Ren'Py's Public Image

[ShiraiJunichi]

So this means that it will be actually main character explaining Ren'Py features and not Eileen?

I think the main character will "discover", and not "explain". And maybe not even that in the main demo. In the explanatory, or tutorial, portion- Eileen may take an active part- perhaps her different game versions will each explain the effects used. There's a lot of room to change how it works exactly.

And I'd like to state, this is still just one option- I'm not saying it's what's going to happen. I just brought it up to get others opinions.

[DaFool]

But realize that we can't distribute copyrighted work from the Ren'Py site (or this board, or renai.us, or ...). Ren'Py needs to remain squeaky clean, at least for the main program.

Ok thanks. My worry is that I would seriously like to be downloadable on renai.us, so if that means changing the song so be it. Time to grab some classic songsheets and dust the piano (or midi synthesizer). Lol because of Ren'py, not only is one motivated to become an artist, but a writer, a director, and even a composer too!

[Jake]

(Man... this is going to be a looong reply... )

I'm not too sold on the idea of running everything into one demo, myself... if nothing else, it strikes me that it'd be hard to do different genres without it seeming incongruous and forced, and differences in art styles from one person's work to another would probably hurt more than help the impressiveness factor no matter how cool they were. (And to me, more than one style of art seems like a good idea, to help suggest flexibility.) If these demos are being put together for PR purposes rather than strictly informative purposes (something the existing one has covered already) then you're looking to impress people, not necessarily educate them. This doesn't mean the scripts shouldn't be clean and easy to follow, just that that's not the primary purpose of them.

Multiple smaller demos does seem (to me) to be a better idea. If you're worried about download size you can always distribute them as drop-in patches - "copy these files to the 'game' directory and then run Ren'Py" - which might also serve to demonstrate just how little you need to change to start work.
Being separate they're not so overwhelming (which the tech demo is, from every angle), and it's easier to delegate work to different people; there's no need for consistency, only for each demo to be 'cool'.

The best demos imho, since they are part of more full-featured applications, share that application's quality.

Therefore, don't make something specifically to be a demo, but only with an eye that 'hey, this could be a good demo'.

I don't quite understand what you mean, or I disagree. It's not a demo of an actual game- it's a demo for an engine. So you can't just pull out part's of Ren'Py and show it off as a demo. What would that even be? Displaying screens of source code? You could pull clips from already released games, but I think that will lack continuity and cohesiveness. Plus, there are few clips which really utilize Ren'Py's features well. I really think that an original work for the demo is in order.

I think original work is in order, but I don't think that it's wise to even mention the engine too much, if at all, or set it as a sales pitch - 'the first ten minutes of an awesome VN' is more what I envisage. Wow the user, but wow them in a way that makes them say "I want to be that cool!" rather than a way that makes them think "I just watched the world's longest videogame commercial".

As far as multiple demos go, I really don't see the point- except to have a game template that would need to remain simple- and that can be included with the original demo as an additional executable. "Separate" demos can just be logically divided within the same actual demo, if needed. The "separate" demos could be executed through the demo's first menu, or even different main menu selections.

Well, put it this way - to be a good demo, to my mind, something has to be:

• Obviously discrete - the user should be able to understand immediately that the demo materials are all that went into showing that demo.
• Navigable - the user should, if they so wish, be able to find a particular line of the demo script in ten seconds or so without having to remember much other than what they're looking for.
• Familiar - the user should recognise the demo as something similar to that which they want to be able to create or work towards.
• Memorable - this one's obvious: the user should be able to remember the demo long enough to sit around bored at school/work the following day thinking "hey, I could make something with that kind of cool effect..."

To me, a multiple-demo-single-launcher package fails the first two of those, and possibly the third. The novice who is already leery of the amount of work and Black-Art-Programming-Fu will worry that there might be something important in the launcher, or the other files in the directory, and not trust that understanding the demo script is sufficient. The guy who's just looked at one demo and wants to see how the code for x effect works isn't going to want to sift through a folder with ten different script files and a hundred media resources to find the one he's looking for - he probably won't remember the name of the file even if he was told in-game.

