#renpy anon

[sk3tch404]

Time sure flies fast huh, like jfc I can't believe it's Rory season February already 😳 speaking of February, how'd you think Rory would react if I gave him pralines/chocolates, that I secretly filled with wasabi on Valentine's Day? Hehe

-Ren'py anon

Indeed it is 😈 lucky I've been thinking of him lately

Rory may be flirty, but trust me he's fragile.

Once he pops one in his mouth, he's gonna be COUGHING CHOKING AND HEAVING.

The Volkovs think this prank is hilarious and will protect you just to piss Rory off even more. SO I HOPE YOU'RE A RUNNER AND A TRACK STAR 🏃💨

Not only did you trick him with a display of sweet affection commonly used by couples, YOU GAVE HIM FOOD HE DIDN'T LIKE. Rory does not play with flavor or his food, so he will most definitely get moody.

He can track you down *snaps finger bc THEY DON'T HAVE AN EMOJI FOR THIS 💔* like that. Rory has been doing "this" for a long while, so if you do somehow get to the Volkovs in time, consider yourself lucky or Rory making a real bad slip up.

Which he does sometimes, but most casualties end up in his favor surprisingly. (Doesn't mean he likes how the shit hits the fan when it happens though)

As much as I try to hate him, I REALLY CAN'T 😨😕😯😕😷😫😩😫😱😨😱😯😠😡😠😡

No glasses 4 him bc he's been mean to you (Being mean to him doesn't count BECAUSE HE DESERVES IT)

[oscconfessions]

sorry my last ask was such a fucking downer. anyways i think that romance object shows/comics should exist more often actually. i had this idea where a human gets isekaied into object world and its like. a viewer’s choice thing of who the protagonist hangs out with and dates and stuff. am i normal for coming up with this. probably not actually

-🥜🪶

.

[applottl]

Hey! Is there anything else you have for Welcome to Wobbletown? I love Mallory sm, she(?)'s a cutie! I can't wait to see what you have in store for a jester dating sim! :-D

eeeek!! tysm! so glad to see someone interested in this! unfortunately this project is VERY SMALL cuz im focusing on rules for relationships currently, but i can drop sum extra concepts and official art! (also, yes, mallory uses she/her pronouns!)

above is a concept of the main menu screen, one of my sprites for annie (the co-manager of wobbletown!), and a bg for the teen zone created by @shauwkip0pz ! so, like i said, not much so far consisting of the art, but i have ALL of the story fully developed!

the game will have a total of 10 characters, with 5 male characters, 3 female characters, and 2 nonbinary characters! it takes place at a mall playplace!

(xtra concept art under the cut, sum of this is old tho lolsies)

[enkvyu]

jjk x mystic messenger sounds so cool is that going to be your new smau because please don't give up on your gojo one 🥹

i miss it so much when will you update????

hi anon! wait …. when did i mention my jjk mysme game 😵 i totally forgot OOPS anyway it isn’t a smau !! its a game i’m making on renpy rn

this is why i have been rlly bad at posting recently (kinda)

i havent abandoned two faced !!! she is still alive and well and i will bring her back soon 🫶 please wait a little longer 💕 i hope this also answers for the other asks ive gotten abt two faced 😭

[itlivesproject]

hiii! your project is AMAZING and you're all so talented 😭😭 but i have a question if you feel comfortable with sharing. which apps/programs you guys used to recreate the game? I'm interested in developing my own games but have no idea where to start. can you give me some tips? 🙂 tysm anyway!

If you want to make a standalone visual novel, then the program we use, Ren'Py, is perfect! It's free and designed specifically to make visual novels easy to make for everyone, including beginners. I had literally zero understanding of programming when I started working on ILW and just figured it out through tutorials, asking questions on forums, and trial and error.

This is the Ren'Py link.

Because this is long, under the cut I'm sharing some things you'll need to think about if you want to make a visual novel:

Your team:

You don't have to have a team of people helping you with this. You can do it alone. However, I will say that ILW would not be what it is if I had just tried to go it alone. It is so much better than anything I could've dreamed of when I first got the idea. More people on a team = more ideas, more constructive criticism and feedback, and more heads going in together to make a better product. But if you want a team, you need to make sure you maintain an attitude and environment that is open to suggestions and contributions from others. Be ready and willing to throw out ideas you like if it no longer works or someone thinks of something better. Nothing kills the creative spirit faster than defensiveness and competitiveness, so to have a well-working team, open-minded members and sharing your ideas and criticism in a positive way is extremely important.

