Programming for Beginners

[fishermen]

Hi, maybe its a short Question, but i didnt found a Thread who is exact similar to this Question.

The Question is Programming between Unity and Renpy. Which Programm has easy Handling for beginners in direction to management Games. For Visual Novels i think Renpy is better from the Games that I downloaded so far my opinion is Unity has the better Options for this but the Handling at Renpy is much easier. So i cant decide between this 2 Options. I want to take that slow and easy and at first for my own trys before Uploading. So i looking for some advice before starting.

Sorry for my English it isnt the best. I hope you can understand me and especially my Question.

Thankfully Looking for Replys.

 

[anne O'nymous]

The Question is Programming between Unity and Renpy. Which Programm has easy Handling for beginners in direction to management Games.

Both ? None ?

You haven't found the answer, because there's no answer.
I know people who are good programmers, but can't do shit with a particular language because there's something in its logic that totally disturb them. And the opposite is even more often true, there's coders who are good with one language but can't do shit with whatever other language.

With few exception, all depend on you before depending on what you intend to do. And both Unity and Ren'Py can perfectly handle a management game.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

With unity, not only do you have to learn how to work with unity and C# programming language, but you will have to re invent VN game mechanics. Yes its possible to buy tools and assets to help make VN games easier, but you have to learn how those tools work as well. if you want to make VN's I would suggest renpy, but if you want to do advance things in the future, you will have to move over to other tools and engines, such as unity, where you would make your own systems from scratch, which is not something beginners can do.

 

[fishermen]

With unity, not only do you have to learn how to work with unity and C# programming language, but you will have to re invent VN game mechanics. Yes its possible to buy tools and assets to help make VN games easier, but you have to learn how those tools work as well. if you want to make VN's I would suggest renpy, but if you want to do advance things in the future, you will have to move over to other tools and engines, such as unity, where you would make your own systems from scratch, which is not something beginners can do.

Thank you very much for your answer and anne O'nymous as well. Maybe it is better to Render some Pics and later ask a good Programmer For now your answers are good for a try with Renpy. That was my Intention too because Unity at least is more expensive . DAZ is expensive too ^^

 

[Tompte]

If you want to learn programming from scratch, you should start by looking for learning resources and tutorials. A really good way to learn is to follow a step-by-step tutorial to get a sense of the process and then make your own changes to the code and see what happens.

I can't speak for Renpy, as I've never touched it, but I'm sure there are plenty of beginner guides out there, and it's designed for simplicity to begin with. You can also read up on Python in general.

Unity has a fuck-ton of resources but in my experience they're mostly pretty poor. Unity brought in a ton of beginners and hobbyists into programming and when I google a simple question I get 10 different answers from mostly inexperienced coders throwing out random guesses. But for what its worth, there are lots of people to ask and a handful of them will actually know what they're talking about. Unity's own how-to-guides are a pretty good starting point too.

More often than not, people's intent is "I want this game in my head to be real" rather than "I want to create this game in my head". If you have the patience to learn then you can actually make it real but learning must come first.

 

[PTSdev]

Both ? None ?

You haven't found the answer, because there's no answer.
I know people who are good programmers, but can't do shit with a particular language because there's something in its logic that totally disturb them. And the opposite is even more often true, there's coders who are good with one language but can't do shit with whatever other language.

With few exception, all depend on you before depending on what you intend to do. And both Unity and Ren'Py can perfectly handle a management game.

So I'm not the only one. I'm used to coding in C++, but still something about JavaScript just... angers me. I can't explain it. JS feels WRONG.

fishermen : Programming is hard work. There's no "easy" option. Unity offers lots of assets, but optimizing them requires quite a lot of skill. You also have to develop "deeper" than in Ren'py, which basically is mostly scripting. Don't forget that creating 3D assets / art also is quite time consuming.
Familiarize yourself with basic programming concepts first. There are tons of great guides online. Don't try to make THE game on first try, start small.

 

[Tompte]

I can't explain it. JS feels WRONG.

Ha! That sounds like a perfectly sensible point of view to me.
Javascript is horrid and a historical accident. If you have half a mind to stay away from it then you should.
(Sorry, I can't resist an opportunity to poke fun at JS and I refuse to stop!)

Unity offers lots of assets, but optimizing them requires quite a lot of skill. You also have to develop "deeper" than in Ren'py, which basically is mostly scripting. Don't forget that creating 3D assets / art also is quite time consuming.

I'll add onto that that Unity appears easy on the surface and the tools are really good, but it never really assumes you don't already know what you're doing. It expects a level of understanding about game development in general and that you can make your own decisions in how you want to make your game. It's a blank canvas. That's why I really like it, because I don't like having my hand held. But I don't know how easy it is to use going in with little to no experience. I'm sure it's fine but I can imagine there's a lot to take in when you're starting out.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

I'll add onto that that Unity appears easy on the surface and the tools are really good, but it never really assumes you don't already know what you're doing. It expects a level of understanding about game development in general and that you can make your own decisions in how you want to make your game. It's a blank canvas. That's why I really like it, because I don't like having my hand held. But I don't know how easy it is to use going in with little to no experience. I'm sure it's fine but I can imagine there's a lot to take in when you're starting out.

Comparing Unity vs Ren'py I find is the same as talking about Blender vs Daz3D

One program is specialized, kind of like a power tool, it does one thing, but it does it really well.

And the other program is more like a tool box, there's a lot there, and a lot you could do, but since they are more of a 'general' toolbox/playground it's not really structured for any particular purpose, without structure it makes it hard to get started because you have to make your own structure.

Unity VS UE4 is different. both are full on game engines, but UE4 was made with FPS games in mind. While UE4 has an amazing graphics pipeline, the engine can kind of get in the way of what you want to do because it's structured for FPS games, so you have to work around it's structure to make different kinds of games. Now for some people this is easier, adapting from one foundation you know (such as people who use RPG Maker) and modifying it to fit your needs (like how people use RPG maker to make non rpg games), since it can be easer to modify something than having to start from scratch, especially if you've never built custom game systems before.

The only real reason to jump into something like unity or non specialized engines, is for when you have an idea you really want to bring to life, but after investigating, turns out there's no way to implement by trying to modify something. For example, those interactive phones or minigames in ren'py if I understand correctly, are examples of a complex game system that ren'py was not designed for, but that clever people managed to get working anyways. Meanwhile, if I want to have some complex AI operation in the background that is asynchronous to what the player is doing (eating lunch away from keyboard), that's not something most specialty engines can handle, I need to work with raw code to allow for parallel operations to occur while the game is running.

For me, unity wins. because for me, it uses C# which I think is the absolute best language to 'program' in, its the most documented game engine (the main issue with Godot is its still new and undocumented and unity pretty much copied most of their good features), and I really like its supplementary unity math library, and the canvas RectTransform for making very flexible user interfaces. If it wasn't for the RectTransform and WebGL export, to allow for me to quickly get started with more complex projects with the confidence to know it will be multiplatform ready, I'd actually use MonoGame Framework to code my projects with, but that's raw code, no nice user interface.

 

[Tompte]

Yeah, I agree. That's a fair comparison.