#dialogic godot

[roboska-lv]

Update to the dialogue system

I've used dialogic in the past for a visual novel and I've decided to revamp the dialogue system to incorporate this instead. This will be better than the script I used previously because:

Will be easier to replace sprites

wouldn't need all the audioplayer nodes you can see on the left

has more flexibility

doesn't take as long to make

other stuff

For comparison, this was the way I coded dialogue's previously:

This is for 2 lines.

I would have an animatedsprite for the textboxes, an animated sprite for the characters, a function to change the label's text to whatever the function tells it to and each line of dialogue's voiceover was in an audiostreamplayer node. Then once the audio stopped playing, the next line would play. It's not too complicated but it's not very efficient for coding lots of dialogues. Also dialogic has a save function which I don't know how to use but I'll figure it out.

The SSD for my computer is coming soon. Hopefully blender will work on that. The next update will probably be about the 3D models. My exams finished yesterday and I really want to continue working on this.

[lunarprincegarbo]

Game im working on. This is the last new project im starting before actually finishing anything.

Artwork by the talented @circeofjagd

[meanderforth]

War on Light?

Seems like everyone is talking about this "War on Light" show. What does that have to do with the festival?

[theholygoose]

Game dev question

So I'm making a visual novel in Godot 4 with the Dialogic 2 plugin and I've noticed a problem with choices where if a player hits enter when the choices are onscreen the game will automatically make a choice for them. I want to prevent this so a player doesn't accidentally hit enter and commit to a path they don't want. Any ideas?

[fishyartist]

taxes came in (which is why i havent been annoying about comms the last few days; i have a buffer now yay) and ive allowed myself to make 1 slightly irresponsible purchase bc rpg maker mv is 6$ after taxes for the next like 20 hours (usually it is 80$ before taxes! which is Way more!!!) also vx ace is Literally Free yay!!!!

[arinmoss]

this is what i managed to do back in May lmao. in my defense Willow wasnt able to walk diagonally and i fixed that. me. i did that. and then nothing else lol.

[list0k]

----BIG UPDATE ON THE " LAСKADAISY" FAN GAME---

·‥…━━━━━━━☆☆━━━━━━━…‥· ✦ As you can see, the games are still in development. However, it is worth noting that its development is carried out on a regular basis. It takes a lot of effort just to draw a few frames of animation or do some coding.

✦ But, we can safely say that during these few days of break we have managed: ╰┈➤ The first page of the game's main menu

╰┈➤ Write a couple of songs for the game ━━━━━━♡♤♡━━━━━━

━━━━━━♡♤♡━━━━━━ ╰┈➤ Draw a new mouse cursor separately

╰┈➤ Draw 3 models of buildings that are supposed to be in the game.

✦ We also have the following tasks that we want to do next:

╰┈➤ Make a model of the characters: Rocky, Ivy, and Freckles.

╰┈➤ Make a complete street with new characters.

╰┈➤ Add new heroes and render their models.

━━━━━━♡♤♡━━━━━━

━━━━━━♡♤♡━━━━━━

╰┈➤ Make a model of St. Louis.

╰┈➤ Make character sprites for dialog.

✦ As you can see, we still have a lot of work to do. Therefore, if you want to help us with the development, we will gladly take you to develop the game! If you can: draw and animate well, write compositions, do coding (game engine - Godot), then write me in private messages! We will be very happy to see more people in our little team!

·‥…━━━━━━━☆☆━━━━━━━…‥·

[winonaparadise]

What program/engine are you using to make your game?

I'm using Godot, with the Dialogic plugin for the talking/visual novel style segments :)

I was kind of frozen by choice for a while, especially after the whole Unity fiasco, but so far Godot has been very beginner friendly and there's tons of tutorials online with a great community. It's also very very kind to animation, allowing for a lot of processes to just be done straight from the animation player. I recommend it!

