WebStory Engine - A Visual Novel Engine for the Web

[Victoria Jennings]

Sure, you could use it as some kind of advanced ad or demo for your games.

That is a brilliant idea. I might use this just for that purpose. ; v ;

[C7N]

@Dim Sum:

I just released an updated version, 0.2.1 BETA, where the Opera bug is fixed and the buttons now have text. The buttons there still look a bit ugly compared to other browsers, but since we are talking about a web technology here it would be pretty easy to use CSS to style them to look the way you want them, anyway.
http://webstoryengine.org/downloads

[Blane Doyle]

I was a bit skeptical at first, since I tried a couple other web engines in the past and found them... very lacking or annoying to use in the long run.

This looks much better, and I have a feeling it will continue to improve. It's not my cup of tea (I prefer game with an executable file and no installing), but it's going to be great for people that do want to distribute like this. Heck, maybe I'll change my mind and use it myself once I give this a try in a couple days.

Congrats on getting this out there!

[C7N]

@Bane Reiko:

Thanks, I appreciate it. Actually, I already have the plan in my backlog to maybe write some kind of native container app for WebStories, so that you can (install? and) play them outside of the browser. I am not yet sure how much work that would be, but I guess it's pretty doable. And since there's the idea of making a simple graphical editor for it, I would need to go native there anyway (well, you COULD do that all online, but you would need some server software for managing the project files and I think it would then be more convenient to just do it all using an offline app...).

I just made an ideas page in the wiki for it a few minutes ago:
http://webstoryengine.org/ideas

@all:
Would anyone be interested in having an open wiki for the engine? Right now write permissions are for members only.

Edit: HTML problem solved.

[DeeKay]

@all:
Would anyone be interested in having an open wiki for the engine? Right now write permissions are for members only.

Why not leave it as is for now ? It's not like it would be a big hassle to register to be a contributing member.
Then again, it's just my own opinion ^^'''

[C7N]

Then again, it's just my own opinion ^^'''

Well, that's exactly what I asked for.

[Veniae]

Oh man, does that look neat! Way to go, I'll definitely look into it more closely when I'm on my own computer, heh.

[C7N]

Today I completed the language reference. All elements are now documented here:
http://webstoryengine.org/language:elements

Oh yes, there's also some kind of logo now. Nothing fancy but something that can be recognized at least.

@Veniae:
Thanks. Be sure to post it here when you made anything with the engine!

[C7N]

So, just wanted to let you guys know that I'm working on the container application for the WebStory Engine. I already tried it with Ubuntu 12.04 and Win 7 64-bit and it seems to work. Needs a lot of fine-tuning now and I need to solve some minor problems with the deployment process. Also, localStorage does not work yet.

With the Local Container version of the engine, it will be possible to run WebStories like normal applications. Works with resizable window (the stage gets resized, too!) and in fullscreen mode. Accessing remote URLs is disabled by default, but the HOST object let's you define trusted URIs and domains. Normal links will be opened in the default web browser.

I cannot test on Mac, unfortunately, since I don't have one.

There's no binary packages yet; if you feel like checking it out anyway, download it from GitHub and run the wse.py file. You need to have Python 2.7 and PySide installed on the system (these dependencies will be packaged with the binary version when it's avaiable so that you won't have to install them manually...).

[triptych]

Are you ok with folks sending you issues and potentially pull requests on the github side? I do a lot of webdev gaming stuff and I'd like to contribute potentially.

[C7N]

@triptych:
Sure, that would be awesome. I'll probably set up a support/dev forum of some kind soon, too.

[fioricca]

adkfjgsdf THIS IS GENIUS. I cannot express accurately just how excited I am for this. Bookmarking and definitely hoping to try this out sometime in the future! *o*

[triptych]

BTW there is a way to potentially create a exe from this - http://awesomium.com/ this is what Construct 2 is using to port their HTML5 game engines over to exe files.

[C7N]

@fioricca:

Thanks! Be sure to tell us when you developed a game using the engine.


@triptych:

I've seen Awesomium before, but I'm not too fond of it. It is not open source, which at least for me is a total no-go in this context. And then there's the "awesome" license fee of 2900$ for commercial use. I want indie developers to be able to use all features of the engine (including packaging and Local Container) and that would be a major hindrance. And it does not seem to support Linux, which is another no-go for me, since that's my OS of choice.

You can make an executable of the Local Container app, too, using py2exe or PyInstaller. It may be a bit more difficult than with Awesomium, but I'm sure we'll find a way to simplify the process. The Local Container uses WebKit, too, just like Awesomium, btw.

[C7N]

Just wanted to let you guys know that there now are support forums for the WebStory Engine:
https://iiyo.org/f/categories/webstory-engine

If you run into any troubles with the engine, that's the place to get help! It's also meant to discuss the development of the engine, of course.