Belle - Visual novel maker

[Blue Lemma]

Took a look around the site... Looks like Novelty w/HTML5 (kind of in general?) I suggest getting some basic docs/tutorials up because there are some people (like me!) who prefer browsing through those first before deciding whether or not to install anything and poke around. Might get more feedback that way.

[freemind]

If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to ask.

On your site, you're obviously making it open source.

Belle is free and open source software, both the editor and the engine are released under the GNU General Public License v3. This means you can modify this software and adapt it to your needs. It also means you can use it freely to make commercial or non-commercial games.

How are you handling the licensing for the engine? For people who might want to develop commercial games, are you requiring any sort of licensing for using the engine, sourcing, etc? Also how are you going to justify continued development of the engine in the future, or are you expecting different programmers to make different distributions of the engine rather than doing it all yourself?

I think for some people, they might not be sure you can afford to continue developing the engine.

The engine is licensed under the GNU GPLv3, like you quoted. You can use the engine freely to make commercial games, you don't need to pay me or anyone else any fees,
There's only one restriction and it's related with the modification of the engine itself. If you modifiy the engine and distribute binaries out of it you need to make the source available to the people you distribute the game to. This does not in any way affect your game files, since the art and the game file are not part of the engine but are instead used by it.
I'm not sure i understand your last question(s) about the develpment of the engine but i'll try to answer. I'm going to continue developing by myself, but if anyone wants to join and i see we have converging ideas, i can let people in. What do you mean i can't afford to continue developing the engine?

Took a look around the site... Looks like Novelty w/HTML5 (kind of in general?) I suggest getting some basic docs/tutorials up because there are some people (like me!) who prefer browsing through those first before deciding whether or not to install anything and poke around. Might get more feedback that way.

I understand. Yes it's like Novelty but cross-platform and with export to HTML5. I've just been busy fixing some stuff and haven't finished the docs yet.

[Taosym]

I'm not sure i understand your last question(s) about the develpment of the engine but i'll try to answer. I'm going to continue developing by myself, but if anyone wants to join and i see we have converging ideas, i can let people in. What do you mean i can't afford to continue developing the engine?

Just speaking by example, PyTom has had years of developing Ren'py and updating it, so people can be reasonably assured he will continue for the feasible future.

[freemind]

By the nature of this software (being open source) you have more guarantees that it will continue even if i'm not developing it anymore.
However this issue doesn't seem an issue to me at all, because it can happen to any software at any time, even to Ren'Py. Look for example at Novelty, it was being developed continously for 3 or so years and for the last 2 years it hasn't had any update and it's not certain when it will. However that doesn't seem to be an issue for people since they continue to use it. I guess that's because Novelty has reached a good stability level and anyone can reasonably expect everything to work. That enables people to safely check the current features beforehand and determine if they're sufficient to make their game, without running into the problem of later having their game broken because of a bug in the engine.

[Ran08]

I think this looks nice. I haven't downloaded it yet though, but looking at the screenshots it does seem a bit similar to Novelty. I don't know much about HTML5 though, but who knows. I think I'll give it a try.

[Revi]

I just tried installing Belle right now and it said it was unable to run due to it not having MSVCR100.dll in its folder. I downloaded the missing .dll file from dll-files, but I wanted to let you know.

Also, would it be possible to have Belle available for download in the form of .RAR or .ZIP?

[freemind]

Thanks, i'll include it.
In the next version (i hope to release it before the end of the month) i'll make a zip package too.

[freemind]

Hey,

Finally i'm releasing the 0.3 alpha, with support for animated images (e.g. gifs) and support for older browsers like Internet Explorer 7 and 8 (audio is still not supported in these browsers, though). Not only that but also many improvements and bug fixes.
Downloads are available here. I haven't made a DMG for Mac OS X yet, but tomorrow i'll upload it.
I've also made a demo that you can find here.
Documentation is still unfinished, but now that i've released 0.3 version i'll have more time to finish it.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask, thanks.

[SusanTheCat]

Looking very cool!

Susan

[fleet]

I used the Alpha 3 release and made a test VN with an animated GIF. The VN works great on Firefox, but when I tried to open it in IE 8, IE 9, Opera and Chrome, all I got was a scrolling bar.

Below is the error message from the Opera Error console.

