Tonight I'm going back to the usual tone I've set lately, and delve into some of the programming issues I've been wrestling with. It comes with a surprising revelation: I'm actually sort of okay at this thing it seems.
I still feel like a hack when assembling things, but tonight was one of those nights where I made a plan, followed it through, then came up with a better way to do it immediately after. So I'm going to be talking about that.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Monday, December 12, 2016
How do you make a game?
Today I'm going to take a break from what I've been writing about lately to talk about new lessons I've learned as an indie game developer (and why it feels weird to call myself that). While I won't be talking about programming issues (at least not directly), I'm going to instead discuss some of the other lessons I've learned the last couple of months.
So hopefully someone out there finds this useful. I need a break from the usual thing anyways.
So hopefully someone out there finds this useful. I need a break from the usual thing anyways.
Monday, November 28, 2016
Ren'Py, the DSE, and How Events Work
So, I have mentioned in the past that programming is hard.
What a surprise, right?
Well, today's bit of weirdness comes from the way the DSE framework in Ren'Py handles events, the way it processes those events, and the way that it determines when to execute an event.
So here was my issue: When setting up the core events for my game, I came across a truly strange interaction where the game began to execute a specific event, despite the fact that it was in neither the correct location, nor the correct time, or even the correct day within the game.
My first instinct was that maybe it was a typo. I was visiting the laboratory, but for some reason one of the character's generic events was playing out that occurred in the library! So maybe I'd just made a spelling error in the event.
Turns out it wasn't so simple. Or rather, it was simple, but not in the way I had expected.
After turning it over and over, I finally managed to hammer down what was going on, and in the process learned something about how it processes variables.
See, here's what the event code looked like:
Turns out, what I was doing was totally wrong, because none of those conditions was actually causing the event to play. What I should have typed was this:
Instead of triggering the events when all of the conditions were met, it seemed more than happy to select the events based on their priority, totally ignoring the variable block.
All because I didn't use the word 'and' to separate my variables.
Hopefully someone finds this useful someday. In the meantime, it's back to the grind with me. There's so much work left to do, but this seemed like one of those major things that was really just a minor thing. Really though, I felt proud when I figured it out on my own, and without needing to consult the Internet for help.
**EDIT**
I AM AN IDIOT AND YOU SHOULD IGNORE THAT STUFF ABOVE BECAUSE IT'S STILL WRONG.
So after spending almost literally my entire night, here's the way the code blocks should really look:
LESSONS CONTINUE TO BE LEARNED!
What a surprise, right?
Well, today's bit of weirdness comes from the way the DSE framework in Ren'Py handles events, the way it processes those events, and the way that it determines when to execute an event.
So here was my issue: When setting up the core events for my game, I came across a truly strange interaction where the game began to execute a specific event, despite the fact that it was in neither the correct location, nor the correct time, or even the correct day within the game.
My first instinct was that maybe it was a typo. I was visiting the laboratory, but for some reason one of the character's generic events was playing out that occurred in the library! So maybe I'd just made a spelling error in the event.
Turns out it wasn't so simple. Or rather, it was simple, but not in the way I had expected.
After turning it over and over, I finally managed to hammer down what was going on, and in the process learned something about how it processes variables.
See, here's what the event code looked like:
$ event("cyn_base_library", "act == 'library', tod == '3', dow == '3'", event.only(), priority=175)
$ event("cyn_base_library", "act == 'library', tod == '1', dow == '1'", event.only(), priority=175)
$ event("cyn_base_library", "act == 'library', tod == '1', dow == '7'", event.only(), priority=175)
$ event("cyn_base_garden", "act == 'garden', tod == '3', dow == '2', day >= '5', cyn_rel >= '1'", event.only(), priority=175)
$ event("cyn_base_garden", "act == 'garden', tod == '3', dow == '6', cyn_rel >= '1'", event.only(), priority=175)
$ event("cyn_base_lab", "act == 'laboratory', tod == '4', dow == '4', cyn_rel >= '1'", event.only(), priority=175)
Turns out, what I was doing was totally wrong, because none of those conditions was actually causing the event to play. What I should have typed was this:
$ event("cyn_base_library", "act == 'library' and tod == '3' and dow == '3'", event.only(), priority=175)
$ event("cyn_base_library", "act == 'library' and tod == '1' and dow == '1'", event.only(), priority=175)
$ event("cyn_base_library", "act == 'library' and tod == '1' and dow == '7'", event.only(), priority=175)
$ event("cyn_base_garden", "act == 'garden' and tod == '3' and dow == '2' and day >= '5' and cyn_rel >= '1'", event.only(), priority=175)
$ event("cyn_base_garden", "act == 'garden' and tod == '3' and dow == '6' and cyn_rel >= '1'", event.only(), priority=175)
$ event("cyn_base_lab", "act == 'laboratory' and tod == '4' and dow == '4' and cyn_rel >= '1'", event.only(), priority=175)
Instead of triggering the events when all of the conditions were met, it seemed more than happy to select the events based on their priority, totally ignoring the variable block.