Art:

This is one of the first things you should really nail down, because if you start working on your game but never figure out the art, everything else will go to waste. For most VN creators, they usually hire out for art. For us, since this is a free fan project, our artists worked for free. We were also lucky to already have a bunch of backgrounds and assets from Choices that our artists could edit, so we didn't have to make dozens and dozens of entirely new backgrounds. If you're going to have to hire out, I'd try to really compress the amount of art you'll need - plan ahead and cut down unnecessary characters who'd need sprites, maybe use a silhouette for unnamed characters, and limit the amount of backgrounds you'll need, because backgrounds take up a lot of space, they take up a lot of time to make, and they're expensive.

Programming:

Obviously, programming is a big thing. If you have enough motivation, you should be able to figure out a lot of this on your own. If you use Ren'Py, be sure to read the documentation, watch a lot of basic tutorials, and just get into the engine and start getting your hands dirty! It seems like a lot at first, but once you get the feel of it, it's actually not too complicated. When it comes to programming, I recommend simplifying everything as much as possible. When I first started ILW, I didn't simplify things much (because I was figuring things out) so what I used to do in three lines of code I now do in one. Limiting the amount of code you ultimately end up writing GREATLY diminishes possibility of errors and bugs. Also, try to get as organized as possible. Make as many folders, subfolders, and text files as you need. Don't try to put the whole script in one file, don't put all the images in the same folder. Good organization goes a long way to making everything a lot easier to keep track of.

Game structure:

Piecing together a branching game is honestly quite a puzzle. Before going into working on your game, you should sit down and figure out game mechanics. What points do you want to include? Personality? Relationship? Romance? Skills? Some kind of narrative scale akin to blood vs shadow? Figure out what points systems you want to include and then figure out how that's going to impact the story and where. When creating love interests, don't just create a character and assume they'll fit themselves into the narrative. Focus on the character as a character first, meaning determine how they fit into the story's narrative, and then think about them as a love interest second. If you do this, it will make them a better character and a more satisfying love interest. Finally, start the game knowing how much variation you want. Do you want something with immense, diverging endings? How much variation do you want within one scene? Because interactive fiction is so determinant on player choices and there can be so many routes, it's not a good idea to just go with the flow and see what happens, because otherwise you won't be able to reconcile all the different routes you likely created. So figure out the overall structure for your story in terms of mechanics before you really start on planning.

Planning and writing:

Once you have the previous stuff figured out, then you can start actually planning the story and eventually, writing it. Again, I'd recommend you figure out the previous stuff first because if you start planning and writing immediately, but then it turns out you can't solve the programming, or can't get art, then all this work will have been for naught. My advice on planning: do NOT skimp out! Additionally, to make the love interests feel more important to the story as a whole, I would recommend the technique of arc outlining, which is essentially when you take each love interest separate from each other and plan out scenes that tie into the story to further their individual character arcs. Doing this makes it easy to figure out where tender relationship and intimate moments can go, and those moments will be more interesting because they're connected to an actual plot point instead of just being like "it's sexy time!" Once you have your plans, you can start writing. Depending on how long your story is, writing can be really difficult. It takes a lot of time and thought, and burnout is real.

Music:

You'll want to figure out how you'll get music for your game. Again, creators usually hire out for this. On the Ren'Py forums, there's actually a specific topic for music that helps you network with composers who are looking for jobs. For us, again, since we're a fan project that's not making money, we could use 1) Choices music 2) tracks from a music library I have a deal with and 3) as a composer myself, I wrote some original tracks. Also, if you're looking for free sound effects, freesound.org is actually perfect for that. It's where I got the siren, forest, and ghost voice SFX!

Distribution

Distribution can be tricky! For ILW, we originally wanted it to be playable online, but we eventually removed that option because 1) saving online was complicated 2) the quality wasn't as good and it couldn't run smoothly and 3) we didn't want people who could download it, play online and have a bad experience instead of downloading it. If you offer an online option, most people will take it. For indie games, I think using something like Steam or itch.io is the way to go. Unfortunately, that will make it so it's not available on Apple products, but to get it on Apple you have to package it specifically for Apple which is difficult, and you have to pay $100/year to be allowed to have it up on the app store in the first place.

Hopefully this helps! This is really just scratching the surface, but here are some things to think about if you're interested in making your own visual novel.

