#to see what works and what doesn't. and what is possible within renpy and what isn't

[eddsworld-the-masquerade]

Spent last few days working on the script for Chapter 6 (which I'm now editing so, highlights coming soon). In the meantime, here's a sort of masterpost of things concerning possible game mechanics for future VN builds

First things first, the visual novel will be kinetic. Meaning, no choices or story branches. Linear story telling. Perhaps a bit unusual when VN killer feature is the ability to choose your own path...but, I recognize writing multiple stories within one would be too taxing for me and I probably won't be good at it. Plus, some of the classics when it comes to VNs are kinetic, and people love them for their stories and characters.

However, it won't be just a book with pictures and music either. Some of the mechanics I'd like to try and implement to richen the gaming experience are:

Turn based, RPG-style battles.

I'm taking most inspiration from the first Darkest Dungeon game (and bits of Star Rail here and there), so the concept I imagined so far is rather similar.

You'll be able to play a party ranging from one to four characters (the main ones), each with their unique role and skillset: Tord, a tank/damage dealer hybrid; Edd, a buffer (but like, the OP one); Tom, a debuffer, multiple target specializing on DOTs (damage over time); Matt, sustain/damage dealer hybrid.

Each will have: a basic attack, and around 2 skills that require spending blood (action points). They will also have something similar to DD's sanity meter, that could build over time spent in unnecessary/avoidable battles, or by specific enemy attacks. If it goes up high enough, the character ends up "malfunctioning" in ways specific to them and their playstyle.

There will be ways to lower this "sanity meter" down to normal. As well as ways to acquire passive buffs, by finding items at specific locations. Probably no leveling system, but I'll try to research the possibility of it in renpy along with other things.

I'd like to have these battles happen in one chapter. So like, you go one chapter with some number of battles, then next one is "resting time" (no battles), then next chapter has battles again. And it will have at least two boss fights. Could make it three, if I'll find who could fit that additional boss role XP

Some other game mechanics for when there are no battles:

Random events. Bits of character interaction that aren't essential to main story but could give additional depth to them and the world around. Kind of my way of giving additional replayable content without the need to write branching story arcs XD

Mini games. Little puzzles to better relate to the character experience. Sort of, experience what they are experiencing in the moment. Chapter 3 already has one in the script, I'll search for other opportunities to insert them.

Unlockable character stories. A suggestion from Nina, to have the backstories I write for the antagonists as unlockable content after beating the game. Kind of like a Gallery, except instead of images you get additional game content XD Perhaps some could get unlocked by completing some sort of in-game challenge, like acquiring a certain number of buff items.

[drawtectives-correct-quotes]

TCOTSA and Accessibility

Making a game as accessible as possible is extremely important. However, I am just one person. And while I'm trying my best to make my fan game more accessible to those with disabilities, it's also important to check in with my audience to make sure nothing is forgotten and if I'm implementing something incorrectly, or worse, offensively.

The engine used to make this fan game is RenPy. Although RenPy does have accessibility options, there are two problems with it:

It's not accessible to access it whatsoever

It doesn't cover everything

To get a better understanding of what I'm talking about, take a look at the default accessibility settings page:

First of all, you're probably wondering how I even got to this menu. You may even be baffled if you've played RenPy-based games before (i.e. Doki Doki Literature Club before it was remade to be ported to consoles) and you had no clue that this menu even existed.

That's the main issue I have with this. The options are good for basic presets, but you have to know how to even access it in the first place. I only learned of this while messing around with the game's main menu. If you select "help", the last thing it tells you is how to access the accessibility menu.

So unless you stumble upon a visual novel for the very first time and truly have no idea how to play through a visual novel and therefore need help on what keys to press and what they do, you'll probably never know that if a game is made with RenPy, it'll have an accessibility menu that's accessed with "Shift + A". And even then, most people just stumble through their first visual novel without checking the help screen out and instead just press a bunch of random keys until they figure it out themselves (or maybe that's just me).

That's the one thing I want to tackle first before anything else in regards to accessibility in my game. I want to make it easier and more known that there are indeed accessibility settings for those who need them. My current idea is to make a main menu selection that takes you to the accessibility menu when you click on it, no key combinations required.

Now, back to the menu itself.

The settings within the accessibility menu are pretty good. They cover the basics, such as dyslexia and TTS. However, as an individual who doesn't need those things, I have no clue how useful/helpful they are. For example, is Opendyslexic a good font or is there another font that is more universal among those with dyslexia?

As for self-voicing/TTS, this is something that I need to work on in the back end of things. While by default it's pretty good, I did some research and learned that there are ways to make a TTS version of the game just as enjoyable as a non-TTS version. That sounds super obvious reading it now, but as someone who doesn't need TTS, it's never crossed my mind. For example, by adding alternative lines of dialogue for TTS to read so that it doesn't fumble on certain words is a great solution. This is in addition to adding alt text to custom images that may otherwise not have any alt text for the TTS program to read.

Other things I want to focus on are:

Color-blindness options

Shaking/flashing toggles

As you can see, the list is short. On one hand, that's good because that means I don't have a whole lot to work on in this category. However, it also makes me worry that I'm missing things.

This is where I ask for your help as an audience. Are there any accessibility settings you would like me to add? Any that need modifying? Please let me know!

If you would like to read more about visual novels and accessibility, I highly recommend you check out this blog post over on itch.io!