Slashdot Mirror
Free Visual Novel Design Engine Released
Ayaka Hahn writes to tell us that they have just released a free game construction kit designed to make Visual Novels easy to construct. The "Blade Engine" was based on a professional Visual Novel engine being used in Japan with the hopes that it would spark greater interest in this medium in the west. From the press release: "In the West, there is a stereotype of: "Visual Novel = Dating Sim Game = Hentai", but that is wrong. Visual Novels CAN be Dating Sim games, Ren'ai games, Bishoujo games but also can be Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Adventure and Horror Fiction games, or anything that the user's creativity comes up with."
Visual Novel? Hentai?
I'm lost already? Does this make cartoons or something?
*Fortitudo, aequitas, fidelitas.*
Although it's always nice to have more tools for software creation and/or building...these so called visual novels will probably be made by a bunch of idiots, and therefore will be worth less than the time it takes to read / play them...Perhaps these people's time would better be spent creating non-clonable goods instead of easily cloned, nonunique software? Only a few can create superior software products, and because software is copy-able there's no need for hordes of idiots to manufacture it...unlike traditional products, which require hordes of idiots to manufacture...
Wouldn't a visual novel be a step beyound Max Payne?
"Visual Novel == Dating Sim Game == Hentai"
Sigs are for Terrorists.
visual novel = manga dating sim = dating sim hentai = porn
I might be missing something, but I found NO mention of the platforms this game format supports out of the box. The Buredo ("blade" in Japanese syllables) folks should mention it SOMEWHERE before people bother to download stuff.
The first sample story is a Windows EXE, but from the tutorial files I just browsed, it doesn't look like it would be particularly hard to make a Un*x/Linux/OSX version out of nothing more than perl-sdl or pygame. The story script is essentially a big text file and graphics and sound assets.
[
You read slashdot... You notice that the most recent article is about a choose your own adventure virtual book engine. What do you do now? (Make fun of hentai at the risk of being modded troll)(Give to the community a clever take on games in Japan) ...
You start to articulate how gay it is to play games that are dating sims, and poke fun at the pathetic losers who do it...
You take it, I don't want it...
think more of a branching storyline game engine, where users can create their own content.
basicially, an attempt to make a text adventure a bit easier to program than basic. which it would seem is a long forgotten skill with kids these days. I guess being japanese, they weren't familiar with what the slashdot community would know this as best. it's a modern equivalency of programming text adventures (like nethack) in an easier format.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
This might be an interesting way to (user) document GUI appliactions. Take your screenshots and write your script.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Much like "Broken Saints"
I spoke too soon, but that's the closest thing to it that i could think of, think 'graphical overlay to a text adventure game.' basically, you could use the engine to build your own game, from scratch, the way the myst developers did, only now instead of making 'myst' you can make your own 'kings quest' with clickable dialogs instead of 'try to figure out the text command the programmer meant for you to type'
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
And that's yet another example of how Americans don't check what they type for grammatical errors.
I will try to ignore the whole "visual novel == hentai with tentacles" arguement. I play/read visual novels (or AVG as they are properly called) so I will be biased.
:) .
That having said, there was a pretty famous incident that involved GPL and a Japanese AVG game makers. Apparently the company used Xvid codecs for their animation clips for their popular games (ranked top 10 ero-game in 2005) without releasing the engine source code. When someone pointed out the GPL, the company promptly released the whole engine code (without the comments unforturnately). The engine was designed with win32 API in mind, btw. But it still counts as something
Off topic: I was amazed that a Japanese hentai game maker respects the GPL more than, say, SCO, a multi-million dollar company; Then again, comparing SCO to a hentai game company would not be fair- to the game company
Free Visual Novel Design Engine Released
You are in a Slashdot discussion about a dating sim engine. There is a summary and a link to TFA here.
> EXAMINE SELF
You are an average Slashdotter. Your karma is Normal.
> READ SUMMARY
"This program lets you design visual novels. Even though most people think that all visual novels are dating sims, that is not entirely correct."
> READ TFA
Really?
> NO
Thought so.
