Motivation for Ren'py/Why do you like VNs?

[Ivlivs]

PyTom, this is a very fun tool you have made.

However, what motivates you to continue working on Ren'py, improving it with various features, and answering our myriad questions? I mean, you neither profit from this nor command a massive user base. We on these forums practically are the OELVN community.

Also, if something were to happen to you, do you have a successor of any kind?

[PyTom]

However, what motivates you to continue working on Ren'py, improving it with various features, and answering our myriad questions? I mean, you neither profit from this nor command a massive user base. We on these forums practically are the OELVN community.

Hm... my motivations for making Ren'Py are purely selfish. I like playing visual novels, and I'd like for there to be more games for me to play.

Before Ren'Py, making a VN required recruiting at least an artist, writer, and programmer. While there were a few of them (Lemma, for example), my gut feeling is the number of people and teams who would do that are rare. With Ren'Py, you really don't need a programmer, only a writer and artist, and so more games will be made.

Having more games is a good thing, as it means they'll be more games for me to play. (And in general, the more games there are, the better the best games are.)

There are a couple of other motivations. I enjoy programming, so it's not like adding features is hard work. While I don't particularly enjoy the release process, I tolerate it because it's how I show off my newest work.

Finally, even though I have a small but growing number of direct users, I have a large number of indirect users... the players of the games made with Ren'Py. When someone makes a game that touches the heart of a user, I take vicarious pleasure in knowing that my software played a small part.

Also, if something were to happen to you, do you have a successor of any kind?

Not formally. Hopefully, Ren'Py would survive. It's open source, and all of my scripts I use to build it are at http://www.bishoujo.us/svn/, where people can check them out. The big problem is building all the dependencies on Windows, but someone skilled enough can figure that out.

If I was to disappear, someone would have to take care of the forums and renai.us. You could ask my friend Chris (who shows up as SolarSnake here) to help you migrate them out.

[Ivlivs]

Also, what attracted you to the VN format? Fun as they are, they do not have much in the way of gameplay.

[monele]

Which means they have much in the way of story

[Twar3Draconis]

Open Source developers aren't like Proprietaries. They end up providing alternatives (like OpenOffice and MS Office, or SciTE and Notepad). In this case, Ren'Py could act as an alternative to kirikiri, or minori's engine (of which I like do to the animated backgrounds).

[rocket]

When someone makes a game that touches the heart of a user, I take vicarious pleasure in knowing that my software played a small part.

Hip, Hip, HOOORAY!

[DaFool]

Ren'Py could act as an alternative to kirikiri, or minori's engine (of which I like do to the animated backgrounds).

Strange, I played the Supah Preview and I think everything there is doable with Ren'Py. Even the lip flaps if one is an advanced programmer.

I just think that it's too much effort to reproduce the fanciness. It should still be possible to capture the general atmosphere even with a lesser, less hyper engine.

[Enerccio]

Well Kirikiri is free to use too even for commercial games.

[Twar3Draconis]

Ren"y has a lot better English Documentation. Don't you need KAG to make stuff with kirikiri?

[Enerccio]

well
kirikiri 2 + KAG 3
though kirikiri is only engine, KAG is scripting
its like renpy and rpy.

Kirikiri is not breaking lines in english well, though you can use insani hack (which is awful, btw) or code your own line break in tjs.