People are very easy to put off things, especially things that they're not already hideously enthusiastic about, and... the people who are hideously enthusiastic are probably already working on a game and don't need the advertising.

The it could have some kind of embarrassing end, where Eileen comes into his room, and sees what he's doing, or something.

Doesn't this kind of... y'know, carry the unintended connotation that ren'ai games are something to be ashamed of?

Anyway, for what it's worth I'm happy to help out on the coding, art or writing fronts, although I suspect my skills are probably applicable in roughly that order of precedence. Examples of my coding or art are in the StrongCharacter demo I put together a little while ago (and I did a couple of backgrounds for a dating-sim project some friends never finished a few years ago), writing example in form of webcomic.

I've been toying with the idea of doing some art for the DSE demo or coming up with a generally shiny UI theme for some time already, but really - suggest things to me and if it's something I think I can do, I'll scurry off and get on with it.

[mikey]

Hmmm... Here's my other thought. ONS is too complicated and has no support. Blade has the pesky nagscreen. So from the engines, I prefer Ren'Py. For me, this is a logical choice and for me, clearly Ren'Py "wins".

But, there may be others for whom other engines are more appropriate than Ren'Py. So I'm generally disinclined to an awareness campaign that would somehow put down other engines. Blade I'm sure will make big steps forward very quickly, and then once it has enough features, will probably evolve more slowly. It's almost not fair to pick on it, even though one isn't technically lying, just stating facts.

Well, it's not really my cup of tea to promote, so I'll be excusing myself from all this. But I've made two Ren'Py games, so that's my contribution. IMO games are important in promoting an engine, but then again, they should be treated as the entities they are, not become missiles in an engine war.

I don't mean to imply this is happening or anything. It isn't even a concern, but it's a thought.

[monele]

Another point for having multiple demos in as many packages : you could change the configuration and show more than one interface (there would probably be the regular interface for most demos, but one could show how it can be modded).

[Jake]

I don't mean to imply this is happening or anything. It isn't even a concern, but it's a thought.

It's still something that's worth voicing, though - even leaving aside concerns about correctness, just from the Ren'Py-promotion angle it does one no good to get a reputation as one who slanders anyone who crosses him... and any ill-will that we were to generate as a result of promoting Ren'Py would ultimately fall on the shoulders of PyTom, who doesn't really deserve such things as thanks for providing us with a cool engine for free!

[ShiraiJunichi]

I'm not too sold on the idea of running everything into one demo, myself... if nothing else, it strikes me that it'd be hard to do different genres without it seeming incongruous and forced...

I think the quine idea is a useful device to make including more genres seem more natural. But what does it really even matter? The player isn't looking at the demo for a good, congruent story that flows- they're looking for a demonstration of Ren'Py's abilities.

...and differences in art styles from one person's work to another would probably hurt more than help the impressiveness factor no matter how cool they were.

If we can reuse character art for each genre, I don't think this will be a problem. As far as writing styles go, it's not as if a bunch of people are going to shove their pieces together, and call it done. We can always have one person go through and make sure everything is consistent.

Multiple smaller demos does seem (to me) to be a better idea. If you're worried about download size you can always distribute them as drop-in patches - "copy these files to the 'game' directory and then run Ren'Py" - which might also serve to demonstrate just how little you need to change to start work.

The actual Ren'Py engine won't bloat the size very much- it's having to duplicate all of the media files (assuming you manage to use the same images/music for each demo part). And I think requiring the user to copy files to a certain directory, before they can see anything at all, only adds to the complexity of the issue.

Being separate they're not so overwhelming (which the tech demo is, from every angle), and it's easier to delegate work to different people; there's no need for consistency, only for each demo to be 'cool'.

I think a single, strong, consistent package will have more of an impact. Things feel more fragmented when they are separate.