All because I didn't use the word 'and' to separate my variables.
Hopefully someone finds this useful someday. In the meantime, it's back to the grind with me. There's so much work left to do, but this seemed like one of those major things that was really just a minor thing. Really though, I felt proud when I figured it out on my own, and without needing to consult the Internet for help.
**EDIT**
I AM AN IDIOT AND YOU SHOULD IGNORE THAT STUFF ABOVE BECAUSE IT'S STILL WRONG.
So after spending almost literally my entire night, here's the way the code blocks should really look:
You will note that the variables have been moved outside of the second block. It's because the 'and' statement may or may not work. But it probably won't, so don't use it in that context.
$ event("cyn_base_library", "act == 'library'", event.only(), "tod == 3", "dow == 3", priority=175)
$ event("cyn_base_library", "act == 'library'", event.only(), "tod == 1", "dow == 1", priority=175)
$ event("cyn_base_library", "act == 'library'", event.only(), "tod == 1", "dow == 7", priority=175)
$ event("cyn_base_garden", "act == 'garden'", event.only(), "tod == 3", "dow == 2", "day >= 5", "cyn_rel >= 1", priority=175)
$ event("cyn_base_garden", "act == 'garden'", event.only(), "tod == 3", "dow == 6", "cyn_rel >= 1", priority=175)
$ event("cyn_base_lab", "act == 'laboratory'", event.only(), "tod == 4", "dow == 4", "cyn_rel >= 1", priority=175)
LESSONS CONTINUE TO BE LEARNED!
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Programming is Hard
Been awhile since I updated. There's a reason for that: My actual job has been keeping me busy. And by busy I mean working the crap out of me. I've been putting in overtime hours for the last few months.
I've kept plugging away at this programming thing, and understanding how DSE works. The original intention was to use this as a precursor for a gamedev blog - so people could get updates on progress. This is difficult to do when the most I can do is poke at the coding for a couple hours at most, and compounded by my working every day of the week.
Still, not an insurmountable task. I've learned quite a lot about many things, a great many deal regarding the DSE (and just how friggin' powerful it can be!).
Speaking to others about my not-so-secret project, I describe myself as less a programmer and more of a hacker. I don't come up with a lot of code myself, mostly I appropriate from others until I get it to do what I want it to. This has mixed amounts of success, but I'm really proud of how far I've come these last few months.
When last I left off, I was dealing with syntax issues, and understanding why the code wasn't recognizing my Day variables. Given tonight's little project, I think this is a nice time to review.
So, anything that occurs during the init line is not set in stone - those are the default values set in when the game launches. Any variables changed during the course of the game should be saved as a state when Ren'Py saves the game - meaning even if Day = 0 on launching the game, it will still be Day 39 when you load your game (rigorous testing concluded this functioned properly).
After much hacking, I've accomplished not merely setting up additional time slots for events to occur, but I've also locked choices during specific days of the week, removed them from the planning menus, and also set aside an option for these things to be overridden should the need arise (say, a holiday for example). The scope of the game is pretty large, perhaps too large to be reasonably accomplished, but I'm not one to let something like that keep me from progressing.
Today's project (or the project I started a few days ago really) involved a very simple thing: How do we make sure that events play out only in a specific location, at a specific time? For reference, the events are structured like so:
These are some of the placeholders I'm using for now, but they illustrate what I'm working with. Let me break down the code for you: The first part of the string is the event that is occurring (so I have for example an event named 'office'). The second part, the 'act', tells us that this event plays out when the current act is the 'office' option from the planning menu. So when you go to the office, the office event plays out. The 'only' descriptor states that this is the only event that should play out, and any other possible options should be pushed aside regardless of whether they are eligible to play out. Lastly, we have the priority, which tells us how important this event is in relation to the others. In this case, all of my events here are set at a priority of 200, which isn't too terribly important since 100 is the recommended default.
So I set up some testing events to play out, to make sure they occurred properly.
It worked just fine. The second one though, that took a bit of doing. Because for some reason, it just would. Not. Trigger.
I spent the last few days pounding my head against the wall figuring out why. Was it not tracking the period name? Or was it not referring to the variable correctly? After much running in circles, I realized the error of my ways, and also learned about something very cool I could do.
