Why the hate against certain game engines? (especially Unity or Unreal)

[Winterfire]

I'm sure it is. But it's still not Renpy. I vaguely skimmed the documentation and it's already implementing it's own UI.

The point of Renpy is that you don't need more. Everything you'd want is already in there, you're talking about creating UI, but these are VNs, players don't give a fuck about your intricately designed UI. You talk about more features, but more features are never free, they add loading time, they add a maintenance cost, and they add complexity. I'll remind you that you're not making games so that you can admire how well you made it, but so that others can enjoy them.

I'm sorry, but that doesn't make any sense.

The first thing people ask when you're making a Ren'Py game is "Pls add scene replayer", "pls add gallery", "pls add a way to name your save files" and people generally find it lazy when a dev leaves ren'py default UI there (which, to be fair, doesn't really matter as much since it works, and what counts the most is the game itself).

Still, a full fledged Ren'Py game will still require more UI (Screens), even just to have a characters screen.
Even maps are extra UI, a phone system is extra UI, an inventory, and so on.
Even a pure visual novel with no inventory, phone system, maps (or any clickables) will eventually have a gallery or scene replayer at the very least, unless the dev ignores any request.

Last but not least, they don't add any loading time. That's probably the thing that makes the least sense to me. This really sounds like you're throwing terms around x) which is fine, but no, that's not how it works.

-edit-
And in case you meant game size, that also wouldn't be true. Majority of a game's size is due to renders and audio.

 

[Count Morado]

Alright I'm curious, what game?

Light of my life

 

[_user]

Last but not least, they don't add any loading time. That's probably the thing that makes the least sense to me. This really sounds like you're throwing terms around x) which is fine, but no, that's not how it works.

You really don't think features slow down a game ? The question is not if but by how much, although to be fair most of them will have a negligible impact on performance. Bloat is a real thing, and it has a performance, maintenance and complexity cost.

The first thing people ask when you're making a Ren'Py game is "Pls add scene replayer", "pls add gallery", "pls add a way to name your save files" and people generally find it lazy when a dev leaves ren'py default UI there (which, to be fair, doesn't really matter as much since it works, and what counts the most is the game itself).

This is really a porn only thing. Your average VN on steam doesn't need a scene replayer.

 

[Winterfire]

You really don't think features slow down a game ? The question is not if but by how much, although to be fair most of them will have a negligible impact on performance. Bloat is a real thing, and it has a performance, maintenance and complexity cost.

Both in Ren'Py and Unity, they're loaded when called/needed, otherwise they don't stay in the background. However, *even* if they survived in the background, you'd need thousand of them before making any real impact.

What they do affect is build time (Only the developer has to worry about it), and game's size (negligible).

This is really a porn only thing. Your average VN on steam doesn't need a scene replayer.

Maybe I am just biased, since all projects I've done, I've had a bunch of users asking for a scene replayer.
Truth to be told, even as a player, I really appreciate a scene replayer so I can replay my favourite scenes (Rather than relying on a save/load).

 

[_user]

What they do affect is build time (Only the developer has to worry about it), and game's size (negligible).

I'll agree with you that most features will have a trivial impact on performance, although again, this really depends on the feature.
The real cost is in complexity and maintenance. Let's take your editing saves example, suddenly you need to always take into account that saves can potentially have a different name. Instead of letting renpy handle it, you need to do it yourself. Which is a problem when you update Renpy to a new version. It also adds another button to the UI, another button that needs to be localized, another button that needs to be placed properly. Something so trivial, becomes an additional headache you take on. And the more of these small things you pile on, the more complex your game becomes and the harder it gets to develop on.

 

[Winterfire]

I'll agree with you that most features will have a trivial impact on performance, although again, this really depends on the feature.
The real cost is in complexity and maintenance. Let's take your editing saves example, suddenly you need to always take into account that saves can potentially have a different name. Instead of letting renpy handle it, you need to do it yourself. Which is a problem when you update Renpy to a new version. It also adds another button to the UI, another button that needs to be localized, another button that needs to be placed properly. Something so trivial, becomes an additional headache you take on. And the more of these small things you pile on, the more complex your game becomes and the harder it gets to develop on.

Yeah, I agree it's a hassle in Ren'Py, which is my whole point. In Unity, you just need to drag and drop the button wherever you want, and if you designed the UI properly, it'll even auto-fit it for you. Localization is just adding a label, both literally take few seconds, unfortunately the same cannot be said for Ren'Py.

 

[Ying Ko]

While I enjoy gameplay beyond what Ren'Py can deliver, when It's NSFW, this is more important to me:

Patches: Inc.

 

[XforU]

90% of Unreal Engine NSFW games are badly optimized, barely use the engine's capabilities and are massive in terms of memory space.

At least that's why I avoid them.

 

[Nuverotic]

Also, congrats on getting over $100 USD per month. You made it into the top half of all Patreon creators AND in such a short time (<4 months?).