After watching tons of tutorials the entire month, I had a problem I needed to fix yesterday and was able to intuit a solution that worked. Which is a lot like if a dog learned how to play basketball by watching YouTube clips. If I can do it, anyone can haha

[yingdu-lover]

Vortex We Took Every Breath to Follow : Shiguang and Their Companionship Through Life and Beyond

Hi, *awkward giggling*

First, a few words from me :

Even though I love engaging in fandom spaces and enjoy ship fanarts, fanfictions etc, till today my heart truly belongs to a very few ships. Shiguang is one of them. As long as one is not blinded by homophobic delusions, I enjoy discussing any kind of interpretation of my OTPs, be it 'Platonic', just friends™, romantic or whatever. But I have a fixed category (which very ironically is not quite fixed if you read the whole discussion) that fulfills my idea of true love.

for me, Love is a dialogic discourse with your existential other.

The terms I used are very loaded terms; 'dialogue' and 'other' come from the Bakhtinian philosophy of ethics, 'discourse' is a Foucauldian term and existentialism has a long postmodern and post-structuralist philosophical tradition. The reason I LOVE Link Click is because of their postmodern lens and the narratives of the characters, not only the protagonists fundamentally question what is the real purpose of life? Why do human bondings matter? The answers reside in the simplest vignette of everyday life. Grief, trauma, hope, memory, reconciliation, remembrance, love, family - these are the central themes of Link Click. Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi's separate existence and their interpersonal dialogue thematically and structurally complements the main ethos of Link Click.

When asked about the nature of Shiguang relationship Director Li Haoling answered : 是生死之交咯! (Shì shēngsǐ zhī jiāo gē! - It's a life and death relationship!)

source :

Fate, mortality, death, remembrance are the building blocks of their relationship as we perceive it.

Now let me talk about something. When I first watched Link Click on September 17th, 2024, the first Intertexual connection I drew was with another text called Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. Funnily enough, early in this year I wrote a crossover Hamlet adaptation (and won the second prize in a competition hehe) interweaving a few elements from Godot. Time loop, fragmentation of time and space, panopticon with no exit - all these elements featured in that. I recommend Waiting for Godot to you all, you'll understand why it resonates so much with Link Click.

Now,

Lu Guang is a person who is shown to be a character who has some mysterious powers to manipulate time and space. Even from the very beginning, he has this dominant (and sometimes seemingly monologic that feels problematic to new viewers) voice with which he guides Cheng Xiaoshi through the dives. He is apparently headstrong and has acquired all kinds of praises ™ like hypocrite, selfish (lol) and what not. Again quoting Li Haoling "Lu Guang is a complex and delicate character." But after the release of 'The Eye' and 'The Lull', I think we are pretty sure that Lu Guang has been trapped in a rewind, like a Sisyphus figure. A friend of mine told me the other day, "Superficially, Lu Guang is presented as an archetypal strategist, the one who guides, the one who keeps things in control, but in reality, he has no agency whatsoever." Lu Guang lacks the fundamental agency in life (we all do but we have to accept it one day or other) and that mortifying realisation comes to him with the death of Cheng Xiaoshi. What is unacceptable to him is the most obvious outcome of a mortal life : death. Lu Guang's tragic flaw stems from this unacceptability of Cheng Xiaoshi's death and him attempting to manipulate time, very Sisyphus of him. Till now, we are yet to see Lu Guang's character traits without any reference to Cheng Xiaoshi but this does not reduce his character depth. His denial is actually very delicious ( I almost wrote a paper on this, taking the popular sci-fi trope of time travel as an allegorical and symbolic means of resistance and subversion but anyway, it's not relevant here)

Lu Guang's character makes me fall in love with the song Flash by Gorilla Attack. It is from Lu Guang's character, no one can convince me otherwise.

Just a loop A bored 'n loop Should I do this now 'til the end? Into the story As just an extra You are the reason I live But you don't remember me? Oh, can I be with you?