The problem... was the priority of the second event. Because it is lower on the list than cemetery, which as I noted has an event.only tag, it was being disregarded every time. As soon as it was placed on a lower priority, like with the first event, it played out correctly the next time I visited the cemetery in the late evening.
This revelation however opened my mind to how powerful this events system can be. Because you see, I can have multiple events play out, in order, so long as they are not pushing one another out.
So for example, I can have the normal cemetery event play, where a player arrives at the location and gets a brief description, and then it can load the next event, where they meet a character.
Needless to say, this is a pretty powerful revelation to have, and I really look forward to the day when I can openly share more about what the game is intended to be. But for now, I have to keep playing with code until the framework is solid. And also cobble together some art assets.
But so far, I'm rather proud of the improvements I've made so far, and the amount I've learned about how DSE, and Ren'Py in general, work.
I've kept plugging away at this programming thing, and understanding how DSE works. The original intention was to use this as a precursor for a gamedev blog - so people could get updates on progress. This is difficult to do when the most I can do is poke at the coding for a couple hours at most, and compounded by my working every day of the week.
Still, not an insurmountable task. I've learned quite a lot about many things, a great many deal regarding the DSE (and just how friggin' powerful it can be!).
Speaking to others about my not-so-secret project, I describe myself as less a programmer and more of a hacker. I don't come up with a lot of code myself, mostly I appropriate from others until I get it to do what I want it to. This has mixed amounts of success, but I'm really proud of how far I've come these last few months.
When last I left off, I was dealing with syntax issues, and understanding why the code wasn't recognizing my Day variables. Given tonight's little project, I think this is a nice time to review.
So, anything that occurs during the init line is not set in stone - those are the default values set in when the game launches. Any variables changed during the course of the game should be saved as a state when Ren'Py saves the game - meaning even if Day = 0 on launching the game, it will still be Day 39 when you load your game (rigorous testing concluded this functioned properly).
After much hacking, I've accomplished not merely setting up additional time slots for events to occur, but I've also locked choices during specific days of the week, removed them from the planning menus, and also set aside an option for these things to be overridden should the need arise (say, a holiday for example). The scope of the game is pretty large, perhaps too large to be reasonably accomplished, but I'm not one to let something like that keep me from progressing.
Today's project (or the project I started a few days ago really) involved a very simple thing: How do we make sure that events play out only in a specific location, at a specific time? For reference, the events are structured like so:
$ event("library", "act == 'library'", event.only(), priority=200)$ event("garden", "act == 'garden'", event.only(), priority=200)$ event("cemetery", "act == 'cemetery'", event.only(), priority=200)$ event("dojo", "act == 'dojo'", event.only(), priority=200)$ event("workshop", "act == 'workshop'", event.only(), priority=200)$ event("laboratory", "act == 'laboratory'", event.only(), priority=200)$ event("office", "act == 'office'", event.only(), priority=200)
These are some of the placeholders I'm using for now, but they illustrate what I'm working with. Let me break down the code for you: The first part of the string is the event that is occurring (so I have for example an event named 'office'). The second part, the 'act', tells us that this event plays out when the current act is the 'office' option from the planning menu. So when you go to the office, the office event plays out. The 'only' descriptor states that this is the only event that should play out, and any other possible options should be pushed aside regardless of whether they are eligible to play out. Lastly, we have the priority, which tells us how important this event is in relation to the others. In this case, all of my events here are set at a priority of 200, which isn't too terribly important since 100 is the recommended default.
So I set up some testing events to play out, to make sure they occurred properly.
$ event("tzan_intro", "act == 'cemetery'", event.only(), event.once(), priority=190)
$ event("tzan_ar01", "act == 'cemetery' and period == 'late_eve'", event.only(), event.once(), event.depends('tzan_intro'), priority=200)Once again, let's break down what's going here. You can see that the event "tzan_intro" has a higher priority (lower numbers are higher priority) than the normal cemetery event up above. We can also see here that it only plays once. This plays out any time you visit the cemetery, but only the first time.
It worked just fine. The second one though, that took a bit of doing. Because for some reason, it just would. Not. Trigger.
I spent the last few days pounding my head against the wall figuring out why. Was it not tracking the period name? Or was it not referring to the variable correctly? After much running in circles, I realized the error of my ways, and also learned about something very cool I could do.
The problem... was the priority of the second event. Because it is lower on the list than cemetery, which as I noted has an event.only tag, it was being disregarded every time. As soon as it was placed on a lower priority, like with the first event, it played out correctly the next time I visited the cemetery in the late evening.
This revelation however opened my mind to how powerful this events system can be. Because you see, I can have multiple events play out, in order, so long as they are not pushing one another out.
