Splendid and congrats for the release, expect it brings in the needful support as well!
I hope so! My main income is Patreon, but having Steam and Itch as supplements will really really help me. Once I get these medical bills done, I will be sitting pretty. Hopefully D:BB will hit Steam in a month too. Anyway, thank you and Happy Halloween!
- Jun 7, 2017
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Is there anyway to make it so the text doesn't need to scroll and instead appears in subsequent text boxes like it does in every other VN? or at least adding scrolling with the up and down cursors too instead of the mouse only? as the game is interesting but it is admittedly annoying to read it like this, so I would really appreciate a patch or something.
Well certainly it won't happen in text boxes, as unlike most VN, mine is written much better, like an actual novel instead of short, terse sentences. I can see if Mars has some kind of thing to be able to move the box up and down with the keyboard arrows.
Kind of an obnoxious stance. You just limit each box to a certain number of sentences, and clicking displays the next X sentences. Games--including VNs--much better written than yours have that same approach. Even War and Peace could be presented in a static text box rather than a scrolling text box. After all, what do you think pages are?
I'm pretty sure FFTW is not advocating for shorter text, but rather that the text be broken into different pages (in the same way long text in the real world generally is line wrapped because it is a lot easier to read 100 lines with 100 characters each than a single line of 10 000 characters).
Besides breaking auto-navigation and keyboard-navigation as already mentioned, having all text in one page also has made me miss a lot of text because I often didn't notice the scroll-wheel.
I understand that it is not for everyone. But, I did hold a poll with my investors (and I listen to feedback from fans, even on pirate sites as silly as some might think me for doing so), and they had a majority preferring it over the other way, back when I was first porting GN to Renpy from Twine. Essentially, all I can say is that, I am going to have the scroll bars in my games. On my end for writing it is easier as well. I appreciate the feedback though! But, it's a couple of years too late at this point. D:BB will also have the scrolling (the novels will). However, as much as I do not like it, the Conversion games like SB:C, if I make more in the future, will have the shorter sentences in the way most VN's work, with the character's name speaking and then the simplified text.
Actually, turns out that already works. You can scroll the textbox with the up and down arrows.
EDIT: Actually, it's kind of getting into a weird lock up. I'll see if this can be done differently.
- Jan 3, 2019
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Ok so code dev for these games here, and I did look into using the arrow keys to scroll, and as Anax says it kind of works.
Currently you can use the arrow keys to switch between the active buttons on the current screen one of which is the scroll bar in the textbox. Once you have the scroll bar selected you can hit enter to then use the up and down arrows to scroll the textbox and then have to hit enter again and deselect the scroll bar to use either enter or space to then advance to the next page.
If I overrode this default behaviour, and just made up and down arrows scroll the textbox, some of the accessibility of the game would be lost as people who have to use just a keyboard to play would no longer be able to. If another pair of keyboard buttons were assigned to this would that help solve the problem?
Edit: Looking at the documentation and doing some more test the only other pair of buttons that this functionality could be applied to is the page up and page down buttons but this also removes the rollback and rollforward function of these buttons. With that in mind would turning that on fix the problem you are having FFTW ?
Currently you can use the arrow keys to switch between the active buttons on the current screen one of which is the scroll bar in the textbox. Once you have the scroll bar selected you can hit enter to then use the up and down arrows to scroll the textbox and then have to hit enter again and deselect the scroll bar to use either enter or space to then advance to the next page.
If I overrode this default behaviour, and just made up and down arrows scroll the textbox, some of the accessibility of the game would be lost as people who have to use just a keyboard to play would no longer be able to. If another pair of keyboard buttons were assigned to this would that help solve the problem?
Edit: Looking at the documentation and doing some more test the only other pair of buttons that this functionality could be applied to is the page up and page down buttons but this also removes the rollback and rollforward function of these buttons. With that in mind would turning that on fix the problem you are having FFTW ?
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- Oct 5, 2017
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You should be able to apply scrolling to any arbitrary buttons, check this out:
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Yeah I'm not sure if there is some misunderstanding here or not, but some of your replies lead me to believe there is. I don't think anyone here is advocating for any different style of writing, its just that the scroll boxes can be kind of annoying as opposed to how most vns just have you click through it. I don't know what kind of polls you've been running with investors and what their feedback has been, and of course if most prefer differently from me I can fully understand your choice, but to me at least, it really interrupts the flow of the story to go from simply clicking through it, to noticing I need to scroll the text at the bottom instead. I could very well be in the minority here, seeing as I actually did notice when I first tried this game that I preferred the system used in the past novels, but that was entirely due to the choice of adding portions where the text needs to be scrolled in a tiny box. I don't know what the software constraints are with the program you are using, and it might already have this feature and I missed it, but if I had one feature I want in the game that would make my experience significantly better, it would be the ability to expand the text box itself so I can read it all in one go. Having a tiny box I have to scroll through is not exactly ideal.