And

The only thing that I got, just like a little lamp I gotta go in one-way smoke Resist the lifeless scenario Become the person The person I wished for that day The room like a coffin, too bright A groove that I lost faraway Blanket, I need a blanket Not a synthetic one Notice the regret engraved so hard

And the line that keeps coming back as a haunting refrain :

Flash me, flash me Gotta get the power to rewrite I just wanna deny, I just wanna rewrite, yeah

Every time I listen to this song, these lines send a chill down my spine. But Lu Guang's obsession with 'rewrite' echoes with what my professor said to be Hamlet's constant meta-theatrical discomfort with the script, role, play he has been provided with. He does not comply with the playwright's words. Apart from time and death, I think Lu Guang's most wretched enemy is Li Haoling himself. That's why he constantly wants to 'rewrite', but all he has got till now is 'rewind'. Now whether his 'urge to rewrite' will turn into a successful 'write back' is the central play of the plot we are looking up to. What is my personal opinion on the ending?

The ending which is so dryly plausible in our real world is Lu Guang accepting his defeat and carries within him the remembrance of Cheng Xiaoshi.

But my question is, my brother in Buddhism Li Haoling, why the fuck would I watch your Link Click to know that death is the node that can't be changed? Is it not the given fact? It's a cultural text, however modern or postmodern a text might be, it ultimately uses the plot to defamiliarise and convey well known concepts and emotions with a critical engagement. A plot is just a vehicle, a crucial one, to help us have a greater and more nuanced vision of life. Due to non-linear narrative and active subversion of chronotope, complex plot will have plot twists and cliffhangers BUT it still has to perform a crucial, non negotiable role - the arc. If the beginning point and the ending point have the same temperaments, what kind of significance will it even achieve?

If Lu Guang can't write back at the end of Link Click, the structure of the plot will be like this :

1. Exposition, rising action : Cheng Xiaoshi died at the very beginning, Lu Guang is fucked.

2. Climactic stage : shit and shit and complex quantum physics, hallelujah hot villains, 'I am a great writer I can kill any character TeeeHeeeeHeeee', backstories, parallel narratives, foil characters have no relevance and rendered completely meaningless,

3. Falling action and resolution : Cheng Xiaoshi is still dead to the very ending, Lu Guang is still fucked.

No catharsis, not a milimeter of displacement from the beginning point.

What is the fucking point?! From the perspective of a writer and a critical reader, I can say it will be a sheer waste of money, time and potential. I would rather watch... whatever.

The friend I mentioned before told me, " You know why Emma or Chen Bin die? They had to die. Emma had a loving family, she got the job she wanted, she had her hardships but she didn't begin with tragedy. And when tragedy came, she was so not ready to negotiate the problem and considered self-annihilation as her first choice. She actively erased the possibility of dialogue with herself. If Emma were an orphan, struggling with unemployment and other hardships from the very beginning, I don't think Emma would die that easily. Emma was denied the conflict of life which very ironically tests human agency itself."

And for Chen Bin...during my first watch, the moment I saw him my instincts told me he was going to die. He had a loving wife, a daughter, he loved her, she accepted the proposal and they married soon. Conflict where? To bring his story to a full circle, he had to die.

I can say every parallel story in Link Click can be judged from this lens. People who had a point of conflict (the noodle lesbians, the couple who lost their child, Xu Shanshan, that old man) engaged in dialogue with themselves, others and social forces ultimately got a happy ending. Even in the earthquake episode, it's a story of reconciliation with the past, the man got his mother's photos and it's plausible and satisfying (and bittersweet resolution). He got his (absent) father back.

Another thing, we as a fandom have a collective amnesia about....*drumrolls* Cheng Xiaoshi's character! Congratulations! The man, the freaking protagonist just dies at the beginning, accepts his death, and remains dead. Doomed yaoi allegations are just nonsense. Link Click is doomed if Shiguang doesn't get a happy ending. Link Click is NOT a dramatic monologue told from Lu Guang's perspective, engaging with his perpetual trance of melancholy and him holding onto Cheng Xiaoshi's memento mori.