So for example, I can have the normal cemetery event play, where a player arrives at the location and gets a brief description, and then it can load the next event, where they meet a character.
Needless to say, this is a pretty powerful revelation to have, and I really look forward to the day when I can openly share more about what the game is intended to be. But for now, I have to keep playing with code until the framework is solid. And also cobble together some art assets.
But so far, I'm rather proud of the improvements I've made so far, and the amount I've learned about how DSE, and Ren'Py in general, work.
Thursday, March 3, 2016
Lessons learned: Syntax is everything
I may have mentioned this before, but I am not a very good programmer.
Back in high school, I learned the basics of HTML. Straight HTML, mind you. I could make some of the ugliest damned webpages you ever saw, all with the glory of friggin' Notepad. It taught me the basics of program logic, but beyond that I can't say I ever learned any useful programming skills.
That said, I am capable of sort of reading code. So transitioning to Python and learning the rules the hard way (ie: jumping right in with both feet) has been interesting to say the least. *laughs* I've made some real progress.
Ren'Py utilizes Python scripting, but it seems to have its own rules and shortcuts, which make things easier for guys like me who haven't bothered to learn programming via proper channels. What I do is much less programming, and much more like hacking things apart and trying to stitch it together into some sort of Frankenstein's Monster in the hopes that it works (it's aliiiiiiiive!).
Tonight I set some fairly simple goals for myself:
- Set up the class system, and create placeholders for all of the classes
- Ensure that only Attend Class shows up on the appropriate days
- Check to see that the correct class is being executed on a given day and time period
Needless to say, it provided me with a few challenges right off the bat. Chief of all: How do we determine when classes become available?
Because of the structure of the game, it is necessary to differentiate between morning and afternoon classes, as well as to differentiate 'Monday' classes from the rest of the week. This creates ten courses, all of which have their own set skill increases associated with them. Furthermore, if I feel the need to create actual events that take place during these classes, I need to find a way to have them all execute in the correct order.
The first idea that came to mind was to use the day counter that comes packaged into the DSE code. It looked a little something like this;
It makes perfect sense, except that when you try to run it, it throws an exception: "day not defined".
What gives? Day is clearly defined - it says so right down below in the start code! This was the first major lesson of the day - Day is not defined in the intro block, and you cannot define it in the init code because every time you load the game, it would force the day to become 0 - regardless of what the actual day was. This provides a problem, because you only want the day to become 0 at the start of the game! How do we get around this?
It took some finagling, but I found that placing the day planner code after the day code is initialized gets around this. Now the game properly only provides the correct option depending on what day number it is. Which led to the next problem: While the correct option was showing up, for some reason none of the events were playing out properly! The day progressed, and the correct placeholder for the class was showing up (proving that the correct buttons with the correct commands were being displayed). But for some reason, the execution of the day planner was skipping over my placeholders.
Eventually, I found the source, and it lay in the event planner's code.
Unfortunately, this has presented a new problem that I didn't anticipate until I sat down to write my progress for the night: While the code works in execution, loading a saved game during the start of the day (when you would decide what to do for the day), everything breaks.
Why does this happen? Because when you load the game fresh and jump right into a save, the start-of-day code has already executed, meaning none of the day planner options have initialized, because they were not defined when the game loaded. Using the "roll back" option to step back to just before the day initializes causes the code to execute properly, but you should not be required to step back the first time you load your game because it hasn't figured out what Morning is.
I haven't found a solution for this yet, but hopefully tomorrow I can figure it out (if I don't manage it tonight before I go to bed).
So while I've hit my goals for the evening, I'm still left with one puzzle that I may leave for tomorrow.
Back in high school, I learned the basics of HTML. Straight HTML, mind you. I could make some of the ugliest damned webpages you ever saw, all with the glory of friggin' Notepad. It taught me the basics of program logic, but beyond that I can't say I ever learned any useful programming skills.
That said, I am capable of sort of reading code. So transitioning to Python and learning the rules the hard way (ie: jumping right in with both feet) has been interesting to say the least. *laughs* I've made some real progress.
Ren'Py utilizes Python scripting, but it seems to have its own rules and shortcuts, which make things easier for guys like me who haven't bothered to learn programming via proper channels. What I do is much less programming, and much more like hacking things apart and trying to stitch it together into some sort of Frankenstein's Monster in the hopes that it works (it's aliiiiiiiive!).
Tonight I set some fairly simple goals for myself:
- Set up the class system, and create placeholders for all of the classes
- Ensure that only Attend Class shows up on the appropriate days
- Check to see that the correct class is being executed on a given day and time period
Needless to say, it provided me with a few challenges right off the bat. Chief of all: How do we determine when classes become available?
