"renpedit" - flowchart-based organizer for ren'py games

[TheSHAD0W]

Howdy. I'd like to spam all y'all about a piece of software I've been writing:

https://bitbucket.org/theshad0w/renpedit

I started working on this as a tool to help with development on the Megatokyo Visual Novel (http://vn.megatokyo.com). I've made it available as open-source.

This software is not really about the nitty-gritty of writing Ren'py games (though I may be working on extending it to do just that). It is meant for organizing the flow of the game, between all the different possible paths. It eliminates the need for coming up with unique jump labels between points, and helps you locate and edit the piece of code you want to work on. The more complex and more paths your VN has, the more handy this tool will be.

Its drawback is it tends to take over the project, making you rely on it to find and modify your code.

If you think this would benefit your project, please feel fry to try it. I'd be interested in feedback on what enhancements you think it needs.

The flowchart and structure behind this project may be applicable to other software systems, and if you know of any you'd like to see this sort of thing applied to, I'd appreciate if you'd let me know.

I could use some assistance in cleaning up and improving the software; if you're familiar with Python and wxPython you could help a lot.

[TheSHAD0W]

As requested, here are some screenshots of the application:

http://imgur.com/a/zeb0G

[Valmoer]

Yay! Higher-abstraction programming!
...
Well, not quite yet, but an intriguing and good tool.
The right-click-and-drag for linking is written nowhere and has to be found by trial-and-error (once you know, though, it becomes instinctive :p)

I think I'll toy with it a bit when the time is right (and I'm curious to check a bit inside to see how it works...)
Anyway, thank you for that - at the very least, it's an handy tool for the code-skeleton, and as you say, it has the potential for so much more...

[Giovedi]

Sweet. I'll mess around with this.

[netravelr]

This should help people with really complex projects be able to plan out the story before implementation, and is a great start. That being said, I think the reason it's so hard to use is due to the generated sceneNames. Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just do something like:

Code: Select all

label route_scene01:

then for choices:

Code: Select all

label route_scene01_choice01:

and options:

Code: Select all

label route_scene01_choice01_option01:

I don't know, but I think your tool should make things easier for people, not more obfuscated. Either way, having a way to display the code from the flowchart would probably also be helpful.

Good luck with your project!

[TheSHAD0W]

This should help people with really complex projects be able to plan out the story before implementation, and is a great start. That being said, I think the reason it's so hard to use is due to the generated sceneNames. Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just do something like:

Code: Select all

label route_scene01:

Well, this doesn't generate scene names, just jump labels. There's no reason code blocks have to correspond to scenes, you can have multiple scenes in a code block or split a scene among several. The application manages all the jumping for you, and you can find your code in the flowchart and just double-click the code blocks to edit them.

One reason they aren't numbered in sequence is because you may wish to add new paths or split code blocks, and that'd mean renumbering all the jump labels following that point.

[TheSHAD0W]

Looks like Atlassian Inc. deleted the renpedit code archive and site where I was keeping the latest versions. I'll attach copies of the latest version here, and should be able to get the archive back up in the future.

If there are any compatibility issues with new Python or Ren'py, please contact me at theshadow@degreez.net .

[TheSHAD0W]

Looks like Atlassian deleted the archive for Renpedit while I wasn't looking. I'll upload the latest versions here, and will repost the archive in the future.

Edit: Can't upload the files, it give me an "http error"...