Ren'Py's Public Image

[lordcloudx]

Wow... looks like this discussion's been going on long after I logged off. Well honestly, I think that a lot of the ideas presented here have merit, but the main thing will be to have the main people who will be working on the new demo come to a relative agreement.

leave the presentation to x.
leave the drawings and bg to y.
leave the writing to z.
leave the music to w.
leave the entirety of the thing to A.

etc. etc.

also, the rena'ai archives and the ren'py website could use a lot more publication so we could maybe establish a fanbase. Unlike the translators this forum for the game-making community is mostly frequented by those who make games themselves and too little fans.

someone should also update ren'py's wiki article to include all the new games and the progress of this community during the past year.

edit: and by the way, I'd be glad to put a big fat ren'py logo banner among the affiliates section at the top of my page and a separate section all about ren'py in the side menu if someone actually makes an "all about ren'py" article. For now, I'm gonna use my sig. expect to see it sometime tonight, or this morning depending on where you live.

[Jake]

(Apologies if my last post seemed barbed - it wasn't supposed to be, I just have a habit of writing in an incredibly blunt manner when debating stuff.)

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.

Hmm... I still think that you're less likely to get really impressive things to wow people with in games, because people are more concerned with finishing their hour-long VN than they are making it incredibly shiny and fully-featured - and rightly so. My position remains that writing a demo as an 'unfinished' VN is the most worthy approach to the goal of impressing new victi- uh... users - were we writing towards a cut-down scene-limited demo we could be 'finished' quickly and then just spend time polishing it up as much as possible.

"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"

How about 'Powered by Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine'? 'Made with' to me suggests an IDE more than an engine, and 'Powered by' is the more commonly used phrasing elsewhere.

[EDIT: And I've forgotten twice, now - I spent a little time last night playing around with the graphics for the roundrect theme with the goal of eventually turning out a shinier-yet-still-clean version. Kind of OSX-inspired. It'll be in a theme of its own with some more bits eventually, but for a preview download this and dump the contents in the 'common' folder and load the demo.]

[ShiraiJunichi]

Well, I removed some of the features from the webpage, to make it "internet explorer friendly"... It seems like every day I'm being reminded of what a good idea it was to switch to Firefox.

So now it looks fine in IE. Well, mostly... The color highlight doesn't work in IE- but that isn't necessary to browse the page. And the colors used in the menu don't quite match up in IE. I wonder if it's caused by unsafe web colors. Firefox displays it fine though.

[Alessio]

Wow, what a thread!

the focus should be on producing a very impressive game, instead of just a game.

IMHO that is what everybody is already trying to do, regardless of this 'Public Image' discussion. Somehow I doubt that just by deciding to push Ren'Py, the quality of the games would suddenly improve.

currently, there hasn't yet been a constellation of individuals who could make not only the art, but also the music, story and most of all, bring it to an end. IMO the best is currently G!MB. So yes, the talent is there, but bringing it together... is still a bit of a problem.

Wow, thanks mikey! *blush* But you are absolutely correct that the 'lonely soldier' approach has its limits. The situation can definitely be improved by cooperation. Nobody needs to be able to do it all (remember: jack of all trades, master of none...), and a good task force should be able to make a good VN in a shorter time than any one individual.

My current thoughts are that if we want to wow people, we can do it with games, rather than with demos.

Once we have the finished and approved Ren'Py logo (the Eileen+Python safari thing), authors could volunteer to include it in their already finished and published VNs (in the "Splashscreen" section before the menu pops up). That would have immediate effect, as opposed to using the logo only for VNs to be released in the future.

The first should be a simple tutorial game, that explains the basics of how to start making a game. (...) We'd also have the feature test game, which is roughly like the current demo.

That's a good proposal. I also like the idea of having one VN template for download (Ren'Py engine with a simple VN) that would allow people to jump-start into writing a VN right away, without having to worry about "what do I have to delete" and "what do I have to define" issues. The source.rpy file would have to be very short, with only a bare minimum of graphics (e.g. 3 backgrounds + 2 characters). That might hook newcomers.

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

Very nice!

[denzil]

My current thoughts are that if we want to wow people, we can do it with games, rather than with demos.

Once we have the finished and approved Ren'Py logo (the Eileen+Python safari thing), authors could volunteer to include it in their already finished and published VNs (in the "Splashscreen" section before the menu pops up). That would have immediate effect, as opposed to using the logo only for VNs to be released in the future.