Because of the structure of the game, it is necessary to differentiate between morning and afternoon classes, as well as to differentiate 'Monday' classes from the rest of the week. This creates ten courses, all of which have their own set skill increases associated with them. Furthermore, if I feel the need to create actual events that take place during these classes, I need to find a way to have them all execute in the correct order.
The first idea that came to mind was to use the day counter that comes packaged into the DSE code. It looked a little something like this;
init python:register_stat("Strength", "strength", 10, 100)register_stat("Intelligence", "intelligence", 10, 100)register_stat("Charisma", "charisma", 50, 100)dp_period("Morning", "morning_act")
if (day == 1 or day == 8):
dp_choice("Attend Class1", "class01")
if day == 2:
dp_choice("Attend Class2", "class03")
if day == 3:
dp_choice("Attend Class3", "class05")
if day == 4:
dp_choice("Attend Class4", "class07")
if day == 5:
dp_choice("Attend Class5", "class09")
if (day == 6 or day == 7):
dp_choice("Something Else", "class05")
# This is an example of an event that should only show up under special circumstances
###dp_choice("Fly to the Moon", "fly", show="strength >= 100 and intelligence >= 100")
dp_period("Afternoon", "afternoon_act")
dp_choice("Study", "study")
dp_choice("Hang Out", "hang")
dp_period("Evening", "evening_act")
dp_choice("Exercise", "exercise")
dp_choice("Play Games", "play")
dp_period ("Late Eve", "late_act")
dp_choice ("Twiddle Thumbs", "twiddle")
dp_choice ("Stare at ceiling", "stare")
It makes perfect sense, except that when you try to run it, it throws an exception: "day not defined".
What gives? Day is clearly defined - it says so right down below in the start code! This was the first major lesson of the day - Day is not defined in the intro block, and you cannot define it in the init code because every time you load the game, it would force the day to become 0 - regardless of what the actual day was. This provides a problem, because you only want the day to become 0 at the start of the game! How do we get around this?
It took some finagling, but I found that placing the day planner code after the day code is initialized gets around this. Now the game properly only provides the correct option depending on what day number it is. Which led to the next problem: While the correct option was showing up, for some reason none of the events were playing out properly! The day progressed, and the correct placeholder for the class was showing up (proving that the correct buttons with the correct commands were being displayed). But for some reason, the execution of the day planner was skipping over my placeholders.
Eventually, I found the source, and it lay in the event planner's code.
The problem lay in the act. The correct event (Class 01 for example) was being called. But instead of executing the correct event, it was attempting to jump to 'Class'. My mistake was in thinking that act meant a classification of an action - instead, that's the part of the code that tells it 'jump to this event name' (or 'when this action is called, jump to this event', I haven't figured out which yet). So essentially, I wound up breaking it completely by accident, but it wound up fixing itself once I corrected the error. So now the correct classes show up on the correct days I tell it, and the correct placeholder activates.$ event("class01", "act == 'class'", event.only(), priority=200)$ event("class02", "act == 'class'", event.only(), priority=200)$ event("class03", "act == 'class'", event.only(), priority=200)
Unfortunately, this has presented a new problem that I didn't anticipate until I sat down to write my progress for the night: While the code works in execution, loading a saved game during the start of the day (when you would decide what to do for the day), everything breaks.
Why does this happen? Because when you load the game fresh and jump right into a save, the start-of-day code has already executed, meaning none of the day planner options have initialized, because they were not defined when the game loaded. Using the "roll back" option to step back to just before the day initializes causes the code to execute properly, but you should not be required to step back the first time you load your game because it hasn't figured out what Morning is.
I haven't found a solution for this yet, but hopefully tomorrow I can figure it out (if I don't manage it tonight before I go to bed).
So while I've hit my goals for the evening, I'm still left with one puzzle that I may leave for tomorrow.
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Let's Make a VN!
It's been nearly four years since I last dusted this thing off. Well, this seems as good a place as any to talk about things, and I could definitely use an outlet to talk about my latest project. It may be interesting to keep a development blog for this, as I can remind myself of any lessons I might learn.
So, I'll just walk through my thought process. For so many years, it's been my desire to make a game. But I was always limited by something or other. I wanted to break into the video game industry somehow, but things always seemed to get in my way. It didn't help at all that the industry tanked, and I simply don't have the experience necessary.
The desire to create, however, has never really abated, and after a very long period of debate, I decided that there was only one way for me to get what I wanted. I would have to just take matters into my own hands. If I wanted to make a game, then by god, I was going to make a game.
Making games is hard though. I bounced between different engines and concepts, talked with some friends about one idea or another. Thanks to some collaborative projects I've done with one friend in particular, I settled on trying to deal with something that is well within my grasp.
