And so it begins... any VN dev tips?

[LadyLilith-3D]

Spent some time going over and thinking about what kind of game I wanted to develop. Landed on a VN for my first game using Daz 3d as my rendering program/art and Renpy for the engine. It's the least complex and I can get it all done solo. Wanted to do a Full-on unity game but the time sink would have been a lot for my first go at an adult game. Story/writing-wise I think I'm good. I've been writing erotic literature for years now, I just have to restructure it to a VN script (which is something I'm practicing with now).

So, any tips or suggestions for a starting dev specifically around VN and Renpy?

Side note: Going for an epic story, set in a "high-fantasy" environment (think LOTR or Harry Potter type world). Lots of fetishes but also keeping body proportions on the realistic side. Lots of build-up through-out the story but not too much as to leave the player "high and dry". I liked the pacing that "Being a DIK" did, so thinking around that lines. The game will be choice based with consequences for your choices and multiple story paths/arcs.

 

[Black Swamp Ent.]

Hi! I'm in the same shoes as you, I've been working on my own project too, and getting the art done first, then i'll be jumping into Renpy/python/java coding.

Biggest thing I could suggest that I've learned working on things through out the years is start small first. I don't know about you, but all my time on this site and looking at all the VN's out there, the biggest pitfall I see most hit is they have too grand of idea and aren't able to satisfy the design they laid out for the project.

Specially if you're going at it solo, having a dozen Love interests, with several kinks each, plus expanded/branching story-line can really get overwhelming quick and quite possibly is the reason why we see so many projects with the "abandoned" tag.

Also, as far as Unity, you'll find most people on here abhor unity for most Vn's, there's only a handful of good Unity titles on here as it is.

 

[Lerd0]

Watch all the tutorials u can, read the threads here on advise, try and contact some devs on their discords and ask for some advice, don't cave in to player pressure, and make what u want to make, and try and keep it simple.

Also good luck to both of u, i look forward to playing ur games.

 

[Droid Productions]

Also, as far as Unity, you'll find most people on here abhor unity for most Vn's, there's only a handful of good Unity titles on here as it is.

Unity's definitely more powerful than Renpy, but it's also a lot easier to screw up things. RenPy's also got a lot of nice QoL stuff built in.

 

[Doorknob22]

Biggest thing I could suggest that I've learned working on things through out the years is start small first. I don't know about you, but all my time on this site and looking at all the VN's out there, the biggest pitfall I see most hit is they have too grand of idea and aren't able to satisfy the design they laid out for the project.

This. Think small. Aim for the minimal release you can publish but will still be fun.

Additionally:

1. Control the quality based on your capabilities, meaning:
1. Spell check the fuck out of your offering. No special skills needed here, only your attention.
2. In a similar note: achieving realistic renders is hard but there's no reason why you should publish renders with figures floating an inch or two in the air, having their fingers sinking into other character's bodies, etc. Spend full minute staring at each render until you are satisfied that no glitches are hidden.

2. Make sure your players always know what to do. Only when I sent my game to QA and the testers started asking me questions I realized how confusing were some sections of my game. I fixed that.

3. Don't hesitate to throw stuff into the garbage if it doesn't fit in the end. Even if you worked on a series of renders for a week, if, in the end, they don't fit the narrative you should throw them away instead of shoehorning them in.

4. Back up. Daily. Disaster will strike and you want to make sure you don't lose everything. Renpy offers you to build your game with all the .rpy files uncompiled. Use this (or another option) to back up your shit.

5. Be ready to fail clean the dust from your cloths, stand up and continue.

Good luck!

 

[somebodynobody]

Planning the game out ahead of time.

Write the story first. The characters, their personalities, how they interact, the whole shebang. (Use something that spell/grammar checks, that you will then double check yourself, and finally cut and paste it where you want.)

Next would be storyboard how the written scenes will look, this allows you to play around with how you want a scene to impact the player without having to render anything.

The longest portion of game's development is art, drawing or rendering. The shit will take a long time, so you will want to try and do it in massive chunks to get it out of the way.

Another pre-dev option is make your framework as easy as possible for you to quickly add your images/code.

Since this is your first go, I would suggest making as simple a thing as you feel comfortable with. Maybe a Kinetic novel with 1 or 2 choices that only change the end scene, this is purely so you learn the code and process without overwhelming yourself.

 

[AdventAnyx]

For the love of God, don't try making your first project of an Epic size.
So far, you have no idea how much time it takes to create assets and write story / code for those assets. You will fuck up your plans to make it big the further you go with it. Also, after some time you'll be hit with "damn I want to make this other thing now, but I'm stuck with this monument". Give yourself the freedom to wrap it up and finish quickly (if you get bored) from the start.

 

[Lerd0]

For the love of God, don't try making your first project of the Epic size.
So far, you have no idea how much time it takes to create assets and write story / code for those assets. You will fuck up your plans to make it big the further you go with it. Also, after some time you'll be hit with "damn I want to make this other thing now, but I'm stuck with this monument". Give yourself the freedom to wrap it up and finish quickly (if you get bored) from the start.

Is that why u no update ur game?
I said i wanted more.
good advice though.

 

[AdventAnyx]

Is that why u no update ur game?
I said i wanted more.
good advice though.

I'm rendering I swear!

 

[socksguy]

I'm very quickly coming to the realization that the kind of game I want to play doesn't exist - that I may have to make it myself. The problem is that I've never done any of this before. Rendering (DAZ), Ren'py... I've taken a class or two on basic programming and I consider myself a reasonable writer, but yeah. I'd basically be starting from scratch. Don't even know if it's feasible.

 

[DawnCry]

I'm very quickly coming to the realization that the kind of game I want to play doesn't exist - that I may have to make it myself. The problem is that I've never done any of this before. Rendering (DAZ), Ren'py... I've taken a class or two on basic programming and I consider myself a reasonable writer, but yeah. I'd basically be starting from scratch. Don't even know if it's feasible.

It depends on your dedication, personally the main reason I haven't tried to make a game is because I really suck at making art.

But seriously, if you have an interesting idea and are good at making art you can try, overall the most important aspect is to get the base ready so that you never have to rework it, meaning that you add and prepare all necessary stats and create a good UI and other similar elements, in fact if most creators focused on that point it would make their development much easier.

Overall the first part is the imagination part, create characters, ways to interact, define stats and all elements that are part of the game and when you find that your document is decent enough and you feel like you can do it, then you start to make the game.

To end I would say the most important thing is to pay attention to detail, a good way to know how much the creator loves his own game is to see the details, for example see Summertime Saga, not many people would know that the engine of that game is ren'py and that's because it has a lot of attention on aspects that you may not directly notice but that people appreciate.

 

[LadyLilith-3D]

I'm very quickly coming to the realization that the kind of game I want to play doesn't exist - that I may have to make it myself. The problem is that I've never done any of this before. Rendering (DAZ), Ren'py... I've taken a class or two on basic programming and I consider myself a reasonable writer, but yeah. I'd basically be starting from scratch. Don't even know if it's feasible.

This is where I was about a month or so ago. So I decided to just dive in and I've spent all my free time just learning and playing around. Downloaded Daz and went headfirst. Still learning a lot but I'm able to make some decent renders now. Next I jumped into Renpy and honestly, it's pretty straight forward (for the basic stuff). I already had a good handle on story/gameplay as i've been creating that for a while now. Honestly, once you can grasp the basics of it all, it becomes really fun. I'm having a blast creating the early stages of my game right now.