Soft Moments (Sometimes Sad Moments)

Progress:

Finished CGs: 26 (56 if you count variations/different expressions) Backgrounds: 13 out of 14! Social Links finished: 3 out of 5 Endings finished: 4 out of 12 Dialogue/Code: 85% !!

First off, a bit of background: I'm a multimedia major, a designer, and have worked as a game dev for half a year. I have even done a postgrad in creative programming, so I have a lot more experience with these types of tools than most.

General starting tips: - Learn to use GitHub, I have used it in the industry and in classes, everytime you change something in a game, you want to back it up, on the github server so when things break (which they will) you can return to an older version - Play games on the engine you want to use; that is the best way to know exactly what that engine is capable of and what's likely available as tutorials somewhere. - You can use things other than Ren'Py, a friend of mine is using Tyrano Builder for her projects due to being scared of Python. Or you can even use RPG Maker, which I've used in the past and is quite fun. - There's no shame in a small 1k word test before committing to a long game you can use what you learn for later (but do try to be insane about it otherwise you will procrastinate, the reason I haven't made a game for my OCs but am doing one for Shuake is because... well, I'm insane about Shuake.) Also it's playing games in the engine you want to use that will inspire you to the type of things you can include in your game. -If you do commit to working on Ren'py, write your script in this format: c "dialogue" (c=character initial) It will save you a lot of time since you can just copy paste this whole thing into ren'py script and then just need to write changing emotions / scenes (there's an example further down)

Now, onto the actual process thus far, you can see most of it if you scroll through my blog.

These were my first mockups, but that doesn't mean you need to commit to them either; in fact, this is what the final battle screen looks like:

Don't be scared of changing your mind as you work on the game; things will come naturally, and changing things because you have a better idea is usually a good thing. But a base idea is always good to fall back on.

After I was set on this idea, I immediately decided to write the entire script (20k words) I don't know if I can advise this if it's your first project, especially if it's long or if you have very, very complex ideas, because if you want to do something unique with the gameplay, you should test your code first to know if you can commit to that idea and not have to rewrite it later.

This is what my script looked like once I was done: Color coding can be useful to guide yourself but it's personal taste

Then I moved onto reading the script aloud by myself/with friends to check for janky dialogue (which I'm still fixing) while also working on the code, you can see all my code working here, with just sample text. It's also important to use sketches when you are just testing; don't spend hours on an asset you don't know if you will get the chance to use.

Ren'py isn't hard to learn; in fact, one of the only programming languages I never learned was Python (what Ren'py uses) and I have had not much difficulty adjusting to it since it's quite a simple one; for example, once you have most things set up, it's as simple as this:

The only things I've had to code/change from a default ren'py project are adjusting textboxes to be images instead, the position of the characters on the screen, and unique menus for choices.

You can also change fonts and colors, but all that code is already built into the default. Honestly, try it out, poke around, and you will get the hang of it. You can find a tutorial for anything you want to change somewhere on forums/reddit/other communities. There's even a Ren'py manual that taught me about how Callbacks work, and it's how I got my characters to make little bleep noises when they speak.

So yeah, I'm at the point where now I'm just slowly finishing all the artwork (since there will be a lot of it) and copying all the text onto ren'py. And considering I've only been working on it for a month and had to take a break for 1.5 weeks, I would say it's been a pretty smooth process and less scary than one might imagine!

Anyway, I hope this helps! I'm no Ren'Py expert, of course, but I know my way around organizing my work at the very least.

As to where you should start: Have an idea, draw some mockups, play games in the engine you want to use, mess around in the engine long enough to know you can use it successfully, write the script, and so on.