I've come up with some pretty cool pitches before, all of which are rather difficult to implement the first time around. I may revisit those ideas at some point in the future. But the important thing, or so I have been told around the Internet, when getting started with game design is simply to make a game. It doesn't necessarily matter what kind of game it is, so long as it is a game. It probably won't even be very good. But if you can play to your strengths, and design around your weaknesses, you can create something that people enjoy.
Which brings me back to a thought I had nearly fifteen years ago: I should make a Visual Novel.
Over the years, I have continued running games, creating settings, and making characters. I like to think that in the last year or so, I've really been bringing my A-game. I've been thinking about how to make the most effective experience I can with the tools available to me. And I've also helped craft a few tabletop systems in the meantime too. So now, I think I have a fairly solid idea of what all goes into making a simple sort of game.
And let's just be honest with ourselves: If games like Go Go Nippon! can succeed, then by god I can do something at least marginally better.
I realized that a programmer wouldn't be very likely to fall into my lap, and my work schedule being what it is, I'd need a project I could work on in my spare time anyways. A VN seemed like the perfect fit. I have an art degree, I know animation and such, and there are plenty of tools available to me that I can use to craft the experience. Moreover, writing a VN should be a far simpler programming task to accomplish. But before anything can really be announced, I had to create the core game mechanics, and ensure that they worked.
This led me to Ren'Py - a game engine that was first conceived about fifteen years ago. I remember when it had just come out, and to my surprise it is still very much in development. So I began to poke around, and ask myself: How hard would it be to actually create a game in Ren'Py?
Not very, I soon learned. Thankfully my basic programming experience let me settle in pretty easily. I can read code to an extent, and while I'm no coding wizard, I can definitely read documentation and fumble around until I find the right answer, which is just my sort of pace. By proving that I could create even a very basic, linear experience within a couple of days of picking up the engine, it seemed much more likely that this could easily be done with a two-person team - with me assuming most of the workload, as it were.
I partnered with my friend, who had a pretty neat concept lying around, and helped her flesh it out. We created a basic world, and populated it with a variety of nations with which we could pull NPCs from. Within a week, we had a pretty decent background to set the game in, and I was beginning to consider how the game would actually function.
We had a setting, we had a game concept, and soon enough we had characters. But there was still one thing we didn't have: a working game engine. So with the background elements in place, I started working through figuring out how I could create something a little more complex than just a typical linear VN. I wanted to make something more like how I've set up some of my more recent tabletop games. I wanted a game that was a little more open-ended, that was more of an interactive story with multiple choices. A combination of the Mana Khemia series in terms of story - where things happen, and a plot progresses, but really the main fun is just hanging out with your friends for a year at school.
From there, the pieces just started to fall into place. I had a basic concept for how the game would progress, and as far as I'm aware, this isn't an approach many people take when trying to make a VN.
But of course, I know how I can be, and that I have a tendency to go a bit overboard sometimes. So I came up with some guidelines to follow, and once I've completed the playable demo, we'll see where things go from there.
The basic game itself (the demo, as it were) will only take place over a period of one month. 30-ish days, really. This cuts down on the work that needs to be done. But it's also very important to ensure that all of the game mechanics can be expanded to a full year if need be - since that is the original scope of the game. If this moves beyond the demo stage, I would like for players to be able to take their save data from the demo and pick up where they left off in the full game. It may be a small detail, but it's important to me, and it forces me to think further ahead as a result.
So I am left with the following problems to consider, as this is my first real attempt at making a video game:
- Creating core mechanics that are simple and engaging, which can easily be expanded if the game is ever moved beyond the prototypical demo stage.
- Keeping things simple enough so that my head doesn't explode from too many choices.
- Crafting an enjoyable experience where the choices the player makes actually influence the game, even if in subtle ways - I'm tired of skills being static things that don't really have an impact on how stories play out.
- Ensuring that no matter what a player does, the game is still somehow 'winnable' - whether they like the outcomes or not is besides the point. They aren't required to make friends with everyone, just to survive to the end one way or another.
- Letting the player's choices be dynamic and meaningful. The choice of what skills to progress during the course of the game should affect how the player progresses. Playing an angry warrior type should feel different than a laid-back artist, for example.
- Lastly, and perhaps most importantly: Make sure that all of these things remain simple enough for anyone to pick up and play.
They're fairly tall orders, but I think I can say with confidence that I can now achieve all of these goals. It will take a bit of time, but this is a labor of love, and if the demo is well received, that will let me know that I've done something right. In the event I've only managed to make a horrible trainwreck of a game, well that's fine too - at least I'll have learned something along the way.