If Lu Guang is attempting to write back to Li Haoling and the doomed yaoi allegations, Cheng is attempting to write back to Lu Guang himself, not in confirming his own death, but saving Lu Guang from the loop of eternity and by being together. Cheng Xiaoshi is always seen to be guided by Lu Guang, he has to witness repercussions of his actions. Even with all this knowledge I will say, Cheng Xiaoshi has way more agency than Lu Guang has. During my first watch, I could feel Lu Guang has this barrier of guilt and unsettled emotions wrapped around him which denies Cheng Xiaoshi access into the deepest core of his subjectivity. Even though he achingly wishes to be together with Cheng Xiaoshi, the burden of his past actions and PTSD holds him back from being together with him, as if his existence is antithetical to Cheng Xiaoshi's existence. Cheng Xiaoshi is that glitch in the matrix that messes up Lu Guang's plans of withdrawing himself from Cheng Xiaoshi. Cheng Xiaoshi should not listen to everything Lu Guang orders. In season 1, he mostly conforms to Lu Guang's ideals, but in season 2, when Lu Guang was hospitalised, Cheng Xiaoshi became more active and you could tell a layer of barrier melted away. He was less of a stone statue, showed more emotions (the S2ep1 lmao when he said "would you prefer if I die?" abhimaan we call it), then the unique high five that feels like Lu Guang accepting Cheng Xiaoshi's proposal or something :

(LMAO ignore my comments, but what I said is true)

My point is, Cheng Xiaoshi is Lu Guang's existential other and vice versa. They cannot live without each other. They cannot exist without each other. If one dies, the other will die and I want them living happily ever after in heaven. Cause 'Break' clearly depicts them as soulmates. I personally take Break as the ultimate canonical ending

Do you see? each of them has one wing missing, meaning that it's their cumulative effort that will make them fly successfully. FYI, there is another Haoling directed, Haoliners Animation League animated canonical queer donghua called 'Beryl and Sapphire'. A separate episode, episode 13 just explores this 'one wing soulmate trope'.

Now take them as friends, platonic friends with no erotic feelings, pure familial feelings or whatever, they are like Yin and Yang, like Shiv and Shakti, and Yin changes to Yang and Yang changes to Yin actively as they interact. You will have a hard time pointing out who is who. I have watched TGCF and Beryl and Sapphire and a tiny bit of Spiritpact - all three directed by Li Haoling and I am well aware of his narrative strategy to represent soulmates and Link Click seems to be the one of the greatest (and my favourite) product of that genius mind.

I began with team Lu Guang cause he is a scorpio, I understand him, his birthday almost coincides with mine, we share some identical issues. But the fandom's often yeeting Cheng Xiaoshi out of the narrative phenomenon brought back my due attention to him. Is Cheng Xiaoshi so willing to be doomed? Does he not yearn to be with Lu Guang? Let me whisper to your ear...he yearns for him too.

so he

does understand that the person who dies...dies, death affects them the least who dies, it's the people, the family and loved ones who actually suffer. This man will leave his Lu Guang on his own volition? eh.

Also I wanna talk about Link Click's strategy of deliberate misdirection. The first and second seasons are so deliberately crafted (manipulation of narrative you can say) to actively erase Lu Guang's subjectivity and nuance. We are just denied access his perspective. He is mysterious but not that aligns itself with a viewer's emotions. In fact, during my recent re-watch, I felt "wtf Lu Guang, why are you interacting with Cheng Xiaoshi like a straight dudebro?" He is a menace, the kind I usually don't like. But there also seemed to be a critical undercurrent which I couldn't really grasp, but it was surely there. It was adding up to my increasing discomfort and made me question - "was it just my wishful projection? they do not share that bond at all." I was so pissed at that thought that I almost decided I am not gonna abandon Link Click. BUT BRO, BRO

