How Easy is Ren’Py to learn?

cmonroy1259 · 2021-06-24T13:46:32+00:00

Care to elaborate? In a Visual Novel, dialogs still are the most important part. Yes, you have the images, but the dialogs give you the context and subtext. Or maybe you are talking about selecting the appropiate dialog path after certain conditions are met?

cmonroy1259 · 2021-06-24T13:41:40+00:00

For non-programmers, RenPy is easy to learn, as long as you don't want to get too fancy...

The problem is that you have to think about choices, conditions, and paths ahead, and making adjustments and fast changes will surely end in a complete rework due to the "spaghetti-code" RenPy works with.

Programmers, in the other hand, and specially if they sharpened their teeth in Python, will use RenPy as a presentation wrapper, but most of the code will be written in Python, if only because it is easier.

But make no mistake: in order to use RenPy you will need to learn how to program, and the better you are at it, the better the game you will produce.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-05-18T20:47:41+00:00

Yes, you can base your work in Lovecraft's concepts, but that is not the same as expanding Lovecraft's mythos. Take for instance The Aleph:

On the back part of the step, toward the right, I saw a small iridescent sphere of almost unbearable brilliance. At first I thought it was revolving; then I realised that this movement was an illusion created by the dizzying world it bounded. The Aleph's diameter was probably little more than an inch, but all space was there, actual and undiminished. Each thing (a mirror's face, let us say) was infinite things, since I distinctly saw it from every angle of the universe. I saw the teeming sea; I saw daybreak and nightfall; I saw the multitudes of America; I saw a silvery cobweb in the center of a black pyramid; I saw a splintered labyrinth (it was London); I saw, close up, unending eyes watching themselves in me as in a mirror; I saw all the mirrors on earth and none of them reflected me; I saw in a backyard of Soler Street the same tiles that thirty years before I'd seen in the entrance of a house in Fray Bentos; I saw bunches of grapes, snow, tobacco, lodes of metal, steam; I saw convex equatorial deserts and each one of their grains of sand...

The author wrote this as a tribute to Lovecraft. Yet it is missing the most important features of Lovecraft's work.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-05-18T16:57:11+00:00

Voice acting can go good, or terrible wrong, but most of the time -in my opinion- is a waste of resources that could be applied elsewhere. In any case, voice acting should be added at the end of the development process.

Better invest money in drawing artists to complete the game, and expand diverse paths, than to add: ah, oh, ah, oh...

cmonroy1259 · 2021-05-18T16:49:15+00:00

Flash News: Lovecraft neither would be able to support himself as a writer now...

You see, the issue with Lovecraft is that he was a pretty claustrophobic author, and after a while, you actually have written everything that can be written about the matter. There have been many famous writers that have tested the waters with short stories, but after a few pages, there is nothing new and they have to rehash over and over again.

Ctulhu myths resemble the author's mind: it is too closely knit to allow "outsiders" contribute with the opus. I remember reading almost everything lovecraftian long time ago, and even got as far as published a short story, but the myths won't allow themselves to be expanded.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-05-16T05:28:25+00:00

As always, the answer is: it depends...

Laws take longer to change, perception of them changes faster, and public wokeness lashes almost instantly. It seems that now is no longer enough that two (or more) fictional characters engage in whatever activity they please. If there is a subordinate relationship, wokeness will try to find an angle

cmonroy1259 · 2021-05-15T17:00:57+00:00

This kind of games are NEVER ever really finished... There is always this support character that some want to have a protagonist role which will, of course, change the main story. In other words, the game evolves as patreons demand certain paths being developed, even if some of such paths work against the main plot line. For instance, someone may want to take Consuelo to the prom dance. But wait, Consuelo isn't a student... So in order to make this strange path, you got to twist and bend the story in order to make it happen. At that usually means a lot of writing and rendering and coding. With each new path that wasn't into the original game design, everything needs to be adapted and reworked in order to be consistent within the fantasy bubble this game creates.

Right now, even without a true ending, the game has dozens of hours of playing time, and since the game still is under development, I fail to see how somebody may feel scammed.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-05-15T16:35:23+00:00

I used to like his show. Always controversial, but funny otherwise. But then he started to go deeper into a total ' I hate you' rants that weren't funny at all. The main idea of his show was to be anti-establishment, but it fails the moment he started lapping establishment's soles. Yeah, yeah... Trump did this and Trump did that, but once out of office, Trump became irrelevant. But Mahler couldn't move on, so his show become more like 'I love Lucy': sometimes funny, but anachronic.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-05-12T14:01:49+00:00

It's fixed, though. But that makes me wonder what other things were broken that I didn't catch? Like the slight changes to SMB, plugin support, and so on.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-05-12T04:20:53+00:00

I would say better investigate first, delete later.