I think original work is in order, but I don't think that it's wise to even mention the engine too much, if at all, or set it as a sales pitch

First of all- Ren'Py isn't being sold- there is no sales pitch. No one is making any money off of it. We're not selling- we're promoting. And I don't see why mentioning Ren'Py is a bad idea. Once again, we're not promoting a game- we're promoting an engine. In a game, you generally don't refer to the game, because that takes the player outside the game. But when promoting an engine, this rule just doesn't seem to apply.

to be a good demo, to my mind, something has to be:

• Obviously discrete - the user should be able to understand immediately that the demo materials are all that went into showing that demo.
• Navigable - the user should, if they so wish, be able to find a particular line of the demo script in ten seconds or so without having to remember much other than what they're looking for.
• Familiar - the user should recognise the demo as something similar to that which they want to be able to create or work towards.
• Memorable - this one's obvious: the user should be able to remember the demo long enough to sit around bored at school/work the following day thinking "hey, I could make something with that kind of cool effect..."

To me, a multiple-demo-single-launcher package fails the first two of those, and possibly the third. The novice who is already leery of the amount of work and Black-Art-Programming-Fu will worry that there might be something important in the launcher, or the other files in the directory, and not trust that understanding the demo script is sufficient. The guy who's just looked at one demo and wants to see how the code for x effect works isn't going to want to sift through a folder with ten different script files and a hundred media resources to find the one he's looking for - he probably won't remember the name of the file even if he was told in-game.

I understand your requirements for a good demo- and I think they are correct, but I disagree with how you think a "multiple-demo-single-launcher" program won't meet those requirements. I completely agree that the demo shouldn't use modified Ren'Py code- but nothing that has been suggested so far would require that- except a small modification to allow the separate demos to launch directly from the game menu. However, such modifications aren't required, and are modifications that a competent user could do anyway.
As far as navigability goes- their will still only be one script file in the game directory. This one file will actually be less than the multiple files required for multiple, separate demos. And everything would be reachable from the same program. No need to reload Ren'Py with a different script.
The only problem I see is that the script file might get kind of large and complicated, making it hard to find a certain line of code quickly. But this could be easily remedied by placing the script in an HTML format with a "table of contents" set of hyperlinks at the top, allowing for easy access for any code.
I think having multiple genres in a single demo actually reinforces the third requirement. If the demo took place solely in space, the user might think Ren'Py is only good for space games. In which case, unless they want to make space games, they'll dismiss Ren'Py as something that's not for them. But if you show how well a bunch of different genres can be used, one right after the other, you have a greater chance of showing something appealing to your audience.

The it could have some kind of embarrassing end, where Eileen comes into his room, and sees what he's doing, or something.

Doesn't this kind of... y'know, carry the unintended connotation that ren'ai games are something to be ashamed of?

I think you misunderstand. Wouldn't it be embarrassing, if you secretly liked someone and started making a ren'ai game about them only to have them walk in on you, to see their face on the computer screen?

Another point for having multiple demos in as many packages : you could change the configuration and show more than one interface

You have a valid point. But I think that goes beyond the scope of what I think the demo should be expected to do. If you wanted to create a demo for every feature of Ren'Py, you'd never be able to finish. And this brings me to another point. How long should each individual demo last? 5-10 minutes? If you combine them all into one- using the "quine" idea- each one would be perfectly fine if it lasted only one or two minutes. It wouldn't feel incomplete like it might if it was left all on it's own.

So I'm generally disinclined to an awareness campaign that would somehow put down other engines

Who has said anything to put down other engines?
...
... ...
well, ok, so I kind of did- but it was just a joke!

I do agree that we should stay far away from putting down other engines- but I don't think that worry should stop us from promoting something that we think others would like. It doesn't make sense to let a good product remain in obscurity, only becuase you don't want to offend those who are currently popular, by becoming popular yourself.

[shaja]

FWIW, I think a clear line should be drawn between planning for a 'features/teaching' demo, and a 'promotional' demo.

When it comes to a promotional demo, I don't think throwing in every Ren'Py feature in a multifaceted song and dance extravaganza is really the way to go.