'The Eye' and 'Lull' just blew my mind. I was not that affected by Cheng Xiaoshi's corpse advertisement agenda (that corpse is drawing people's attention who is suddenly aware of Yingdu release, great tactic, Haoling) what pleasantly brought me out of despair is Lu Guang's love for Cheng Xiaoshi was acknowledged in these songs. You will read between the lines on your own in season 1 and season 2 if you have that critical method to engage with a cultural text, but the silencing narrative was also very prominent. I very much felt that the Shiguang story is actually the central action, and not the creative sci-fi archtexual exercise of genres, which again, is just the vehicle. But The Eye and Lull focus upon them, them and them. Their emotions are acknowledged, they are no longer behind the veils of symbolism, parallel narratives, intense defamiliarisation; their emotional dialogue now not only demands a voice of their own but also has the potential to reclaim the central part of the stage as they struggle and negotiate power and agency. And I am here for it.

@guangshi-091305 I present to you my rubbish.

[amiryllisthorn]

am working with dialogic, which is an amazing tool! but for some reason I dont have the proper settings on the right in the inspector tab and im just ???????

trurns out gettring wasted does not help you understand game dev better

[tainebot01]

End of year animatic clearout!

Going on a trip over the new year, so I'm just gonna be leaving this here until I get back - a bunch of ideas I had for animations, animatics, pmvs, etc that I never got around to making. Rather than letting them sit around gathering dust as I regret not doing them, I just want to throw them out into the ether and see if they click for someone else.

I might end up making some of these eventually, just feel like there's a difference between having an idea and making something good with that idea. I either feeI I lack the skills to execute these in the way I want, the effort-to-payoff ratio isn't worth the mental strain, I want to understand the context behind the audio before making anything with it, or I'm just too normal about the characters involved to make the idea work.

Some of these are pretty out there since my brain runs on an incredibly buggy version of Miles's Logic System, so here goes!

Planetary Go! - Klavier. Just think it fits him.

Sleepwalk - Miles and DL-6. This song reminds me of recurring nightmares where you can never quite remember what happened, only that there must be some cause..

Psycho Killer - Miles and DL-6. To me this feels more about a man who feels he's an irredeemable monster for things out of his control, rather than an actual killer. Though I really don't know how to make that clear in visual.

Shikabane no Odori - Dahlia Hawthorne. You know how in some myths butterflies are considered messengers from the afterlife? Yeah..

Bruno is Orange - Iris Hawthorne. I think this song's strangely fitting for a woman who's somewhat complicit yet clearly a victim of her family's crimes and can only make her situation clear through careful wording. I like it in concept, but I want to do her story justice and need to revisit AA3-5 to see it in full.

This one ProZD Audio - Fendershields and Verity. No explanation needed.

Saint Bernard - Simeon. Again, no explanation needed.

Animal Cannibal from Possibly in Michigan - Simeon. I think this one is a suprisingly accurate description of his backstory.

Bubblegum b*tch - Feenie and Dahlia/Iris. The song has the same upbeat yet ever so slightly duplicitous vibe as their college relationship, plus the line "I'm the girl you'd die for" is perfect in context.

How do I unbake a cake? - The IS-7 characters. Don't know who, just that it has to happen.

Too Sweet - Godot and Mia. I just think it fits them, okay..

Copycat - The Phantom. Again, it just fits.

The Monty Hall Problem - Miles, Nick, Eustace and Kay, No guessing who's who.

Digital silence (In particular the second verse) - The AAI2 Mastermind's Plan.

Why Am I Anxious? - just Miles questioning Wright's life choices.

This TOH Fandub - Eustace and Ex*lsius. No additional context.

Message Lost - Amelie, then Verity taking care of Shaun following Amelie's death. This one's ever so slightly left of the song's intentional meaning in story context.

Laplace's Angel - AAI2. Like, All Of It. I have thoughts on every single line and actually making this video might just make me lose my last few marbles.

