VN Unity [VNGINE] - Need any VN Creator feedback! What features are you missing?

[Droid Productions]

RenPy embeds all the dialog directly into the python script, which is why he's quoting them together. If you're making a VN competitor it's probably worth spending some time with RenPy just to see what the tools most creators are using looks like, see what it does well, and where the pain-points are.

 

[Aesouh]

As explained before I'm not planning on releasing something to compete against Ren'py in the terms it's doing now. What I will offer is a service to get your VN out the way you want it, no hassle with ren'py or yourself coding. Honestly from a artist perspective it should be completely irrelevant what platform it's running on, as long as they get all the functionality and the quality they need. Of course it also needs to be flexible and stable, which seems to be something that ren'py projects today lack, but that's not why i made this post in the first place, i wanted to hear from artists what it is they really miss that hasn't been seen today. I was surprised to see so little feedback,.

And looking at Errilhl, his project started 4 months ago, his game is containing a bunch of ripped stolen copyrighted images from some architect websites, then he claims to have rewritten the entire game logic one month ago... he wrote on this own patreon that he is new to ren'py and new to python, so he is not an experienced coder. I rest my case, but this is the reason why there are so many broken ren'py games out there that head straight for the graveyard. I really hope you get to realize your dream but don't rush yourself into releasing stuff ASAP and patreon, that is bug riddled and will stress you out because you now have paying supporters expecting you not tho release 100 game breaking bugs even though you claim it to be "alpha".

Also, quote from his patreon: "Currently the "game" (it's not a game, it's just a bit of clicking to go through and watch backgrounds and text change at the moment) is at about 350 lines total (not counting the actual Ren'py library). And... it doesn't really contain anything useful. I'm thinking that I really need to dig down into this if I'm gonna manage to make an actual game out of this which isn't gonna end up on many, many thousands of lines of code."

I actually feel sorry for that kind of situation, that's one of my biggest drives to why I do this project to begin with, to let people not have to worry so much about their projects getting out of hand. As i mentioned before, let artists be artists, writers be writers, dont have to force anyone into learning how to code.

 

[Studio Errilhl]

You're entitled to your opinion, of course, although your arrogance is a bit off-putting. Yes, I'm new to coding (in Python/Ren'py, not new to coding in general). The code in the game is mostly as effective as it can be, although there are a few things that needs tidying up (it's not gonna improve anything for the player, just cleaning up the code-base).

The backgrounds are currently ripped, that is correct, but most of them are modified, or being remodelled, so that's not a big concern for me.

I'm pondering what you mean "it's not a game" if you mean what you say. Almost every VN out there is "click through, with dialogue and sprites and backgrounds changing". I've chosen to incorporate quite a bit of stuff that isn't in the default library, hence why there is a bit of code...

I don't really see what quoting one of the first posts on the Patreon page has to do with anything current either.

As a single developer, with a job, a GF and a life, progress is gonna be slightly slower than many others (I'm assuming that's where the 4 months ago came from). Although, the latter update cycle of a new update every two weeks seems to work fairly well.

 

[Aesouh]

I understand that and as I said, I think it's great that people want to make their own VN's and wanting to do it by themselves, including learning a new language and a library. But of course if you start something fresh, and a new language and a new library it takes quite some time to get into it and work optimally, we're not talking about weeks or a few months of experience. You need a lot more than that. The "it's not a game" part was completely quoted from you and it wasn't that part that was important, it's what came after. Of course every project doesn't start out as as a game, you need to set up the framework first. It was in the sense that you spent 350 lines of code to essentially do something very basic. You already admitted to being new to it all, and that your code was already getting out of hand so early in the process, don't you see that that's what I was trying to help artists with in the first place.

I don't really understand why you would start up a patreon the first thing you do and then commit yourself to delivering things, in a completely new language and library. I totally relate to having a lot of things to do IRL, but maybe it would have made more sense to actually get to know the environment you are working in before. When you are new in something it takes a lot of extra time, it makes a lot of extra bugs, and its frustrating, and you don't do things completely right, even if it works at that time, right then and there, that's what causes more bugs down the line.

