Creating Visual Novel (Text Interactive Game)

shubhank008

Hey guys is it possible to make a Visual Novel aka text interactive scene based game with GameSalad (for iOS and android)?

Such a game usually has a graphic scene, story plays as text and at diff points in story/scene user has to make a choice (click 1 of the x number of buttons on screen) and the story changes or continues depending on his choice.

If it does, can anyone give me a hint or point me in right direction to get started ?

tatiang

It's certainly possible and not especially difficult. Other people here have created eBook apps and I'll see if I can find a few links for you. If you go to the Greenleaf Games link in my signature and click on Turtle of Torres Strait in the Collaborations section you can see an app I helped one of my clients build. It includes a story, games, and conservation/ecology educational information.

shubhank008

I checked that Torres but hard to tell how it works since no ingame screenshots on iTunes available

However for reference a Visual Novel is like this


If you know any dating sim games, they are also kinda similar to VN too since after each 4-5 scenes which show the story, user is asked for a action or input from a game character like the character asking "What do you like" with options and depending on what option user choce the next story/scene unfolds

Let me know if you find some references or hints on how to do that via GameSalad

shubhank008

*Bump anyone with any info on this ?

shubhank008

#Bump 2 and last attempt

Anyone has any idea if GS can work out for my needs ?

gyroscope

Hello @shubhank008 even after showing the video as reference, the answer is still the same : it's perfectly possible to create that sort of game with GameSalad Creator.

To explain all of the details to produce it though would take far too long here in a Forums post... the best thing is for you to take the plunge and when you come actress any problems, ask here, one question at a time.

If you are totally new to GameSalad though, I honestly think this might be a little too adventurous a project to start with if you haven't run through the Manual or tried out some of the many tutorials about.

But I could be wrong, the only way is for you to start and see how it goes; best of luck.

UtopianGames

I really like the look of this...http://www.deepbluemarket.com/product/story-tellers-ios-starter-kit/



Darren.

Hopscotch

@shubhank008, as @tatiang said, Gamesalad is a good choice for this kind of project. You wont find an easier option, that still allows you the freedom of adding gameplay elements, etc.

Have you installed Gamesalad yet? Give it a try, with the help of a few community youtube tutorials you will quickly be up and running.

GS is ideal for a project like this.

Hopscotch

@DeepBlueApps‌

Darren? Really?

shubhank008

Gonna contact author of that kit but its not related to GS, if I use that, I can only make iOS version of app and will have to recode everything for Android

Multiplatform is one of the core reasons Gamesalad is intriguing me.

I actually tried finding a bit about it through forums, but is there any limits of events or files in GS free version ?
Like Scirra has 100 event limit in free version, this will be my first game and a bit different as in VN genre so I wanted to complete 1 story arc to get some feedback from communities before getting paid version and complete the whole game.

1 Story arc will have around like 300~ Scenes probably


Also, is it possible to play a video or such media as part of event ? Like I wanted to autoplay a video in my scene depending on a event trigger and such

gyroscope

There aren't any limitations at all in the free version, only less behaviours, which become active when you buy a Pro licence. Most of those you probably wouldn't miss for something like the game you're after making - except In-App Purchase, maybe... so with the free version of GSC you'll just have to make it a full paid or free game...

300 scenes in itself isn't a problem for GSC, but what could be a problem is if every single scene has a large image on it... you could run into a very "heavy" app, file-size wise, even with picture optimisation and possible problem with loading...still, it's possible perhaps, providing you turn off Preload Art on all of them.

Videos can be played - of sorts - this is by obtaining all the frames of the video and either using a small bit of programming with a timer and change image behaviour; or using the Animate behaviour, you can run the frames for a video-type effect. Although if you're going for a high fps, again you could run into RAM problems; too many and too large too, the app would probably bomb...

shubhank008

How large of a image did you mean ? Our image size per image wont be more than 300-500KB/image

As per video it also will be around 20-30 secs max more like a music video with pic cutscenes to show a battle rather then some animation or heavy vfx

And yeah we will be buying the pro version if we can atleast prepare a prototype with the free version to be sure it will work in long run.

Btw GS doesnt have any memory leak problems for iPad right ?
Coz most DeepBlueApps have a note

*Note II: Due to GameSalad’s excessive memory leak issues. This template does not run smooth when compiled to run in the iPad. The template is a case study only.

gyroscope

How large of a image did you mean ? Our image size per image wont be more than 300-500KB/image

OK, you should be OK then (these are quite small pics, especially if they're double-size to take into account RI) - if you were using full-screen RI images for something like the iPad though, 300 pics might be pushing it... (the average RI full-screen size for iPad is about 6MB so your app would be at least 1.2GB in size...)