But whatever the case, your writing is indeed wondrous, and I patiently await the next update. You do great work sir.
Dusk4590 - Thanks! I have no idea if Mars could make the textbox itself where it can be dragged to resize, like a website? and then squish the picture to maybe be smaller? The thing I was talking about is that the investors (the majority of whom invested in me with my twine games where one scrolls) did choose the scrolling over the clicking, and I, myself prefer the scrolling over the clicking. When I mentioned the writing, in my original response, I am saying most VN's are not written like novels, they are much more basic where the box says a name and then a sentence or two a person says, then a name, and a box with a sentence or two. The closest I have to that, which I lament, is SB:C.
My Discord fans know how I do not have fun working on that game and one reason is because I cannot be the author I am. I am stuck having to keep things more basic than being able to write in the ways my novels do that can help really set the mood, or evoke emotions. "I never cried at a porn game before" or "I laughed out so loud when the character in your story did this", I get a lot of fan mail and I have an English literature professor that is also a patron, and the consensus is that I am an excellent writer, but SB:C is like writing with my hands tied behind my back.
So, that is what I meant about the writing. Clicking through a bunch of basic, vapid writing you find in most VNs, is not a big deal. But here, where, for example, with all written content D:BB was 640,000 words, that's essentially the LotR trilogy I wrote. And when I first was getting Renpy set up, and needed the scrolling after the poll, Mars showed me how in my writing if I did not use the scroll, I would have to "chop up" what I was writing and keep it within a certain number of characters so they would fit. This would be very annoying. I cannot even imagine me trying to take the huge story, and chop it up to put in the code so someone can click to the next part of the story (not the next PAGE of the story like I have it now when one clicks) but the next few sentences.
For me (and a majority of my investors), scrolling is much easer to read a book than the clicking- and as an author it DEFINITELY is easier to write without me trying to chop up these elaborate well-written pages into littler chunks. Again, for a simplistic VN (as I said, most of them), it's no big deal. But find me a VN that is 640,000 words total lol like mine. I doubt anyone can. So, in case I was being confusing, I want you to know that I understand what you are saying, but I will not be implementing it for both what I think is aesthetically better as a professional artist and graphic designer, and what I really do not want to have to contend with as a professional author. I hope this makes it clearer. If anyone can figure out the text box idea you have- if it's even possible- Mars or Master of Puppets would be able to figure it out lol
My Discord fans know how I do not have fun working on that game and one reason is because I cannot be the author I am. I am stuck having to keep things more basic than being able to write in the ways my novels do that can help really set the mood, or evoke emotions. "I never cried at a porn game before" or "I laughed out so loud when the character in your story did this", I get a lot of fan mail and I have an English literature professor that is also a patron, and the consensus is that I am an excellent writer, but SB:C is like writing with my hands tied behind my back.
So, that is what I meant about the writing. Clicking through a bunch of basic, vapid writing you find in most VNs, is not a big deal. But here, where, for example, with all written content D:BB was 640,000 words, that's essentially the LotR trilogy I wrote. And when I first was getting Renpy set up, and needed the scrolling after the poll, Mars showed me how in my writing if I did not use the scroll, I would have to "chop up" what I was writing and keep it within a certain number of characters so they would fit. This would be very annoying. I cannot even imagine me trying to take the huge story, and chop it up to put in the code so someone can click to the next part of the story (not the next PAGE of the story like I have it now when one clicks) but the next few sentences.
For me (and a majority of my investors), scrolling is much easer to read a book than the clicking- and as an author it DEFINITELY is easier to write without me trying to chop up these elaborate well-written pages into littler chunks. Again, for a simplistic VN (as I said, most of them), it's no big deal. But find me a VN that is 640,000 words total lol like mine. I doubt anyone can. So, in case I was being confusing, I want you to know that I understand what you are saying, but I will not be implementing it for both what I think is aesthetically better as a professional artist and graphic designer, and what I really do not want to have to contend with as a professional author. I hope this makes it clearer. If anyone can figure out the text box idea you have- if it's even possible- Mars or Master of Puppets would be able to figure it out lol
The obnoxious part was calling your game better written than "most" other VNs, when that's simply not true. I'm not saying your writing is necessarily bad, just that placing yourself in this superior position is obnoxious.
