Post by Tybawai in Visual Novel Template for Scrivener comments

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Thank you for your feedback. As stated in the description, this is for an overwhelmed beginner to get started. You said yourself, " It would have been worth every penny had I come across it a year ago." That's exactly the purpose of this template, to help a beginner get the ball rolling.

Also noted in the description is that I did not include any coding. In RenPy, a popular Python based visual novel engine that is also beginner friendly, the Menu/UI is code heavy, and formatting is all based on Python formatting. As to not overwhelm a beginner, I left space for them to add on as they become more comfortable but intentionally did not address it. I hope this clears up any confusion.

Cheers and best of luck! Thanks again for downloading!

velShandru2 years ago (1 edit)

You did indeed describe it as a starting point for an overwhelmed beginner. I simply expected more than you promised to deliver <smile>. The description said it wasn't designed to teach coding — nor should it since we could be coding in any of several VN engines — but your filled in examples provide some light RenPy coding to get us started and my sample did the same. It would have been clearer if I had simply included the Coding line and then added the sample separately as you had done. The Item and Location profiles have a section for Programming Notes and I happen to feel that it's a useful addition to the Character profile as well.

I also like to keep the storyboard focused on story flow and use the Narrative block to break the story down into panels within a scene. Obviously one or the other block could be eliminated depending on the user's working style, but showing two approaches to story flow may be useful to beginners. My Narrative block has stage directions but not the actual code for them, e.g.:

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PANEL <$SN>: BUYUNISTAN VILLAGE STREET. SITA SLIDES IN ON THE LEFT.

Sita: Kei, over here!

ADJUST: KEI SLIDES IN ON THE RIGHT.

{short dialogue between Sita & Kei omitted}

ADJUST: SITA GESTURES LEFT.

Sita: {more dialogue}

ADJUST: SITA RESUMES ORIGINAL POSE.

Sita: {continues...} [Kei being my viewpoint character & Sita my exposition fairy]
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For beginners looking at this, the PANEL <$SN> tag is from the comic template I based my own template on and simply indicates a scene with no change of background, hence the ADJUST tags. Note that it's a bit closer to the actual code (RenPy in this example) but could still be implemented in any of several engines.

velShandru2 years ago

Because we're not using Scriv to write code, the Menu/UI block would, IMO <g>, be used to sketch in the elements we want to include without committing us to any particular engine. Of course, it could simply be used to display a screenie of whatever GUI template we plan to use, but the various engines and template have enough tweak-ability that I thought you had included the block so we consider our screen layouts. I s'pose a ReadMe ought to be there describing what the user may (or may not) want to consider...

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