[shadowpeachyuri]

I thought macaque knew shockingly little about the modern day. But then he revealed he knew how to make a video game, so all bets are off

sorry got distracted. can we all start headcanoning macaque as a tgirl programmer now

[metaltea]

I feel you’ve been asked this before but I was unable to find said ask…but anywho! Advice and tips for making your own game?

How goes said game you are making btw?

Hmm not really! I'm not a great person to ask since I haven't ya know successfully made a game or anything, and the only thing I have a teeny bit of experience is with renpy. For that, there is a very welcoming community! I think there's a renpy discord server, also a subreddit, maybe a forum?? AND just tons and tons of resources you can find online very easily.

As for the game I am (was) making.... basically no progress for months lol. I could never come up with a decent plot for beyond day 1 and idk if I'll ever continue it, who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Plus the more I looked at the designs the more I realized how basic they were in comparison to all the cool designs out there. All my ocs look the same, all my art looks the same, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

(sorry pmdd brain very loud today :c )

But yea I hope I helped a bit!

[throwaway-yandere]

Hi! Love your work so much and I adore the effort you put into your stuff. I'm making a genshin otome and was wondering if it'd be okay to ask for a promo of sorts in the future? It's absolutely completely 100% valid and understandable if you don't wish to promo other works in your own blog though! I just wanted to ask first for permission or whether it's okay or not! Thanks for reading! Love ya <3

Love your work so much

Press X to doubt, you sound saner than an average reader

Okay kidding aside, I'm not exactly the most influential/popular person so I'm not sure how I'd be able to help but I can reblog it(?) for sure! I enjoy genshin and otome games so yeah!!! Even if you didn't read my works I'd still look forward to this lmao. Wish you the best in making the game <333

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

Visual novels are cool! -🌟

assuming you're talking abt that one post that was queued lolol

i havent played many myself but i know a little bit of ren'py... i tried starting some projects in the past but never got past an extremely unfinished "demo" stage 🤷‍♀️

[h-sleepingirl]

hey, i'm sure you get stuff like this all the time, but i just recently discovered your renpy games, and holy shit, they were such a game changer for me! i kept trying out hypnosis stuff, but nothing put me in trance like i think therefore did. it's very exciting to be able to return to trance because i know what it feels like now, but even aside from my interest in it as a kink, it's done so much for my emotion/bodily awareness in general :) like wow, i can actually feel and influence my thoughts and emotions and mood changes inside my body?? wild lol. even just guided meditation never worked for me because i would get too caught up wondering if i was calm yet, and they always sort of took it for granted that i already know what my body and mind actually feel like. NOTHING else guided me into such an immensely calm and nice-feeling state like those games, AND i got to have a ton of fun while i was at it. my anxiety management skills have Skyrocketed since then! thank you for sharing the amazing work you do!!

This is really cool anon! My games are definitely not intended to be therapeutic but I think it makes sense you had this effect because I emphasize awareness and observation a lot when I do hypnosis :) Makes me feel proud and confident that this is a good direction to go for people like yourself who have a difficult time with trance because (many times) they don't really know what to look for or how to look. Thank you :)

[sk3tch404]

Lmao np <33 I always enjoy drawing Yandere's as pathetic lil meow meows hehe (funfact: I actually drew Rory first but after I finished his lineart I was like, wait shit I don't have a full color reference- and then I hyperfocused on drawing jay instead lol)

Also, you 🤝 me: jayce + jack o' lanterns = stonks ✅ ✅ ✅

Also also, ngl if Darling were self-aware she'd def hate me, because I always try to speedrun the Bad ending first lmaooo

Also^3, every time I hear baggy pants, I can't help but remember the boys I went to school with a few years ago, who wore the most ugly, most a t r o c i o u s pairs of baggy pants I have ever seen 💀💀

For Reference: https://imgur.com/a/fZsHsF7

This is what I'm talking about^^ like pls,, just sTO P-

About the blue reference, the paragraph I meant was the one about how I only liked EJ so much because of his BLUE mask 😔 young me truly set the bar too low (maybe it's because of him that I'm attracted to most fictional mad scientists/doctors with no morals now, damn this bastard 😒)

Oh, and the OG mikey myers Movie is the 1978 one! ^^

And finally about the Christian Gang /hj (every holiday Yandere of yours has/used to have strong Christian influences but these three are still considered extra Christian to me so I'm just gonna start calling em that lolololol)

Gonna be honest, when you revealed that one of them was gonna be Christmas, I immediately headcanoned him as just some guy in Christmas elf costume- thank god that's not the case though (I say, even though I know damn well that I'm still gonna draw him in that costume the nanosecond you drop a ref for him, because he's a lil skrimblo who needs to get a reality check via me shitposting him into humility)

