I am thinking about porting the soft fantasies to renpy, would you recommend me to port it as it was written by the author, or should I take the opportunity to make a fan game revisted edition?
I know that the author is looking for someone to port the game to renpy little by little to update it easier (since the first engine he used is complex (q sometimes unusable) for a game of weight gain).
There are situations and dialogues that were discarded in the beta that I would like to reuse, but for now I will just port the game to renpy
I have my first problem, the original soft fantasies program (visual novel maker) is copyrighted and you can’t modify or use its backgrounds without paying for the program, should I use placeholder that ziul change? To avoid any problem since he does monetize.
I think it would be awesome and a potential opportunity to perhaps even expand the game even further, However do please get in contact with Ziul Walls and ask them first before doing this since it’s there visual novel at the end of the day.
The benefits of the renpy version to the VNM is that:
*saves if you can tell when, at what time, and in what chapter you saved.
*the Android and Linux versions would be more stable as they would be exactly the same as in Windows
*Less lag and loading time (something that happens a lot when you load states)
*the possibility to add DLC chapters or non-canon spin off (in the current game program it is complicated)
*To be able to add more complex mini-games to make the story feel more dynamic.
A doubt, when reading the script of the game I noticed a few things
*in Spanish there are several spelling, grammatical and dialogue structuring errors
*there are some dialogues that in the lore of the game do not make sense (it is strange that the guys in the game wonder if Ian and the tanuki exist, especially because in their universe it is common that internet, protectors, mutants and mythological beings exist, would be the equivalent of asking someone if Paraguayans really exist.)
*there are chapters that feel too short than others
*sometimes, the narrative switches from first person, to second person and third person
*The protagonist sometimes expresses himself with emojis, but in his new game there is a face of the protagonist in real time in the UI, so possibly that would no longer be necessary.
the biggest reason that i cant get myself to complete all the endings in soft fantasies is because of the sluggish ui. besides that there are indeed things that i think can improve, but “just” porting it to renpy would already be amazing!
I’m giving dialogues with more chemistry to the characters (an example, it’s a bit weird that the main character has accepted the gogogo from a person he barely knows) so to make it less sudden I gave him more flirtatious dialogues
I was playing the alpha beta and there are too many cute dialogues, like ziul and lacky having paternal bonds, oken defending the protagonist from jim, zac and oken socializing, pi and lacky fighting to be roomies, lacky defending you from Shaun and Zac, several of them had potential to make the final cut.
I would like to try to recreate the original UI, but considering that Paward Academy never used it again, it seems to me that it was also a copyrighted template, So I’d better make the interface as close as possible to its successor game.
Some scenes from the beta have been restored, and some backgrounds slightly changed to give a more ambiguous and internationalist identity to the game (well, it makes sense that Pi’s house looks Mexican and bigger).
I got disability, so I’ll be able to focus a lot more on some of the changes I’m making right now:
-adding two different kitchen backgrounds for classes and for the student canteen, it’s rare to see a student canteen in an academy have so many kitchen tools…
-the constant flickering sprite bug in renpy is practically non-existent
-I added some dialogue that implies that the city is more dangerous, if you have played the game you will know what I mean.
-I tried to make backgrounds with more internationalist architecture and to reduce the Japanese on screen, it’s very possible that the game is still set in Mexico or USA, and it’s rare to see Gratuitous Japanese everywhere, I’ll just try to emphasize English and Spanish more in ads to not break the immersion so much… I will still try to leave one or two signs in Japanese, Bengali or German or in different languages to make the city look diverse.
-Emilinate all humans in the background, in the game it explicitly says that they existed and it’s not known if they existed or not, it doesn’t make sense that there are neons and human spectaculars.
It is also partly to help the creator in case he wants to do various things, like if Walls wants to make retcons to the story, some DLC, or if he wants to publish it on steam, play store or appstore.
Btw, I am also updating their wikia to make it more professional.
There are scenes that I am re-establishing because they are scenes of exploration and characterisation of the characters.
Example: Lacky taking worried Pi to the infirmary with ziul, The scene of Pi’s birthday, Zac’s car journey and among others