Pork Soda - AA3-5. Same as above.

I Did Not Account For This - I2-5. Heard this song out of context and though the feeling of so many things happening at once fits the context of the buildup throughout this case.

Avalanche - Phoenix and his ties to the Feys throughout his life, particularly in T&T.

Life Itself - Hugh O' Connor. I feel it has that "in my mid 20s and slowly losing any chance of success in life" feeling. Though I want it to have some sort of hopeful ending.

Two Time - Trucy, and how she was used by the people she cares about, in two separate yet familiar ways.

Whipped Into Shape - Franziska. This one was a request I got through youtube and I kinda want to do it sometime.. after I actually get around to watching Legally Blonde and its musical adaptation.

This one IASIP Scene - Miles and Eustace. This dialog in the second half of the video straight up sounds like a conversation between these two.

Usseewa / Bitter Choco Decoration mashup - Fransiska and Eustace, and how they deal with the impossible expectations set by criminal fathers.

Grace Kelly - Wright, and how he constantly ends up changing himself for the people he loves.

The Bidding - The Themis Weirdos and the Love Triangle Rumour. The first verse made me think of Myriam, one thing led to another, and now this is stuck in my brain.

Well, better than the alternative - Nick and Miles over the 7 years and going into the AJ trilogy. Would elaborate, but thinking of this song for longer than 3 seconds makes me cry.

Here's to hoping at least one of these seems like a good idea! And if not... maybe there's something for a character playlist in there, idk.

[saturnine-saturneight]

Holoatypical: Dev Log 1

Number one in what's hopefully going to be a pretty long series of updates!

So, first things first: Godot rocks. I've been using it for two weeks now, having switched from GameMaker (and before that, Twine, and before that, Java and JavaScript), and Godot does so much of the heavy lifting for you. It genuinely feels like an engine that's designed for making games. Unlike GameMaker, which was like wading through molasses every step of the way, while some sort of molasses shark is biting at your ankles. And I've coded in JavaScript.

Second, let me show you what I've been up to!

As you can see, I'm working on a prototype to try out the merging mechanic. It's got some (ha) bugs, and dragging things could be smoother, but the critters do actually snap into the grid and merge now, and I'm very pleased with that.

This chamber you see here is going to be the lab. As it's planned right now, the player will have infinite initial building blocks (eggs, spores, seeds...), which merge into different critters depending on environmental variables (artificially set in the lab) and on which other specimens are currently in the chamber. The challenge is to figure out the right parameters. I have no idea how big the chamber needs to be for that, but that's not really an issue, because...

This isn't so much a prototype as I'm just straight up building the foundations for a game, which is why it's taking me so long. The grid you see here is controlled with a few variables, and everything is flexible enough that I can simply change the grid size during playtesting and it still works.

The tile grid is an array of arrays, filled with slot nodes that I instantiate at runtime. Is this the best way to learn a new program and language? Haha. Who knows.

Specimens have a sprite sheet with all their stages on it, and when a critter levels up, the part that's visible to the player just needs to be shifted 64 pixels to the right.

That's x starting point, which is the specimen stage/level times 64, then y starting point, width, and height. Fun! So easy!!

As to the sprite sheet, I'm going against common advice and making these big. The 1bit style is super fast to do, and in my opinion, a certain level of detail is important to make the sprites look like anything. I'm moreso playing with the look than really wanting to make a retro game.

This sheet only took me an evening! I'm enjoying it because it really forces you to abstract the shape and focus on what's most important about the critter. (This is a style test - I haven't decided yet how weird I want to go with these vs making them look more natural.)

Next up will be ironing out the kinks, making an egg dispenser and a specimen incinerator so the field can be filled up and emptied, coming up with a few more specimen, and then going into play testing.

But in the next dev log, you're probably going to hear way more about the story and the characters. I am eyeing a visual novel extension for Godot (dialogic), which, if it does what I think it does, is going to take a lot of work off my hands and only leaves me with writing the actual dialogue, which I've already started on.