And that's why I mentioned War and Peace: you can read it in a book (each page is a static text box) or on one scroll that's 1,000 feet long (scrolling text box). It's the same text both ways, but which do you think is preferable?
Or maybe you need a visual demonstration. Which of these do you think is easier to read? Showing this one paragraph and clicking to show the next paragraph:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris fringilla lacus non consequat aliquam. Maecenas aliquet cursus felis, at blandit augue sollicitudin vel. Nullam ullamcorper ipsum sed turpis iaculis vestibulum. In tincidunt metus id leo pulvinar semper. Nulla vel ante eu sem laoreet porttitor sit amet laoreet lorem. In a nisi sit amet lectus consectetur lacinia in a risus. In ipsum odio, pulvinar vel dapibus at, imperdiet sit amet quam. Maecenas faucibus id neque viverra tincidunt. Mauris in ullamcorper sapien, nec venenatis leo. Curabitur consectetur molestie scelerisque. Aenean gravida congue eros in aliquet. Integer est leo, tristique vitae varius nec, consequat quis diam. Nunc eget mauris aliquam, hendrerit tellus non, accumsan mauris. Sed at odio semper, porttitor libero sed, condimentum nunc. Sed pellentesque tellus eu ipsum eleifend, a dictum libero interdum.
OR having to scroll through this text:
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- Jun 7, 2017
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Exactly, yes. That is what I meant.
Well, since you can apply scrolling to any two buttons, how about applying it to either the + and - Buttons or the numpad (2 and 8)? As these are more intuitive and easier to use on a laptop than the small, next to each other at the top, Pgup and PgDn buttons. It would be pretty nice if you can do that instead.
As for the boxes situation, it is of course up to the dev, and it is clear that he prefers the scroll, so that is ok. I would like to note though that there are many VNs that have really great writing (and made me personally cry) while using the standard text boxes. Some examples include Key's VNs, as well as:
Umineko, which is 1,154,971 words in total, not counting the recent additional chapters too
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Thanks for the replies though, and I will definitely continue playing
.Edit: Another idea is having clicking the mouse move the text downward instead of immediately going to the next screen. That way one can guarantee not going to the next screen prematurely because they didn't notice that more text existed, and text scrolling would be easier too.
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You can find a list of many VNs here:
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Highlights include Lessons In Love which is 1,985,000 words long, YU-NO which is 1,300,000 words long, Fate/Stay at 1,000,000 words, Ever 17 at 420,000 words, Katawa Shoujo at 490,000 words, and Steins;Gate at 620,000 words. I didn't bother to sort through items without an English word count.
Oh yeah just in case this wasn't obvious, this is the gist of what I believe most of us mean, where the only difference is basically that you click instead of scroll. You can keep the same image until the text for that scene is exhausted (assuming thats possible within the software). Just further clarification, in case anything is being misunderstood.
Also I definitely understand from the perspective of a writer how limiting it can be to try to tell a story solely through dialogue, but I'm not sure what we're suggesting would force you to do that. And I may just not be remembering properly, but I'm pretty sure most of the vns I've read are not always just dialogue, but instead are often ripe with descriptive paragraphs and storytelling as well. But either way its your decision at the end of the day. These are just my 2... perhaps 3 cents.
Yeah, I understand what you are saying for sure. I had just wanted to set that expectation that on my novels, it will have the scroll bar is all, and as I said, not only because it won the poll anyway, but, I, myself, prefer it. lol Anyway, sounds like Mars is finding ways to find something to help people that have trouble scrolling the mousewheel.
- Jan 3, 2019
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yes in the next version you will be able to scroll up with - and down with +.
Happy Halloween! As promised, this year's treat is the newest version of GN! That is the Salon Mission and all 12 of the new Commissioned Bad Ends. A broken PC version was linked here and erroneously updated by a wayward moderator, but worry not, you now have the actual one that does not crash! I'll add that you can now support me not only on Patreon- but Steam and Itch both have GN on them too! D:BB will soon arrive as well! Again, Happy Halloween! MWA HA HA HA!
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