Anyone Have Experience With Articy:Draft Game Planning SW?

[noeinan]

I found this on Steam and was wondering if anyone has experience using this software?

http://www.nevigo.com/en/articydraft/overview/

I've seen quite a few posts about organizing games, but mostly it seems people use physical notes or word documents. This program organizes story paths in flow charts, you can add character art, backstories, dialogue, event flags, multiple endings etc.

It's a little pricey for me, though I might try to save up-- but has anyone else tried it?

[TrickWithAKnife]

I would say the average team here is around 3 people.
For 3 people to use Articy:Draft 2, it would cost about $7,000. I would be extremely surprised if anyone here would use a paid version of it.

Edit: about $1,350 for a 3 person indie team. I stand by my opinion though.

[noeinan]

Well, it's much lower on Steam. I think they have indie deals...

http://store.steampowered.com/app/230780/

One copy is $99-- nothing to scoff at, but definitely lower than a couple thousand.

Just curious in case anyone *did* spend the money on it, or tried the free trial. (I signed up for the free trial, but it expired before I got to set aside the time to use it.)

[Alera]

This looks quite amazing, I might try the trial version and see how it works.

Really seems quite pricy just for a planning tool though, makes me wonder if there's something more behind it?

[TrickWithAKnife]

I've been playing with the trial version, and personally it seems like extreme overkill for VN development.

I can see how it would be of use to fairly large teams who are working on very complex games, but it's not really suited to the average VN.

Most of us would be better suited to google docs and perhaps some kind of flowchart software.

[Sakai]

I agree with the person above me, not much of use when it comes to KN/VN development, it is most likely used for big games e.g. FPS, RPG etc.
Indeed it has some stuff that could help organize the development but with all honesty just as the person above me said, google docs is good enough.

[SundownKid]

It does seem like it would be really helpful when working with a big team of writers/developers. But, VNs tend not to have such a large team.

[Sakai]

It does seem like it would be really helpful when working with a big team of writers/developers. But, VNs tend not to have such a large team.

Indeed mostly full VN team is around 6 people ((correct me if im wrong.)) which I could imagine or something, when I was working on a FPS game using cryengine 3 sdk we had around 10/15 so thats what you call big

[twilightworks]

Seemed extremely powerful, and if I was doing a huge, elaborate project I might look into it, but it definitely seemed to be geared more towards collaborative projects.

I'm pretty sure they offer a free trial if you just want to try it out.

[Megaman Z]

Well, it's much lower on Steam. I think they have indie deals...

http://store.steampowered.com/app/230780/

One copy is $99-- nothing to scoff at, but definitely lower than a couple thousand.

Just curious in case anyone *did* spend the money on it, or tried the free trial. (I signed up for the free trial, but it expired before I got to set aside the time to use it.)

2 quick notes:

1) re: trial: I would contact Nevigo explaining that and ask for another trial key. Back when this was getting greenlit, people that were planning on getting it on steam were expressing concern about their trials running out before they could get it on steam (projects made during the trial using the Single-User version would work with a Steam License), and Nevigo offered to extend all of their trials until it was released on steam. (it was also something like 25% off when it was first released)

2) pricing: It is $99 for a noncommercial license, $199 for a commercial license ($99 to upgrade from noncommercial), and another $99 on top of whatever you paid already for an upgrade to Articy:Draft 2 Steam Edition. That comes out to about $300 for a commercial license on Articy:Draft 2 Steam Edition, per person. I'll also note that the noncommercial license is single-user only, while the commercial one does support collaborators.

(for reference, I only own a noncommercial license. I don't have the Articy:draft 2 upgrade, partly because of how expensive it is, partly because I don't think I'll have a need for the new features added)

Now, as for how useful it is on the Visual Novel front, different people might get different mileage out of it. I actually got it not for Visual Novels (although it can help) but for Tabletop RPG campaign planning (particularly for a Mekton Zeta/Zero campaign that might get an adaptation to Ren'Py if multiple things end up happening). There are a few things you have to sort of figure out how to do (the tutorials only help so much), but once you've got some sort of system going, it's not too hard to start planning out various events and their branches.

[rabcor]

I'm using it, for VN development it is as "TrickWithAKnife" said, extreme overkill. There's only one feature you even need in there for VN design and that is the "flow" part of it, i'm sure you can find another program to do that somewhere.

Articy Draft 2 is even more overkill, i'm using the SE version, i see very few reasons to want to upgrade to articy draft 2.

Also the devs don't mind if you use the non-commercial version for a commercial product at least as long as it takes you to get enough revenue to pay for a license (which would be kind of you to do)

It's a common misunderstanding though that this tool is mostly just for big teams, it isn't just for big teams and i am currently using it alone. Sure it's convenient for multiple users, but in the end you only need the designer himself (or the designers of the team) to have access to the program, the data can be exported to word or XML documents to share with the rest of the team, this programs first and foremost job is to maximize the productivity and "precision" for the designer, and make the overall design process easier.

But i am using it for an RPG/VN, it's very helpful for that, even if theres going to be a while until i make the "big rpg" the software is perfect for making the universe it happens in (locations, characters, races, classes, stats, quests/stories/adventures(this is basically like a whole VN all in one feature called "Flow"), items... it keeps everything in one place and easy to read.)

To be honest there are various other good reasons to use the software, one is the color scheme. From a psychological view point their color scheme (the mix of green and yellow) should help increase our focus and attention, and again from a psychological perspective, working with colors rather than black on white makes it both more enjoyable and memorable.

The software is top notch and many huge game companies are actually using it (the likes of Ubisoft, EA and Cloud Imperium Games), but overkill just for a standard VN unless you really want to get that precision from using it as a planning tool to design your characters and keep track of the flow of the story. Here a writer even recommends it.

In all cases where there's more to your game than just the story, i would recommend it. Even if all there is to your game is writing a story, having a visual representation (such as linking together different parts of the story or branches) it will still be very helpful, but i'm not sure if it's worth the 100$ if all you're doing is writing a story. You should always just check out the 2 week trial and see how you like it, 2 weeks is more than enough time to get familiar with the program. It most likely (almost inevitably) will increase the quality of your final game.

But in the event that all there really is to your game is the story, you might want to use more specialized software (just for novel writing) to get it done. Check this for example.