I always wondered...

[Aiko-chan]

For the standard sprite and text VNs excluding the ones with intricate gameplay, why not play the game thorugh 100% and recode it into renpy or some other engine. Im also pretty sure you can code intricate gameplay into renpy as i have seen it before. 

[kushakusha]

I also had this idea once, but first, as Emi said, it would probably require a lot of work, and the transitions and stuff would probably never be as good as in the original, and second, this probably goes over the limit of just a "fan translation". It's more like duplicating an existing work completely.

[Guest]

You have to extract everything first which already is a pain.

Most likely the files you'll get won't have the right format for ren'py anyway.

You'll have to rewrite EVERYTHING since script files won't be reusable due to format issues.

 

And yeah, why ? ^^"

Lot of work and little to no profit .

[JeMhUnTeR]

it's impossible to perfectly recreate a visual novel without going into its archive files. i'm not sure what you mean about 'intricate gameplay', but recreating a VN still requires a hacker in order to get the sprites and backgrounds inside. Needing a hacker defeats the purpose of recoding the entire VN, so why not just hack it again so you could inject the modified files back into the engine?

 

The only way you could decently remake the VN without getting into its archives is by recording the gameplay as a video then rearranging the clips into an 'interactive video sequence' so the user can click and do all kinds of stuff. But you see, that's pretty dumb since you would end up with something like a 50-hour block of video clips, stitched together by code and forced to be interactive. You might end up with a 20TB installer for your rip off VN, and no one would definitely be willing to download and install that.

 

Edit: if what you meant by 'intricate gameplay' is the RPG/card game/action/battle-like game aspects, I'm quite sure that you can't do that with just ren'py.

Edited May 28, 2014 by JeMhUnTeR

[RusAnon]

Edit: if what you meant by 'intricate gameplay' is the RPG/card game/action/battle-like game aspects, I'm quite sure that you can't do that with just ren'py.

You can. RenPy is just Python with some sugar above, and Python is powerful enough to be core of EVE Online.

But yeah, that's a lot of work, almost same amount as creating new game from scratch, and no real point in doing it all when VN is already released as Windows program. For stuff like PS3/PS4/XBone games it might make sense, but even then it would require hacking game assets and would be easier to port VN part automatically, dropping gameplay elements. Porting gameplay from consoles, obviously, is near-impossible for fan team.

[JeMhUnTeR]

You can. RenPy is just Python with some sugar above, and Python is powerful enough to be core of EVE Online.

Oh wow, that's pretty cool. I haven't really used Ren'Py so I didn't know you could override some elements with actual python code.

And I haven't studied python either so idk its capabilities as a programming language. Well I guess that's something new I learned today.

[RusAnon]

Well, Demon Master Chris is dungeon crawling game which uses RenPy, for example. There's plenty of other gameplay-heavy VNs which use it as well.

[kushakusha]

I don't think extracting would be really the problem, since there are lots of tools for that. There's always some CG download pack available for VNs, which means that they already had been extracted successfully. Also, Renpy definitely has enough tools to create a good VN.

I think the problem is more: You would be creating a counterfeit. Fan translation is just a language patch for fans and you also have the argument that it's also for people who bought the game and want to play it. But making a complete replica of an existing game isn't just a patch anymore.

[danpc]

Pretty sure the point is to make unofficial ports,since some vn's only are available for consoles,and it is just has illegal has a fan translations since any modification of and redistribution of game files without permission is technically illegal.

[astro]

I also do not see the point in this. 

[Narcosis]

Python is too slow as a game programming language; it's only actual use is for the DB data storage/manipulation. EVE uses Python to power it's DB's. The only reason why Ren'Py was created is because it is easy to learn and very powerful, while VN's do not require any heavy code manipulation on the fly; it's just loading static assets into the memory.

 

It is currently possible to port most, if not almost all VN's to Ren'Py; except some of the games that use 3D or are gameplay heavy and require realtime data manipulation, it should be possible to replicate almost every single function or effect needed to make both of the games look alike.

 

The only question is what for and it's where the OP failed to communicate.

[RusAnon]

Python is too slow as a game programming language

No, its not. There are thousands of games made with python and if author is not ex-php retard, there are no performance problems.

