Cliche vs. Original, Game vs. Novel, and Marketing OELVN

[CaseyLoufek]

I'm a programmer, fairly booked at the moment but I might be availible in the future.

Also want to learn to code yourself shouldn't stop you from seeking a coder. I think part of the issue is that while a single person can make a visual novel, a team can make a much better one. Even with a team people wind up going out of role to cover back log in an indie production.

So what do we expect from the community? Well my comments have been aimed generally at the industry as a whole, not this specific place. I know people here have limited time and resources. If you can get an interesting, decent looking story out on your own, power to you. If you can get a team together to pull off something bigger even better.

One other thing to think about. The tools to make novels, comics and arcade style games are very developed, polished and easily availble. Anybody can make an Angry Birds or Mario clone if they know a bit of code because physics engines are common, standard and free. Ren'py is an amazing piece of software but it's modular capabilities have barely been scratched. The DSE and RPG combat engines are good examples of what can be done. Another thing the community can do is to create the resources to build better visual novels.

I've been working with the Ren'py ATL and gotten some really sweet dynamic animations by "rigging" a character so their pieces are attached and overlap in a way that you can just rotate and translate to do animations. I can easily "reskin" an animation to be made of different images for another character or clothing set. The trouble is that the rig itself and each animation has to be manually coded and there is no GUI to view it. You have to go in and watch the animation, go back to the Python and tweak it. I've been trying to think of way to make this more user friendly but I'm not entirely sure the best approach. Making some kind of animation editor program that can export an ATL or trying to work some kind of GUI for this in to Ren'py itself. Either way it's a lot of work but the benefits of this style are much smaller file sizes and much smoother and more dynamic animations.

Any other ideas?

[jack_norton]

What you're trying to accomplish is definitely out of Ren'Py scope (you're trying to make some kind of 2d bone animation, right?). I mean, it can be done, but not sure Ren'Py is the best tool for what you have in mind

[TrickWithAKnife]

This is probably the wrong place to ask, but I wonder how many people would be interested in creating extra features/plugins for RenPy.

Of course I can't speak for PyTom, but the impression I got from him recently is that he would at least consider it.

Unfortunately I'm not skilled enough to even attempt something like this.

[CaseyLoufek]

I did make a 2d bone animation. Sorta, it's not a good as real bones. I just want a better GUI for making them

Sure we could have the artists animate them in one of those fancy programs but the files would be huge and we couldn't swap equipment. Ren'py is the tool I need to work with.

Anyone can release anything they like for use with Ren'py. I'll have to double check commercial terms but I know it's possible, just don't know if you need permission or any special rules to follow.

[AxemRed]

http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 32&t=14710

We're getting off-topic.

[Anarchy]

I'm a programmer, fairly booked at the moment but I might be availible in the future.

Also want to learn to code yourself shouldn't stop you from seeking a coder. I think part of the issue is that while a single person can make a visual novel, a team can make a much better one. Even with a team people wind up going out of role to cover back log in an indie production.

So what do we expect from the community? Well my comments have been aimed generally at the industry as a whole, not this specific place. I know people here have limited time and resources. If you can get an interesting, decent looking story out on your own, power to you. If you can get a team together to pull off something bigger even better.

One other thing to think about. The tools to make novels, comics and arcade style games are very developed, polished and easily availble. Anybody can make an Angry Birds or Mario clone if they know a bit of code because physics engines are common, standard and free. Ren'py is an amazing piece of software but it's modular capabilities have barely been scratched. The DSE and RPG combat engines are good examples of what can be done. Another thing the community can do is to create the resources to build better visual novels.

I've been working with the Ren'py ATL and gotten some really sweet dynamic animations by "rigging" a character so their pieces are attached and overlap in a way that you can just rotate and translate to do animations. I can easily "reskin" an animation to be made of different images for another character or clothing set. The trouble is that the rig itself and each animation has to be manually coded and there is no GUI to view it. You have to go in and watch the animation, go back to the Python and tweak it. I've been trying to think of way to make this more user friendly but I'm not entirely sure the best approach. Making some kind of animation editor program that can export an ATL or trying to work some kind of GUI for this in to Ren'py itself. Either way it's a lot of work but the benefits of this style are much smaller file sizes and much smoother and more dynamic animations.

Any other ideas?

Wouldn't it be easier to just use Flash? I guess if Linux distribution is really that important to you...

[papillon]

It might be easier but it would certainly be cool for other geeky types using renpy if such a tool ended up working!

[CaseyLoufek]

You did not just suggest I write a game in Flash did you? *shudder* (and who said Linux can't run it, you're thinking of iOS and even that I think Flash worked around).

Flash is NOT easier. It is a horrible language to try to write a program in and horribly inconsistent in how it appears on the web. It's a (bad) animator's tool that has been beaten in to doing far more than it should because of aggressive marketing of it. I abhor Flash. I am having a much easier time adding bone animation to Ren'py then I think I would trying to use Flash. Three Rings made a MMO for Dr Who, I play it sometimes but since somebody decided writing it in Flash was a good idea it becomes unplayable after about 20 minutes. No matter how good your system. Flash seems unable to completely clean its cache til you close the browser so the lag just builds and builds. And I don't think something can be done, that's just Flash. Flash is horrible and thankfully becoming obsolete.