Also ofc the twins are ginger 😒🙄 /derogatory /j okay but fr, whenever I see a fictional ginger online I'm like ....Ed Sheeran??? 😱😱 (coughcoughchildecough)

-Ren'py anon

OKAY OKAY I'LL DROP A SMIDGE OF RORY SPRITES SO U CAN COLOR IT BBG

He only wears shades outside lol

HEHEHE YES JACK O'LANTERN STONKS GO UP IN THE BRAIN CELL ACTIVITY

Eh, I mean, its always fun to get the bad ending first though. Just to see then get all angry and violent 😍 good shit tbh

MC would def hate you, but I feel like it would take a bit to get the bad bad ending yk? I don't have the obvious, good/neutral/bad choices most of the time (although there are some choices that will obviously lead to negative consequences lol)

JAYCE ONLY WEARS THE ONES IN STYLE RN NOT THOSE LMAOOOO

Though they can look good if done right, those boys at school were definitely not doing it right 💀

Now I understand the blue reference! Ugh how did I MISS IT SO BAD 😭 gosh you were going crazy abt him and the color blueeeeee

I understand how that all kick started ur obsession with fucked up men. We are one in the same 😎

Hehehe thank you for the confirmation! I will be watching Myers stand there menacingly as I look up fics of him 😍

It's so funny that you call them the Christan gang, but it's not gonna have all the significant original values and whatnot. It's just a global holiday thingy that everybody does regardless of religious background (Though I'm glad you still see their origins and acknowledge their important purpose to many other people!)

GOD HELP WHY? I ONLY WATCHED LIKE 10 MINUTES IF THAT ELF MOVIE WHEN I WAS IN 6TH GRADE DURING LUNCH? WHY WERE THEY PLAYING IT DURING LUNCH YOU ASK? BC OF CHRISTMAS OR SMTH IDK, BUT IT WAS OKAY IG

It would be very funny to see him as an elf that works at the mall as a side 😇 He needs it anyway

Regarding the Twin's, THEY HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE MAKE GINGER JOKES, SO BAD. THE MINUTE SOMEONE SAYS ANYTHING ABT ED SHEERAN AROUND THEM, THEY EITHER ZIP OUT OF THERE OR FIGHT. NO IN BETWEEN.

Typical gingers 🙄 so sensitive dude

Childe is one of the only gingers I can tolerate. If these two didnt have a life and played Genshin, they would favor Childe so much.

[oneknightstand-if]

With so many variables and possible outcomes, how do you plan your storyline? We've all already acknowledged coding is a nightmare for you, but writing with all those variations must be too, right?

How do you plan your IF?

I know I was joking with that other Anon about the coding being eldritch, but it's actually not that hard.

The stuff I was programming in Renpy way back when was way more fiddly. It might be hard for a codereader to parse since I use *gosubs and multireplace and such so that there's no repeated text, but that kind of stuff doesn't really make the actual coding/writing all that harder.

During the first part of the fencing route, I actually tried to do that thing where you just repeat the text instead of using *gosubs & such to see if it would make things easier/faster, but that made hunting down typos a real PITA, so I didn't think it was worth it. (Also that would've bloated the word count outrageously in the end)

The biggest time sink will always be going back and replaying through every variation of a scene. If I just wrote/coded the game, ran Quicktest/Randomtest, and then slapped the IF up immediately for playing then this would've taken 1/4 of the time. But it also would've been a way more bug-filled experience for the player.

Otherwise, I've got several hundred pages of research notes & backstory and such, but that was mostly written before I started writing the actual game. I don't start writing until I already know exactly what's going to happen in the story. (Or at least the major plot beats. I don't know that I'll give an option for the MC to tie their shoelaces in Chapter 5 or something such)

My version of the game code is actually filled with a lot of *Comments such as Remember to allow MC to use [SPOILER] in the upcoming fight (+ a description of exactly what each of the variables in the startup file do), so the version of the game put out for the public is the way less annotated one.

[barbwritesstuff]

i loooove blood moon and cant wait for your future ifs. i know you mentioned that you were planning on a mermaid/siren if (pls correct me if im wrong) but i was wondering if you plan on a sequel for blood moon?

Okay. I'm glad you asked this anon, because it's all a bit messy, and I think it would be good for me to explain this. Bear with me, as my brain is a bit disordered right now, so this may or may not make sense.

