VN Resource List & Dev Kit [For anyone really]

[Dragonstar89]

Being part of the indie game scene means most of your reliability (especially for those of us just starting out in said scene) will be on the internet. So, for the greater good, I crawled the lemmasoft forums and things online to help assist you in making your first or 100th Visual Novel with Ren'Py.

Note: This color means the software is commercial and may/may not have a trial

SOCIAL/TEAM & FILE STORAGE
Gmail | Popular email service
Mail.com | Another popular email service
Dropbox | Online file storage (backup)
Drive | Online file storage - Google's version
OneDrive | Microsoft's Online File storage
BaseCamp | Group Project Management Online
Skype | Free VoIP Messenger application with group calls
Teamviewer | Screen sharing application w/Chat
Free Project Recruitment -OR- Commercial Project Recruitment

WRITING/DOCUMENTATION
OpenOffice | Free Open Source productivity suite by Apache community
Draw.io | Free online Flow Chart & graph making tool (works with Google Drive)
yWriter5 | Free software for structuring your stories
Editra | Free multi-platform text editor and for other writing purposes (supports Ren'py)
Writemonkey | Free, simple writing tool with no crazy UI to promote focus on writing.

AUDIO/MUSIC MAKING
Audacity | Free Audio Editor and Recorder[/left]
Twistedwave | Free online audio editor
Wavepad | Another audio editor

GRAPHICS/VIDEO EDITING
Photoshop CC | Professional Graphic Editing Software (a personal favorite )
Photoscape | Free photo editor (mostly good for colors and resizing/cropping)
Windows Movie Maker | Simple movie maker (pre-installed on most windows machines)
Sony Vegas Pro | Professional video editor
Paint.Net | Free image editing software. Sorta like a lightweight photoshop with MS Paint.
GIMP | Free, advanced photo editing
ComiPo! | Manga maker. You can directly export characters for sprites though. (a personal favorite )
Inkscape | Free, open-source vector drawing software

Dev Kit (cookbooks codes and tuts)
Inventory Screen | Add an inventory screen and functionality to your game
Animated-calendar | Adds a Persona-styled calendar screen to your games
Custom BGs and Menus | Learn how to customize your menus and screen backgrounds
Stackable inventory, crafting scenes | Add a inventory and RPG-styled crafting screen to your games
Love Meter Bar | Learn how to implement a love meter bar into your game
Scrolling Credits | Add scrolling credits to your game
Custom Mouse Cursor | Create a custom cursor for your games
Dress Up Game | Learn how to make a Dress-Up game
Affection Points | Learn how to use points/numbers in Ren'py and how to make them affect things
Basic Message System | Add a basic emailing/mail system to your game
Phone Image | Change the message system's textbutton to a changeable imagemap
Customizing Textbox | Learn how to customize the textbox of your games
RPG Battle System | VERY advanced RPG Battle system (and personal favorite of mine )
More dev kit resources here (cookbook) and for further learning, check out the official documentation.

Royalty Free resources (BGs, Art, Music) (Legend: Music, BGs, Artwork)
Soundimage | Royalty free (for Non-commercial and commercial) tracks that are AMAZING, ranging from 1-3 minutes each. Huge variety.
musicmaterial JP | Great, poppy-soundtracks for free use (as long as credit is given to site)
UncleMugen's BGs and More! | A grand collection of backgrounds for free, and some other image resources (a personal favorite of mine )
Konett's Resources | BGs, but mostly Artwork and Sprites
Stock Photos | BGs of Real gorgeous scenery
Free Sprites | A free Girl and Boy sprite
Pixabay | Free realistic backgrounds and other photos to use
FreeSound.Org | Free sound clips and SFX.
Incompetech.com | Free music

PUBLISH/MARKET & PROMOTE
IndieDB| Site for Indie game makers to share their projects/finished games and give updates, mods, and more for it (personal favorite )
Ren'Py Steam Quickstart | A quick guide for setting up your Ren'Py game on Steam
Desura Publishing | A software like STEAM (IIRC it's free to add and publish your game)
STEAM Greenlight | The way to get your game published on STEAM. Costs $100 for the addition and must receive enough community approval to be added to the STEAM store.
(Android games) Publish Google Play app | Publish your Android VN for Google Play, costs $25 per year
Lemmasoft Completed Games | Share a detailed post about your completed game with the Lemmasoft community
Add game to Ren'Py list | Add your completed game to the official Ren'Py Games list
Gamejolt | Publish your games freely (free games only)
Itchi.io | Free publishing for your games - where you (at this moment) get 100% of proceeds. Can publish free or monetized games. ( recommended )

WEBSITE/PAYMENTS
WordPress | #1 Blogging and CMS Website Software (add WooCommerce for the option to sell your games)
tumblr | Shareable website blogs
VNovel | Free hosting/sub domain/website for your Visual Novel/VN dev group
Weebly | Free online Drag 'n' Drop site maker. Premium features include a website store.
PayPal | Popular online payment gateway for U.S. users
Blockchain | Popular BitCoin (BTC) Wallet Provider
Hostinger | Free PHP/SQL Web hosting with no ads (servers based in UK)
Hosting24 | Fast premium web hosting. Lowest price $7 a month (personal favorite )

