VN Best VN Program for Dummies?

[Zanurah]

Hi! Been meaning to get into the game scene for awhile now. As I'm both an artist and writer, I have those things covered, but the reality is I have little to no coding skill and it's never been something I've really been able to wrap my head around unless I have 24/7 support from some poor soul for me to harass. (Yeah... no. Hey, I'm not that evil to others. x_x)

Currently, I have TyranoBuilder after a sale to see what it's like, but is there better? What would make a great VN program for say a dark erotic fantasy game with chance encounters you're meant to avoid? (Unless you want multiple bad ends...)

I may even check out RPG Maker at some point as I was pretty impressed with what can be achieved with it after seeing Fear & Hunger. But since I'm kinda holding out for the new Unite version before I sink any time into learning anything there, it's probably for the best my first game be a VN to get my feet wet first. It'll still be a big project, whatever the case.

So, what I'm looking for currently is ease of access, with little to no coding required. Is there such a program?

 

[MissFortune]

Any reason why you aren't looking at Ren'py? With a little Q&A'ing, google searching, and unpacking other games/VNs that you like to see how they do things, you'll be well on your way. Coding in Ren'py isn't especially hard unless you start looking at more Sandbox-y type stuff.

I have zero coding experience beyond minor HTML and CSS. It's not the most advanced UI ever, but I got my own looking pretty decent with the aforementioned experience still being very much true. As for writing the game and/or code and inserting images, it can be as simple as:

scene mc1 with dissolve
vil "Hi, I'll be killing you in your sleep."
scene mc2 with dissolve
mc "Why? What did I ever do to you?"
scene mc3 with dissolve
vil "Nothing, I just like murdering sleeping children."

While working with chance encounters/RNG might be a bit tougher than the above, it's still easy enough to pick up with a little studying.

 

[Zanurah]

Any reason why you aren't looking at Ren'py? With a little Q&A'ing, google searching, and unpacking other games/VNs that you like to see how they do things, you'll be well on your way. Coding in Ren'py isn't especially hard unless you start looking at more Sandbox-y type stuff.

I have zero coding experience beyond minor HTML and CSS. It's not the most advanced UI ever, but I got my own looking pretty decent with the aforementioned experience still being very much true. As for writing the game and/or code and inserting images, it can be as simple as:

scene mc1 with dissolve
vil "Hi, I'll be killing you in your sleep."
scene mc2 with dissolve
mc "Why? What did I ever do to you?"
scene mc3 with dissolve
vil "Nothing, I just like murdering sleeping children."

While working with chance encounters/RNG might be a bit tougher than the above, it's still easy enough to pick up with a little studying.

... I'll admit I'm not familiar with Ren'py. Must be the rock I'm living under? ^^;

What are the pros and cons between it and TyranoBuilder? I'm guessing you definitely recommend Ren'py over the other?

 

[osanaiko]

Tyranobuilder has a pretty poor reputation amongst VN connoisseurs here on F95 due to the clunky user interface for the resulting games. It also has much closer limits on what can be customized for the visuals, gameplay or UI.

Renpy is ready to go for a basic VN "out of the box" with all the quality of life functions like rollback, version upgrades without requiring savegame restart (unless the dev is doing weird shit or not following the clear instructions about default variables), savegames with thumbnails, basic transition animations, relatively easy to implement "status" display and/or notification popups. It's true original design was to make japanese style VNs but it can be pushed much further if you apply time and effort.

There's no good reason to chose anything other than renpy unless you are making a super simple CYOA, and you already know HTML/javascript, and you don't care that it looks like a janky HTML game, in which case Twine+sugarcube2 is a good choice.

 

[MissFortune]

What are the pros and cons between it and TyranoBuilder? I'm guessing you definitely recommend Ren'py over the other?

In a nutshell, yeah. Ren'Py, in a lot of ways, is an engine that can take you as far as you want to go (with an obvious extent, of course.). That can be as simple as a kinetic novel or a complex sandbox game (See something like Love and Sex: Second Base, for example.). Something like Summertime Saga is also a good example of how far you can take the engine itself and how radically you can change. Just don't expect to be making real-time 3D stuff like you'd see in UE.

Beyond that, it'd be hard for me to explain it better than osanaiko already did. Would just be saying a lot of the same things a more verbose way.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Something like Summertime Saga is also a good example of how far you can take the engine itself and how radically you can change. Just don't expect to be making real-time 3D stuff like you'd see in UE.

Sakura Dungeon is a better example for that.
Unlike Summertime Saga, that is still heavily on the CYOA and visual novel side, Sakura Dungeon totally change the game mechanism, making the game massively rely on old school 3D dungeon crawling and old school JRPG combat style.

 

[Zanurah]

I just learned that Knightly Passions is made with Ren'Py, too. From what I played of that I felt it was solidly made, so...

... guess I'm learning Ren'Py. Thanks for the insight, all! You just saved me from wasting my time with Tyrano. =)