> WRITE POST
About what do you want to write?
> TEXT ADVENTURES
You write a funny little piece about text adventures that is just barely connected to the thread.
> POST
Unfortunatly for you the moderators are on some particularly bad crack today and your post ends up with a score of -5, Funny. Maybe you should have posted anonymously.
Your karma has been reduced to below zero. As people around you sense your negative karma they shun you, leaving all future posts unread. You are dead, as far as this community's concerned.
Your final score is 5. You must be new here.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Just pick a boy-ish, doe eyed Jap chick and the wizard will do the rape animation for you. Fuck yeah!
That's right! Visual novels can be can be Sci-Fi pron, Fantasy porn, Adventure porn and Horror Fiction porn!
;)
Simon
I couldn't figure out what this "visual novel engine" was from the summary so I thought I would RTFA for a change. After doing that I still wasn't clear about what kind of thing you could make with it. I downloaded one of the samples to see what they were talking about. For those of you like me who are out of the loop on this state of the art technology I offer you this 5 word summary: Zork with stills and sound.
How long did it take to make an "engine" to do this anyway? A whole day? two maybe? Lets see, a database with music samples, stills, and text, throw in some trivial branching, done. It seems to me that the only work in the first place was making the creative content, which, with this wonderful technology, is still the only work.
Also, once you know what they are talking about, saying this bit: "Visual Novels CAN be Dating Sim games, Ren'ai games, Bishoujo games but also can be Sci-Fi Blah Blah Blah..." is really moronic. It's like saying, "Did you know that when you buy magazines, they don't all have to be porn! There are also magazines about cars and computers, and hobbies like painting! Did you know that you can actually make a magazine about anything you want!?"
Is the whole point of this Blade engine just to establish some sort of standard? Because the problem it seems to be trying to solve just isn't that tough. I wouldn't pay money for it. Am I off the mark here? What am I not getting?
So after a quick look, it seems like this would be the kind of thing to make a game like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Is that right?
I recently managed to get my hands on a copy (they are in the Capcom online store... ORDER NOW!) and I've got to say the game is FANTASTIC. After 2 trials I would have been happy with the game, but it's got a full 5 (I just finished the fourth today). The game is an absolute blast. If you love courtroom dramas, you've got to play this game.
The characters are all great and the stories and good. The murder plots are excellent (they can be tricky). The touch screen isn't used very well in the game (which isn't surprising given it was a GBA game first, I think). You can use the touch screen just fine, it's just hardly ever needed (which is also nice, so you don't need to use it if you don't want to). They have already announced that there will be a sequel both here in the US (hooray!) and in Japan (where it will be a re-issue of a GBA game for the DS). The music is nice (which is a SERIOUS plus compared to most handheld games) and fits in very well (at the right moments in the trials, like when you present key evidence, it changes to a real pumping-up beat).
Give it a try. The game needs support.
It would be great to be able to make something like that, but I'm not creative enough. I wish this genre (and point-and-click adventure games, which I see as a bit similar in some was) wasn't dead over here. What I wouldn't give for another Lucas Arts point-and-click. Loom, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max, The Dig, Grim Fandango, and all four games in the Monkey Island series.
I never got to play Full Throttle (which was supposed to be great) or the Indiana Jones games (also supposed to be great). I ought to look into those. I only played the Monkey Island games a few years ago.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
"..."Blade Engine", a free game engine and construction kit aimed at making Visual Novel easy to construct, fully localized into English."
On second thought, they better change that to "fully localized into English...almost."
Ren'ai game player this will be a lot of fun I love dating simulators and this seems like an easier way of doing it. Most ren'ai games are not tentical hentai, but dating simulators with cool stories and interesting characters, and even though there is most of the time *there are many ren'ai games without a hentai element* it usually is involved with love element in the simulator. How many times has sex occumpanied dating? relationships? It is fun and sometimes erotic. Many anime's are also made from the stories in ren'ai games so they usually have other dealings. Play the Tokimeki Memorial series if you want a great taste of what I am talking about. They are stories and the relationships grow organically from the decisions you make, it is that simple and it rocks!