Now that you have all the tools and resources for your first and future games, time to continue your career by joining developer communities! I'm guessing you're already on Lemmasoft, so I won't include that one. Here are some others for game developers in general:

Game Dev Communities
/r/VNdevs | Reddit community for Visual Novel Developers
/r/gamedev | Reddit community for Game Developers in general
GameDev.net | Site just for Game Developers to communicate and discuss.
Fuwanovel | Community of Visual Novel enthusiasts

Hope this list is somewhat helpful to you. Please let me know of any other resources/links to be added. Thanks.

[azureXtwilight]

Thank you for the complete list! I believe this should be a sticky?

[Dragonstar89]

Thank you for the complete list! I believe this should be a sticky?

You're welcome

[firecat]

i would like to add some stuff on the list,

www.wix.com (free website builder)

pixabay (real life background and art)

incompetech (music)

www.worldtimebuddy.com ( a tool for outside the usa collabration)

blogger (a blog to do whatever)

freesound.org (sounds for novels)

Twine (a browser/download for organize story play)

gamejolt (a website to publish your game "free version only")

Fuwanovel (another place to meet with people who like novel games)

[RotGtIE]

I would recommend WriteMonkey under writing software. It's a lightweight application which I have found to be quite useful in clearing away distractions and providing me with a simple platform for pushing out decent drafts.

[fullmontis]

This is a lovely list of resources! Thank you for the effort you put in it!

I have been looking for a tool like draw.io for way too long. I knew it existed somewhere but had no idea where to find it.

I would add Inkscape to the graphics section. It is a vector drawing tool, like Adobe Illustrator, but free (and, in my opinion, even better than the pricey adobe products). It's pure awesome, and very handy for stuff like backgrounds and even character design.

[Mad Harlequin]

You have my thanks for this list!

We should add Editra to the writing section. It's a free, multi-platform text editor, and it's compatible with Ren'Py.

[Hazel-Bun]

Itch.io is also a great distribution platform! And, if you sell, I believe you get 100% of the proceeds ^^

[Dragonstar89]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. They've been added to the list.

You're all welcome for the list and feel free to contribute some suggestions at any time. (Just note that I can't include everything, that would make too much of a list and would hold the possibility to hinder the conversation on this topic. You can still share any suggestions you have in your own reply! The best softwares/recommendations will be added to the list )

[Akai85]

Hardware suggestion: digital word processors (yes these are a thing.) They're like portable type-writers with a screen, resemble a calculator and most of them look downright weird/strange/ugly. HOWEVER

My alpha smart neo cost around $33 usd on eBay with a brand new cable and battery, has 700 hours of battery, is easily readable, weighs next to nothing, never overheats and is far more useful than my laptop for actually WRITING. (Not so much for editing.) Did I mention that they're near unbreakable, last forever and you can chuck one in a bag and carry it around all day and forget it's there. (It seriously weighs next to nothing.) Best $33 I ever spent.

For software I like wikidpad which is a wiki and let's you navigate between linked pages. It makes heaps of information easily navigable (unlike scrolling through a 53 page outline on msword) and doesn't cost a buck. It's also quite easy to use unlike some certain map making softwares I could mention... Notepad++ for pure writing/draft making, it's minimal but has tabs.

I also have a list of great no royalty image finding websites, which I personally found and ranked when I had to work on making a website sometime last year. I'll add them when I get on my laptop.

[TrickWithAKnife]

Great list. Bookmarking it for future reference.

[Katy133]

Thanks for this!

I'd like to also suggest:
- Trello (SOCIAL/TEAM & FILE STORAGE)
- Cmap (WRITING/Mind-mapping tool)
- Twine (WRITING/Mind-mapping tool)

[dmasterxd]

Hey thanks for the list! It's really helpful and I really appreciate it! Just one quick question. How do I get the files from the soundimage website to work? I downloaded them but they won't play when I load them in ren'py.

[Dragonstar89]

Hey thanks for the list! It's really helpful and I really appreciate it! Just one quick question. How do I get the files from the soundimage website to work? I downloaded them but they won't play when I load them in ren'py.

How are you using them? Make sure the files are in your renpy game directory. Then you can use something like

Code: Select all

 play "song.mp3"

or is that just not working?

[dmasterxd]

Hey thanks for the list! It's really helpful and I really appreciate it! Just one quick question. How do I get the files from the soundimage website to work? I downloaded them but they won't play when I load them in ren'py.

How are you using them? Make sure the files are in your renpy game directory. Then you can use something like

Code: Select all

 play "song.mp3"

or is that just not working?

Yeah it's just not working. I have the files in my game directory and everything. So I was just wondering if there was some sort of special way I have to download them from the website.