But you should also know that there are many creators who do put in full time hours on Ren'Py for years and never make what you are already making. And there are a good number who lay out money on artists or 3D model assets, etc.

So no matter which engine a developer chooses - if they are committing themselves to their project, no matter how much time they have available - ya'all need to stand together rather than pit each other against one another because of which engine. There are too many entitled children who play games from sites like F95 who will try to tear you each a part because "you're a milker" "you're a scammer" "you take too much time" "you focus on the wrong content" etc etc.

1. First of all thank you. I'm just out there trying to make the game I want to play. People have seemed to like what I'm doing.

2. I can't imaging paying a 3D Artist, Animator or anything else. Since you can learn these things on your own and hiring one costs a FORTUNE... That being said, I don't have much room to talk because over the past decade I've bought 10's of thousands of dollars worth of assets from Daz and Unreal... Almost like an addiction. 90% of it stuff I'll never use I just thought was cool.

3. Absolutely we have to stick together... Help eachother out. Not tear eachother down. Because just like you say, the users will do that for us. The users are like a bunch of sharks in the ocean, just attacking developers over the most stupid and self entitled crap... I honestly can see why a lot of developers give up. There's no money in this unless you basically hit the lottery, and your users are going to treat you like shit.

 

[Nuverotic]

90% of Unreal Engine NSFW games are badly optimized, barely use the engine's capabilities and are massive in terms of memory space.
At least that's why I avoid them.

This is what's taking me so long with my Unreal game... I spend more than 3 times optimizing things, vs building levels or creating blueprints. It's a serious process. I think a lot of Dev's also just use the DazToUnreal bridge and throw their Daz characters straight into Unreal which, is bad for optimization due to ridiculous poly counts and TERRIBLE dForce hair.

I think what makes mine work, is that I have oldschool resident evil style static camera's. And everything outside of the camera view gets culled. It's like those old 90's point and click games but with realistic "graphics"... So luckily, most of the objects in my game are hidden while you play, making optimization easier. But not really though, I'm still optimizing per texture with virtual textures, nanite, mass lights, and all of Unreal's new tech to help optimize... It's a never ending battle. But I hope that when I'm done it'll run smooth as butter even with like, I don't know, a 900 series GTX.

 

[balitz Method]

Unity tried to pull that ridiculous licensing scheme a while back and while they were shamed into dropping it now everyone knows what's in their soul.

 

[Infamyxxx]

Ren'Py can do a lot more than just a basic click and jump to the next scene type of VN games btw. You can create score system, inventory system, drag and drop, and of course, point and click for any button or item interactions. I have even seen Ren'Py tutorials for turn based combat mechanic as well. Sure, it can't do what Unity and Unreal have to offer but it's still an awesome engine for gamedevs who want to create simulation games or make VNs with more features other than choices and branching paths.

 

[Nuverotic]

Ren'Py can do a lot more than just a basic click and jump to the next scene type of VN games btw. You can create score system, inventory system, drag and drop, and of course, point and click for any button or item interactions. I have even seen Ren'Py tutorials for turn based combat mechanic as well. Sure, it can't do what Unity and Unreal have to offer but it's still an awesome engine for gamedevs who want to create simulation games or make VNs with more features other than choices and branching paths.

Absolutely. I'm not knocking Ren'Py.. In fact, I had created a Wardrobe system in it, that ran through various image sequences, so let's say you were wearing underwear, and wanted to get into your formal gown, it would show the image sequence of you getting out of your underwear, and into your formal gown. And this worked with any cross selection of clothing. Over 15 outfits you could get in and out of and the code would handle the sequence.
I had also created a randomizer for things the people would say if the scene was a repeatable. So you'd never hear the same dialogue twice.

But that's exactly what made me switch to Unreal. I was getting heavy into code systems and just thought to myself, man, Unreal can handle this WAY easier... And in more depth... But the real problem was, creating a scene for each of the 15 outfits. That was what was killing me. A scene of 10 images, turned into a scene of 150... And obviously, in Unreal, you set up the outfits once, and you can swap them any time.

So yea, Ren'Py is very cool. But limited. Or I should say "Python" is very cool.

 

[Infamyxxx]

But that's exactly what made me switch to Unreal. I was getting heavy into code systems and just thought to myself, man, Unreal can handle this WAY easier... And in more depth... But the real problem was, creating a scene for each of the 15 outfits. That was what was killing me. A scene of 10 images, turned into a scene of 150... And obviously, in Unreal, you set up the outfits once, and you can swap them any time.

So yea, Ren'Py is very cool. But limited. Or I should say "Python" is very cool.

I'm assuming that you're working with 3D models. If you are, then your concern is understandable. Ren'Py does have layered image feature but I don't really see how it can work with 3DCG. Even for 2D works, it's cumbersome if you have animated sprites.