Instead the focus should be on the drawing point of the whole genre - which for me, at least, is the magical moment when the story, the art, and especially the music build together into one emotional renai peak. (I started playing Clannad this week, and the scene of the protagonist's first meeting with Nagisa was a 100% awesome example of this, and a reminder of why I love these games so.)

The ideal Ren'Py promo demo for me would be ten minutes or less of a simple love story, ending with you wanting to know what happens next, and with production values equal to at least an average commercial Japanese entry in the genre. I'd like to be able to use such a demo not so much as a "Pick Ren'Py over Engine X", but just to show people who have never played a VN before just what the attraction is, without requiring a big time investment.

[RedSlash]

Please excuse if I missed something in the coversation.. I came back to this forum and there were 5 new pages of posts and I merely skimmed throught he posts.

Here is my opinion about about single package demo or multiple packages. I think having multiple packages would be my preferences. First of all, I agree that since the demo would be prepackaged with the ren'py software itself, it would be better if it were as small (in filesize) as possible. Futhermore, ppl download ren'py to use the software, not to play the demo. The demo only serves to show off the software's features and it should consist of only 1 game and shouldn't last longer than say 10min in my opinion. For me, if I just wanted to check ren'py out to see if its suitable for me, I'd play one or two demos only out of the list to choose from because I prob wouldn't waste my time to go through each individual demo to discover all the features I wanted. I think one solid demo is best.

I like the quine idea, but here's another random idea to extend on that. We can make a short VN for the ren'py demo utilizing all the major renpy features. Then we can make a multi-part tutorial series (separate from the demo, but downloadable from the website) which would be about the player making the ren'py VN demo. Just a thought.

Edit:

FWIW, I think a clear line should be drawn between planning for a 'features/teaching' demo, and a 'promotional' demo.

I agree with this point. I would rather see a 'promotional' demo over a 'teaching' demo. As mentioned, if I just wanted to see whether this engine was suitable for me, I wouldn't want to be sitting in a classroom being taught how to use the engine. Just my opinion.

[Jake]

I think the quine idea is a useful device to make including more genres seem more natural. But what does it really even matter? The player isn't looking at the demo for a good, congruent story that flows- they're looking for a demonstration of Ren'Py's abilities.

Perhaps we are talking about completely different things.

If all the user wants - and all we want to give the user - is a demonstration of Ren'Py's abilities, then the current demo is perfectly sufficient. It not only demonstrates a lot, if not all, of the engine's capabilities but does so in a neatly enumerated manner. I was under the impression, however, that the perceived need for a 'demo3' was to show off the engine's use in a contextualised manner.

By working on such a demo we are already assuming that the user will get more out of a less direct approach, and it seems to me that the best contextualisation for a visual novel engine is to ... well, produce a visual novel with it. The Blade people, from whose demos this whole discussion bloomed, have got this right in my opinion - don't try and do a whole VN, just do the opening chapter from one, because people looking for a VN engine don't want to see how well it composits circles atop one another on the fly, they want to see how well it runs a VN. If you start up the first Blade demo download you find you see a VN - if you start up the first Ren'Py demo you find, you get a cold techdemo rundown of all the features the engine supports. To the average user, this makes Blade the more appropriate engine to use, no contest.

(Mikey's right in a lot of ways when he suggests that the games are the real advertisement for the engine, but while the Ren'Py games I've seen have been impressive enough in terms of work put into them, none of them have really stretched the engine to the impressive extent that it could be stretched. Monele's Utsukushii Effects demo remains the most technically impressive thing I've seen done with the engine. I never saw the Utsukushii demo itself, thanks to Rapidshare hating my ISP.)

To me, visual novels are encapsulated multimedia stories, and stories - as a rule - do not jump about from genre to genre as they pass from chapter to chapter. To do so in the demo would lose some of the contextualisation which we seek to gain, and be self-defeating. The quine idea, I am fairly sure, will merely make the user think "these guys have just used this making-a-VN thing so they can jump from genre to genre". It seems forced - because it is! - unnatural, and will lead to negative attachment. Which is bad.

If we can reuse character art for each genre, I don't think this will be a problem.