 

[RexDaGod]

I have on idea how complex it would be but I feel like the whole blueprint method Unreal4 has might be really good for something like this. I feel that kinda of style be idea for VN giving you can easily see all the branching story as you make it.

I feel that would be really nice visually for making VN.

 

[Droid Productions]

Visual Programming systems are always really nice when you start out Then as complexity grow they give a new meaning to the word 'spaghetti code'

 

[Aesouh]

I would actually be really interested to hear what you, Errilhl wanted to implement so early into the project in renpy that was non standard, it’s exactly this I made the thread for.

When it comes to visual programming I think it’s excellent to design the story and pathing this way, and then export that into a format that the VN can handle, so I am definitely looking at this as well. I’m considering having a Separate configuration/design tool that allows exporting to multiple formats.

 

[Studio Errilhl]

Things that are not part of the Renpy-system:
Inventory and time-management (like, a built-in time-system)
Stats for NPCs and MC

Other things that aren't implemented right now, but I'm working on is things like being able to use multiple screens simultaneously, and easily transfer items between them (like for the inventory, being able to drag an item to an NPC) - this is not possible right out of the box.

Other things that I've needed to make myself, although it does use at least part of the standard system, are things like custom in-game menus (I use a phone in-game to show things like an in-game photo-gallery (which I had to make), a custom save and load screen, custom confirm (for quit and main menu), custom preferences and so on. Since I'm also using the original screens for all of these items, I needed to create my own versions for the in-game system.

Ren'py is very good at "pure" VNs - the minute you start wanting to do something else, like non-linear, repeatable events, it gets a bit murkier. I'm aiming to make a sandbox-type game, in the same way as Summertime Saga, for instance, where you're mostly free to do and pursue whatever you want, but are limited by specific things like time-of-day and the like.

 

[Aesouh]

same way as Summertime Saga, for instance, where you're mostly free to do and pursue whatever you want, but are limited by specific things like time-of-day and the like.

It's interesting actually that so much of that had to be custom, so many renpy game these days are sandboxy, so they basically had to reinvent the wheel every time. That's interesting. I like how max's life works in many ways too, they seem to have a lot of these features and so far not too many game breaking bugs that comes with it, the have all the systems you mention. Summertime saga is quite good in that sense too, but they have had their fair share of game breaking bugs, i can only imagine all the spaghetti headache with implementing these custom features.

 

[Studio Errilhl]

The problem is most often that you have to redo things you already did when implementing things. Which is also part of the reason why I had to redo some of the codebase to make room for new and improved features. Renpy has its quirks, among them the screen-language which behaves a bit... out of the ordinary.

Given that most of the adult game devs ARE amateurs, you would expect some not-great-decisions happening, of course. You can usually see the improvement, though - like for instance in Summertime Saga, where the latter releases have become better and better. Same for other devs that have taken on new projects after their first one, and so on.

Currently, I would say that the decent engines are Ren'Py, Unity and perhaps Unreal, but the latter has a few license-issues that might hamper beginning devs, and creators of adult materials (if I remember correctly). Ren'Py is definitely the easiest to just pick up and create a game with - plenty of pre-built functionality, like Save / Load, menus and the ability to use sounds / music, videos, modern image formats etc. Unity provides the ability to create full-range 3D environments which you can move around in (but even the few that has tried to make such things, like The Twist, doesn't use it fully). There is probably a lot of unused potential in Unity, however it does demand more coding experience, and knowledge of C# (I think it's C#?)

