What software is out there for making VNs or VN-like games?

[LVUER]

But to use Unity to make 2D games is kinda a waste, isn't it? Kind of using bluray player to watch a VHS quality movies.

While speaking about 3D engine, how about Unreal Engine? It's free and it's one of the most popular engine in the market.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

But to use Unity to make 2D games is kinda a waste, isn't it? Kind of using bluray player to watch a VHS quality movies.

While speaking about 3D engine, how about Unreal Engine? It's free and it's one of the most popular engine in the market.

Not a waste exactly, but it is silly that even a pure 2D sprite game must be made in 3D with polygon rectangles. I also have a huge beef with Unity over its poor documentation.

And yes, the UDK Unreal Engine would be my choice of 3D engines if I was using one. I've found it is by far the best - and now it even runs on mobile devices! With a team I've been able to produce custom 3D games from scratch with unique gameplay (not FPS in other words) in less than 10 weeks using it. Plus, Epic made the license for indies even sweeter last year - you don't owe Epic ANY money for a commercial release unless your game makes over $50,000 dollars. Then you owe them 15-20% royalty fees (I forget which). And they make that sweet too - the 15-20% fee isn't off gross income, but PROFIT. The UDK also has an almost ridiculous amount of ever-growing tutorials available.

If you are going pure 2D and don't mind a little coding, XNA is extremely powerful, has a lot of ready made libraries available and makes using Direct X and C# a breeze. Unlike every other software mentioned, it also allows unprecedented control of your game from the ground up. The only drawback is that the games made will only work on Windows platforms (desktop and mobile versions).

[LVUER]

IINM Unity also have plug-ins for Android and other mobile devices, also for XBOX360, PS3, and Wii... and also for PS Vita in the future (still not sure about this). Of course, they're all pretty expensive (no free version).

I've heard about XNA, haven't tried it though. The spec is pretty heavy and XNA being Microsoft products, only works for Microsoft platform. Also, I'm not really a programmer that able to program everything from a scratch but adequate enough to program nifty stuff provided with good engine (and I'm pretty sure there are others like me). So my choice for 2D games right now falls to Game Maker. Anyone knows how making (and selling) commercial games works for XNA? XNA itself is free, right? If I remember it correctly...

Right now I'm waiting for Game Maker studio. It's promised to be delivered in Q1 of 2012, support for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and HTML5. That's almost (if not) all possible popular platforms, isn't it? So I'm really going to buy (and recommend) this one And AFAIK we don't own anything to YoYoGames for our games (unless we're selling through their portal/sites) except for GM Studio price tag itself... which is pretty cheap too (HTML5 version is about $100 in beta and $200 when it's reached full version status). I think GM Studio would be $200 to $400 in price tag?

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I've heard about XNA, haven't tried it though. The spec is pretty heavy and XNA being Microsoft products, only works for Microsoft platform. Also, I'm not really a programmer that able to program everything from a scratch but adequate enough to program nifty stuff provided with good engine (and I'm pretty sure there are others like me). So my choice for 2D games right now falls to Game Maker. Anyone knows how making (and selling) commercial games works for XNA? XNA itself is free, right? If I remember it correctly...

XNA is free, but it costs $100 a year that you are selling commercial software made with it.

XNA games work on Windows OS, Windows Mobile OS, XBOX360, etc. In fact, if you code in for it to detect resolution and controls, it is a near instant port between all available platforms. I don't know what you mean by "spec heavy". XNA is pretty bare bones. It is only as spec heavy as the game you are making with it. Obviously if the code can run on smartphones it isn't spec hungry. Owlboy is a good example of what it is capable of. Of course it does 3D as well. Or anything you can think of.

Having direct access to the guts of Windows and the Direct X API is very powerful. But it does rely on the game maker knowing C#. However, XNA provides an environment, structure, and libraries that make it MUCH MUCH easier than programming from scratch with Notepad and a compiler.

I tried GameMaker and it was alright, but I never could get any games I made to render smoothly to screen or to turn on some form of VSync to prevent tearing. I ended up having to force VSync on my graphics card itself, and then I would still get subtle ghosting on sprites. I read in the forums it was some bug in the code underlying everything that you can't touch. I don't know. I gave up and figured if I was going to spend that much time troubleshooting code I may as well be coding my own game.

C# is quite easy to learn, and it is amazing how quickly you can get simple programs and games made in XNA. I've programmed puzzle games and shooters in the course of a single evening using place-holder art. When I decided to stop looking for programs that did it all for me, and spent that time learning to code myself, I came out much better for it.