*cheerful, bland MIDI music starts playing*
;)
Noriko: *fades in* Brother! Brooootheeeer!
Noriko: *makes angry face* You are reading Slashdot again, aren't you?
Noriko: You spend too much time on the internet!
[Yes] [No] [Stick it in]
You: Hey, eight hours a day is not that much!
Noriko: Yes it is!
Noriko: *takes cheerful pose* I can't let you sit in front of the computer all day.
Noriko: Today we're going to do something together, no discussion.
Noriko: Do you have anything you want to do?
[Play a dating sim together] [Kill her] [Stick it in]
You: Your life is -5, Overrated!
Noriko: *makes scared face* What are you doing with that knife?
Noriko: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
*screen fades out*
GAME OVER
PS: I'm not trying to undermine my potential +5, Funny, but I don't want to write yet another post. When Wikipediaing for dating sim companies I noticed that according to the 'Pedia Leaf had to release the source code to some of their games under the GPL. Maybe that could be used for a free alternative to the program the TFA talks about? I gTranslated the corresponding page on Leaf's website (http://leaf dot aquaplus dot co dot jp/product/xvid.html - please spare their server if you don't intend to read the text) and it says something about how they distribute the source by email and/or CD. Maybe someone who speaks Japanese might want to get in touch with them...
(And don't tell my that the FOSS community has no need for this. We do things because we can, not because we need them
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Graphic novels, Visual novels... you know, these people must actually understand the difference between their, lets say, "limited" creations and what is traditionally referred to as a 'novel'. Otherwise, it seems, they would not insist quite so ardently on calling them 'novels'.
sic transit gloria mundi
They don't give you a choice as to whether or not you stick it in, only how long to delay it for. (Though they generally will give you a choice as to whose to stick it into, and occasionally a choice as to where to stick it in)
It is?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
...we call these "Choose Your Own Adventure" novels and I read many when I was a kid. I outgrew them, apparently the Japanese haven't. I guess it's cool, though, because it's Japanese?!? Whatever.
Blade Engine was created to bring popularity to the AVG genre to non-Japanese audiences, as its website says. This intent suggests an implicit assumption on the part of the creators - that the genre is relatively unknown in the target non-Japanese areas. But the creators also assume that there is a stereotype that "Visual Novel = Dating Sim Game = Hentai" in the target non-Japanese areas, creating a conflicting representation of their intent.
Are they trying to draw an audience by introducing this stereotype to a budding market? By stating the stereotype first, the creators have virtually guaranteed that people introduced to the AVG genre through their website will have the phrase "Visual Novel = Dating Sim Game = Hentai" burned into their minds.
I thought this was a program that I could drag and drop plot, characters, etc., into, and it would write my novel for me. You're telling me it doesn't do that, and I have to still write all the words myself? Where's my Visual Studio 2005 Novel Edition?
Honestly. It took me a few years and an actual trip to Japan to realize that the Japanese believe most of the stereotypes American non-fanboys have about anime, games, etc. too because they're mostly true. Anime is either made for kids or for otaku. Most "visual novels" ARE dating sim / porn games. Those that aren't are exceptions, and the industry mostly caters to the otaku and not to the mainstream.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Especially the requirement to run micro$oft windows..
Although it's always nice to have reply buttons to post comments these so called news sites, they will probably be filled with comments by a bunch of idiots, and therefore will be worth less than the time it takes to read them. Perhaps these people's time would better be spent creating non-clonable goods instead of easily cloned, nonunique posts? Only a few can create superior posts, and because comments are copy-able there's no need for hordes of idiots to type them...unlike traditional products, which require hordes of idiots to manufacture...
Not new by any stretch of the imagination, at all. This sort of software has existed in english for years:
http://www.renaigames.net/index.html
There's even a NaNoWriMo riff for these games. Python-based editor, everything. Blade's late to the party.
Being anonymous is not cowardice.
Could we.... hum... know which top 10 ero-game of 2005 you're talking about?