@tragedycoded @badscientist @curiouscalembour @writingrosesonneptune @gioiaalbanoart @monstrify @cowboybrunch @tsunamiscale @marlowethelibrarian

Was this format interesting? Less code? More code? Anything you specifically want me to talk about in this process? Let me know!

[neonrain-dev]

Final Major Update for the itch.io Demo

Hello again! It's here, the final update for this demo before any Steam builds.

It’s been a long journey, but it’s finally time to leave this demo behind and focus on the Steam version. I’ve been pretty reflective over the past five months. Honestly, I wish the first release had been the 1.1 version, I am a bit embarrassed ​of that initial launch that was far more buggy than I expected but hey, I'm still learning how to make these things right.

IMPORTANT: The dialog still reflects missing mechanics and placeholders, so expect those to change in future builds. 1.2C save files are compatible with this update.

Enough talk, here are the patch notes!

New Content:

NPCs to converse with! That’s right—you can finally talk to some aliens.

A compass!

Certain enemies' heads can now be blown to pieces, complete with crunching SFX and a massive spray of blood.

Gibs leave blood splats when they collide with level geometry.

New props.

New rooms.

Some enemies will twitch when shot, giving you a clear sign that you're hurting them.

More varied enemy movement. Projectile-firing enemies, for example, now strafe.

Fixes & Features:

Enemy aggro now works properly. It was a mess before, so I rewrote the code from the ground up.

Fixed enemies hitboxes. They now work as intended which mean headshots are a real thing(if your aim is good).

Added an option to invert the Y-axis.

FOV can be lowered to 60 now.

You can hide the compass... if you hate fun.

The purple sun in the surface world has been toned down. It was starting to feel like an eyesore. Believe it or not, I’m not trying to make an eye-searing game (cue that one game getting mentioned all the time). Remember, if the visuals are still too intense, you can tone them down in the settings.

Boss attack sounds are now regulated. Some SFX were causing clipping on certain speakers—this should fix it.

The mech boss fight has been reworked to be trickier:

Bombs now linger longer.

Purple laser beams are slower, which means you'll have to dodge more carefully.

All projectile-firing enemies now have slower projectiles. This change encourages more active dodging instead of relying on luck.

Bolt projectiles now have an orange emission to make them easier to spot in darker areas.

Various level geometry tweaks.

Rain now works as intended—Godot 4.4 messed with it a bit.

Trash Lickers (those creatures that cause gas) have been rebalanced. They no longer rush you instantly.

Enemies now avoid each other when moving, based on faction.

The “ammo is running out” notification is now more noticeable and no longer clashes with the HUD.

And that’s that. Thank you to everyone who’s supported me so far or who’s just now discovering this project. It means the world to me. It feels a little surreal to finally move on from this demo, but I think it's in a great place while I work on the next big step.

I’ve already started work on the Steam demo, so hopefully I won’t keep you waiting too long.

Until then, happy hunting, rangers.

[kazehita]

Congrats on publishing your game, it's really cool! I was wondering if you created the dialogue system from scratch, or if you've used a plugin like Dialogic, Dialogue Manager, and so on :)

And if it was made from scratch - if you recommend any resources for learning to code such things!

Hihi!!! Thank you so much anon!!!! It doesn't quite feel real to me yet - making a game had always seemed like such an unobtainable dream... And what a fun question!!! Yes, I did it from scratch - I (was) very much a godot beginner, and I wanted to use this project to learn the base engine as much as I could!!! Conclusion: ... Doing it from scratch sucks. I didn't make my own plugin or nice system either (that's what I want to do on my next project maybe), I just went in raw - each event is an instantiated scene and it's dialogue is just stored in a dictionary. It's hectic and a bit spaghetti, but I'm glad I did it for learning purposes. Speaking of learning!! I have a little bit of misc programming experience (mostly python and html lol) but i had an excellent introduction to gdscript and godot from this early access course by GDquest.