[DaFool]

I don't get why people say Unity is easy. I've been working with an experienced Unity developer for almost a year now and there are many times the development gets tedious and frustrating as a result of decisions the Unity development team makes between versions of Unity. That said he already has his own GUI implementation for 2D game sequences so at the end of the day after I complete my bishoujo Overlord clone, I'll have my own Floating Frame Director engine in Unity... and I'm planning to make tons of galge with 3D gameplay sequences eventually. Games like Galgun or If I were in a Sealed Room with a Girl I'd do XXX or Touch Love Application or all those games which will never cross the language barrier, since with the money used to bribe the ESRB to let those games in, I could probably build something similar (although only demonstration-length) from scratch.

[Junker-Kun]

Not a waste exactly, but it is silly that even a pure 2D sprite game must be made in 3D with polygon rectangles.

No, it's not silly. Just because nowadays DirectX doesn't use DirectDraw and draws polygons faster than pure sprites. You know, since that's what it was made for.

[Percon]

I don't get why people say Unity is easy. I've been working with an experienced Unity developer for almost a year now and there are many times the development gets tedious and frustrating as a result of decisions the Unity development team makes between versions of Unity. That said he already has his own GUI implementation for 2D game sequences so at the end of the day after I complete my bishoujo Overlord clone, I'll have my own Floating Frame Director engine in Unity... and I'm planning to make tons of galge with 3D gameplay sequences eventually. Games like Galgun or If I were in a Sealed Room with a Girl I'd do XXX or Touch Love Application or all those games which will never cross the language barrier, since with the money used to bribe the ESRB to let those games in, I could probably build something similar (although only demonstration-length) from scratch.

Yeah, there are instances where you kind of need to work around some problems, but learning the basics is fairly straightforward since there's no shortage of documentation and tutorials (many of which are third-party) online.

[Dollywitch]

Checking out Novelty. It seems pretty good, but can we assume it's dead? Last update was well over a year ago.

Also, a VN engine that supports MIDI would be very helpful. Ren'py doesn't seem to, which is frustrating. Novelty does, but it's not cross platform. So I'm kind of stuck at the moment.

[fleet]

Checking out Novelty. It seems pretty good, but can we assume it's dead? Last update was well over a year ago.

Also, a VN engine that supports MIDI would be very helpful. Ren'py doesn't seem to, which is frustrating. Novelty does, but it's not cross platform. So I'm kind of stuck at the moment.

IMHO Novelty is NOT dead. The Novelty forum is alive and well http://www.visualnovelty.com/forum/. It is not as active as LSF.

EDIT: Added a word I left out.

[Dollywitch]

I've decided to go with Ren'py for now, I know it's a little off topic but can someone recommend a tool for batch converting MIDI to wav using a soundfont? Preferably allowing me to add EQ or Reverb to make it less of a waste.

[Junker-Kun]

I've decided to go with Ren'py for now, I know it's a little off topic but can someone recommend a tool for batch converting MIDI to wav using a soundfont? Preferably allowing me to add EQ or Reverb to make it less of a waste.

JetAudio can do that. Though you'll still have to add effects in audie editor (Audacity for example. It's completely free)

[SusanTheCat]

I decided to dig out a list of various game making engines I've tried out.

These are in no particular order, just in the order I found them on my hard drive:
The number of stars indicate my willingness to use it

Ren'py ***
http://renpy.org
Visual Novel

Novelty
http://www.visualnovelty.com/
Visual Novel

Adventure Maker *
http://www.adventuremaker.com/
Point and Click

RPG Maker
http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/
RPG

Inform **
http://inform7.com/
Interactive Fiction

JS-Vine **
http://langintro.com/js-vine/
Visual Novel

Undum *
http://undum.com/
Interactive Fiction

Vorple **
http://vorple-if.com/
Interactive Fiction

Twine/Twee **
http://gimcrackd.com/etc/src/
Interactive Fiction

Texallion
http://code.google.com/p/textallion/
Can be used for Interactive Fiction/Visual Novel (Exports to ren'py!

GameMaker
http://www.yoyogames.com/
2d Games+

Akihabara
http://www.kesiev.com/akihabara/
2d web games

Storytelling Alice
http://www.alice.org/kelleher/storytelling/index.html
3d Kenetic Novels

ChoiceScript *
http://www.choiceofgames.com/
Interactive Fiction

PyWrite *
http://pywright.dawnsoft.org/wordpress/
Pheonix Wright Casemaker

Adventure Game Studio
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/
Point and Click

Scratch
http://scratch.mit.edu/
2d online games

Storytron (currently in hibernation)
http://www.storytron.com/
Interactive fiction

Susan

[SusanTheCat]

Forgot one

Chat Mapper
http://www.chat-mapper.com/
Plots out conversations

Susan

[Papina]

Before moving to Ren'py, I used Tyranoscript.