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Re: Better late than never...

#87 Post by Guest » Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:55 am

mikey wrote:It's good to see people not be discouraged - I can imagine that without this month being NaNoRenO, few people would say - "You know what? I think I'll try making a game until the end of the month." Just one of the many positive effects! :P :P
The amusing part is, right about the start of the month, I started developing a much larger-scale ren'ai game that I'd been planning in the back of my mind for several years. Had I known about Ren'py and NNRO, I would have started a different, NNRO-scale project on 3/1 (hence the "why am I always the last to find out..." comment :D ) just to get "into the groove", so to speak. Had I done so, I'd probably be fairly far along in the process by now.

But, given that all you technically need for NNRO is the digital equivalent of a single-choice "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, it really shouldn't be a factor, even for someone who actually joins in the last week. :D

P.W.

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Re: Better late than never...

#88 Post by PixelWrangler » Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:58 am

Guest (actually PixelWrangler) wrote: blah, blah, stuff, blah...

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Note to self: LOG IN BEFORE POSTING! :D
Life is hard.
Except in ren'ai games.
Then it's a whole lot softer.

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#89 Post by chronoluminaire » Fri Mar 18, 2005 7:54 am

Well, good and bad news about my project...

Good news: I got the character graphics from my artist. All of them! :-o Loads of wonderful full-colour art of my three main characters, in different poses and even some variation in clothing... She's brilliant. :) And I also got all the backgrounds processed and transformed to the right style, size, etc. Graphics Magick is a magnificent utility: for those of you who're happy with command-line tools I highly recommend it. The graphics are all plugged into my Ren'Py code: I effectively have a playable work-in-progress!

Bad news: Fiddling with all these new graphics took up two days of scriptwriting time. I've still got only about half of the text written, and there are less than two weeks of NaNoRenO left. :?

Come on, Grey! You can do it if I can! I can do it if you can! We may need to set aside *major* chunks of the remaining two NaNo weekends for scriptwriting. But we can do it!

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Self-Indulgent Status Update

#90 Post by PixelWrangler » Fri Mar 18, 2005 10:59 am

Completed:
- Game premise/story
- Basic game design (mechanics, plot, etc)
- Rough character designs/descriptions
- 85%-100% BGs

Next steps:
- Scriptwriting
- Intense Ren'py scripting study

The big "X" factor in this whole process is the Ren'py scripting. Writing, art, and scripting in general are not a problem, but getting the hang of a new language in 2-3 days is going to be tricky.

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#91 Post by rioka » Fri Mar 18, 2005 11:07 am

re mikey>> "NaNoRenO Last-Minute Challenge - make a game in one week!" lol That almost sounds like a Ranma title. Well, maybe if I finish early, I'll take this challenge on... ;D

re PW>> Much larger ren'ai game? Sooo, will you be making that larger game after NaNoRenO? ^_^ :lives in hope:

re chronoluminaire>> Oo, oo - can we get previews pics then? :D

You can do it, chronoluminaire! Grey! :dons cheerleader outfit and does silly cheers:

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Re: Self-Indulgent Status Update

#92 Post by chronoluminaire » Fri Mar 18, 2005 11:41 am

PixelWrangler wrote:Next steps:
- Scriptwriting
- Intense Ren'py scripting study

The big "X" factor in this whole process is the Ren'py scripting. Writing, art, and scripting in general are not a problem, but getting the hang of a new language in 2-3 days is going to be tricky.
"For what it's worth, my tips on writing script straight into Ren'Py:"
"The main thing to remember is to enclose all text the user sees in quotes."
show Takeshi neutral at left
show Selena smiling at right
Takeshi "Except for the character names before speech, of course."
show Selena rolling eyes
Selena "Well, of course. That way it reads like a script."
"Indicate expression changes with the show command, as above."
"And indicate scene or background changes with the scene command:"

scene school_field
show Takeshi neutral
Takeshi "And that's the basics."
Takeshi "I'd say don't worry about formatting your choice menus properly until afterwards. Write them however you like, until you have the script done, and then take care of the menu and label commands and so on afterwards."
"Good luck!"

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#93 Post by rioka » Fri Mar 18, 2005 12:02 pm

You best bet is to run the demo that comes with ren'py and open up the script file - you'll see the other mechanics of ren'py aside from what chronoluminaire just pointed out.

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#94 Post by Grey » Fri Mar 18, 2005 12:14 pm

Yesterday evening, after finishing a fun drawing (which will be inserted anyway) I got back into coding, and kept at it till midnight coding a fun bit in (well, funny to me because I understand it ).
chronoluminaire wrote:Come on, Grey! You can do it if I can! I can do it if you can! We may need to set aside *major* chunks of the remaining two NaNo weekends for scriptwriting. But we can do it!
Let's go for it! Charge!!

My damn engine was being incredibly fragile today, so I spent several hours on futile attempts to fix it, and haven't had a chance to write any more story.
I might have applied enough duct tape to it now though to get back to story though :roll:

OK, back to work. I'm on the final straight of plot 1 now.