If you're brand new to coding, I also recommend CS50 from Harvard Uni (free!!! online!!!). It's so so good but it is a lot, I got a friend to do it with me so that I could actually stick with it.

[rie-kay]

[gamedev:part 4]

This week I added a few new things: First was the implementation of FMOD—which is always a struggle, because the plugin is very specific in its needs, but a bit opaque on what those are. The second was loclization support. Menu and dialog can now run in German as well as English.

I also wrote some music. What is audible in the snippet is only part of the song. There is also a funky D’n’B intro, and I want to extend the song to work as one piece with several distinct parts that change during various moments in the game. I had the idea to add a low pass filter when entering the pause menu. Switching it on and off worked after a while, but I wasn’t able to add a transition (haha) for that effect. @harsh-noise-scalies came in clutch again and helped me write a very clean tween method. Now there is this phaser-like effect, when entering the menu—which I think is pretty sweet.

Another new addition is this dithering shader. It just got uploaded about a week ago and is everything you could wish for with a dithering shader. The colors get defined through a LUT. At first I tried out a few from the recommended website, and later made my own color scheme. For me dithering is the digital equivalent to riso printing. This shader is soooo cool. You can find it here:

[chattercap]

Hi! I'm playing MMM and am really enjoying it! :D But what I find really interesting is how your visual novel is made in Godot instead of Ren'Py. I wanted to ask how you make your games in Godot/what tips would you have for someone who wanted to use Godot?

Ohh thank you so much for playing; I'm glad you're enjoying it!

I'll be honest, I do not recommend my method of making games in Godot to anyone, haha! I started off with Unity, and during that time I coded my own custom framework (instead of using a pre-built one like NaniNovel) because I wanted to practice coding. After the Unity fiasco, I swapped over to Godot as it was open-source and supported C# code, and I ported most of my C# code over to Godot without many changes. So currently I use mainly a custom framework written in C#, besides the code relating to my animation program (Spine2D).

If you want to make games in Godot, I would actually recommend NOT doing what I did. I would

1) Code your games in GDScript if you have no plans to port your game to something like Unity and you have no experience with C# coding. GDScript is much easier to learn, and Godot currently has a bit more support for GDScript. C# support is very good, but not 100%.

2) Use a framework. Rakugo is a framework specifically designed after RenPy for Godot; I haven't used it, but it looks very nice and seems worth looking into. At the very least, I would use a dialogue manager - Godot Dialogue Manager and Dialogic are the main ones.

Now for actually making the framework, I would emphasize simplicity and modularity.

Simplicity: VNs are VERY lightweight. I was actually worried about the performance of MMM, as I used fairly heavy animation rigs and I didn't optimize it, but I've gotten reports that it works quite fine (well, even)! So don't worry too much about optimizing, and just try to make things simple and optimize later if needed (for instance, for searching for audio files, images, etc. - I just search by the filename using strings, even though this is inefficient/inoptimal).

Modularity: This is a general game design principle, but it's good to make it so that different parts of your game are as independent from other parts as possible. Only give access to information/variables as absolutely necessary, and control how variables are changed very strictly. This helps to reduce bugs and makes it easier to bugtest! I found it helpful also to organize the parts of the VN into different "systems" that all function independently - each of these systems can be deactivated or reactivated separate from each other, and they can also be tested as such as well.

If you want to know how I separated mine, they are:

Backgrounds, Audio, Sprites, CGs, Panels (mini CGs/cut-ins), GUI, Story (also contains a mini manager for Story Flags), Dialogue/Text Boxes

If you want another example of a VN made in Godot, I actually took a look at this one to see if it was "possible". It might be worth looking at! They did a lot of cool things that I didn't implement, such as a time rewind feature and more dynamic CG/sprite movement.

I hope that this was helpful! Best of luck if you decide to pursue Godot development! I'd be very happy to have more Godot VN devs in the community~