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...
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...
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
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)
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.
*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
Tentacle Rape Wizard
"You got your Hentai in my Harry Potter fanfiction!"
"You got your Harry Potter fanfiction in my Hentai!"
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
On an American compiler, this evaluates to true, but on the binary the Japanese compiler made, this statement evaluates to false. Shame on you for writing non-portable code! Shame!
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?
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...
Hentai was mentioned in the summary. I wouldn't ask for anyone using this tool to make anything involving tentacles.
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.
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