mean recreating a lite version of Flash ? ^^;;...

[Jake]

Do you perhaps mean mirroring the Flash design interface, rather than literally ripping up Flash or trying to recode it entirely?

I imagine a 'studio' app that has three tabs: one a flowchart of scene-to-scene interactions, perhaps laid out like a collection of filmstrips for easy metaphor; one a collection of resources, 'character's and 'location's and so on; the third a scene editor, laid out much like a screenplay for a single scene at a time. It'd only really be any good for 'choose-your-own-adventure'-style VNs or 'kinetic' novels, with a minimum of variable-use and sticking to parameterised presets for things like transitions.

To me, this sounds like the kind of app that is not really difficult, merely very time-consuming to write. It would be then quite feasible, to my mind, to output scripts for any given sufficiently-scriptable engine. Unfortunately I don't really have anywhere near the required time to devote to such a project...

(The difficult part would be if you wanted it to be able to load in existing Ren'Py scripts or similar source from other engines.)

[RedSlash]

I would imagine ripping lot of it up as the current Flash interface wouldn't be as suitable for VN games as it is for animation.

Coding the application shouldn't be too difficult, but creating an intuative interface would.

[c0mifera]

Here is the StoryEngine.
Please download and evaluate it for yourself.
It's completely free, so if anyone wants to host, they can.

All you really need is the standalone exe to start learning and making your own games, but I've included some other stuff too.

Sorry about the delay. I'm a total noob at this.
(Warning, the included game contains adult references, and is an unfinished demo.)

[monele]

The mode choice is intriguing. I'll have to test that some more (I really just saw the main menu...).

[Watercolorheart]

Okay, I just downloaded it, I'll look through it when possible

[DaFool]

What's Game Mode: Kichiku?

I don't like the idea of having game data be open-source. That's good from a coder's standpoint, but not from an artist's standpoint. When you've spent up to a day or more on a single image, then you'll understand.

Otherwise, I like the way the engine operates, especially with all the customizable windows via graphics.

[Jake]

That's good from a coder's standpoint, but not from an artist's standpoint. When you've spent up to a day or more on a single image, then you'll understand.

Speaking from the point of view of both a coder and an artist, I simply don't believe this is a justifiable statement. By all means be reluctant to give away your source material and by all means desire to make your images difficult to steal, that's your perogative, but... coding and art are both creative, time-consuming endeavours, both are too easy to rip off and claim credit for if the author is lax about security, I don't see what it is about art that makes it so much more precious. If anything, coding is more important to protect; it's easy to take someone else's code - even that which you don't quite understand - and change variable names and order of declaration and so on to make it appear superficially to be an original independent work, but that is far more difficult with a piece of art without being of the level of skill that you could have created the original rather than stolen it in the first place.

And yes, I've spent more than a day on single images more than once before; I've also spent more than a day trying to solve a particularly tricky coding problem more than once before.

[Watercolorheart]

I'm sorry ... I wasn't very impressed by the system ...

I think Ren'Py has a lot more to offer, also in terms of obfuscating the game when fully compiled and out of beta not because I am afraid of people stealing the art (which they can readily do at my site but because I don't want the casual player to spoil their game by browsing all the images.

[c0mifera]

The whole idea behind the engine is that people rip each other off.

If every game that is made for it is forced to be open source, then anyone who wants to make a new game has available all the resources that have gone before them.

As for artwork, even if that is somehow encrypted the player can still take screenshots and modify them.

If there is a main site listing and managing games, then it should be easy to weed out games hacked up out of other peoples code.

The thing I wanted most of all was fast game development. The only thing missing is a graphical builder for the code, which could be done, but I don't have the time sorry.