Also don't think Ren'py is hard to work in. Python is a language that combines the simplicity of BASIC with the flexibility of C++, it's amazingly easy to use and powerful. Just a tad slow, but compared to Flash it runs at Warp 10.

Know all that said my concern is more whether I want to try and write a GUI for making these animations in Ren'py or simply write another simple program that lets you align and animate these images and exports it to ATL (and possibly other formats if there is demand). Either is several times the work of just making a few of these as I have been but I think there is a lot to be gained by these technique and it could save time in the long run for everyone. Heck if there is an open source program of similar nature I could maybe just get it to export to ATL, that'd be pretty sweet.

And to try and retrack the thread a bit, what tools/resources do you find lacking in VN making? What would you like to see available?

[redeyesblackpanda]

And to try and retrack the thread a bit, what tools/resources do you find lacking in VN making? What would you like to see available?

Just popping in to fix this...

And to try and retrack the thread a bit, what tools/resources do you find lacking in VN MARKETING? What would you like to see available?

And now to be on my 'lil way

[TrickWithAKnife]

And to try and retrack the thread a bit, what tools/resources do you find lacking in VN making? What would you like to see available?

Sound modulation within the game itself. http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 32&t=16951

Also love the idea of having a separate GUI for creating animations, which creates ATL code for us. Us ATL newbies would be able to do so much more in a much shorter time.

[gekiganwing]

Just popping in to fix this...

And to try and retrack the thread a bit, what tools/resources do you find lacking in VN MARKETING? What would you like to see available?

In the recent past, I could purchase a console game, start it up, and it would just work. No patches, no updates, no DLC, no need to connect to the internet... So yeah, when I consider buying a computer game these days, I have a lot of questions, such as:

* Will it work? (There is a good chance that the tech specifications for an indie game will be too much for my PC. This question can be addressed with a demo.)
* What happens if my computer stops working? Will I have to purchase the software again? (At least three of my PCs are currently useless chunks of plastic. Meanwhile, my Xbox 360 has yet to fail.)
* Does the game require an internet connection to start up, or to work at all?
* Is there a monthly or annual fee?

Maybe these make me look n00bish, but I am kind of a newbie when it comes to computers.

Aside from that, one other important marketing concern: "What exactly am I buying?" It's important to understand what sort of content a game has. If you're selling your game, then I strongly recommend addressing the following:

1. Is there a substantial amount of complex gameplay?
2. If so, what type? Should the player expect puzzles, action, strategy, simulation, or something else?
3. What sort of person would like the gameplay, style, and themes? (This is sometimes as simple as "girls' game or boys' game?" but it can be more complex.)
4. Are there any content warnings?
5. Does the game emphasize length or replay-ability? Both? Neither?

[Anarchy]

You did not just suggest I write a game in Flash did you? *shudder* (and who said Linux can't run it, you're thinking of iOS and even that I think Flash worked around).

Flash is NOT easier. It is a horrible language to try to write a program in and horribly inconsistent in how it appears on the web. It's a (bad) animator's tool that has been beaten in to doing far more than it should because of aggressive marketing of it. I abhor Flash. I am having a much easier time adding bone animation to Ren'py then I think I would trying to use Flash. Three Rings made a MMO for Dr Who, I play it sometimes but since somebody decided writing it in Flash was a good idea it becomes unplayable after about 20 minutes. No matter how good your system. Flash seems unable to completely clean its cache til you close the browser so the lag just builds and builds. And I don't think something can be done, that's just Flash. Flash is horrible and thankfully becoming obsolete.

About the lag thing, does that still apply if you export the game as an executable file or a swf or whatever it's called? *total Flash n00b*

[CaseyLoufek]

Not sure. I've only worked with it enough to get an aversion to it. For all I know in some browser or other it may work fine but in Chrome and Firefox on every PC I tried this happens after awhile. Technically all Flash files that run are compiled .swfs and they are just embeded in the web. Some rely on website data and can't be un-embedded and others are presented on their own but it's pretty much all .swfs.

JavaScript in HTML5 is the new Flash and SVG offer cross-compatible vector graphics. I don't have anything against the niche of software Flash is, just Flash itself.

[CaseyLoufek]

Did some looking at Spriter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZVNb-8rW5k This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. That is how you do it. I've been doing that by hand with ATL code

So the question is how easily can Ren'py be made to support Spriter data format OR how easily can a utility to convert Spriter information into ATL be written? It's already supported by Cocos-2d which is another engine I use (and Cocos2d-x now has an HTML5 branch for direct webplay) so I would be willing to put time in to such a project.

[PyTom]

Does anyone know where there's documentation as to the spriter format?