Good idea, and when adding logo to Splashscreen they could also upgrade theier games to recent version of Ren'Py to prevent users from running into already fixed bugs. But it might be difficult to fit logo in all games.

Well I tried to make template:

Code: Select all

init:
    # used Ren'Py version
    $ library.script_version = (5, 5, 3)

    # window resolution setup
    $ config.screen_width = 800
    $ config.screen_height = 600

    # windows title
    $ config.window_title = u"The game"

    # images
    image white = Solid((255, 255, 255, 255))
    image black = Solid((0, 0, 0, 255))

    # backgrounds
    image background = "background.jpg"

    # character images
    image girl = "girl.png"

    # characters
    $ g = Character(u"Girl", color=(200, 255, 200, 255))

    # main menu, preferences, text window images
    $ style.mm_root.background = Image("mainmenu.png")
    $ style.gm_root.background = Image("preferences.png")
    $ style.window.background = Frame("window.png", 24, 24)

    # Interface sounds
    $ style.button.activate_sound = 'click.wav'
    $ style.imagemap.activate_sound = 'click.wav'
    $ library.enter_sound = 'click.wav'
    $ library.exit_sound = 'click.wav'


label start:
    # save name
    $ save_name = "Introduction"

    # music
    $ renpy.music.play("")
    # scene setup
    scene background
    show girl
    "Start script here."

Comments?

[monele]

IE6 seems to display it correctly (compared to Firefox 1.5), except for the fact it misses hover buttons. I could help with that if it's needed.

[mikey]

the focus should be on producing a very impressive game, instead of just a game.

IMHO that is what everybody is already trying to do, regardless of this 'Public Image' discussion.

Even though I like the game to be nice, I have to stress once again, that I absolutely enjoy making very "low-budget" titles, such as SoD. Which is to say I also enjoy playing such titles.

Of course, when there is a good time, when you have a team that has a good chemistry who are not only good in what they do, but also reliable, delivering on time and when everything else is just right, you may be able to make a game that's more detailed and more polished than usual, but... it's not really possible to make every other project better than the previous. And often, it's not really desirable either, as it just puts pressure on the person. Maybe he did a good job on his game, but does that mean that when he releases a new game which isn't as cool and detailed as the previous it's not really good?

The community will not grow by having show-off games, it will grow by having game-makers who primarily love what they do. Game-makers who aren't making games to impress the people who talk about them, but to involve the people who play them.

[PyTom]

Even though I like the game to be nice, I have to stress once again, that I absolutely enjoy making very "low-budget" titles, such as SoD. Which is to say I also enjoy playing such titles.

And there's nothing wrong with this... save that these may not be the titles we feature to users when they first visit the Ren'Py website.

I think I've said that my main job is to make paintbrushes. It's not really my concern what sort of thing people paint with my paintbrushes. But if I decide to promote my paintbrushes, then I should probably choose what I feel are the most attractive works.

(I actually don't like the idea of making such value judgements that much, but I would like to pick the games that best demonstrate Ren'Py to a potential user.)

[Jake]

The community will not grow by having show-off games, it will grow by having game-makers who primarily love what they do. Game-makers who aren't making games to impress the people who talk about them, but to involve the people who play them.

I agree with both these points in the ideal sense, and when talking about the English-Language Visual Novel community as a whole, but I think there's an element missing when talking about the Ren'Py community. And call me selfish, but realistically - since I've looked around at the alternatives and discarded them for various reasons - this is the one I'm personally concerned with.

If someone looks over different engines and chooses (say) Blade on the strength of their demos, then they'll join the Blade forums. From what I hear (which may only be hearsay, but it's the impression I get) the Blade forums are kind of xenophobic and don't want people to talk about other engines, so I wouldn't get so much out of joining those forums myself, so I'll never see these people and learn from them and possibly not even see the VNs they produce. If they select Ren'Py they'll end up here, and I'll get to see their stuff and hopefully learn from them and enjoy their works. Therefore, from my point of view, the utility of a demo is to persuade people that Ren'Py is a viable option for creating VNs. I happen to believe that it's the most flexible and easy to use engine available anyway, so I don't have any moral problems with promoting it as such. The 'OELVN' community grows by having game-makers who love what they do, but the Ren'Py community grows by people being more impressed by Ren'Py than other engines, and currently I suspect Ren'Py's demo only appeals to a small subset of potential creators.

