(part 1: your skills)
<< Part 2: Choosing an Engine
Now you have chosen Ren'py (ok, ok, I have chosen Ren'py) let's take a look at the essential information you need to start making your game. There is a very good quick start guide written by the Ren'py developers you can follow but hey are you going to trust me or them? Oh well, at least read mine too, I'll try to provide a more detailed walk-through.
First thing first you need to download, install and run Ren'py. Here is the download page if you haven't already.
It should be straight forward , if you're not sure what to do, download the SDK-zip, and unzip it to a folder you can find easily, go to the folder and double click"renpy.exe" or the execution file related to your operating system.
Here's what you'll see, hey there's another Tutorial here, for now ignore it, you can try it later.
Let's have a quick look at the different things you can click here.
- This area shows all the games you've started, You can make as many as you want. The highlighted one is the one chosen and 2-4-5-6. will run their function according to the chosen game.
- This button will launch your selected game project then you can text/play what you've made.
- This will start a wizard for creating a new project that we will go through soon.
- These are the folders in your game project you can visit by clicking their name.
- Ren'py project is based on script files containing your settings, design and story, these are the default script files the engine makes for your game.
- This option will start a wizard for turning your game into a playable package you can distribute.
- This will open your local version of help file that you can check offline to find how things work and how to do the thing you want to do.
- The engines settings, that we will visit next.
- Exit.
Ignore the rest for now. I'll point them out when their time comes.
Now you know what is what, let's visit number 8 and set two critical options. The first option is your "Project Directory", all of your games will be saved under this folder in their own directory.
Since developing games is a long process and you might need access to your project folder several times a day I suggest choosing a folder that is easy to navigate to, on a hard drive that have lots of free space and not in the same drive as your operating system if possible.
The next step is setting a default editor for your Ren'py scripting. unless you're a seasoned programmer or prefer to use a specific editor I suggest using Editra. It's set up for use with Ren'py and you'll have an easy time getting used to it.
Click Editra and let Ren'py download and install it. You can come back and change it at any time.
Now your ren'py is set up let's create a new game. press"+Create New Project" and you'll have a choice. New GUI interface vs Legacy Theme interface.
In my opinion the "New GUI interface" got too complicated for no good reason but that's the direction Ren'py is moving toward so let's get aboard and choose the new then click Continue.
Next you need to choose a name for your game. One thing you might want to avoid is spaces in the name. You wouldn't find anything about it in the help files and your game will run with no problem till you want to make your distribution packages, there you'll get an error for the space in the folder name. it's an easy fix then, but you might prevent it beforehand. When you're done entering the name click Continue.
Choosing a screen size/resolution is one of the most important steps, To choose the right resolution you need to ask yourself two questions:
- Will my game have a clean style and high resolution backgrounds and character art?
if Yes: Higher resolution
if No: Lower resolution - Do I want my game use less disc space and RAM with smaller size to take less timed to download?
if Yes: Lower resolution
if No: Higher resolution
And finally have your choose of color themes and press Continue.
Ren'py will take few seconds to build your games files and your game will be added to your Project list and you can test your game by pressing launch project.
Your game needs a story, some characters and some background otherwise it's fully functional and playable game.
It is critical for all team members to learn this much about the game engine to be able to receive a copy of the game and test it on their own computer. and that's the reason why this part of tutorial seems a bit boring to you tech savvy geeks out there, I had to consider all team members with different levels of computer knowledge.
In the next part of tutorial you'll learn the first marketable skill: how to write script for Ren'py games. Scripting means putting the story, image and sounds into the game to make the game-play. There are several roles in the team that will need to learn to script.
- Script writers (equivalent of level designers in other engines)
- Programmers
- Writers
- Leader
(part 3: Ren'py Game Engine)
(part 4: Ren'py Scripting)
(part 5: Ren'py More Scripting )
(part 6: Ren'py Scripting, Visuals)
(part 7: Ren'py Scripting, Dialogue)
(Part 8: Ren'py Scripting, Conclusion)
(Part 9: Images)
(Part 10: Animation )
(Part 11: sound editing and voice acting)