I'd like to create my own game, where do I start?

[Henpai]

Hi guys, I've been playing a lot of hentai games lately and I came up with some interesting ideas for a new game but I never really tried to learn programming so I have a couple of questions:

1) What engine will be easier to learn from a beginner standpoint between Unity, Ren'Py, Flash and RPG Maker?
2) How are original renders created? Is there a program for it and if yes is it difficult to learn? Alternatively is there a repository for renders free to use?
3) Is it difficult to actually animate the scenes? I played a lot of game with incredible animations and other with just a single image or a slide of images to simulate motion so I don't know which would be better to choose.
4) Is there a way to protect my ideas or game assets from being stolen or used without my consent?
5) Are there guides or video tutorials that can help me in this endeavor?
I'm open to any advice, thanks for your time.

 

[Grumpy Eagle]

1. Ren'Py
2. Daz 3D - Create your own renders.
3. It's not that difficult but it's time consuming as fuck. (talking about Daz 3D)
4. You didn't even start and you already want to protect it?
5. Forums, youtube... (Ren'Py forum, Daz 3D forum)

 

[polywog]

 

[recreation]

1 Easiest will be renpy or twine or something similiar.
2 Most people use Daz3D for renders, it's the easiest software to learn (except drawing yourself) and it's free for the most part.
3 If you've never animated anything then you'll find that it IS difficult to animate the scenes, but you can use use presets (a few of them are even quite good). It still takes a lot of time to render the frames.
4 If you want to jump on a cash train, forget about it. You'll most likely fail anyway. If not, then you won't need to protect anything.
5 There are a lot of official and non official guides for any of the mentioned programs.

 

[Archronique]

1) It depends of what type of game you want, If you wanna make a VN or a Point&clic/Sandbox, Ren'py is the easiest way to go.

2) DAZ 3D or Blender if you want a free software (assuming you already have the rig). DAZ can make decent renders with minimal knowledge (the render will maybe look like shit but that's better than a simple T-pose), Blender is more versatile but has a step learning curve.

3) I think animation is a really shitty idea when you just start to make your first game. It takes time and a LOT of works just to have a shitty 3sec loop, And I'm not even talking about movements that doesn't look natural.
Better having a few good renders than a shitty 3sec loop.

4) You game content, Yes, your ideas of course Not.
But ask you this, Why do you want to protect your content? I'm not talking about subjective things like hacking is bad blablabla but in a marketing way, what will you win by protecting your content?

5)You will find almost all you need to learn simply by searching on the internet. But free softwares have a thing in common, they tend to have pretty low documentation so there is things you will certainly need to learn by yourself or via forums.

 

[Henpai]

I downloaded Ren'Py and I'm starting to get the hang of it, DAZ 3D on the other hand isn't that easy to pick up but I'll get it too eventually. I hope I'll be able to post a little demo here soon, thanks to everyone.

 

[recreation]

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[tentaclebandit]

So many people recommend Ren'ply AND yes it allows for deep customization for sure - but its also very much in essence programming line by line which is why it allows you to do anything. Sure its not like your writing in C# but its still line coding in essence.

I think the reason everybody suggest Ren'ply is because its free and allows you to program anything you want in it - and there is a lot of resources explaining how which is great - but the thing is, you need to write a lot of line code to produce anything.

Hence why I like paid alternatives because most of that line coding is done in the background, allowing you to put stories together a lot faster, but also allows you to go into the coding if you want to add custom features too. Plus it feels more like a studio program if you are familiar with photoshop, ect for UI purposes.

I personally use Visual Novel Studio for my game, but Tyranobuilder is another cheaper and even easier option (I just don't like the default games interface)

But again these are not free so many people don't recommend them and to be honest a lot of people never finish their game so I suspect it would be a waste of money for them too.

As for graphic programs I suggest blender for 3D posing and animations simply because once you figure it out, it becomes VERY much second nature to use and has greater flexibility. Gimp 2 is my go to for graphic editing. Both are free.

 

[Fatalmasterpiece]

So many people recommend Ren'ply AND yes it allows for deep customization for sure - but its also very much in essence programming line by line which is why it allows you to do anything. Sure its not like your writing in C# but its still line coding in essence.

I think the reason everybody suggest Ren'ply is because its free and allows you to program anything you want in it - and there is a lot of resources explaining how which is great - but the thing is, you need to write a lot of line code to produce anything.

Hence why I like paid alternatives because most of that line coding is done in the background, allowing you to put stories together a lot faster, but also allows you to go into the coding if you want to add custom features too. Plus it feels more like a studio program if you are familiar with photoshop, ect for UI purposes.

I personally use Visual Novel Studio for my game, but Tyranobuilder is another cheaper and even easier option (I just don't like the default games interface)

But again these are not free so many people don't recommend them and to be honest a lot of people never finish their game so I suspect it would be a waste of money for them too.

As for graphic programs I suggest blender for 3D posing and animations simply because once you figure it out, it becomes VERY much second nature to use and has greater flexibility. Gimp 2 is my go to for graphic editing. Both are free.

As someone who hates coding in Renpy, what benefits does VNS have over it? What limitation?
I'm totally happy to pay for a tool if it greatly speeds up the development process. Currently that bottleneck is coding.

 

[MissFortune]

As someone who hates coding in Renpy, what benefits does VNS have over it? What limitation?
I'm totally happy to pay for a tool if it greatly speeds up the development process. Currently that bottleneck is coding.

Personally speaking as someone who doesn't like coding (what little I do), but enjoys seeing the result, Ren'py is superior in every single way. While it's easy to learn, it also grows with a dev. You can get as technical or as simple as you need depending on your level.

With my limited use of VNS, it was a very non-user friendly experience. There were a lot of weird bugs, QoL issues, or just outright bad documentation (Chapter names changing on their own, reverting back to "Chapter 1, Chapter 2" despite renaming them multiple times, very laggy, lame documentation with very little external help.), which would be fine for an early release or something of the sort, but $40 (what I paid at the time) for that was basically unacceptable. Especially when Ren'py does the same (and more) while being totally free.

That being said, it's like $15 on Steam right now. Try it out yourself and see if it works for you. Worst case is you waste 2 hours trying it and end up returning it.

 

[Fatalmasterpiece]

Personally speaking as someone who doesn't like coding (what little I do), but enjoys seeing the result, Ren'py is superior in every single way. While it's easy to learn, it also grows with a dev. You can get as technical or as simple as you need depending on your level.

With my limited use of VNS, it was a very non-user friendly experience. There were a lot of weird bugs, QoL issues, or just outright bad documentation (Chapter names changing on their own, reverting back to "Chapter 1, Chapter 2" despite renaming them multiple times, very laggy, lame documentation with very little external help.), which would be fine for an early release or something of the sort, but $40 (what I paid at the time) for that was basically unacceptable. Especially when Ren'py does the same (and more) while being totally free.

That being said, it's like $15 on Steam right now. Try it out yourself and see if it works for you. Worst case is you waste 2 hours trying it and end up returning it.

Thanks, I will check it out. Renpy has a lot of possibilities but it sure is finicky about any little mistake. Making sure the formatting is perfect makes doing anything very slow going. I wish there were a graphic interface that could do some hand holding.
Like Daz3d, there is a lot of trial and error trying to figure out what works or doesn't.