That having been said, here is what I have managed to accomplish in the day I've picked the project back up again:
- Implemented the skill system, imposed a class choice at the start (to determine your starting skills), and ensured that it functions as intended.
- Tested hiding certain choices if the player does not have the requisite skill - feature functions as intended.
- Tested conditional modifiers of choices - having skills at a certain level will cause the scene to play out differently. Feature appears to work as intended.
- Tested and confirmed working adding skill points as necessary.
All in all, I'd say this is a good start. Now while the core skill system is now in place, I need to consider the next major hurdle - implementing the class schedule, and ensuring that it plays out as intended.
Most of my work before today was poking at menus, figuring out how to adjust them as necessary, and moving them around to better fit all of the information I required. That was fairly easy work, I'm finding, but now I know which bits to fiddle with, and that makes this far more attainable.
Now comes the difficult part: working on the class menu, and making sure the schedule plays out as intended.
For anyone that cares, I decided to use the DSE (Dating Sim Engine) Day Planner and Event Manager to make my life infinitely easier. It comes with most of what I needed already built-in - skills and values for them, and most important an event manager that automatically checks to ensure sequences play out as intended. If you decide to go to the library in the afternoon and the lake in the evening, you can choose that at the start of the day and, barring something catastrophic occurring that would interrupt the next event, it will play out. (If you wind up passing out from an assassin's dagger in the library, well, you're clearly not going to be visiting the lake that evening.)
I'll wrap up this big long spiel with one last take on what I plan to accomplish in the coming weeks. I intend to ensure the core class mechanics work. Once those work, I can begin working out how to set up a rotating schedule for the five interactive NPCs with story arcs - as well as testing for events to play out in specific locations on specific dates.
I foresee the classes thing being a huge headache, but not nearly as troublesome as choosing which location to visit in the scheduler. Ren'Py doesn't support drop-down menus for some reason, so I will need to find some kind of workaround for that. One thing at a time though - first we focus on the class schedule, then we work out the rest.
It's going to be a fun project, and I suspect the biggest hurdles are now in front of me.
So, I'll just walk through my thought process. For so many years, it's been my desire to make a game. But I was always limited by something or other. I wanted to break into the video game industry somehow, but things always seemed to get in my way. It didn't help at all that the industry tanked, and I simply don't have the experience necessary.
The desire to create, however, has never really abated, and after a very long period of debate, I decided that there was only one way for me to get what I wanted. I would have to just take matters into my own hands. If I wanted to make a game, then by god, I was going to make a game.
Making games is hard though. I bounced between different engines and concepts, talked with some friends about one idea or another. Thanks to some collaborative projects I've done with one friend in particular, I settled on trying to deal with something that is well within my grasp.
I've come up with some pretty cool pitches before, all of which are rather difficult to implement the first time around. I may revisit those ideas at some point in the future. But the important thing, or so I have been told around the Internet, when getting started with game design is simply to make a game. It doesn't necessarily matter what kind of game it is, so long as it is a game. It probably won't even be very good. But if you can play to your strengths, and design around your weaknesses, you can create something that people enjoy.
Which brings me back to a thought I had nearly fifteen years ago: I should make a Visual Novel.
Over the years, I have continued running games, creating settings, and making characters. I like to think that in the last year or so, I've really been bringing my A-game. I've been thinking about how to make the most effective experience I can with the tools available to me. And I've also helped craft a few tabletop systems in the meantime too. So now, I think I have a fairly solid idea of what all goes into making a simple sort of game.
And let's just be honest with ourselves: If games like Go Go Nippon! can succeed, then by god I can do something at least marginally better.
I realized that a programmer wouldn't be very likely to fall into my lap, and my work schedule being what it is, I'd need a project I could work on in my spare time anyways. A VN seemed like the perfect fit. I have an art degree, I know animation and such, and there are plenty of tools available to me that I can use to craft the experience. Moreover, writing a VN should be a far simpler programming task to accomplish. But before anything can really be announced, I had to create the core game mechanics, and ensure that they worked.
This led me to Ren'Py - a game engine that was first conceived about fifteen years ago. I remember when it had just come out, and to my surprise it is still very much in development. So I began to poke around, and ask myself: How hard would it be to actually create a game in Ren'Py?
Not very, I soon learned. Thankfully my basic programming experience let me settle in pretty easily. I can read code to an extent, and while I'm no coding wizard, I can definitely read documentation and fumble around until I find the right answer, which is just my sort of pace. By proving that I could create even a very basic, linear experience within a couple of days of picking up the engine, it seemed much more likely that this could easily be done with a two-person team - with me assuming most of the workload, as it were.