:p
I mean... I'd like to.... erm... check if my Xvid codec is able to decode their animation clips. Oh, and if you have a torrent for the clips.... hum... I'll take it.
Does anyone remember Howard the Duck? now THAT was reality fiction of the viceral visual kind...
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
[pic of quivering teen girl in sailor school uniform]
Kazumi looks up at you nervously. Do you wish to:
(1) Rape Kazumi
(2) Don't rape Kazumi
You have chosen (2) Don't rape Kazumi
[pic of quivering teen girl with blouse ripped]
Kazumi removes her clothes and [[very graphic description of sex]] "Did you hear that? I'm afraid we've woken my sister, Ayumi. You should check on her, Kesuke-kun."
[[RESTORING SAVED POSITION]]
[pic of quivering teen girl in sailor school uniform]
Kazumi looks up at you nervously. Do you wish to:
(1) Rape Kazumi
(2) Don't rape Kazumi
You have chosen (1) Rape Kazumi
[pic of quivering teen girl with blouse ripped]
You grab Kazumi and [[very graphic description of sex]] "Did you hear that? I'm afraid we've woken my sister, Ayumi. You should check on her, Kesuke-kun."
Hentai was mentioned in the summary. I wouldn't ask for anyone using this tool to make anything involving tentacles.
Here is the copy of Leaf's GPLed source code that someone uploaded previously to an anonymous uploading service: http://www.sendspace.com/file/bhcun1
Yes a lot of them involve various level of erotica especially the ones that have been translated commercially into english. For those of you with slightly more braincells then the average slashdotter this probably tells you a lot more about the english market then the japanese market.
Yes an awfull lot of visual novel type games have explicit sex. So do an awfull lot of hollywood movies. Just because you don't see them at the oscars does not mean that the majority of movies produced in hollywood are not porn.
Would you judge all live action movies based on this fact? Offcourse not. So why do people judge anime/manga/visual novels that way? It is especially ironic since the japanese RPG is well loved in the west and there are plenty of them with a heavy erotic element.
But the so called dating sim game is very common. Typically the lead character, will start the story waking up to a new situation and then being introduced to the various possible romantic intresests. These can include practically anything and even a lot of hetero games have the possibiluty of a bad ending with a male supporting character. Gay sex, you can just hear the americans cluthing their hearts and cry out, won't someone think of the childeren. Just wait until they find out the characters true age.
Some people compare them to "choose your own adventure" games. The subtle difference is in the type of choices you make. Visual novels typically are more about interaction with other people where cyoa are more about choosing a path through a dungeon. Adventure games (SCUMM) are more about puzzle solving.
An example:
Visual Novel -> Girl-next-door-chan says: "I really don't like walking home alone at night" Do you A. Walk her Home. B. Tell her not to be a coward. C. Stick it in.
Choose your own adventure game -> You stand before the dark park with girl-next-door-chan. Do you A. Take the short path through the park. B. Go around. C. Stick it in.
SCUMM -> You hold a penis and a condom. You see a vagina. Do you A. Stick penis in vagina. B. Put condom on penis. C. Put Condom in vagina.
All three will probably lead to the lead getting laid (wether this is explicit or not depends in the same way as it does in other media were you might just fade to credits when they get each other, see them kiss and fade out or it is time to get the box of kleenex.)
Another difference is visual novels are often less direct in their choices. Especially the lesser porn type wich are the ones translated into english for profit. Wich again tells you a lot more about the west then it tells you about japan. This however does give dating games a worse reputation, even the erotic ones, then they deserve.
For instance you will often be presented with a choice like "Do you stay in the classroom or do you go to the cafeteria." Rather then, "do you eat lunch with Girl A or with Girl B".
Better games still don't give you a named choice but at least attempt to hint at it. For instance to get the sporty girl you take lunch outside, for the rebel girl on the rooftop etc etc.
Another frequent mistake is to confuse dating sims with visual novels. First off is that not all visual novels are about dating but also that datings sims are not just visual novels. They really are sims, often marrying a tycoon style management game with a visual novel. They rarely make the transistion to the west, because they frequently contain less porn probably.
