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."

Wha?

Visual Novel? Hentai?

I'm lost already? Does this make cartoons or something?

Re:Wha?

You're thinking of 'Graphic Novel' and no, that's not what this is. This is for making interactive novels. They call them games, but a LOT of the 'interactive novels' I've seen were only interactive in that you could click to go to the next scene.

There ARE a few good ones, they're just few and far between already. Making it easy for idiots to make their own won't improve things.

Re:Wha?

Making it easy for idiots to make their own won't improve things.

Your comment was going well until that point. The Blade Engine is akin to blogging software for visual storytellers. Simplifying the process of creating AVGs will give an opportunity for people with good storytelling but poor programming skills to create interesting works. Sure, there will be a huge amount of crap, just like with blogs, but overall more is better. That's the whole raison d'etre of the internet.

Elitists are free to ignore self-published graphic novels, just as I'm sure there are plenty of people who read only "established" news sources on the web and don't bother with blogs of any kind, or in the real world plenty of people would never be caught dead reading a "zine [undergroundpress.org],"which themselves multiplied after the advent of cheap photocopying and (later) DTP software.

Re:Wha?

No one will ever convince me that completely destroying the "signal to noise" ratio of a particular creative field is somehow a good thing. Why on earth is it "better" to have this gigantic, suffocating mass of mediocrity?

I see where you're coming from, but my feeling is that what's noise to me might be signal to others, and vice-versa. Beethoven took some of his great symphonic themes from "mediocre" musical ditties of his day. Cubism arose in part because European artists gained exposure to "mediocre" African art and took it in unforseen directions. Warhol made art from tin can logos. The important thing is being able to connect and have access to the ideas. From there, what you do with them is limited more by your own inner creative mojo than by overexposure to crap.

Insofar as noise is a problem on the internet, I find that it is due to advertising, not the fault of independent creative works, no matter how banal they may be. Of course YMMV, and I respect that.

(Now you've got me wondering if even advertising is unmitigated noise. Perhaps penis enlargement ads will one day be viewed as primitive art by some future civilization. My only consolation is that I'll be long dead by then.)

Most people are useless idiots...

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...

Correction

"Visual Novel == Dating Sim Game == Hentai"

clarification

visual novel = manga dating sim = dating sim hentai = porn

no mention of platform?

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.

Re:no mention of platform?

Unline ONScripter [wikipedia.org] (a freeware implementation of the engine that was used to create Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, among other things), there doesn't seem to be a Linux port of this yet.

Re:no mention of platform?

The saddest thing about this story is that there is already a GPL visual novel script program, called Ren'py [bishoujo.us], which supports Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. But Slashdot gave Ren'py zero publicity. And why should they? It's only a tool for making dating sims. The crazy arbitrariness of the editors never fails to astound me.

Create Your Own Novel!

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...

Create Your Own Infocom!

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.

Re:Create Your Own Infocom!

You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

Create Your Own Leaf!

*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 ;)

You must be new to this whole 'hentai game' thing.

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)

Looks awesome think 'text adventure game'

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.

Hmmmm

This might be an interesting way to (user) document GUI appliactions. Take your screenshots and write your script.

It is not the first open-souce visual novel engine

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 :) .

That's right!

That's right! Visual novels can be can be Sci-Fi pron, Fantasy porn, Adventure porn and Horror Fiction porn!

Simon ;)

Unimpressive

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?

Like "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney"?

So after a quick look, it seems like this would be the kind of thing to make a game like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney [wikipedia.org]. 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 [wikipedia.org], Day of the Tentacle [wikipedia.org], Sam and Max [wikipedia.org], The Dig [wikipedia.org], Grim Fandango [wikipedia.org], and all four games in the Monkey Island [wikipedia.org] 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.

Novels

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'.

==Lame

"In the West, there is a stereotype of: "Visual Novel = Dating Sim Game = Hentai", but that is wrong.

It is?

Umeda is a self-confessed otaku, one of Japan's growing legion of men obsessed with anime, comics, action figures, and videogames. And when Umeda claims otaku status, it's no idle boast. "Here's the real evidence," he says, producing a certificate and ID that confirm his standing as "otaku elite." He earned this rank by getting a very high score on a rigorous National Unified Otaku Certification Test last summer. The exam was something of a Japanese obsession, despite having been available only as an insert in Elfics magazine, which features cheesecake drawings of scantily clad, underage girls on the cover. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/posts.htm l?pg=5 [wired.com]

In the West...

...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.

What is the intent?

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.

Dang it

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?

Now even the first american system for this

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 [renaigames.net]

There's even a NaNoWriMo riff for these games. Python-based editor, everything. Blade's late to the party.

I loved it then, a bit bored with it now...

Does anyone remember Howard the Duck? now THAT was reality fiction of the viceral visual kind...

Lot of bad info

First off game type is not rigidly defined anymore then say the term FPS must always describe a Doom clone. Generally visual novel type games are about story, often several story lines intertwined wich you choose between.

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

W-in-a-box

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.

Planetarian

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.

Multi-modal Narratives?

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?

Re:Yet another fine example of...

And that's yet another example of how Americans don't check what they type for grammatical errors.

Re:Does it have a 'Tenticle Rape Wizard'?

Tentacle Rape Wizard

"You got your Hentai in my Harry Potter fanfiction!"
"You got your Harry Potter fanfiction in my Hentai!"