I partnered with my friend, who had a pretty neat concept lying around, and helped her flesh it out. We created a basic world, and populated it with a variety of nations with which we could pull NPCs from. Within a week, we had a pretty decent background to set the game in, and I was beginning to consider how the game would actually function.
We had a setting, we had a game concept, and soon enough we had characters. But there was still one thing we didn't have: a working game engine. So with the background elements in place, I started working through figuring out how I could create something a little more complex than just a typical linear VN. I wanted to make something more like how I've set up some of my more recent tabletop games. I wanted a game that was a little more open-ended, that was more of an interactive story with multiple choices. A combination of the Mana Khemia series in terms of story - where things happen, and a plot progresses, but really the main fun is just hanging out with your friends for a year at school.
From there, the pieces just started to fall into place. I had a basic concept for how the game would progress, and as far as I'm aware, this isn't an approach many people take when trying to make a VN.
But of course, I know how I can be, and that I have a tendency to go a bit overboard sometimes. So I came up with some guidelines to follow, and once I've completed the playable demo, we'll see where things go from there.
The basic game itself (the demo, as it were) will only take place over a period of one month. 30-ish days, really. This cuts down on the work that needs to be done. But it's also very important to ensure that all of the game mechanics can be expanded to a full year if need be - since that is the original scope of the game. If this moves beyond the demo stage, I would like for players to be able to take their save data from the demo and pick up where they left off in the full game. It may be a small detail, but it's important to me, and it forces me to think further ahead as a result.
So I am left with the following problems to consider, as this is my first real attempt at making a video game:
- Creating core mechanics that are simple and engaging, which can easily be expanded if the game is ever moved beyond the prototypical demo stage.
- Keeping things simple enough so that my head doesn't explode from too many choices.
- Crafting an enjoyable experience where the choices the player makes actually influence the game, even if in subtle ways - I'm tired of skills being static things that don't really have an impact on how stories play out.
- Ensuring that no matter what a player does, the game is still somehow 'winnable' - whether they like the outcomes or not is besides the point. They aren't required to make friends with everyone, just to survive to the end one way or another.
- Letting the player's choices be dynamic and meaningful. The choice of what skills to progress during the course of the game should affect how the player progresses. Playing an angry warrior type should feel different than a laid-back artist, for example.
- Lastly, and perhaps most importantly: Make sure that all of these things remain simple enough for anyone to pick up and play.
They're fairly tall orders, but I think I can say with confidence that I can now achieve all of these goals. It will take a bit of time, but this is a labor of love, and if the demo is well received, that will let me know that I've done something right. In the event I've only managed to make a horrible trainwreck of a game, well that's fine too - at least I'll have learned something along the way.
That having been said, here is what I have managed to accomplish in the day I've picked the project back up again:
- Implemented the skill system, imposed a class choice at the start (to determine your starting skills), and ensured that it functions as intended.
- Tested hiding certain choices if the player does not have the requisite skill - feature functions as intended.
- Tested conditional modifiers of choices - having skills at a certain level will cause the scene to play out differently. Feature appears to work as intended.
- Tested and confirmed working adding skill points as necessary.
All in all, I'd say this is a good start. Now while the core skill system is now in place, I need to consider the next major hurdle - implementing the class schedule, and ensuring that it plays out as intended.
Most of my work before today was poking at menus, figuring out how to adjust them as necessary, and moving them around to better fit all of the information I required. That was fairly easy work, I'm finding, but now I know which bits to fiddle with, and that makes this far more attainable.
Now comes the difficult part: working on the class menu, and making sure the schedule plays out as intended.
For anyone that cares, I decided to use the DSE (Dating Sim Engine) Day Planner and Event Manager to make my life infinitely easier. It comes with most of what I needed already built-in - skills and values for them, and most important an event manager that automatically checks to ensure sequences play out as intended. If you decide to go to the library in the afternoon and the lake in the evening, you can choose that at the start of the day and, barring something catastrophic occurring that would interrupt the next event, it will play out. (If you wind up passing out from an assassin's dagger in the library, well, you're clearly not going to be visiting the lake that evening.)
I'll wrap up this big long spiel with one last take on what I plan to accomplish in the coming weeks. I intend to ensure the core class mechanics work. Once those work, I can begin working out how to set up a rotating schedule for the five interactive NPCs with story arcs - as well as testing for events to play out in specific locations on specific dates.
I foresee the classes thing being a huge headache, but not nearly as troublesome as choosing which location to visit in the scheduler. Ren'Py doesn't support drop-down menus for some reason, so I will need to find some kind of workaround for that. One thing at a time though - first we focus on the class schedule, then we work out the rest.
It's going to be a fun project, and I suspect the biggest hurdles are now in front of me.
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