As per video it also will be around 20-30 secs max more like a music video with pic cutscenes to show a battle rather then some animation or heavy vfx

Even at a frame-rate suitable for animation of something like 10 to 12 frames a second, that's still going to be 300 images, much more if you're going to increase the frame rate closer to film... again, it does depend on the size of the frames but you could run into memories problems, just warning you in advance....

To clarify, the Animate behaviour can be used for video frames as well as animation-type graphics...

Btw GS doesnt have any memory leak problems for iPad right ?
Coz most DeepBlueApps have a note

*Note II: Due to GameSalad’s excessive memory leak issues. This template does not run smooth when compiled to run in the iPad. The template is a case study only.

In past betas, there were quite a few problems with memory caches not being cleared, etc., but in the main, those days are gone... I'm guessing the template you are using might be relatively old, hence the warning then.

We all have to keep an eye out for excessive RAM usage as well as excessive file sizes though.

Hope that's been of some help... good luck with getting your game up and running.

Hopscotch

Regarding video, the style of animation, as in the above example, can also be achieved by coordinating/scripting the movement of individual images/characters, or parts of the scene, including effects, against a fixed or scrolling background.

No real need for pre rendered videos.

UtopianGames

@hopscotch After several PM's with shubhank008 i just don't think GS would be able to handle the amount of full size images he requires….could be wrong.

Darren.

shubhank008

How large of a image did you mean ? Our image size per image wont be more than 300-500KB/image

OK, you should be OK then (these are quite small pics, especially if they're double-size to take into account RI) - if you were using full-screen RI images for something like the iPad though, 300 pics might be pushing it... (the average RI full-screen size for iPad is about 6MB so your app would be at least 1.2GB in size...)

As per video it also will be around 20-30 secs max more like a music video with pic cutscenes to show a battle rather then some animation or heavy vfx

Even at a frame-rate suitable for animation of something like 10 to 12 frames a second, that's still going to be 300 images, much more if you're going to increase the frame rate closer to film... again, it does depend on the size of the frames but you could run into memories problems, just warning you in advance....

To clarify, the Animate behaviour can be used for video frames as well as animation-type graphics...

Btw GS doesnt have any memory leak problems for iPad right ?
Coz most DeepBlueApps have a note

*Note II: Due to GameSalad’s excessive memory leak issues. This template does not run smooth when compiled to run in the iPad. The template is a case study only.

In past betas, there were quite a few problems with memory caches not being cleared, etc., but in the main, those days are gone... I'm guessing the template you are using might be relatively old, hence the warning then.

We all have to keep an eye out for excessive RAM usage as well as excessive file sizes though.

Hope that's been of some help... good luck with getting your game up and running.

No no, I dont think we will keep our images 6MB per image at all, 300KB mostly for the character sprites and maybe 1MB~ for a battle scene (max 6 images per story arc) since we aint gonna have some kind of super zoom allowed for images or such to need that much high px

As per video, gonna pre-render it in Sony Vegas as a music video and so it will be .mov/mp4 at around 30 fps rather then some kind of in-game animation. Its more like a cutscene video you see in console games.


And yeah man, you have been a great help to clear my doubts in PM and in forum, I am downloading GS today evening to give it a try too.

Hopscotch

@DeepBlueApps,

ok then Darren, if you have more info, you are definately experienced to make a professional assessment.

Just going on the above, I would hate not giving GS a chance, as I think with a slight re-think of the full scene animations, it can be easily be done without pre-rendering.

gyroscope

No no, I dont think we will keep our images 6MB per image at all, 300KB mostly for the character sprites and maybe 1MB~ for a battle scene (max 6 images per story arc) since we aint gonna have some kind of super zoom allowed for images or such to need that much high px

Oh, that's sounding OK then (I thought you were wanting lots of full-screen images like the sample video you showed).

As per video, gonna pre-render it in Sony Vegas as a music video and so it will be .mov/mp4 at around 30 fps rather then some kind of in-game animation. Its more like a cutscene video you see in console games.

To clarify, there's no way of running video (as video) in GameSalad. The workaround is to import the video as separate frames and run them together using a Timer, Change Image behaviour and a couple of attributes; or to run them as a film using the frames in an Animate Behaviour.

Either way, if you're using 30 fps, and say the video is 30 seconds long, that's a massive 900 images.... so to mention again, if they are relatively big pics, you're probably going to run into memory (RAM) problems (and definitely add substantially to the game file size).

And yeah man, you have been a great help to clear my doubts in PM and in forum, I am downloading GS today evening to give it a try too.

Glad I've been of help. :-)

For the record though, the guy who helped you via DM/PM was @DeepBlueApps, by the sound of it - so the credit there goes to Darren. B-)

Good news that you're going to download GSC, I don't think you'll regret it.

shubhank008

Damn that video thing sounds a problem. A normal video file will weigh around 20MB max and the full screen images I will have will only be background ones which will be 2-3 per story arc.

I will first try that video thing today in GS using a dummy video and try to create 3-4 scenes with dialouges to act as a prototype