In a dating sim your character has some stats wich you can alter wich will impress certain girls. Typically the game gives you several choices per game day as to what to do and several chances to choose wich girl to interact with. Do sports and go to the track to get the sporty girl, work hard and go shopping to attract the blood suckin
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It's not so surprising; where the national character of Americans is arrogant and all about number one, the Japanese are fundamentally in love with rules and structure. It's not universally true, but it is particularly common amoung Japanese businessmen: they would rather die than go against the grain. If the rules clearly say "you must do X", the Japanese will often just do it (where an American would spend years arguing the point in court and trying to weasel out of it). It's a cultural thing.
Using your reasoning we should ban pencils and paper because they force us to endure this 'gigantic, suffocating mass of mediocrity' that we call the book publishing medium?
Tools like this are what brings a medium into the position of being able to mature. Like the printing press in it's day, being able to lower the barrier of entry to zero is the fundamental key to allowing interactive content to truly become what it 'should' be in most people eyes.
Sure having inexpensive video camera technology has spawned a LOT of garbage (just spend 2 minutes on youtube to prove this), but it has also allowed people like Kevin Smith to create Clerks. There are many other examples of Indie filmmaking that ONLY became possible with the barrier of entry being lowered to the point where literally anyone could create content for the industry - in this case the film industry.
Look at it this way - we have the 'current regime' of interactive content, which requires a multi-million dollar investment by a publisher, plus thousands of man-months of time put in by people that are the equivalent of rocket scientists (programmers & 3d artists / animators). Every 2 or 3 years IF THEY ARE EXTREMELY LUCKY, they manage to spit a game onto the market, whic may or may not be good, and may or may not even be an interactive story in the context of what we're talking about here.
The new regime (and it will come, whether the industry wants it or not) will consist of something more along the lines of this: instead of 100 triple A teams working on 50 million dollar games, we'll have 100000 teams of artists & programmers working on projects that they truly believe in (as opposed to projects that they endure to get a salary from EA working on 'sequel x')
Will this result in alot of crap? Sure, but the business models will evolve as well, and in turn the publishing systems will allow people to filter the content, much like the book & movie industries today.
Amazon claims to have 'x' millions of titles on their 'shelves' - is there not alot of crap in there too? Sure, but it doesn't mean that we should all flee for the hills because of the overload in content. Ratings systems, user reviews, recommendations systems and more will all provide both users & content creators ways to find & promote new content.
Yes there will be the Triple A titles still - the almightly marketing budget will never go away - but these will simply be the lure to get people in the door - after which point you will be able to discover that there is a LOT of interesting content being produced by people that you've never heard of.
Ie the same business models as the Music, Film & Book industries today.
Gekido's Lair
I tried to build one with scenarios for getting out of Iraq with our country still intact. I keep getting DIVIDE BY ZERO and INFINITE RECURSION errors.
Table-ized A.I.
cause I think I just heard someone say 'Weeaboo.'
--
fuckin furries
Actually, the constant "stick it in" options were an Excel Saga reference. One episode parodies dating sims and has selection boxes popping up whenever a certain character has to make a decision. "Stick it in" usually is among the options. (Actually, the "kill her" option was from Excel Saga, too.)
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
On a tangent--
...Yeah, you read right, they're trying to charge for this stuff.
Having downloaded the Blade Engine, here's something pertinent from the readme:
3. Blade Engine Features
--------------------
Blade Engine Free Version supports:
- Graphics
- Sound / Music / Voice
- Option Command
- Visual Effect (fading, Earth Quake effect etc)
- Save / Load function
- Blade Engine logo and URL are displayed
Blade Engine Professional Version supports:
- Graphics
- Sound / Music / Voice / Movie
- Option Command
- Visual Effect (fading, Earth Quake effect etc)
- Save / Load function
- File packing function
- No Blade Engine logo and URL are displayed
- Professional tech support
To pre-order Professional Version, please write to: (snip)
I read the entire summary thinking Novell released a visual design tool so you can recreate some IDE I hadn't heard of, called Visual Novell. And it apparently is for handling server farms; or blades.
