RenPy VS Godot

So many things are wrong with this article but I’ll start with Haruhi Suzumiya being a ‘light novel’ (a novel printed in large text as if for seniors with a few illustrations) as opposed to a ‘visual novel’ (something you would make with https://www.renpy.org/)

It is hard to know because financials aren’t public but it’s not clear to me that Crunchyroll has really addressed the commercial provlems anime had in western markets. In the VHS era there was a fight over subtitles vs dubs which was acute because you could not put multiple content tracks on the media, in the DVD age you could.

More fundamentally, dubs cost a lot of money in comparison with subs and were always terrible until the people who made those terrible dubs gained experience and some of them got good. At the time people though subs had a limited market but now subprime anime (and sometimes good anime) gets shoveled onto Tubi and people watch it —- today we’re in the habit of watching movies with subtitles because you can’t make out the dialog on half of the new Hollywood movies anyway.

Many great suggestions in this thread. Some that I didn't spot:

Lua isn't tough to pick up given you already know JS and Python. It's a bit of a weird hybrid of the two in its own unique ways. If show that you are learning it with you child, sometimes that can be a great experience. Löve2D can be a fun, very self-contained sandbox: https://www.love2d.org/

On the Python side, Ren'Py can be a great place to start. Visual Novels may not be half as popular outside of Japan, but Visual Novel-like conversations are everywhere in modern games and you can start with easy to script "Choose Your Own Adventure" Visual Novel conventions and expand to a wide range of genres from RPGs to "life sims" to some form of turn-based strategy games easily from there (and just about anything with more work). Ren'Py starts from its own relatively simple conversation-focused scripting language with Python-like conditions, and then allows you to expand towards custom Python code as you get familiar with it. https://www.renpy.org/

..and even more recently, I truly felt like I got a hang on something when I made my first ever visual novel with Sublime and Ren'Py!

Ren'Py - Visual Novel Engine. Python, Cython, C

Here are 2 interactive story game engines: * https://www.renpy.org/ * https://twinery.org/

###################################################### Credits label credits(): $ credits_speed = 20 scene black show text '''{b}Blabla:{/b}\n\n{i}Me{/i}\n\n\n {b}Clacla:{/b}\n\n{i}You{/i}\n\n\n {b}Dladla:{/b}\n\n {i}He{/i}\n\n\n {b}Hlahla:{/b}\n\n{i}She{/i}\n\n\n {b}Brrr:{/b}\n\n{i}Grrr{/i}\n\n\n {b}Drrr:{/b}\n\n{i}Hrrr{/i}\n\n\n\n\n Made with {a=https://www.renpy.org/}Ren'Py{/a} v[renpy.version_only]\n\n\n{b}Ren'Py License:{/b}\n[renpy.license!t]''' at Move((0.5, 1.0), (0.5, -1.0), credits_speed, xanchor=0.5, yanchor=0) with Pause(credits_speed+4) return init screen about(): tag menu add "main_menu" use game_menu(_("Credits"), scroll="viewport"): style_prefix "about" fixed: xalign 0.5 yalign 0.5 viewport id "vp": draggable True mousewheel True has vbox: spacing 3 textbutton _("whattheheeeeellll") action Jump("credits") init -1 style about_label is gui_label init -1 style about_label_text is label_text init -1 style about_text is gui_text init -1 style about_label_text: size gui.label_text_size

You can also check https://www.renpy.org/

I can't speak for in-game stuff, but I encourage anyone who wants to to try making a visual novel! It's way easier than you'd think it is. The only tools I really used were Ren'Py (the engine), CSP and Paint.net (for the art), and KKT (for the models).

Install the latest tools I have been using/learning: atm Godot, rust (via rustup).

What is the difference between "Redot" and Godot?

The README for this GitHub contains the same info as the official Godot repo [1], so it's not clear what this fork does differently or changes.

[1] https://github.com/godotengine/godot

Building some prototypes of games with Godot. Mostly enjoying it.

A few gripes with the GDScript language though. Might switch back to C#.

https://godotengine.org/

Godot is an open source game framework: https://godotengine.org/

You would presumably need to download the Godot framework and open it in the framework.

I think going straight to Switch would likely be a tall order. I’d start him off with something where he can be successful right away, writing something he can play on his own computer or share with friends easily.

Scratch[0] is often used to start kids out with programming. He may already use it in school, I know my nephew does, who is around the same age. I made a silly little game in Scratch about a year ago to share with my nephews[1], to try and inspire them a bit. The oldest one quickly went into the code and started tweaking the variables I had set to control things like speed and randomness to make it more chaotic. It’s a good way to learn the concepts of variables, loops, sprites, hit boxes, etc without getting bogged down with the complexity of syntax or a professional game engine. It’s also in the browser, so he can easily share with friends and have them play it, or fork it.

After that, maybe look to something like Godot[2]. It’s free and open source, so he doesn’t have to worry about licensing and all that nonsense that a 12 year old shouldn’t have to think about. I briefly looked and saw some videos of people running the Godot engine on the Switch, but I don’t know what’s involved in that.

I wouldn’t get too tied to a console when learning. Rumors of the Switch 2 are floating around, and who knows, that could mean a whole different path. Starting on the computer avoids this problem, and other huddles. Then if he likes the act of game dev and learning those things, he can cross the bridge to whatever the current console is, if that’s the direction he wants to head.

[0] https://scratch.mit.edu/

[1] https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/733627274/

[2] https://godotengine.org/

I am building my very first computer game, a VR spaceflight simulator with realistic physics and engineering, inspired by Orbiter, Eagle Lander 3D, and a little bit of Subnautica: https://tungstenmoon.com/

I am using the Godot engine: https://godotengine.org/

The playable demo is already available today on Github: https://github.com/Eccentric-Anomalies/Tungsten-Moon-Demo-Re...

We're releasing the demo on Steam for the first time in a few days, followed by an early access version probably in October: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3104900/Tungsten_Moon/

By trade I'm a C#/.NET dev. Unity made it easy to dabble with gamedev on the side. But I've since moved to Godot. Their approach makes a lot more sense. Unfortunately, the C# experience isn't quite there.

GDScript is just barely OK. You really start to miss a lot of advanced features on bigger projects.

Godot will skyrocket further once they add proper C# Web Export. Unfortunately, they claim to be blocked by this .NET team issue.

https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues/70796#issuecomme...