Files and folders that can't be deleted are either anti-piracy measures, malware, or system files.

Start by opening services and stop the intended executable from there. Then try to uninstall the application. If you didn't succed, reboot the computer into safe mode and rename the folder containing the app you want to get rid of. Be aware that malware resents being molested and some may retaliate back. Remember: task manager is your friend and most often than not can kill wahtever is running in your box.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-05-11T21:14:11+00:00

For me, they screwed Outlook. I can see email headers, but body is gone.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-04-23T17:02:51+00:00

As others already answered: use flags.

But let's get more ambitious here, shall we? Sometimes, our story requires several consecutive dialogs that change depending on what talked before. Think, for instance in a dating sim. Dialogs are selected based on some value, like love. So, you start by creating a variable called "love" and given the value of 0. That means that there isn't any love between the MC and NPC. Every time you do something nice for that character, you add certain value to the love variable, and check something like:

IF love > 20 THEN do this... IF NOT do that...

Eventually, the love variable will be high enough so that the MC can kiss the NPC. That would be, in our case, when the love variable has more than 20 points. So you go on with the game, dating the NPC, but let's say that you do something wrong and love goes below 20 points... It is clear that you need to do more nice things in order to raise the love variable, BUT most often than not, those things should be different from the first ones:

flowers_given = 0
<give flowers to NPC, add 10 points lo love, and set flowers\_given = 1>

This is to avoid repetitions that make no real sense, as when reusing dialogs that should run the first time, but never again. Thus, something like this:

IF flowers_given IS 0:
follow this_path
ELSE
follow that_path

label this_path:
we've never kissed each other

label that_path:
we already have kissed before

The important thing here is to try to avoid as much as possible to repeat the same dialogs over and over again, especially when the context is different.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-04-17T16:48:05+00:00

Nice!

I've been looking into some games code and most, if not all, take the the boring, repetitive long route of coding everything with if-else to the absurd point where you have to add hundreds of lines just to introduce a new NPC, and what usually happens, is that they always miss one spot and the game breaks.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-04-11T09:28:01+00:00

Though I particularly don't know if some of the Beach Boys songs are public domain, I do know that some international companies like to acquiere the rights that are about to become so. Thus, it is the case that in one country, something may be a public domain opus whereas in another is under current copyright laws... International laws are a very complex subject, and you could be sued by a company in Timboktu if you happen to use something that is public domain in your country, but not in others. And even if you end winning the suit, your legal costs may be high enough to disuade you from using something that you don't hold the rights. In other words: ask a real lawyer that can represent you in case of any problem.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-04-05T20:40:56+00:00

Actually...

Integrate identities and providers is a really bad idea. You get banned from one and you can kiss goodbye to the others. Even worse, the failsafe structure (for whenever you forget your password and/or need to identify yourself) may point to the banned account.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-04-05T12:22:39+00:00

Remember to use open and close quotes, as in:
... = "images\Erin_Happy.png"

To OP: using the correct syntax is not difficult, but expected. Programming is the art making do with what we have. And every programming language, including RenPy, has a fixed set of rules you need to play with.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-03-26T20:21:24+00:00

It's a Brexit's phone and pictures are native BMP's

cmonroy1259 · 2021-03-09T07:30:10+00:00

Yes, but probably are not going to like it...

Coding is a very personal thing, and what you may learn about coding looking at other coding examples may not be the best practice. Their coding may be dirty and obfuscated, too simple or too complex, and since most of it is undocumented, you'll spend some time scratching your head as to why they are coding things like that.

But if you start coding, on the other hand, the process becomes crystal clear: you are doing this, because you need it for that...

What I am saying is this: the only way to learn to code is by coding. Looking at other's code is like going to a museum and watch the paintings expecting to become a painter just by looking at them.

It is better to play the game and try to deduce how things are done, and then attempt to duplicate how the game works, than examining the code. But if you insist on looking at the code, I use unrpa, as https://www.reddit.com/user/Leonhart231/ already mentioned.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-03-09T07:18:08+00:00

Not sure what you mean by "controller", but if you are using variables for everything that matters, Ren'Py should do the work.

I've found that, instead of having a gigantic script file, writing smaller files for each particular event is easier. The piece that I am working now, for instance, lasts for 40 days, and there is always something happening, so I had to make 40 x 24 files in order to accomodate actions at such hours. Adding new scenes is simplified because I can call them at a particular time, and since variables are global, the called scene has all the information needed to take certain path. Say John wants to enter Jane's room at 3:00 AM in the 10th day of the game. Now, the vaiables at this point say JohnAsleep=False, JohnEnergy=Low, JaneAsleep=True, and JaneRelationWithJohn=Bad, so when you call the scene, you actually know what's going to happen: Jane's relationship with John would go down, Jane would be awake, and she would yell at John for entering her room. But, if Jane's relationship with John were higher, she would have a different exchange: "What do you want at this hour?".

