Our RenPy Game Part 1 - Planning

by IoFAdmin at

renpy | python | programming

Starting Our RenPy Game

I'm learning RenPy as I go so I'm trying to document my steps as a learning process and hopefully help you readers along the way.

Quick Overview

RenPy games are what the cool kids call visual novels (VN). These visual novels are very similar to the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books from my youth but they have pictures/animations. (Yes, I know that I'm old. Ask your elderly neighbors about CYOA books). Much like CYOA books, VNs present the player with some text and then some choices.

Choices in VNs, much like in life, drive everything forward. RenPy focuses on choices and they make up the backbone of your game.

Premise Of Our Game

Our untitled pirate game, which we'll call UPG from now on, will be a family friendly game packed with puns and bad jokes. I love Dad Jokes so be prepared for some bad ones. Our unnamed hero will be an ordinary teenager who accidentally joins a pirate crew to save his cat.

Planning

While we are figuring this out as we learn RenPy, we need some basic goals so that we don't get totally lost. Here are the basic things we need to keep in mind:

  1. Graphic Style: I want this game to have a retro feel so I'll be trying my hand at 16-bit pixel art. I'm VERY new to pixel art so don't expect too much. To get started, we'll just use some placeholder images.
  2. Game Play: We will be focusing on choices that drive the story forward. There will be some text choices such as "Talk to the man" or "Leave him alone" and some visual choices such as requiring the player to click a certain part of the screen.
  3. Storyline: I know that this is a big project so I'm trying to keep it as small as possible to start. I'm planning on making this game in "chapters" with each chapter having a main goal. Chapter 1 will involve joining a pirate crew to get your cat back who wound up on their ship. When we complete the first chapter, we can worry about continuing the story from there.

Wrapping Up

We have a basic plan in place so we can take a break for now. Next time we'll start outlining the story for chapter 1. What do you say? Arrrhg! you with me? Don't say I didn't warn you about the bad puns and Dad Jokes!

Bring on part 2!