[3/16/2013 5:32:15 PM] JavaScript - file://localhost/E:/belletest/NewFolder/victorstory/index.html
Event thread: readystatechange
Uncaught exception: SyntaxError: JSON.parse: Unable to parse value:
Error thrown at line 431, column 12 in <anonymous function: xobj.onreadystatechange>() in file://localhost/E:/belletest/NewFolder/victorstory/main.js:
var gameData = JSON.parse(xobj.responseText);
[3/16/2013 5:32:15 PM] JavaScript - file://localhost/E:/belletest/NewFolder/victorstory/index.html
Unknown thread
Uncaught exception: DOMException: NETWORK_ERR
Error thrown at line 438, column 4 in importgameData(path) in file://localhost/E:/belletest/NewFolder/victorstory/main.js:
xobj.send(null);
called from line 250, column 4 in load() in file://localhost/E:/belletest/NewFolder/victorstory/main.js:
importgameData(game.directory+game.filename);
called from line 26, column 12 in <anonymous function>() in file://localhost/E:/belletest/NewFolder/victorstory/index.html:
belle.load();
[3/16/2013 5:32:15 PM] JavaScript - file://localhost/E:/belletest/NewFolder/victorstory/index.html
Unknown thread
Uncaught exception: DOMException: NETWORK_ERR
Error thrown at line 438, column 4 in importgameData(path) in file://localhost/E:/belletest/NewFolder/victorstory/main.js:
xobj.send(null);
called from line 250, column 4 in load() in file://localhost/E:/belletest/NewFolder/victorstory/main.js:
importgameData(game.directory+game.filename);
called from line 26, column 12 in <anonymous function>() in file://localhost/E:/belletest/NewFolder/victorstory/index.html:
belle.load();

[freemind]

I think i know what's happening. Many browsers restrict their functionality when loading HTML pages with the "file:///" protocol. Firefox is one of the few that imposes less restrictions and thus enables the game to run.
I've already "fixed" this situation in 0.3, but you have to run the game through the editor, because the editor now creates a small local HTTP server that the browsers can communicate with, like with any page out there in web. If you notice the address when running the game through the editor is something like "127.0.0.1:8000" and not "file://...".

Of course this causes some problems in case you want to distribute your game offline. The proper fix would be to bundle a mini application that contained a small HTTP server (like the editor has), that the players would just double click to get the game running. However the portability aspect would probably be affected, because now we have an application that runs on the system and not only on the browser.
There's probably another solution that i haven't tried yet, that could work aswell. That is embbeding the game file inside the HTML page. Although it could work, it's not very pretty and i don't know if it would be possible to save the game in such cases.

By the way, thanks for your feedback, i really appreciate it.

[fleet]

@freemind,
I was going to send you a PM, but couldn't find what I intended to send. I hope you find a solution for playing off line.
Very respectfully,
fleet

[fleet]

I made something and had a MAC user and Linux user test it in off-line mod. Both reported that it worked using Firefox.

In stand alone mode:
I noticed I can add buttons, but I didn't see a way to add Load or Save buttons. This is a vital feature for longer games/visual novels in off-line mode.
Also, I couldn't get the Stop Sound action to work. I had a song in ogg format playing, and it continued playing after the VN ended. I had to close the browser to get it to stop.

I'd like to see some samples of the syntax you are using (or plan to use) for variables, as I haven't tested that feature yet.

[freemind]

Hi fleet,

Yes, it should work the same way in all Firefoxes (Windows, Mac and Linux).

What do you mean by "stand alone mode"? The editor?
It isn't possbile to save the game yet, either offline or online. Yes, i agree, it's a essential feature, that's why i'm planning to add it in the next version.
Do you really need a save button? I was thinking in creating an in-game menu, like Ren'Py has, and there the players could save the game. It would be less work for people making the games.

Ah ok, i'll fix that problem with playing sounds. Thanks.

About the variables, you mean to use it in a dialogue, for example? In a dialogue use the "$" to denote a variable, e.g. "$my_first_variable" (without quotes). Also don't use spaces in a variable.

Thanks again for your feedback.

[fleet]

@freemind,
Hello.
By stand alone mode I mean offline.
By a save button I guess it would be an in game menu. Since my game making is done with Novelty, it would be like their "sample Novel Interface"

About the variables, I mean: how would I enter the condition statement in a Branch activity(such as "$loveinterest > 3" or "$loveinterest is greater than 3")