Au contraire, I think it's important not to reuse art - otherwise you are defeating the point of having multiple genres. To cite an extreme example, Fist of the North Star has a distinctly different art style to Card Captor Sakura. Arguably, both have romantic elements and could feasibly be made into ren'ai VNs. However, the genre for each is totally different and the art style totally different to suit. I have trouble imagining CCS being anything like the same if it was rendered in the same heavily-shadowed downright masculine way that FotNS is - art and genre are inextricably entwined.

Maybe it's not worth including more than one genre, but I think it would help demonstrate flexibility (albeit in a totally facile manner). Myself, I think to split genres and reuse art would be doing a half-arsed job of the whole thing, which kind of defeats the purpose of starting. Worse, it might make one genre seem overly familiar compared to the other, which promotes the idea that while you can do anything with Ren'Py, it'll all end up feeling the same.

I think a single, strong, consistent package will have more of an impact. Things feel more fragmented when they are separate.

I think that to an extent, feeling 'fragmented' is a good thing. If nothing else, the prospective Ren'Py user sees that there is a lot of demo material to view - multiple files makes this more obvious than a single file that takes the same length of time to go through. The only argument I can see in favour of a single monolithic demo is that the user can't get bored and only download half of it and possibly miss some cool stuff, but I wonder if a user who gets bored and only views half the demo material is realistically likely to ever produce anything in the engine anyway.

I think original work is in order, but I don't think that it's wise to even mention the engine too much, if at all, or set it as a sales pitch

First of all- Ren'Py isn't being sold- there is no sales pitch. No one is making any money off of it. We're not selling- we're promoting.

I should perhaps point out more clearly the meaning here: "I don't think that it's wise to ... set it as a sales pitch".

That said, there is no real distinction between what we're trying to do and the concept of selling somebody something. We are promoting in the sense that we ask the user to consider investing their time and effort in a Ren'Py-based game rather than some other engine. We're asking for the user to invest time and effort rather than money, and Ren'Py stands to gain 'market share' and 'community interest' rather than 'monetary profit', but the principle remains the same. Advertising is advertising, whatever the cost of the thing you're 'selling'.

And I don't see why mentioning Ren'Py is a bad idea. Once again, we're not promoting a game- we're promoting an engine. In a game, you generally don't refer to the game, because that takes the player outside the game. But when promoting an engine, this rule just doesn't seem to apply.

It's a bad idea because it breaks the fourth wall. It means that the demo is self-aware that it's a demo, it loses the contextualisation. I'm pretty sure that the contextualisation is an important part of the promotion thing that Ren'Py just doesn't have, currently.

To me, a multiple-demo-single-launcher package fails the first two of those, and possibly the third. The novice who is already leery of the amount of work and Black-Art-Programming-Fu will worry that there might be something important in the launcher, or the other files in the directory, and not trust that understanding the demo script is sufficient.

I completely agree that the demo shouldn't use modified Ren'Py code- but nothing that has been suggested so far would require that- except a small modification to allow the separate demos to launch directly from the game menu.

You misunderstand. I'm not talking about whether the demo actually modifies core Ren'Py stuff, I'm talking about whether the user is going to worry that the demo might modify core Ren'Py stuff... or have other initialisation stuff (e.g. setting up style, which it probably will) elsewhere. If there is one big monolithic package, no matter how careful you are to separate out all the demo parts into their own scripts, the naïve user cannot be sure that the single demo script for the part that they're interested in contains all that they need to work from.

As far as navigability goes- their will still only be one script file in the game directory. This one file will actually be less than the multiple files required for multiple, separate demos. And everything would be reachable from the same program. No need to reload Ren'Py with a different script.

The only problem I see is that the script file might get kind of large and complicated, making it hard to find a certain line of code quickly. But this could be easily remedied by placing the script in an HTML format with a "table of contents" set of hyperlinks at the top, allowing for easy access for any code.