Then I got to the part about dating sims and hentai and my brain melted.
All I know is that my friend decided I looked like someone called Howard the Duck and called me "Howard" untill I moved away with my job. I'm assuming this was a bad thing, but I'd prefer a confirmation. Don't worry, I'm not gonna mail bomb him or anything, I'm sure I've called him much worse to his face and we'd still have each other's back in a fight.
Someone save me from this sanity.
Just one word about the "visual novel = dating sim = p0rn" thing.
Play Planetarian. It's the most touching "game" I've ever seen. Doesn't have porn, it's a really interesting story and has the cutest female character ever designed.
The thing basically takes place in a broken future where a biochemical war ensued, making the environment a complete POS. The world's population was decimated by the contamination and a permanent acid rain, and the battle robots released to keep the war on.
The game is starred by a "junker" more or less a treasure hunter, who enters a city searching for goods to sell and hopefully some cigs or alcohol (omg like finding diamonds as it's explained), and ends up in a old planetarium that was kept in an acceptable state. The guy decides to stay there to recover from fighting war machines and to get dryed from the constant, toxic rain.
In there, he finds an android, Reverie, who used to be the planetarium's guide, and was left in a hibernation state since the city was evacuated because of the war. She has only awakened seven days per year (battery life) waiting for the planetarium's staff to return. This character gets on the nerves of the junker badly, as she really doesn't stop talking. However, she results to be quite a lovely character and the junker starts to get quite fond of her in the end.
The end of the game is really touching and if you don't feel anything from it you should be buried alive or something nasty like that.
And nope, even if it's a girl and a guy it doesn't go "welcome, may I have you pOnOs?". Jack Thompson would be unable to make anything bad of this (mwahahaha)
There is a translated demo somewhere, google for "planetarian" and give it a try, it's really worth it.
The only flaw is that it's actually a pretty novel with music and images, so its replay value is null...but it's not expensive to make for it.
Gee, for a second their I thought you
were talking about a new networking product from Novell,
not something about books!
The is a linux port... Of sorts A version of onscripter has been released on the GP2X which runs Linux
Personally, I suffered about 5 seconds of extreme confusion as my brain first tried to fit the words "Novell" and the other "novel" (as in, "unusual") to the story.
Please, we have enough tentacle rape hentai without Cthulu getting into this.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Your post is another example of a person's inability to form a complete sentence.
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
Posted by another AC below:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/bhcun1
Sadly, Leaf has deleted all the comments. Oh well.
I've been meaning to get around to watching Excel Saga (along with a few other series), but I haven't had the time.
Howard the Duck "trapped in a world he never made". The concept was a parallel universe much like our own only inhabited by Ducks. Howard slips through a crack in space-time and here he is; a Cigar chomping foul mouthed normal sort of guy who is constantly running into Marvel universe super heros and villans but basically represents the common Everyman... "every duck?" Oh and has a babe (human) GF...
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Yep.. and it's everywhere: all over storefronts, "special club" entrances, the guy sitting across from you on the train, the ads on TV and in the paper, etc, etc.
Not that I think there's anything wrong with it, per se, but let's call a spade a spade.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Yes, you are talking about comics. Such as this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuni_ga_Moeru or this http://www.debito.org/abunaijinkenyougohouan.html Not this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukuyomi_Moon_Phase or this http://insani.org/haruoto.html
LOL that was a great movie when I was a kid haha
While it is great (in terms of access, democracy, etc...) that new applications and software are being developed to enable people with minimal technical skill to create...it certainly does bug me when techies incorrectly employ terms from literary theory. Visual novel? Besides the very poor English on the site advertising the Blade Engine, Curious Factory doesn't seem to have any concept of what a novel actually implies. Additionaly, making vast generalisations such as "most visual novels have multiple storylines and many endings" ignores genres such as fairytales (among others) which are complete with images but usually follow a "linear" trajectory. Perhaps referring more aptly to this "writing" tool (and avoiding the numerous grammatical mistakes) might actually tempt good writers to experiment with it. Multi-modal narratives anyone?