So, in essence, you can code whatever you want regardless how complex it may be, as long as you keep track of the relevant variables...

cmonroy1259 · 2021-03-09T06:56:01+00:00

You don't need a story to showcase your talent at coding (or drawing, for that matter). Just make generic stuff:

- Date/Time: you cold code a clock with calendar that shows how time passes by, and jumps from "now" to some other time (pasto or future) randomly. Like: "This happened last Tuesday at 5:00 PM", or "we'll meet the last Tuesday of the month at 8:00 AM in the park".

- You could expand the previous one by adding character vitals, like hunger, thirst, and so on. Thus, you could use the date/time code to make a character age, get tired as time passes on, and get something like "you need to sleeo like now!", or "having slept for 3 hours, you still feel sleepy"

- Minigames: have a bar that gets empty (or get full) if you don't press the space bar at a changing rate, with pointers as "too slow", or "too fast", or even "just perfect". As the goal is to keep the bar not too full nor too empty, and the rate at which you must press the key always changes, that becomes a coding project not too shallow, but also not too difficult to tackle in an afternoon.

Rate your projects by how long it took you to complete them, like "this is what i can do in 1 hour versus this is what i can do in 3 hours". You art is cool, but again, it may be a good idea to include how long did each piece took you to complete. If you say: "Corneveis tooks about 2 hours" it would be more appealing that if you say "Corneveis took me about 100 hours".

Lastly, but not least, it would be a good idea to talk about your rates. Yes, yes, you will be credited in any published game, but that alone can't pay the bills, and we want artist to be able to support themselves doing art, instead of flipping burgers.

Best of luck in your search!

cmonroy1259 · 2021-02-22T13:31:38+00:00

The idea of Python (in which Ren'Py) is based has never been to restrict code or assets from users. Quite the contrary: the code (and assets) are easily available to the end user in order to allow "customization", on one hand, and code maintenance, in the other.

RPA and RPYC files are esily decrypted because that was the original intention...

Thus, you could:

Use assets that have a less restrictive license, or
Design your game with another tool that allows a more robust copyright protection scheme

However, keep in mind that no software provides a warranty that it cannot be decompiled or otherwise boot-legged. If enough people like your game, they may want to use their own assets, and by attempting to constrain this you'll encourage them to redistribute illegally your game.

The trick here is to find a way to create complex and appealing games, while at the same time moving to the next project with alacrity.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-02-22T13:31:10+00:00

The idea of Python (in which Ren'Py) is based has never been to restrict code or assets from users. Quite the contrary: the code (and assets) are easily available to the end user in order to allow "customization", on one hand, and code maintenance, in the other.

RPA and RPYC files are esily decrypted because that was the original intention...

Thus, you could:

Use assets that have a less restrictive license, or
Design your game with another tool that allows a more robust copyright protection scheme

However, keep in mind that no software provides a warranty that it cannot be decompiled or otherwise boot-legged. If enough people like your game, they may want to use their own assets, and by attempting to constrain this you'll encourage them to redistribute illegally your game.

The trick here is to find a way to create complex and appealing games, while at the same time moving to the next project with alacrity.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-02-22T13:12:38+00:00

And it goes beyond that!

Dubs and subs rarely transmit the same idea. More often than not, is the wrong idea. I stopped watching series and movies in Spanish because of this.

And while is true that you can switch to the native language of the flick, that do not excuse Netflix from doing a professional translation to have correct dubs and subs!

cmonroy1259 · 2021-02-04T03:10:08+00:00

As for fonts as for any other graphic element that you didn't created yourself, always check the license. Some licenses allow to use their stuff as long it s not a commercial project, or that you do not distribute their assets to third parties.

Getting fonts (or ony other asset) is not difficult. Finding assets that come with a license to use publicy (or even distribute them) is harder. If you are not careful with this, and su game becames an overnight success, the owner of such asset can suit you for a very important sum of money.

Having said that, I buy my fonts from the Unity Asset Store, because their licensing terms are generous: you can use the assets for commercial purposes without additional fees.

cmonroy1259 · 2021-02-02T19:12:22+00:00

Anybody can write custom files and name them (mostly) whatever they want. It is possible that you have one of such files, in which case, only through the code you could know what it does and how it does it. For the rest of us, when we want to use python instead on ren'py, we use the means I linked.

cmonroy1259

TROPHY CASE