[mikey]

I think I've said that my main job is to make paintbrushes. It's not really my concern what sort of thing people paint with my paintbrushes. But if I decide to promote my paintbrushes, then I should probably choose what I feel are the most attractive works.

That's fair enough, and logical.

The 'OELVN' community grows by having game-makers who love what they do, but the Ren'Py community grows by people being more impressed by Ren'Py than other engines, and currently I suspect Ren'Py's demo only appeals to a small subset of potential creators.

Well, I suppose it was inevitable that once the community grows and special engines will be released, their support forums become natural hubs for discussing the development of the games, and at some point arguments will be brought up about the various advantages and disadvantages of them.

I guess LS being the only OEL community was nice while it lasted, but I don't think that these forums will/can be the only central of OELVN game-makers forever. I would have liked to have one place where all the discussions take place, but then it's probably much better to discuss Blade games on the blade forum and translations on the haeleth forum. It just means a bit more logging on...

And I don't think that the Blade guys are being unfriendly by not choosing to linkup, anymore than when say Hirameki have not chosen to participate in "alltogether".

As far as I go, I choose the team and also the engine for each project individually. It may be that Ren'Py will often be the choice these days, but that has reasons, chief among which is the fact that it has this great support and a dedicated creator who is willing to put in anything you can think of (within reason).

But if I'd have to be called something, I'd go for OELVN game maker, rather than Ren'Py game maker. In many ways IMO this shows even more respect and may be valued more, because it means that for that particular project that I did with Ren'Py I have chosen it because it was the best option, not because of me being a Ren'Py supporter by default.

[Jake]

And I don't think that the Blade guys are being unfriendly by not choosing to linkup, anymore than when say Hirameki have not chosen to participate in "alltogether".

Oh, no, indeed - it's not only their right to not talk about other stuff on their forum or participate elsewhere, but given that they're trying to sell a product it's only good sense on their part. I don't begrudge them that or even really think less of them for it, it's just that given that I'm not really interested in their engine (and doubt I ever will be, from what I've seen of their scripting language), it makes them completely useless to me - if you'll excuse the coldly objective language.

As far as I go, I choose the team and also the engine for each project individually. It may be that Ren'Py will often be the choice these days, but that has reasons, chief among which is the fact that it has this great support and a dedicated creator who is willing to put in anything you can think of (within reason).

Again, agreed on all fronts - it's just that the last time I looked around the field - a few days ago - Ren'Py was so far ahead in terms of the things I'm concerned about that I don't see myself realistically writing for anything else in the near future. I'm willing to pay attention and see what happens with other engines and look at anything new that comes along, but the ones that are out there have a long way to go before they're as good for my purposes, so I feel safe making that assumption for the time being.

[PyTom]

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

Layout wise, I started thinking along the lines of:

http://www.bishoujo.us/tmp/cc/layout.html

With the buttons in the side column, mostly. I tried playing around with a javascript button-auto-maker, but it doesn't work very well... your button images are the way to go, I think. (Although there may be an issue with different sized text... I wish CSS had something similar to Ren'Py's frame scaling.)

[monele]

CSS sucks when it comes to this ^^;... the only solution is either to have a fixed size background image, or to combine three elements (top image, text+background color/image, bottom image) or make a table (left corner, top, right corner, left middle, center, etc...). And no browser has any way to round corners automatically... at least not the *same* one.

[Alessio]

when adding logo to Splashscreen they could also upgrade theier games to recent version of Ren'Py to prevent users from running into already fixed bugs. But it might be difficult to fit logo in all games.

Actually, I see it the other way around - adding a splashscreen is very easy. But upgrading the games to a new release would mean a lot of work. As long as the VN works (i.e. no nasty bugs), I'd rather not upgrade it, and instead invest my time into making a new VN. :)

Well I tried to make template:

Yes, that's what I meant by having a simple template. Maybe even including the beginning of a story (a few scenes) so that a newbie can pick up how it works and overwrite the existing text to get started.

Even though I like the game to be nice, I have to stress once again, that I absolutely enjoy making very "low-budget" titles, such as SoD.

Point taken, you're right. (Although even 'low budget' will mean that you've done your best to put the amount of work into it that you saw necessary.)

[Otaku Dash]

Well If someone provides a banner for Ren'py I'll gladly Use it... I like spreading... the word (yet another preaching joke >_>).

Anyway... some people on another forum are talking about Otakon 2006 so I might post there to give an eye check on the Ren'py stand... maybe we can atract some new people.