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#95 Post by PixelWrangler » Fri Mar 18, 2005 12:34 pm

eclipse wrote:re PW>> Much larger ren'ai game? Sooo, will you be making that larger game after NaNoRenO? ^_^ :lives in hope:
Barring extreme "bur-ren'ai-out", most likely yes. :)
eclipse wrote:You best bet is to run the demo that comes with ren'py and open up the script file - you'll see the other mechanics of ren'py aside from what chronoluminaire just pointed out.
Good advice. The first thing I did after downloading Ren'py a couple of days ago was to run the demo, then pop open the script file (html version with comments) and check out the underpinnings. Got a general sense of what's involved, but the devil's always in the details, as they say.

The basics (character placement, scenes, etc) don't seem to be too hard to pick up... it's just getting used to it and learning the few slightly more advanced things I'll need that will be tricky. And, of course, this has a lot to do with the time limit. 30 days total? Nervous, but confident. 15 days total? More nervous, less confident. :P
chronoluminaire wrote:scene school_field
show Takeshi neutral
Takeshi "And that's the basics."
Takeshi "I'd say don't worry about formatting your choice menus properly until afterwards. Write them however you like, until you have the script done, and then take care of the menu and label commands and so on afterwards."
"Good luck!"
Thanks, chronolumiere, for the advice and the "quick-n-dirty" primer on basic Ren'py functionality. :D

scene computer_station
show PixelWrangler determined
Pixelwrangler "I shall conquer this project with the will of the warrior!"
show PixelWrangler surprised
PixelWrangler "Wait... there's only HOW much time left?!?!"
hide PixelWrangler
"And so began the quest for NaNoRenO greatness"

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Life is hard.
Except in ren'ai games.
Then it's a whole lot softer.

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#96 Post by mikey » Fri Mar 18, 2005 3:56 pm

My Wednesday-to-wednesday of doing nothing is progressing smoothly. :lol: So basically... I have nothing to report! Congrats to Chronoluminaire on a working wip version and Grey you can do it! I actually got all of my characters as well, but I haven't inserted them... you know "when do nothing, then do really nothing". I suppose I could do some things despite the workload I have (if I have time for the forum I have time for the game), but since I already wrote that week off, I might as well use it as a mental break, just to clear my head a little.

Keep it up, everyone! :wink:

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#97 Post by Grey » Sat Mar 19, 2005 5:15 pm

Managed a load of writing today :)

I still really want to get the central part out of the way by tomorrow (since its the 20th) though, and there's still a mess of alternatives to go.

*continues*

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Wooo! Making progress! Making Progress!

#98 Post by Nyna » Sun Mar 20, 2005 8:57 pm

Well, things are going well. If I keep up this pace I'll be done by the end of the month. Anyways, I've got some screenies to prove that I've actually been working. I've used RPG Maker 2000 for my engine, as I'm quite familiar with it and I didn't really have time to learn a new engine (plus graphics are easy to get) so blah. Here are my screenies:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y71/Wi ... _Bully.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y71/Wi ... alcony.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y71/Wi ... _Fight.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y71/Wi ... _Class.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y71/Wi ... _Title.jpg

It shouldn't be too hard to figure out what's what, but go ahead and guess if you'd like!

Edit: If you couldn't tell, I came up with a title! Tell me if you like it.
Last edited by Nyna on Sun Mar 20, 2005 11:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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#99 Post by rioka » Sun Mar 20, 2005 9:13 pm

Ooo, niiiice. Looks pretty good so far! =)
Now all we need to hear from now is JoJo... Psst, that's your cue!

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#100 Post by chronoluminaire » Mon Mar 21, 2005 6:46 am

Great stuff, Nyna! Looks like it's coming along great (and it'll be nice to have a NaNoRenO game that's got an interface a bit different to the standard visual novel!) The name and title screen look very good too.

Well, my weekend was... fairly productive... Not as much as it should have been, though :( (And Nanaca Crash does not help! Most Flash games I can't play with my RSI, but that one's just carefully timed clicks, and so bad for the "just one more" factor... *shudder*)

All the graphics and technical side is fine, and the script is over 2/3 done, it's just that's not enough. I've got an awful lot of text remaining to write in these ten days. And that'll leave me with very little time for quality checking before I release. Still, it doesn't have to be perfectly polished for the first of April... I'll be happy if I can just get something complete released then.

I'm going to make a plan today (during downtime at work) of what I'm going to do when in the remaining days. And while I can't really write script at work, I could be figuring out the details of scenes. Wish me luck.

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#101 Post by Grey » Mon Mar 21, 2005 4:16 pm

I'm facing the same thing. I've still got far too much text to write, plus a few other important things to do, and I still need to do a few more graphics. Plus the load of writing I did over the weekend I haven't actually tested in the game proper yet.

So tbh, if I'm not done by April 1st there'll be no release from me that day :? I don't want to rush bits or reduce things, or fail to test in order just to put a sub-standard game out on the day. Still my uni finishes on Good Friday, so there could well be time to get my act together after that


Good luck Chrono!

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