Tyranobuilder?

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byzantiumCrasher
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Re: Tyranobuilder?

#46 Post by byzantiumCrasher »

Personally I prefer Tyranobuilder as I am a visually-oriented person and the Renpy script just confused me to look at. I like the interface of Tyrano and, for the most part, it does everything I need. Admittedly the last patch kinda screwed with the game I was making, but they added a lot of cool elements.

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Re: Tyranobuilder?

#47 Post by LateWhiteRabbit »

SundownKid wrote: Essentially if you can handle Renpy then use it because it has more features. The exception being, of course, Live2D.
Live2D is what won me over to Tyranobuilder. As an artist, the visual punch-up it provides is too great to ignore for me. Tyranobuilder is still a little feature-short, but they are adding things rapidly enough for me trust they are all in the pipeline.

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Re: Tyranobuilder?

#48 Post by DokiDokiDollmaker »

I'm planning to use TyranoBuilder for my game as well! I have it purchased/installed, but haven't had time to play around with it just yet. I've heard nothing but good things though! :)

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JBShields
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Re: Tyranobuilder?

#49 Post by JBShields »

Anyone else using Tyranobuilder recently? What do y'all think of the new changes?

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audrenes
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Re: Tyranobuilder?

#50 Post by audrenes »

I'm using TyranoBuilder for the VNs I plan to make. There could be some features that I would love to have there, but I can't really complain since I would be worse off trying to code everything by scratch... @___@

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Julianita
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Re: Tyranobuilder?

#51 Post by Julianita »

I've brought up Tyranobuilder because it seems easier to work with if you don't know any programming. Has anyone completed/currently working on a game using it that can give a heads up? It seems really promising and for me the less I need to know about programming, the better x.x

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Graff
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Re: Tyranobuilder?

#52 Post by Graff »

My current project is being made in it. It needs more features, but I really have fun using it. Anything you want to do in particular?

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Julianita
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Re: Tyranobuilder?

#53 Post by Julianita »

Graff wrote:My current project is being made in it. It needs more features, but I really have fun using it. Anything you want to do in particular?
Since I'm doing something rather simple, some visual effects and room for some customization. Are you feeling comfortable working with it?

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Graff
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Re: Tyranobuilder?

#54 Post by Graff »

Julianita wrote:
Graff wrote:My current project is being made in it. It needs more features, but I really have fun using it. Anything you want to do in particular?
Since I'm doing something rather simple, some visual effects and room for some customization. Are you feeling comfortable working with it?
I feel pretty good about it. Some recent updates gave some more menu customization, so you can have your own menu buttons on-screen, without having to open a new screen. It does pretty much all I need, including video playback, which is good for openings.

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TheOnlyKieran
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Re: Tyranobuilder?

#55 Post by TheOnlyKieran »

In my experience, it's still far too buggy for commercial releases.

I had started developing for Tyranobuilder due to it's browser exports, making it very easy for potential console ports. In the end, I recieved negative steam reviews caused in part by the missing features and bugs present in final builds.

The amount of errors like stack overflows causing saving errors, and other strange glitches has led me to drop the platform completely.

They're on to something, but I'd wait a couple years before taking it seriously.

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Re: Tyranobuilder?

#56 Post by cddb »

I've been using Tyrano quite a bit recently for a project I'm doing.

I have nothing but positive things to say so far... it's a small piece of software which streamlines VN/2d game 'cinema' development. It's customizable to whatever extent you can use javascript, really.

The online community is nice and helpful. It can be a little clunky in certain areas...but I haven't experienced any strange glitches like the previous commenter.

I'm eagerly anticipating the next release version; the dev has shown some previews and it's looking great!

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Re: Tyranobuilder?

#57 Post by bluebirdplays »

I made my first game on Tyranobuilder, so the engine in itself is a plus. It was really easy with the drag n' drop interface to get what you want, and the new updates really help with customization.

That being said, the single negative that I have about the program is the inability to distribute to any platform besides the one you're using. IE, I have Windows, so I can only release the game on Windows. If I tried to get a version for Mac/Linux, I'd just get an error message saying that I can't do that. It's not a bug- it's just the way Tyranobuilder programmed their distributions, which is a big annoyance. Releasing on browser worked fine. Distributing on Android takes additional, finicky programs to make it work, and there are still a lot of complaints about the games not working right.

