A game design concept in the making: SpyGames (Update): Part #4

 Hello its Bimonthly Bonus blogging time again, and its personal project update time again! Because today I'm giving another quick update on SpyGames.

The working logo for SpyGames

When we last left off, I discussed my slow progress on the game and my desire to get the game done before New Year's. Unfortunatly, despite my effort, I was not able to get a playable demo done and will have to put it on halt until next year.

It was a dificult desicion for me to make, but unfortunatly, its just something im gonna have to do. I just dont want to keep putting pressure on myself.

But thats not to say I didn't make any progress at all, for one thing I was able to get a basic prototype of the first scene done thanks to me switching game engines. You see the problem I had with RenPy was, of course, it uses Python to code everything. While if I was fluent in Python I could write code quickly, For me, I figured it would be easier to code in a visual languuage. So I began looking for a Visual Novel maker that uses Visual coding, which wasnt easy.

Originally I wanted to look for something that could work with and be compatible with exisiting RenPy code, but nothing was availible so I looked for seprate engine that use original code starting with a program called Novelty, but it has long since been abandoned and doesnt seem to work properly anymore.

Novelty

Then I tried using an online tool called Twine, but that didnt go anywhere, eventually I settled on an engine from Steam called Visual Novel Maker with I begrugginly bought for a sale price of $14.99.

Visual Novel Maker's Steam Store Page

At first it went pretty well, but this didnt last long when I wanted to change the text box style which was not easy to do, at it was far more difficult to do.

Visual Novel Maker

So then I tried to find another engine, which was another paid engine called TyranoBuilder. but at least this was far cheaper at a sale price of $9.74.

TyranoBuilder's Steam Store Page

Thankfully its far more in line with what i was expecting as its very easy to to use and the UI's are a little more flexible.

TyranoBuilder

Even better I was abble to work even faster, In fact I was ablle to get some basic Point and click Navaigation in place within a few days. Here's some footage of what I have so far.

Footage of the Game so far

So, to sum up my challenges I need to fix I need to:

1). Finish all the frames for the first animation

2). Get all of the frames into Slide Shop Slides

3). Work out the rest of the story elements that I didn't before.

4). Somehow get ahold of some more first person footage for each of these actions.

5). Work out the actual code and software more.

I want to stress that im not canceling the project, I just need to take a break for a bit and work some stuff out. But until then that wraps it up for my entry today, as always, Thanks for reading! see you next time!