Hanako Games

Inquiry

#1 by C. Halleluyah - Mar 22 2008

Hi, I'm planning on making a game somehow similar to Fatal Hearts (out of boredom). Are there any softwares that could make the construction of puzzles easier like Ren'Py does for visual novels, or do I have to program them all (an idea that does not look very appealing)?

Thanks in advance.

#2 by C. Halleluyah - Mar 23 2008

Excuse the double posting. Another question is that what type of code should I use if I want to add values to a game, such as this:

There are two choices. If I pick choice 1, the "friendliness" with this person will go up by one. If I pick choice 2, the value will go down one instead. In the end, if the "friendliness" value with this person is larger than, say, 4, the protagonist will get to... err, attend this person's dinner party!

I suspect that I have to use tags such as "if" and "else if", encorporated with something like "value +1". Perhaps I'm thinking of php ><".

I'm using Ren'Py game engine. If Hanako sees this, can you please help me? It's sort of like how Christina has to "gain Randy's trust" to get the eighth ending in Fatal Hearts. Please tell me the programming language and tags I have to use, as I am rather new to game-making. Thanks in advance.

#3 by hanako - Mar 23 2008

I didn't actually use Ren'Py, although I have friends who use it. If you want tips on how to make games with that tool, I would suggest visiting the RenPy forums. There are a bunch of people making games and they can give you lots of suggestions on how things work.

http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewforum.php?f=8

The posters there are usually happy to help out, and there are some sample games as well, I think.

It is *possible* to put puzzles into a RenPy game, but not nearly so simple. You'd have to either figure out PyGame or get a programmer buddy to help. (But again, there are people on the RenPy boards who will volunteer to help with code for people who have a story they want to make into a game but don't know how to do the programming part.)

#4 by C. Halleluyah - Mar 23 2008

^^ Thank you.

However Ren'Py does allow combinations of different types of programming languages (I tried using Ren'Py language and C++ at the same time, which worked), which is rather convenient. Would you mind telling me what programming language you used?

I assumed that attaching the puzzles will have to use some sort of importing codes, meaning that I have to actually make the puzzles in advance and then "add it on" to my plotline. If that is right, is there a particular software that allows me to make puzzles easily?

Thanks again!

#5 by Deekoo - Mar 24 2008

C. Halleluyah:

^^ Thank you.

However Ren'Py does allow combinations of different types of programming languages (I tried using Ren'Py language and C++ at the same time, which worked), which is rather convenient. Would you mind telling me what programming language you used?

I assumed that attaching the puzzles will have to use some sort of importing codes, meaning that I have to actually make the puzzles in advance and then "add it on" to my plotline. If that is right, is there a particular software that allows me to make puzzles easily?

Thanks again!

I've had pretty good results from embedding pygame inside Ren'Py (you'll need to grab the renpygame framework to do this). I don't know of any renpy-specific puzzle simplification tools, but there might be some out there for Pygame or C++. Game Baker intends to provide drag-and-drop Pygame game generation, but it's a pre-alpha and doesn't seem usable yet - unless you want to work on improving it.

#6 by Deekoo - Mar 24 2008

Further notes - I doubt you'll find anything that will let you get away with not programming the puzzles - frameworks that let you abstract some of the grunt work out may well exist, but if you want to do anything more complicated than plopping a new skin on someone else's puzzle you'll almost certainly wind up needing to write a fair chunk of new code.

If you want to have puzzle logic and bits of Ren'Py interface up (for example, character dialog over top of the puzzle screen) at the same time, you probably want to use a custom displayable for your puzzles; if you don't care about the Ren'Py interface during puzzles, python/pygame will work (and I found it slightly less tricky to get the hang of at first.) Your game will be a little easier to distribute crossplatform if you do the puzzles in Python rather than C++, as that way you won't have to recompile anything to get it to work on whatever of the supported platforms you're not actually using.

(Also, I'm vaguely curious - how exactly are you calling C++ code from Ren'Py? I'd only known it was directly able to call python - or are you just compiling python-callable modules?)[/code]

#7 by C. Halleluyah - Mar 24 2008

I haven't tried calling in C++ codes, but I do see that Ren'Py has a "Language" function. I could switch to a different language while supporting the simple Ren'Py codes at the same time. So I assumed I should be able to spontaneously add in C++ in the C++ language mode without disrupting all my Ren'Py codes. I should really give it a try though >>.

Thank you for the advice. I'll figure out the programming myself then ^^.

#8 by Deekoo - Mar 26 2008

C. Halleluyah:

I haven't tried calling in C++ codes, but I do see that Ren'Py has a "Language" function. I could switch to a different language while supporting the simple Ren'Py codes at the same time. So I assumed I should be able to spontaneously add in C++ in the C++ language mode without disrupting all my Ren'Py codes. I should really give it a try though >>.

Thank you for the advice. I'll figure out the programming myself then ^^.

The language function in the editor doesn't change the language Ren'Py uses, only the language that the editor thinks you're writing in (which affects what colours are used and what gets highlighted as an error.)

The only language directly embedded in Ren'Py (as far as I know) is Python; you can write modules that let you use code in other languages from Python, but I don't know how much work it will be. What part of the puzzles are you trying to write in C++? What APIs are you using?

#9 by C. Halleluyah - Mar 28 2008

Ah well, I haven't started writing the puzzles yet. I am still working on the plot and in the middle of figuring out the plot. I was merely wondering what I should do if I decide to insert puzzles. Thank you very much for your help though. I'll post again if I need further assistance ^^.