EVE uses Python to power it's DB

"using external programming language to power DB" doesn't even make any sense. Their entire backend is in Python, and backend is much more than "DB", and requires really a lot of computational power. Well, probably should also point out that DBMS itself is _most_ computation-heavy element itself, but DBMS in pure python are rare and EVE definitely doesn't use any of them.

use 3D or are gameplay heavy

Did you even try reading posts above? I've specifically mentioned RenPy game "Demon Master Chris" which uses 3D, and its mostly gameplay only, with less than 3k lines of text.

There are shitton of fast, easy and efficient gaming 3D libs for python. Moreover, 3D calculations aren't even done by client program — that's what video cards are for. Client program just sends commands according to DX3D/OPGL protocols.

[Narcosis]

I don't think you understand the meaning of a full-fledged game engine written in python from scratch. There is a reason why most devs use C++ or advanced programming platforms like .net, even if they are horrible. Rance based simulations like DMC you mentioned are nothing, even if they use pygame. SRPG's are static; there's no real-time simulation going on the screen, it's just drawing static assets and applaying simple graphic effects to them. Where's the "3d" you're talking about? You mean these fancy textures or pseudo-3d map stored within the game? Catacomb Abyss did a better job on much worse machines, ages ago and it rendered a fully working 3d enviroment in realtime.

 

Python can't handle advanced graphics manipulation on a massive scale, it is inneficient. It was never meant for that kind of usage in the first place. People do various shit nowadays and I don't doubt it's possible to run even 3d based games in Python, but you won't create complex games with highly advanced graphics. Python is just too slow to handle all the calculations required to run them in realtime.

 

Games do use python backends. There's only a bunch of games written in python from scratch, like Galcon or Frets on Fire and those are the games I am talking about. Even games like EVE, Pirates of the Carraibean or Civilisation IV can't be trully treated as examples, cause they are all written in C++ and only use Python interpreters for scripting. Panda3D which is used alongside python isn't python itself - it only uses it as a frontend for scripting. Python is often used for DB management because it's clear and reliable and that's preety much it's main point of existence.

 

To make it understand better how python is actually used in real life, read this instead.

 

Anyway, this is all but an offtopic.

[RusAnon]

I don't think you understand the meaning of a full-fledged game engine written in python from scratch.

I work as full-time software engineer, developing stuff in Python and C++. And I have experience in writing own Python-based games using OpenGL. So I'm quite sure I have deep enough "understanding of meaning".

There is a reason why most devs use C++ or advanced programming platforms like .net

Only reason for C++ is "legacy code" (esp. in form of commercially-available "all included" engines). But there's plenty of high-quality libraries for Python, so that's not a problem.

As for "advanced programming platforms like .net" used by "most devs", you have no idea what are you talking about. .NET itself is just VM and libraries, and there's nothing "advanced" about it. As VM/JIT stuff goes, even good old JVM is more "advanced", not to mention llvm. Only benefit it has is that its easier to integrate with other M$ products, so if you aim for, say, WinPhone or XBox, it would be wise to use it.

Python can't handle advanced graphics manipulation on a massive scale, it is inneficient.

Do you even understand how "graphics manipulation" works? Graphics are not CPU-bound, all that stuff is offloaded to GPU (unless its coded by retard, obviously). For whatever number crunching you would need to do raw, there's numpy and other specialized libraries which work as fast as native c code.

Just go check out PyOgre/Ogre3D samples yourself, there's plenty of high-polygon demos with all cool 3d techs you'd expect from modern game.

It was never meant for that kind of usage in the first place.

Python is general-purpose programming language, intended to be used in pretty much all fields of software engineering. Whatever fields not covered by CPython, are usually covered by more task-specific implementations.

Python is just too slow to handle all the calculations required to run them in realtime.

I have feeling that there's no particular meaning behind word "calculations" when you use it. Please provide specific examples of "calculations" game would need which Python allegedly cannot handle, and I'll explain how exactly they are done.

Anyway, this is all but an offtopic.

Well, original post is about porting games to RenPy, so I believe this discussion is within subject.