 

[Nuverotic]

I'm assuming that you're working with 3D models. If you are, then your concern is understandable. Ren'Py does have layered image feature but I don't really see how it can work with 3DCG. Even for 2D works, it's cumbersome if you have animated sprites.

Yea it was Daz Studio Characters. The Main Character had 15 outfits. Even with a 4090 renders would take 2-5 minutes. My sets were jam packed with objects/props and lighting. So yea, a simple scene that would normally be 10 renders and take 45 minutes, would now be 150 renders and take all night. And there were, thousands of scenes to do in the game... lol.

But I'm done with all that nonsense. Now I'm in Unreal.

 

[That other person]

The problem isn't performance... It's developers not optimizing their games. Unreal has a lot of features, and a lot of things you have to be aware of and optimize. Most developers are too lazy to go around optimizing every texture, material, light, landscape, tree, mesh, etc etc...

Fair enough, I should have made a point about that. Optimization is key and many are either too new at developing games to use these engines to the max, or too lazy like you said, which leads to horrible performance.

Now, let no one that reads this assume I'm badass at developing. I can't make this at all, no, which is precisely why I rather not just shit on devs for any reason. Unless they act like complete assholes I guess. But yeah, some engines are clearly more amateur-friendly than others. To take full advantage of these more experience and effort is needed, which is something many devs in here don't quite have.

 

[Nuverotic]

Fair enough, I should have made a point about that. Optimization is key and many are either too new at developing games to use these engines to the max, or too lazy like you said, which leads to horrible performance.

Now, let no one that reads this assume I'm badass at developing. I can't make this at all, no, which is precisely why I rather not just shit on devs for any reason. Unless they act like complete assholes I guess. But yeah, some engines are clearly more amateur-friendly than others. To take full advantage of these more experience and effort is needed, which is something many devs in here don't quite have.

100%

 

[Jaike]

Whatever his opinion on engines (or bomb/arson threats to NTR devs), Amazoness King's doing pretty okay as a Patreon dev tho: about € 900 on a collab project and over € 400 on his personal page, monthly. Probably not enough to live off but a decent extra coin in Latin America.

 

[yoyomistro]

Usually those engines get hate when the dev is making a VN/Tiled RPG in them. Frankly, most devs suck, and the best way to have quick access to bug fixes/cheats/UI mods is with RPGM or Ren'Py. I personally mod a ton of games in these engines both for myself alone and to share on here.

The dev's engine choice depending on the type of game they are making can also tell you how familiar they are with the adult gaming scene. If a new dev makes a VN in Unity with 10 save slots, no rollback, solid textbox, and no instant text, that's a ton of red flags and tells you to avoid the project, even though there might be something worth checking out there. If you wanted to do stuff like that in Ren'py, you'd have to go out of your way to do it, and people would know right away you're trying to create an annoying UX on purpose, not just from lack of experience or using a bad engine.

There are good devs that use Unity; Faerin for example has made all his games in Unity, and they are sandbox-style VNs/Management games, and he has awesome UIs and the UX is pretty similar quality to a well-crafted Ren'Py VN. He also doesn't have gamebreaking bugs often, and when he does he fixes them immediately. He's also responsive to player requests for UI and UX improvements. The overwhelming majority of Unity VN devs do not craft a Faerin-tier experience; nor are they utilizing any of the advantages Unity grants over Ren'Py. They are usually making a sloppy, badly-optimized VN experience that would have been better handled in Ren'Py and could be easily modded by many members of the community. There are games on here that have reach largely due to mods people make for them.

For example, there's a game that the dev made a custom UI for in Ren'py that fucked up the user experience, and had a ton of "lifestyle" grind mechanics (eating, showering, etc.) that just made the game tedious. I made a mod for it and I would guess at least 70% of the regular players used my mod to even have a decent experience with the game. Eventually he had to incorporate some of my changes to the base game, but for the most part people still relied on my mod. I stopped modding the game since the dev was a flake who would put out literal 2-minute releases every other month just to say he did something, and I was artificially boosting the playability of the game. Not to mention that it took longer to update my mod than to actually get through an update. I've made a couple public mods for RPGM games, but mostly I mod those just for myself.

Anyway, the point is this community largely relies on modding and shorthand assessments to determine if a game is worth your time or not. Unity and Unreal games make that process harder and reduce the options players have to engage with your games. If you can craft a decent experience that respects people's time, they won't mind; but most people aren't willing to take that risk. The same applies to other engines, BTW--even supposed VN engines.

 

[tanstaafl]

You can create score system, inventory system, drag and drop, and of course, point and click for any button or item interactions.

You can create pretty much anything that python can handle in renpy if you're good enough. Years ago when I still considered making a game (before giving up that notion due to laziness and lack of artistry) I was planning on creating a plugin for renpy that emulated the game Uplink as a hacking section of the game. Uplink was a very graphic light hacker game that came out in 2001 that would be fairly easy to recreate with python.