Will there be a sequel to Blood Moon?

I dunno. Maybe. I want there to be. But I don't know, which is frustrating (for me, as well as you).

See, it's not that I don't have ideas or anything.

I have this idea for a Blood Moon sequel that I really like. It's titled 'Thicker Than' and focuses on the vampires of the city, rather than werewolves. The MC would be a new vampire with a mission from the Night King: solve a series of murders targeting members of the Night Court.

Here's the problem:

I haven't been paid or seen any sales data from Blood Moon, in part because the Australian Tax Office is taking months to organise a document that they said would only take two weeks.

So... without any data, and with everything in life just getting more and more expensive, I literally just can't financially commit to another large project set in this world. I don't mean to be dramatic, but that's the honest truth.

I need to know how many people bought Blood Moon before I can consider writing a sequel (because a sequel is probably not going to sell better than an original). And I just don't have those numbers. I don't know when I'll get them either.

I'm really sorry about that.

Will there be a dark mermaid thing?

Again. I don't know.

I have this really cool idea for a dark mermaid thing that I think people would really enjoy. It involves pirates and ancient sea gods and cannibalism.

It'd also be another full length thing. Eg, around the same size as Blood Moon.

However, I'm holding off on using Choicescript for the reasons above (I need to have sales data).

I've been experimenting with some shorter Renpy games, the first of which I'll release next month on itch.io. If people like the style of those, I'll consider using Renpy as a tool to make the dark mermaid game... if no one buys the short games, then I'll reconfigure and try to come up with a new plan.

*

I'm sorry if all that was a bit blunt. I'm really trying to be forthright and honest about all this. I want people who read my stuff to know what's going on, and I wish there was more to say, but everything has a lot of 'hurry up and wait' energy, which is all a bit stressful.

I'm also querying a prose novel right now (asking literary agents if they want to help me sell it) which also has a lot of 'hurry up and wait' energy, which isn't helping. 😅

Despite all this admin-y stuff, I am still drafting and writing, but it might not be stuff that you get to see for a little while.

I really hope that all makes sense.

[enkvyu]

For the mystic messenger game you're making is it gonna be available for us to play i kinda wanna try it 😞 and would it be like a dating sim i wanna flirt with gojo fr (I'm trying to cope)

hi anon!! yes it will be 🫶 it’s very mysme esque in the sense that you go through 8-10 chatrooms per day uncovering this super silly unsrs plot i have going on !!

u can flirt w gojo in his dms and in his route 🔥 lord knows i am but unfortunately i won’t have the full game out anytime soon 😭 maybe an early demo ??

[holyschnitzel]

I hope you're doing well, and welcome to tumblr! I have a question that's sort of related to BC but not entirely;;;

How did you get started with using renpy? Do you find working with the engine to be fun? Also, and you can skip this if you don't know what to say, how is structuring a story different for a VN compared to other forms of media?

Thank you so much for all the work you and Blastic do on BC. It's been incredible so far, and I'm excited to see what comes next!

thank you, anon! ^o^ we appreciate your support <3

we used to have a programmer on the team, but he had less and less time, so I wanted to help and started to learn a bit about RenPy. after communication had completely died down, I ended up becoming the programmer. writing code is fun, but also very frustrating at times. it wouldn't surprise me if that's one of the reasons why some people quit xD one must have patience and nerves for that ^^

oof. that's a difficult question 🤔 I don't think it's much different, really? at least not for me. I mean, I'm writing a script that is very similar to that of a movie. I try to divide each chapter into roughly 3 acts and also make notes of where sounds and music occur and how the scene should unfold in RenPy. but I think VNs at least allow for a more complete experience with the plot, the world, and the characters, since films and such are always limited to time.

thank you for your questions, I hope you find my answer satisfactory. have a wonderful day/ night 😊 

[nadianova]

I'm the renpy anon and thank you so much for the explanation!! It really helped me to motivate to start. I was wondering if there was a specific way you write your scripts? Like I've heard that sometimes it's better to write directly into the program for example

hmmm i am not 100% sure what you mean. but i tend to write my narration and dialogue first in google docs (just because of autocorrect and stuff) and when its ready to put in renpy format i use notepad++ but literally any code editor works. i just copy paste in chunks at a time and add in all the needed renpy syntax like quotation marks around sentences and who is saying the lines etc

you can make changes in script.rpy and while keeping open the renpy game window and hit shift+r to refresh the game and see your changes in real time