Where to from here...

[Xdisme]

Hey everyone,

I've been plugging away at learning some basic coding for years, usually getting frustrated when hitting a dead end or worrying about bricking my computer with a sketchy 'solution' that turned out to be malware. I finally got serious and bashed out a working branching VN with about 3 minutes of game play with Renpy. My question is, now what???

Do I dive in and try and try to understand how other games were coded and work? Reverse engineer a favorite? Post my demo and get feedback? I learn best by doing and having a goal, but the demo project was just that and I don't intend to flesh it out into anything beyond just proof I can get to multiple ends without hitting an error.

Any thoughts, suggestions, experiences or ideas you can share are much appreciated!

xD

 

[Verdance]

Hey there! It sounds like you're at a bit of a standstill when it comes to motivation to me.

Let's take your demo project. Now that it's completed I'd say it's yours to do with whatever you want ^_^ So if feedback on it would be valuable to you then sure, post away! But I'm sure you learned a lot making it which begs the question, did anything you learn inspire ideas for your next project? If so, run with that!

As to looking at other games, just keep in mind the game engine used to make them could be different than what you're used to. For that, my question would be to clarify: Do you think you want to keep working with Ren'Py for now or is there something you have in mind which you need / want a different engine for? From there, you can narrow your approach down a bit.

I guess the TLDR is just: If you don't want to flesh out your demo, what do you want to do instead?

As for that malware issue, that's... concerning. I don't use Ren'Py so you'll have to forgive me for anything I say wrong on it but are you talking about plugins/libraries/whatever Ren'Py calls them? Or exterior programs used to make resources for your project?

Edited cus my "TLDR" was decidedly a smily face upon further inspection.