Improved(?) Ren'Py battle engine poll

[Glasskitten]

Hello there...(This is the first topic I have ever started on these forums! )

Um, anyway, since the first Ren'Py battle engine petition had but two options that might not cover a full range of opinons, I decided to make another one.

Instead of doing my calculus. Pity my work ethic.

[musical74]

calculus? UGH I'd rather try making a game...

My own thoughts on this is that renpy doesn't really NEED a battle system...Pytom's done a great job with renpy so far, and I think a battle system isn't really a good idea...but then, that's just my personal view.

[PyTom]

Okay, let me reiterate my policy on this.

If someone comes to me with a game that I consider likely to be completed that requires a battle system, then I will build a battle system to the specifications of that author. I will not build a battle system until such a time.

Petitions do not work on me. I'm not your elected representative, and I'm not making money on this, so I'm really only working on things that interest me. Visual novels interest me, and so I work on Ren'Py in the hopes that I get rewarded by getting to play new visual novels. And so I'm going to focus my efforts on places that I think will get me the games I want to play, and code that I think will actually get incorporated in one of those games. (One of the neat advantages of writing Ren'Py is that I often get to play these games before everyone else does.)

Track record is important here. If someone with a history of releasing games comes to me, and says that they're going to be making a game that needs features a, b, and c, then I'll bend over backwards to support them.

For people without a track record, it's a little more complicated. One of the downsides of writing Ren'Py is that I have some idea of how many people go through the "I'm playing with Ren'Py and have a good idea for a game" phase, and then vanish off of the face of the earth. This isn't to accuse any of the people here of being of that kind... I'd love to see a half-dozen new games come out. But since I don't have a crystal ball that can see the future to find out who will finish, I don't want to launch into a fairly major programming endeavor that ultimately will be fruitless.

So what I do is sort of triage incoming support requests. There are alot of requests that are simple, places where I just give people a snippet of code and send them on their way. There are also requests that are just good ideas, are simple, and fit well into Ren'Py. For example, today I implemented three new features, based on user requests that fell into this category.

Finally, there are projects I consider to be large and not generally applicable, like the alternate menus I did for Gakuen Redux and like a combat system would be. For these, I like to be satisfied that my work will not be wasted. Having a track record of completing games is one way, and showing me a reasonably complete draft of a game is another. Simply asking really hard or in groups is not the way to show me this... it's better to put that effort towards making a game.

Now, I'd be willing to discuss the design of a combat engine before it gets to that point. I don't want someone writing a game under the assumption that Ren'Py will someday sprout a 3d FPS combat mode, or an RTS mode, or even something overly animated. Ren'Py is a visual novel engine, and will stay that. If we can do combat in that framework (as Heikou, ToL1, and IIRC Reconstruction 01) did, then I'll support it. Let me know what you want, and I can give you a verdict on accomidating it, as long as it's specific enough. (Final-Fantasy like isn't enough... there are a dozen or so FF games, and many have different combat systems.) I can also help you come up with ideas that Ren'Py can support.

But until I believe that your game will finish, I won't want to dedicate the weekend or so of coding to this project, taking the time away from the other projects I have running at the time.

I apologize if this sounds a bit harsh and a bit ranty... I stayed up too late last night reading "Peter and the Starcatchers."* I don't mean to single anyone out. But I do want to nip this in the bud, as the last thing I want is campaigns of people petitioning me to spend my free time implementing features that won't wind up in a game for me to play.

* The unauthorized yet interesting prequel to "Peter Pan".

[Alessio]

Have to say that I agree with PyTom here. It'd be a pity to put a lot of effort into something that will never see the light of day. Because unfortunately there is a big difference between stating "I have a great idea and it goes something like this" and actually sitting down and doing it.

PyTom's approach is very fair - if somebody really comes up with a finished game minus the missing battle part then nothing is lost. I'm sure in that case PyTom (and others) will be willing to support implementing of the missing parts.

[Taavimon]

I join my fellow Finn in agreeing with PyTom. So far there are no actual RenPy-based projects that would really need a battle system so it would be waste of PyTom's time to make one.