I don't mean to talk down to you here, but... it's pretty obvious that you've never worked on any particularly large software projects. I am talking from far too much experience here when I say that having everything in one file kills readability. Even if the one file is nicely laid out, even if you're careful to space separate component parts away from each other and give a nice table of contents at the beginning, even if it's well-commented, having everything in one file makes it hard to read and navigate.

Just for starters, separate files means you can scroll randomly up and down and be sure that wherever you end up, you're still looking at the same component you started looking at. It means you can do a search for a bit of text and feel confident that when your text editor returns a result it hasn't taken you off to another subsystem that happens to use the same name. Even leaving aside easily-explainable problems like these, having everything in one file is daunting. It's big and it's confusing and it's everything you don't want a demo to be. Please, trust me on this...

I think having multiple genres in a single demo actually reinforces the third requirement. If the demo took place solely in space, the user might think Ren'Py is only good for space games. In which case, unless they want to make space games, they'll dismiss Ren'Py as something that's not for them.

That would be a rather silly assumption to make if they downloaded the demo from a page that had a long list of demos like:

SpaceDemo - Captain Rick docks his starship at a spaceport off the trade routes. Could be have entered navigational coordinates... for love?
IslandDemo - John is holidaying on a tropical island when he discovers a lost briefcase and is dragged into a world of corporate intrigue!
SchoolDemo - Rob just wants to get passing grades and play baseball, but the pupils of Ren'Py High have other ideas!

- if someone is only interested in making school games, they'll download the school demo. Maybe, if they like what they see, they'll download the others later and see what else the engine can do, but it's pretty ridiculous to assume they'd download the space demo when they have no interest in making a space game...

It's important to cover all the bases, sure, and give demos for more than one genre - I don't think that they necessarily have to be the same download. Maybe the school-drama fan might get bored sitting through the other demos and quit before he got to the school one? If you are assuming that the potential user is that stupid, they're probably not going to get anywhere with Ren'Py anyway.

The it could have some kind of embarrassing end, where Eileen comes into his room, and sees what he's doing, or something.

Doesn't this kind of... y'know, carry the unintended connotation that ren'ai games are something to be ashamed of?

I think you misunderstand. Wouldn't it be embarrassing, if you secretly liked someone and started making a ren'ai game about them only to have them walk in on you, to see their face on the computer screen?

Yes.

Isn't it funny when people cut themselves shaving in sitcoms?

Do you see them doing that in razor adverts?

Another point for having multiple demos in as many packages : you could change the configuration and show more than one interface

You have a valid point. But I think that goes beyond the scope of what I think the demo should be expected to do. If you wanted to create a demo for every feature of Ren'Py, you'd never be able to finish.

I disagree totally - working to what I understand these demos to be for, it's a good idea to make them as diverse and polished as possible, and that absolutely means changing the theme and using new interface graphics to suit the demo piece. The UI features in Ren'Py are amazingly powerful, if we're trying to show off the engine something like this that's so natural for people to want to do it seems obvious...

And this brings me to another point. How long should each individual demo last? 5-10 minutes?

Sounds good to me.

If you combine them all into one- using the "quine" idea- each one would be perfectly fine if it lasted only one or two minutes. It wouldn't feel incomplete like it might if it was left all on it's own.

It's not supposed to feel complete, it's supposed to feel impressive and capable. This and the 'beyond the scope of' comment above, lean towards the same mentality that the existing Ren'Py games follow. Which is a very good mentality to follow when you're making a game with a very small team and no financial motivation, but I think it's also the reason that this perceived need for a shiny new demo exists.

I do agree that we should stay far away from putting down other engines- but I don't think that worry should stop us from promoting something that we think others would like. It doesn't make sense to let a good product remain in obscurity, only becuase you don't want to offend those who are currently popular, by becoming popular yourself.

Absolutely. And hey, if - say - the Blade guys got offended by Ren'Py becoming popular (why were you feeling you'd be unwelcome at their panel, anyway, PyTom? ) then hopefully this would only spur them on to improve their engine and/or demos and/or documentation in order to improve their own popularity...

Then we can make a multi-part tutorial series (separate from the demo, but downloadable from the website) which would be about the player making the ren'py VN demo. Just a thought.

