Ren'Py @ 5: Version 1

[vlint]

[Sorry for the accidental double post: see the next post:]

[vlint]

Now, if anyone expects to get a 9240 yen quality game for free (without resorting to piracy) -- these things have budgets in the tens of thousands of dollars mind you -- they're just being unreasonable, the spoiled 'free animu' generation.

I'm guessing most of that budget goes into artwork, music, sound effects and voice overs. I know people are willing to write for far less pay (as well as maybe the voice overs and programming). If you want my honest opinion, the artwork and music of the free visual novels is just fine (although it might be nice if there were more, but I guess that's where the commercial products win out)—it's the stories that need the most work, I think. The presentation of the stories is reasonable, and sometimes rather nice, but I'm talking about the story itself (not its presentation). Much of the artwork and music far surpassed my expectations for such free products (whether or not it did anyone else's), but the stories were way different. I don't consider voice overs essential. Sound effects are really nice, but I can live without them if need be.

I'm guessing there are a lot of people out there with similar sentiments about at least the voice overs and sound effects. But then, I guess I am biased since I'm more of a writer and secondarily a programmer than an artist or even musician. I don't claim to know much about creating great presentation, but I can recognize it when I see it. I would likely be willing to help out with anyone who needs help creating a story and/or editing it (so feel free to drop me a line, any who like). Everyone has their own tastes, though (even within a genre; fantasy is my preference, though—I'm not particularly a romance writer)—so my style isn't necessarily yours.

Just a personal rant: I wish more authors would take advantage of UTF-8 and use em dashes instead of hyphens, where applicable. Of course, they'll need to learn how to type them. This is especially true in visual novels (they are visual, after all). All writers, who care about how their writing looks, I think, should take a look at this Wikipedia article:
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash

10 years is pretty significant (and rare) for anything software or internet-related, it means it's an old-timer.

If you're talking about software owned by a corporation, or any commercial software, I totally understand—but under the realm of open source, free software, I certainly do not (unless no one ever knew much about it, or there is no community surrounding it). Even if this website goes into the ether, Ren'Py will still exist (probably forever—whether or not it gets developed further), and I'm sure people will still remember and benefit from it, even if not so high a percentage.

[Sin]

Congrats of 5 years. That's a long time and worth some crediting.
I like the fact that you celebrate by going back and looking at version 1.
I myself love to look back on past projects to gauge just how much has changed.