Even though I have some theoretical interest in having a battle system (as I mentioned in the first poll thread), I should concrentate on actually getting Dryad done before worrying about something I might need in the future. Just for poll's sake I did vote "yes, non-FF".

I stayed up too late last night reading "Peter and the Starcatchers."* --
* The unauthorized yet interesting prequel to "Peter Pan".

Hmm, that sounds like an interesting concept. I'll have to try and find it somewhere.

[rioka]

There's all this talk about battle systems lately, I'll get it over with and post in this thread....

My thoughts: Ren'Py ALREADY has a battle system! It's all just a matter of how you look at things and how you can code it. You've got variables, you've got loops, you've got menus, you've got jumps. What else do you need?

Seriously, anyone could make a dungeon crawler with Ren'py as it is now! You just have to see the big picture:

Battle system: use a loop (if-else statements), variables, and jumps
Directions (where to go): use menu choices
Inventory, searching area, etc: use menu choices and jumps and variables (when you find or use items)
Running into enemies: again, you can use if-else statements and jumps.

If you want to get complicated with changing armors and all that, use Ren'py's paper doll feature which allows you to add/remove a layer.

Sure, it may not look exactly like your standard RPG with a new screen, several stats boxes, and all that but it gets the job done.

[Blue Lemma]

*agrees with eclipse*

If there was a standard Ren'Py battle system, that would be kind of weird. It would be like RenPG'Py or something Kind of like implying that battles and ren'ai go together.

Lemma: *huggles Glasskitten in case PyTom scared her* ^__^;

[Alessio]

Ren'Py ALREADY has a battle system!

Thinking of it, it's even more flexible than that, since you can include Python and PyGame code. But even with Ren'Py itself you can already do a lot. I've been thinking about a tile-based map for example... ^_-

[rioka]

Thinking of it, it's even more flexible than that, since you can include Python and PyGame code. But even with Ren'Py itself you can already do a lot. I've been thinking about a tile-based map for example... ^_-

There's that too but I think you just scared all the non-programmers out there.

Hmm, tile-based system in your game? :ponders what Alessio's game will look like: That'd be interesting to see...

[Otaku Dash]

*runs screaming since he dosen't know how to program*

[PyTom]

Hm... A tile-based map would be interesting, but hard to do in Ren'Py, especially if one wants to let dialogue overlay the map. It won't be impossible, but probably will be fairly hard until I finish documenting how to add your own widgets to Ren'Py.

Another idea would be to give the user the option of shutting down Ren'Py, and just writing segments of the game in straight-up python/pygame. I haven't implemented an API to do this, however.

I've been hesitating on both things because I don't want Ren'Py to begin competing (poorly) with more general game-creation tools.

[Dre]

If you want to get complicated with changing armors and all that, use Ren'py's paper doll feature which allows you to add/remove a layer.

Huh? Paper doll feature? I've never heard of this. Is it used in the demo?*go's to look*

I've been hesitating on both things because I don't want Ren'Py to begin competing (poorly) with more general game-creation tools.

I say it's already competing, and winning simply because it's better. With the 1 or 2 american sim makers and few japanese sim makers, this is the best I've seen yet. Adding the option to write python/pygame into Ren'py won't make it any less than what it really is. You can just say, "...even though Ren'py is intended for the creation of visual-novel type games, with the proper knowledge of python/pygame, almost any type of game element can be implanted/created with Ren'py." Of course, this is what I'm assuming this feature would do.

[Glasskitten]

*reads a few random posts on the thread and then runs and hides in the corner*

I just wanted to make the poll better...At least the discussion has reached some kind of closure now, right?

[rioka]

Huh? Paper doll feature? I've never heard of this. Is it used in the demo?*go's to look*

Nope, it's not used in the demo but it was talked about here and included into Ren'Py since then. =)

:pats Glasskitten on the head: Don't take it personally. That was Demon Eclipse talking.

[musical74]

There's that too but I think you just scared all the non-programmers out there.

*runs away screaming as well because he doesn't know how to program, either...oh hello Okatu Dash!*