Mm, I like this a lot more than using that concept for an 'advertising' demo. If nothing else, it's going to be a lot more applicable for people working through a tutorial than people looking at engines...

I'm curious, now, though - has anyone here not read Rio's tutorials? Is there actually any way in which they're lacking that actually needs to be addressed in a new set? The only thing I see wrong with them is that they're a little lightweight...

[PyTom]

You know what... I think it's time to back off on this a little. I think we're going a wee bit overboard here. The last thing we need is a Ren'Py demo that's made up of small bits of games that will never be made.

I see the primary means of promoting Ren'Py as being the games made with it. By this, I mean if people want to see what Ren'Py is capable of in the usual case, they should download a high-quality game made with it. We already have several of these, in various genres... soon, we will have several more.

Ideally, the main means of promotion of Ren'Py will be through these games. At some point in the future, it may make sense to politely ask game-makers to link to Ren'Py from their pages... perhaps coming up with a subtle formula that both mentions Ren'Py, and how it's free to use.

The idea here is to raise Ren'Py's profile among people who are interested in visual novels, and at the same time to show people where they can get a tool that lets them make VNs.

When people click the appropriate link, they'd be sent to Ren'Py's home page. This should be pleasing and welcoming, unlike the crap I have up there now. Ideally, it will have some screenshots showing Ren'Py in action, and be easy to navigate to find downloads, documentation, comparisons with other tools (maybe), Linux/Mac info, and more.

Very important is prominent placement of games made with Ren'Py. The best way to show Ren'Py in action is to show good games made with it. Blade can't do it this way, as it doesn't have such games. But for Ren'Py, I think this is the way to go. (That's why the list of games is above the download link on the current Ren'Py home page.)

I see a new demo as consisting of two games, packaged in a single zip file. (Details of how this works to come at a later date.)

The first should be a simple tutorial game, that explains the basics of how to start making a game. Think about describing things like editing games, showing images, and the like. The simple stuff that's used in every game. It might also explain things like how Ren'Py supplys reasonably attractive menus by default.

We'd also have the feature test game, which is roughly like the current demo. The idea here is to give people a taste of the power of Ren'Py, and some place to go to start figuring out how this works. It also serves as a way of functionally testing Ren'Py.

I don't think the Ren'Py demo should be focused at non-game makers, or convincing people to make games... it should be on teaching people how to make games, and a demonstration of Ren'Py's features. (Including things like UEffects type stuff)

An important thing is to simply make the demo look more professionally. Hopefully, the new art will go a long way towards that, and perhaps people can rewrite and reorganize the demo for me to make it more accessable to new users.

It may also make sense to increase the size of the Ren'Py distribution a bit, and include an editor like SciTE as part of it.

Very important, I think, is the new home page. It needs to be easy for me to maintain, but at the same time attractive. I'd like something that fits in with the roundrect themes of modern Ren'Py... does anyone know a good cross-browser way of creating roundrects on web pages?

A web designer who can help me reorganize the site would be very handy at this point. The website needs to be bolder and more professional-looking.

Okay, hopefully this came out okay, but it gives more thoughts on what needs to be done. And I hope that I won't have to do all of it. I have games to work on, as well as 5.5.4 and 5.6.0!

[ShiraiJunichi]

The first should be a simple tutorial game, that explains the basics of how to start making a game. Think about describing things like editing games, showing images, and the like. The simple stuff that's used in every game. It might also explain things like how Ren'Py supplys reasonably attractive menus by default.

We'd also have the feature test game, which is roughly like the current demo. The idea here is to give people a taste of the power of Ren'Py, and some place to go to start figuring out how this works. It also serves as a way of functionally testing Ren'Py.

I thought the idea of a new demo was to create something with a little more pizazz... The first game you describe seems as if it would be more bland than the current demo... which makes me think that I just don't understand your motive in redoing the demo. Perhaps all that's really needed are improved graphics and improved webpage. And I think it may be best to wait for an official logo before starting new webpage design.

