Ren'Py Engine

[Blackstream]

Well there is another side benefit to having one big .dat file and that's that it just makes everything cleaner and professionalish lookin:p

I agree though, if someone really wants to break in, they will. If we were a company of some sort I'd say lock and barr the thing so that no one steals our secrets or figures out the easter eggs, but we aren't!

Honestly I like .dat files just because they are clean, not because of the protection. I don't really care if someone wants to replace my artfully drawn picture of Miko (don't actually have one) and replace it with Barney

Also, I agree, this is open source and if someone wants to zip up their stuff badly enough someone can always add it.

Nice job so far!

[Random Wishful Thinker]

You know, this may just be the kind of thing I'm looking for.. I am a fast learner, so it might be what I need! =^__^= ..Of course, I'll need to finish my chores before I can check it out -_-;;

[PyTom]

Let me know when you're ready to check it out. I have an updated version of Ren'Py sitting on my hard drive. The new version has better support for loading and saving, and a bunch of new syntax features I decided were useful when writing my game.

Examples of the latter include support for conditional menu options (that only show up in a menu if a condition is true) and seensets for menus (which remove from menus options that have already been selected.)

A few new code-structuring primitives have been added. Call and return allow control flow to bounce around in the program.

Finally, I rewrote the parser by hand. Syntax errors now include the right line number. Trust me when I say that that's quite useful for fixing syntax bugs.

Although I'll be busy for the next few weeks writing a paper, I want to support people who want to create their own game.

[Random Wishful Thinker]

Let me know when you're ready to check it out. I have an updated version of Ren'Py sitting on my hard drive. The new version has better support for loading and saving, and a bunch of new syntax features I decided were useful when writing my game.

Examples of the latter include support for conditional menu options (that only show up in a menu if a condition is true) and seensets for menus (which remove from menus options that have already been selected.)

A few new code-structuring primitives have been added. Call and return allow control flow to bounce around in the program.

Finally, I rewrote the parser by hand. Syntax errors now include the right line number. Trust me when I say that that's quite useful for fixing syntax bugs.

Although I'll be busy for the next few weeks writing a paper, I want to support people who want to create their own game.

Yay, evil chores of great doom are done! ^_^ I'm ready to take a look now! ..I downloaded the demo, and it sounds like something even an idiot like me can manage.

[Helblinde]

Im really interested in working with this since i do not have any "hardcore" programming skills. My art is really up to the standards, and i got a really good story. Ive searched for a way for about some weeks now to do the 'game' but haven't found any until now.

I would love to see that you implanted a way to import music and sounds, since imo it's really important. I have already begun to working on some dialouges and my art is coming up just fine. If you decide to update with sounds and able to import music, please contact me. I would be more then happy.

[PyTom]

The current codebase actually supports music, and sound wouldn't be all that hard to add. I've been busy with school and teaching myself to draw (I've decided to make an original game after all), but if people are interested in actually making games with Ren'Py, I'll make a drop of the new codebase, which has music support, and maybe post what I had of my aborted project to serve as a sample.

I aborted the project when I found it was touching too closely on things other games did better, and I had trouble saving it. Also, now that I can draw, I don't want to do a rotoscoped project anymore.

Longer-term, I want to rewrite the interpreter a little, but the script file format should stay the same.

[Wishful]

..but if people are interested in actually making games with Ren'Py, I'll make a drop of the new codebase, which has music support, and maybe post what I had of my aborted project to serve as a sample.

-waves- I am! I'm interested! ^^;;

[PyTom]

Okay, I've dropped the latest code (including what exists of my aborted game) to http://renpy.onegeek.org. You'll need to install Python, PyGame, and perhaps Numeric to get it to work, from the links on my site.

The game script is split across the multiple .rpy files, which can be opened in any text editor.

There's a dozen ways in which I need to make the engine better (#1: delay loading of image files), but I'm currently working on the story and character designs for a new, original game. I want to square them away before I hack on the engine some more, but I'll be happy to add features other game authors want/need.

[Alessio]

Looks very promising! I'd written a simple engine in RapidQ (but since its future is unclear, I've decided not to continue working on it) and am surprised to see you had some very similar ideas (although, I have to admit, implemented in a neater way).

I'm definitely in favor of adding
- music (sound effects and MIDI player) - being a composer myself...
- (simple) time-dependant animation, e.g. for the blinking of a character's eyes, falling leaves, etc.
- a save game feature

Thanks for sharing your work!
Cheers,
Alessio

[Guest]

Ignore the "Save game" request, that's already in there of course. *blush*

The compiled file size is a bit on the huge size, but that's more due to Python and PyGam, so I guess there's not much you can do about it.

Cheers,
Alessio

[Wishful]

Oh yay! Newness! -runs off to download- I'll give you my overenthusiastic praise once I've got it and stuff!

[PyTom]

Okay, I've finshed my paper (finally!) and released the latest version of the Ren'Py code as an exe file. It's called the "Newdist Release", and you can get it from

http://renpy.onegeek.org

This is enough to start making games, and it doesn't require people to install Python, Pygame, etc.

I plan to use this as the basis of a tutorial I want to run to teach people Ren'Py, over the course of multiple posts. The first step is probably to download this release, get it running, and let me know that you're interested. I'd also like people to let me know where I should hold the forum. (Should it be held here, or in a bunch of new threads, or on a new messageboard I set up, or what?)

[Alessio]

Hi Tom,

First of all thanks for planning to really keep this project going!

An own forum might make things easier since there's going to be quite a lot of different categories needed (support questions, development wishes, new game announcements...). But since the topic is so closely related to this forum anyway, maybe you could ask Blue Lemma to create a category for Ren'py in this forum? The Ren'py section wouldn't be too resource-demanding in the beginning, and if need arises, you could move to a new forum later.

Sorry if I sound too eager - may I post some ideas and wishes?

I don't know if it helps any, but I have put my own development specs document (what I had implemented and was thinking of still implementing) online; it might be a source of inspiration. I was particularly keen on finding the perfect solution for doing simple frame-based animation loops.

The document (MS Word... yes, I know... sorry...):
http://personal.inet.fi/koti/sapora/RSC/MASTRE47.doc

Let me know if I can be of any assistance. I've only started looking into Python programming yesterday and won't be a guru for a while, but should you want to discuss ideas and concepts, I'm game. Same applies to writing documentation etc.

Keep it up,
Alessio

[Blue Lemma]

If you'd like me to make a Ren'Py forum here, PyTom, no problem!

[Too_nice]

Say Py,Tom

I am interested in looking at onegai nurse.. I download all the neccesary files to run it but I hit a snag... when I tried to compile/run. I said that I am missing an attribute... not sure what that meant. When I have the time, I will tell you what the error was....

is there anything that I missed....

the artwork looked nice though