What game engine was used?

[Rabcor]

Is it an internal proprietary engine of liar soft? Enterbrain? Ren'Py? I'd like to know. Just for kicks.

[Kats]

codeX RScript I believe.

[Rabcor]

That doesn't sound like a very nice engine. Hope they start rolling with the increasingly popular ren'py (it's a good engine, I've used it; all sort of cool stuff has been made in it, and it's scripting language is super easy to grasp, learned the engine like the back of my hand in like an hour; and it's cross platform and everything! I started working on a project but scrapped it because it was too grotesque to ever be well received by anyone)

I was hoping if they'd said ren'py to push for Mac and Linux versions. Although a wrapper (like Wine or eON) would be fine.

The old Japanese VN engines were all pretty bad though, I don't think I've ever seen a better one than ren'py (for developers and end users alike) but RScript has been used for some big titles.

[Kats]

Originally posted by Riful:

That doesn't sound like a very nice engine. Hope they start rolling with the increasingly popular ren'py (it's a good engine, I've used it; all sort of cool stuff has been made in it, and it's scripting language is super easy to grasp, learned the engine like the back of my hand in like an hour; and it's cross platform and everything! I started working on a project but scrapped it because it was too grotesque to ever be well received by anyone)

I was hoping if they'd said ren'py to push for Mac and Linux versions. Although a wrapper (like Wine or eON) would be fine.

Well thing is, this game was made 4 years ago.

[Rabcor]

And? Ren'py was alive and kicking back then too.Katawa shoujo the first really big title on Ren'py was released in 2012. (Although Japanese release was only in 2015 so I guess it would make sense for it to be a bit late) Still, hope we'll start seeing more engines like Ren'py from now on.

[Kats]

Originally posted by Riful:

And? Ren'py was alive and kicking back then too.Katawa shoujo the first really big title on Ren'py was made in 2012.

I'm mostly just commenting on "Hope they start rolling with", I just mean that I don't think they can easily change the engine.

[Rabcor]

Well, for big 3D game engines it can be rough to replace your engine, but with VN engines it is easier, these engines are significantly easier to use and learn, and since Ren'py is python based, porting code from one scripting language to well.. it, should be a piece of cake. For most projects though, switching an engine can be really tough (I mean just look at bethesda softworks, clinging to the broken and obsolete gamebryo engine still today despite it being the most broken part of all their games since morrowind)

One thing that does make Ren'py an exceptionally good VN engine choice is that besides it's windows, os x and linux support, it also supports android, and I bet iOS support is to come soon enough.

[Franka_Scythe]

Ren'py is great, but it has some performance issues if you do more than basic VN gameplay. I also don't see it gaining widespread recognition among Japanese developers, who are pretty insular to begin with.

[KOS-MOS]

Please don't make Ren'py seem like " The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread".
I'm not that well informed on VN engines, but as far as I know most (Japanese) companies tends to keep to one engine and as far as I know it's pretty rare they change engine.
Also I believe Ren'py is more popular in the western scene compared to Japan.

[Rabcor]

There have been japanese devs using Ren'py. But true enough it is more popular among western devs (probably because it's probably the ONLY western language VN game engine...) Also it's performance issues outside of basic VN are developer faults, not engine faults (I never had any problems with nyaatrap's dungeon crawlers, performance wise that is).

[Code x70]

Originally posted by Riful:

The old Japanese VN engines were all pretty bad though, I don't think I've ever seen a better one than ren'py

Since you know too much about VN engines, what about Siglus and rUGP? are those better or whorse than renpy?

[Rabcor]

I was writing you a good long answer but steam crashed (bloody SELINUX woes), so I will just say this. Ren'py is probably better than both as long as you are planning to develop for it's supported platforms. Better for the developer, probably better for the user. But these other engines support consoles which Ren'py currently does not which is why they would be more popular among japanese developers (consoles are pretty big there after all; not as much over here anymore).

But all engines can get you the same resulting game, so being better doesn't make it necessary to use over the others. Once you have an engine and you and your fellow developers are used to working in it, changing to another engine is harder since you need to adapt your workflow to the different engine. Afterwards you might develop even faster, maybe even way faster (this will commonly be the case with ren'py because of its super efficient scripting language for example), but people don't like taking chances like that if they don't have to. They have what they are used to, and they stick to it.

But Ren'py has a lot of things over these engines to counteract it's lack of console support, however on a japanese market, console support is almost essential.

[Flaemes]

Most VNs tend to be released on PC, not consoles.

[Rabcor]

Originally posted by Flaemes:

Most VNs tend to be released on PC, not consoles.

It started out that way yes, but Visual Novels are usually released on Consoles as well from what I've seen, at least the high profile ones. Danganronpa, clannad, fate stay night, air... more.. more... more...

Handhelds and gaming consoles are very popular in japan (hell, I'd say the console craze, I mean the real console craze, started from Japan. N64 and Playstation made the biggest ruckus when released to western markets)

The reason for this is mostly space efficiency, pcs take up space, you need a desk, keyboard, monitor, mouse, possibly speakers, this lal takes up a lot of space compared to a controller and console (especially if you already had a tv). And the same applies to handhelds. Consoles have been getting smaller in form factor (laptops, and well.. steam machines) this may be changing, especially since laptop prices have been driven down quite a bit. But you know what they say about old habits. Actually that was how console gaming started in Japan I guess, ever since laptops grew more and more popular I guess it's been more of a stereotype and some weird ass prejudice as you can read here: http://kotaku.com/5977001/why-pc-gaming-is-still-niche-in-japan

From what I understand, handhelds are all the rage in japan right now... Wonder if SHIELD is popular there...

[NekoiNemo]

Originally posted by Flaemes:

Most VNs tend to be released on PC, not consoles.

Correction - most "original idea" VNs. There are hundreds anime adaptation VNs on consoles. I mean, the only reason anyone has been using PS Vita in Japan since its release were to read those VNs.

Originally posted by Riful:

Visual Novels are usually released on Consoles as well from what I've seen, at least the high profile ones. Danganronpa, clannad, fate stay night, air... more.. more... more...

The only difference being that 18+ content (if present in original version) is mercilessly butchered out of console versions, either leaving gaping holes in the flow/story or being replaced with some incoherent nonsense like in aforementioned Fs/n.