[PyTom]

I thought the idea of a new demo was to create something with a little more pizazz... The first game you describe seems as if it would be more bland than the current demo...

My current thoughts are that if we want to wow people, we can do it with games, rather than with demos. The idea is that the website guides people who simply want a demo of Ren'Py into the games... perhaps by listing some of the features of Ren'Py those games support, along with brief descriptions of the games.

By the time people download the Ren'Py demo (which is really the Ren'Py distribution, and should probably be renamed something like that), they're reasonably committed to making a game. In that case, it's important to gently ease them into game-making. I don't think a giant game with 1000 lines of init code before the first line of dialogue is the way to do this.

It may make sense to extend the demo/distro game to include things like how to edit .rpy files with scite... how to put images in the game directory... things that are important to game making.

I think that by the time people download the demo/distro game, promotion of Ren'Py is pretty much over. Or else it's focused on convincing the user of how it's easy to get started, rather then overwhelming him with complex code.

The current demo game is too long, I think. It should probably be refactored into at least two script files... one with the simple "how to make games" tutorial I give above (Which might also point out some of Ren'Py's nice features, like predictive loading and reasonably-nice-looking menus), and the other with more of the feature demonstration stuff. (The latter might integrate some of the effects from Utsomething Planet Effects.) The files for the effects could be stashed in a subdirectory of game/, too keep them from confusing the new user. The namespace feature I tentatively have planned for 5.6 might also help.

But it's important that games speak for Ren'Py. This may entail us being more selective, on the homepage, by featuring games that show Ren'Py at its best... games that also have the best art, music, and other production values. The best way to promote Ren'Py is for it to bask in the reflection glow of its games, I think.

Of course, I think we could better promote our games in general. I think Blade's big advantage was that they had people willing to promote themselves (and their engine) to major websites, and to anime cons. We should do that. Our games really need to be promoted, so they become more well known. When appopriate, such promotion might mention Ren'Py... this is especially true when promoting VNs to people who might potentially make them.

Another idea might be to volunteer to give a talk about Making VNs to your local con... it's fairly easy to be selected to give a panel. (I just asked another con, and it's looking likely... announcement to come when it's confirmed.) Even non-makers can probably give a talk describing what VNs are... but in that case, it's important to cover commercial VNs and translated VNs, along with our OEL VNs.

Re: the website... while it may be too early to think about design before we have a logo, I think we might be able to break it down into pages. That big main page has to go, and be broken up into a number of smaller parts.

There's probably more... sorry if this is a ramble. I'm sort of thinking as I write. But I think the fundamental thing is that we shouldn't over promise, we should let our games speak for us, and let them lead people to Ren'Py.

One last thing:

Right now the recommended phrasing for the Ren'Py credit in a game is:

"Powered by Ren'Py"

I'm starting to think this is bad, as people don't know what Ren'Py is from that credit. I'm thinking of altering that document to suggest something like:

"Made with the Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine"

So people get what Ren'Py is, and what it can be used for.

Well, that's all I have, and it's late, and I leave for Otakon tomorrow morning. But I'd like to know what others have to say about all of this. (These are heady days.)

[ShiraiJunichi]

I think not calling it a demo solves a lot of problems. Labeling it as Intro/Distro is more accurate I think.

I think relying on already released games to demo ren'py's abilities will be easy and effective- just finding a good way to promote games with Ren'Py on the website seems to be the issue. That can be taken care of during website design. You may only want to do this from the Ren'Py webpage, as I believe you wanted to keep the ren'ai archives non-partial.

I can start drafting a new web template, and suggested site organization, if you like. I won't have a logo yet, but I can base it off the round-rect look for Ren'Py

[ShiraiJunichi]

Created a template based off of the menu in the demo:
http://www.cs.utah.edu/~jasons/renpy/

I think it looks pretty nice- but there's one problem... If the user has a larger font, things can get pretty ugly, pretty fast.
But this could be remedied somewhat by choosing more concise link names, and making the buttons larger

EDIT:
However, it looks like internet explorer has some real troubles displaying it correctly... That could be a problem...