 

[Droid Productions]

Yeah, Unity is C# (or Javascript/Boo if you want to be slightly higher level). It doesn't actually NEED to be 3D, you can make a fully 2D project in Unity, but it's certainly a bit more intricate. It doesn't have the same concept of conversations, flow, characters and so that RenPy does, because it's a general engine. So you're going to have to recreate all that kind of stuff first (what's a character, what's a character state, how do you transition, how do you make text that slowly unrolls, saving and loading, dialogs, etc) before you get into the actual MAKING of the game. I assume this is what Aesuh is planning to fix; make the scaffolding, then work with people who do story-telling / rendering to churn out a large number of VNs using the same basic tech.

 

[Aesouh]

There is probably a lot of unused potential in Unity, however it does demand more coding experience, and knowledge of C# (I think it's C#?)

I assume this is what Aesuh is planning to fix; make the scaffolding, then work with people who do story-telling / rendering to churn out a large number of VNs using the same basic tech.

Spot on, I'm using C# in Unity. While it has native 3d support I'm using it for 2d right now. I've already worked out some basics of a character, a text parser for dialogues/image changes/state changes also foreground characters even though not many VN's use it (basically most renders just switch out backgrounds only). I'm working out first of all to get up to speed to what features other games have, and then i'll add on some newer unique stuff. I don't see saving and loading as a problem at all however i need to finalize the states and dialogue branching in the best way possible for it to handle rewind, which is a fun task. Including having relationship stats and beeing able to add on any other types of stats that are required.

I'm trying to use quite agile methodology with how i approach this project, focusing on one feature at a time basically and having them as adaptive modules that will work alone or together with other modules without any hassle. Basically a sort of plugin&configure and play solution depending on requirements.

I'll be working together with some artist to get the flagship project out that will provide story and renders. It's going to take some time before i'm there, since I'm not exactly rushing it, and I have a lot of stuff going on IRL. The artist is also having some IRL stuff so not sure when I will be getting the sample renders. Of course I want this to be polished product when it comes out, so quality comes before quantity. Even such a thing as churning out demo's to see what people want is on the table.

Thanks btw for all the comments on the thread, i appreciate the interest and the discussions that comes around it.

 

[George Halstead]

Looking forward to trying ths out. Is there a scheduled release for folks to try friend ?

 

[Aesouh]

A game on the engine is on the way ,but to make your own game on it by yourself, no. It was never meant to be released like that.

 

[Hentami]

Interested in the idea of how the "Exclusive partnerships as service" works. This sounds like a fun idea. Any details on that?

 

[Aesouh]

Interested in the idea of how the "Exclusive partnerships as service" works. This sounds like a fun idea. Any details on that?

In summary it means you out source all your actual programming and feature development, that's why I will just take on projects that I see potential in and actually upholds a standard that represents the engine well.

 

[Aesouh]

First release of flagship game "Timestamps: Unconditional Love" on VNGINE in 1 month from now. Going to be a huge milestone for me as it will be the first VNGINE release. #Hype

 

[a.i.w.a.]

First release of flagship game "Timestamps: Unconditional Love" on VNGINE in 1 month from now. Going to be a huge milestone for me as it will be the first VNGINE release. #Hype

Hello! Tell me, is it possible after the game is released on your engine to add the translation to another language? It is known that games on Unity are almost impossible to translate. In this case, the translation of the flagship is interested ..

 

[Aesouh]

Hi, I don't really understand why it would matter if it's in unity? My game is already built mostly to handle different translations, but it's not easy to find a good translator where we can trust it's good quality and can always have translations ready for release. Also depends on language, maybe the fonts in the game can't handle all different characters, but then it's easy to fix that too

 

[a.i.w.a.]

[QUOTE = "Aesouh, post: 834359, участник: 206755"] Hi, I don't really understand why it would matter if it's in unity? My game is already built mostly to handle different translations, but it's not easy to find a good translator where we can trust it's good quality and can always have translations ready for release. Also depends on language, maybe the fonts in the game can't handle all different characters, but then it's easy to fix that too[/ QUOTE]

Yes. Built-in fonts (5-6 languages international) and easy access to the text. Many translators are just volunteers. If there is no problem with RenPy, then with Unity .. (