Hey there! Fellow game dev here, I noticed you switched from Tyrano (a pretty play by numbers builder) to Unity. Did you find Unity to be a better experience for making this VN? I'm typically a Ren'Py stan, but I've been eyeing unity for some time now. I'm just paranoid that shifting any projects over to it will be a huge time sink. I already procrastinate enough as it is. d:
Hey hey! Yeah, I was beginning to get pretty frustrated with all the issues Tyrano had that just weren't getting fixed by the engine devs after years. They actually released a huge update for Tyrano recently, which really shocked me because I thought it was dead support-wise! It looks like a decent update, but I doubt I'll be using it again.
I found Unity (specifically using Naninovel) a much smoother experience for creating than Tyrano by a long shot. It was so easy to pick up! I would absolutely recommend Unity with Nani over Tyrano any day. But over Ren'Py? I'm not so certain there. I feel like a lot of the games I've played that were made with Ren'Py are really smooth and I love the default sorta UI setup. I'm still kinda wrestling with Unity's UI and find it a bit of a nightmare to deal with, haha.
I haven't released any games made with Ren'Py, but I did start learning how to make stuff using it before I bought Tyrano on sale. From what I learned back then, I thought Ren'Py was fantastic. I only checked out Tyrano because I thought it might save time over learning Python. I do regret that decision now though because while Tyrano was super easy to get to grips with, I feel like the visual system really slows down the pace of development as opposed to typing everything up in Visual Studio Code like I do now.
If you're already very comfortable with Ren'Py, I'd say that maybe it's not worth switching to anything else. But I do highly recommend Naninovel despite that. It's very easy to use + the creator is constantly updating it with new features that the community requests, so the overall support for it is fantastic.
Sorry if I wasn't all that helpful >.< It's hard to give a good answer when I'm not overly familiar with using Ren'Py. It's just, from the little time I spent using it + the games I've played made with it, it seems to me like the best option around still considering it's completely free. If you do decide to check out Nani, it does go on sale on the Unity asset store quite often. I got it at 75% discount in the winter sale. There's no way I could afford it at full price >.<
This was actually super helpful! Seeing as your library didn't include any games made in Ren'Py I didn't expect you to have much experience with it, so no worries. I will look into Naninovel though!
See, my main reason for considering walking away from Ren'Py is that I am not a particularly code savvy person. I'm a writer who picks up bits of code from all over the Internet and shoves it together to try and get what I want. This is all well and good, but it also leads to me not finishing my games as I find myself needing to find other people to help me code, and as I have no money, I feel bad if I can't compensate them well for their skills and time. Especially when coding is so integral to the creation of any game. (I also am not an artist, but that's a bit easier to work around with placeholder art I make myself until I can get money together and hire someone to make exactly what I need.)
Plus, Ren'Py does have some limits as to what you can do gameplaywise. It is designed with the traditional VN structure in mind, and if you want to step beyond that, you need some real coding chops to skirt about the limitations of the engine. Don't get me wrong, Ren'Py is an amazing engine, and I would highly recommend it to anyone out there. Especially given its price point is very good. (Free.) I'm just not sure it's the best engine for what I want to make these days.
After seeing what you managed with Unity on this game here, I'm thinking it may be the better way to go. I actually have a somewhat similar idea I've been working on for some time now, (No worries, it isn't about a digital person becoming real, which is a very cool concept and I wish you loads of luck getting it finished, I did love what I saw so far. It's a Princess Maker style game where you teach a robot how to be human.) and it will be a lot easier adding JRPG style elements to it in unity, I believe. Having never touched unity I'm not sure how seamless it would be to combine two very drastic coding needs together.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to reply to me! The games I've seen from you so far are very neat, and line up pretty strongly with my tastes, so I will be following you from here on to see where things go. (I'm also an audio design nerd, and adored the digital manipulations you did with the VA's here.) It'll be sad not to hear them in future installments, but I absolutely get wanting to pay them very well for their work, and just not having the cash to do that sort of thing. Perhaps as this project progresses you can make a kickstarter and add voicework in as a goal. It's actually not that bad of a process, the team I worked with for the last game I finished did one and it really helped us get on our way. However, I would not recommend including merch as a donation tier! That really bit us in the butt later.
Well, that's good then, haha. Yeah, Nani is definitely worth looking into!
Ahh, in that case, I said that Nani would probably be right up your alley :3 I'm the same really. I sorta learned bits of code here and there, but ultimately, it gives me a headache >.< I just want to be able to write and build the stories/games. I have to say, Nani does do an excellent job of helping you do that relatively easily and quickly. I still have a lot to learn, but it's certainly easy to get started with.
While I haven't tried anything outside of traditional VN gameplay with Nani yet, I have seen on the guides that it's supposed to be pretty easy to integrate with other Unity assets in order to make hybrid games such as RPGs with heavy dialogue systems :3 From what I understand, you're supposed to be able to switch between Nani and other stuff pretty seamlessly. Since I've not looked into it in detail though, I couldn't tell you how easy it is to do. But it does sound like Nani would be ideal for what you're looking to do :D
Also, that sounds like a very fun idea for a game! I would absolutely play that :3
No worries! Actually, I would love to ask you some questions regarding Kickstarter if you have a spare moment to talk about that because while I have looked into it before, from what I've read, it's super hard to make a successful campaign >.< so it would be great to hear how you guys went about it to get some tips :D No worries if you're too busy or you don't feel like talking about it though! I guess if you want to, you can just drop me an email here: melancholicmarionette@gmail.com
And gosh, yeah, I can imagine merch being quite the nightmare x3 haha.