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Re: Tyranobuilder?

#58 Post by pawnthegame »

Although I've been coding for the past 20 years and I can live without a GUI, Tyranobuilder won me over because it allows me to use javascript without any hassle.
The video page (order by recent videos) on the steam page will show some nice things you can do with Tyranobuilder and a little bit of javascript (turn by turn rpg engine / SVG filters / Simulating a working computer / etc.)

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Re: Tyranobuilder?

#59 Post by LizardRobot »

I may have to take another look at TB, though I'm fairly committed to waiting for VNM at this point.

I started making a game in TB a while back in spring, but ran into issues over simple things, like variables not resetting properly, screen resolution sizing problems, and trouble with player input text variables, but I hadn't realized they've made an update. I'll definitely give it another look now.

I've decided to do some stuff with ATCS that might require more than TB allows regarding scripting, but maybe TB would work for one of my future projects! I definitely responded well to the organization and graphical previews in TB.

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Re: Tyranobuilder?

#60 Post by artyrambles »

I hope necromancing this thread is okay? I have spent over 350 hours on Tyranobuilder, so I think sharing my experiences may be helpful to people trying to decide whether to buy it.

I started my visual novel making adventure with Ren'Py, years ago. Back then I had no idea what kind of game I wanted to make, so I dropped Ren'Py basically a couple of days after I picked it up.

Fast forward a couple of years...

I found Tyranobuilder (dunno how I found it exactly) and played around with it a bit. I found it really easy to use and was quite happy with it. Some time later I started my big VN project and used TB a lot more, but quickly hit its limitations. But that was okay, I had forgotten all about Ren'Py and I was okay with making compromises.

You see, TB is easy to use, but that comes at a price. The VNs you'll be creating with it are going to be quite...basic. TB is still in early development I guess, so it lacks many features, and the games it produces can be glitchy. I also had issues with lag the moment I put more than one character on the screen, which really shouldn't happen. It has some customization features for the user interfaces, so basically you can make a pretty GUI if you're willing to learn a bit more about how TB works.

But that's it - TB does what it has to do, and nothing more.

I randomly looked at Ren'Py again a couple of weeks ago, and started experimenting with it because I had writer's block and nothing better to do. At first I had no intention of switching to Ren'Py, like I said, I was just messing around (I am a programmer so I had no trouble using it). But as I ported a couple of scenes from my TB project over to Ren'Py, I realized that it's far more player-friendly than the games TB creates. It was like I had discovered a whole new world of convenience and accessibility. Now I've ported my whole project over to Ren'Py and I have no intention of going back to using TB.

Some people say that developing with TB is faster than with Ren'Py, but in my opinion the opposite is the case. Maybe it's just me, but I am much faster just typing out the code in a text editor than dragging and dropping components in a somewhat clumsy interface. Even when I'm not at home I can just type the Ren'Py code in for example Google Docs and then just copy it over 1:1 when I'm home. With TB, I had to write pseudo code and then implement it into the editor, which is time-consuming.

And like I said, Ren'Py offers many more convenient features than TB does at the moment, or only through cumbersome workarounds. Things that Ren'Py does easily are for example:
  • A skipping function that isn't buggy
  • Auto text
  • MANY save slots
  • Easy localization
  • DLC/Sequel functionality
  • A PREFERENCES SCREEN like do you even know how much TB doesn't have this? There is no built-in music volume option in TB, or anything else Ren'Py's preferences screen offers out of the box, for that matter
  • Rollback/text history
  • And so on...
All of these things should be standard components of a visual novel in my opinion, yet TB lacks them.

Okay, this post is getting way too long, and even though I could go on, let me just say my conclusion:

If you are just messing around, TB is an option for you, if you want to spend money for something Ren'Py does for free.

If you are serious about making VNs and want to make a game that is player-friendly, use Ren'Py. Learning how to use it isn't as hard as it seems at first, you can do everything you do in TB with a minimal understanding of programming. Like, I started recreating everything I did in TB after like two hours of reading the documentation.

These are just my personal opinions, though. I hope someone will find this review helpful.

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