Belle - Visual novel maker

[freemind]

Hi!

I've been working on a visual novel maker for some months now and i think it's time to let it out and get feedback from users.
It's splitted in two components: a graphical editor and an engine.
The graphical editor uses C++ with Qt4 , which allows it to run on a variety of operating systems including Windows (XP, Vista and 7), OS X and GNU/Linux.
On the other hand the engine is made using Javascript and HTML5, which makes it very easy to deploy your game into all sorts of devices, as long as they have a browser that supports the HTML5 canvas tag (this requirement may change in the future).

I haven't got time to make a personalized web page for it, so for now you can look at the project homepage here: https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/belle
If you want to check out the source code: http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/belle.git. By the way, this project is licensed under the GNU GPLv3.
I've also created an entry on qt-apps.org and on kde-apps.org, where you can find more information, source code in a tarball and see some screenshots!

Thanks!

[qubodup]

Hello and welcome!

Is there an example game showing Belle in action?

[freemind]

Not yet, i was hoping someone would do it . Do you have any ideas?

[qubodup]

It could be a dialogue between a beginner visual novel maker and the main developer (personified as a fantasy creature for examle) giving hints to get started:
how to get the engine (homepage url)
how to write hello world (code)
where to get art for it (opengameart.org)
Ideally the demo would show off (nearly) every feature once in the process.

[Evropi]

I've always wanted to create a visual novel version of my favourite book (wouldn't be giving it justic callling it a novel), which is War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy. I've played numberous VNs over the years. I'm not sure how I'd integrate some third-person parts, but I'd definitely like to do that and this might just give me that push.

Ren'Py is nice too, and very powerful, but it seems to be stuck at Python 2 (FOR SHAME!). Not to mention that porting Python games to Windows is generally considered non-trivial. Feels bad man. Especially for Ruby, which is the greatest language in the universe. Now that really feels bad.

As for an example: a quick (emphasis on quick, keep it to under 3 min if you can) tutorial would be nice. Call it 'making Visual Novels really fast with Belle', not something boring. Attract attention. Win!

[freemind]

Hey,

Thanks for the feedback. I haven't done the demo yet, sorry, i'm going to do that next.
I've been working on the website and it's already usable although it's still under construction and lacks information/documentation. I've also released 0.2 alpha version, which contains mostly fixes (you can check the ChangeLog at qt-apps or kde-apps) and an installer for Windows.

Ren'Py is nice too, and very powerful, but it seems to be stuck at Python 2 (FOR SHAME!). Not to mention that porting Python games to Windows is generally considered non-trivial. Feels bad man. Especially for Ruby, which is the greatest language in the universe. Now that really feels bad.

I agree, Ren'Py is very powerful, but requires programming knowledge, which makes it difficult for non-programmers to start using it. My application tries to avoid that requirement and be more user friendly, so that makes it very different from Ren'Py and more similar to Novelty, if you know it.

[leovilok]

There is a probem with the AUR package on i686 architecture: I think you just have to change the 8th line of PKGBUILD from :

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

arch=(686 x86_64)

to :

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

arch=(i686 x86_64)

or better :

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

arch=('i686' 'x86_64')

But I'm not sure ... what I know is that the first solution worked for me.

Now : what is supposed to be the Engine Directory ?

[freemind]

There is a probem with the AUR package on i686 architecture: I think you just have to change the 8th line of PKGBUILD from :

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

arch=(686 x86_64)

to :

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

arch=(i686 x86_64)

or better :

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

arch=('i686' 'x86_64')

But I'm not sure ... what I know is that the first solution worked for me.

Now : what is supposed to be the Engine Directory ?

Hi,
Thanks for the interest. About the archlinux package, i didn't make it, so i'm not sure what's wrong with it. I'll tell the packager about this issue, thanks.
Regarding your second question, this application is actually divided in two applications that are bundled together - the editor and the engine. I did this separation because the underlying technologies of these two applications are completely different. But anyway, in the user's perspective the editor is the main application, the one that allows you to create the games, whereas the engine is the one responsible for executing them. Basically what you need to install is the editor and then have the engine folder laying around anywhere in your system, because when you try to run your game or export your project through the editor, it will ask for the engine directory in order to get the necessary files to perform the mentioned actions.

Edit:
The typo in the pkgbuild has been corrected, thanks.

[freemind]

Hey,

Finally i'm releasing the 0.3 alpha, with support for animated images (e.g. gifs) and support for older browsers like Internet Explorer 7 and 8 (audio is still not supported in these browsers, though). Not only that but also many improvements and bug fixes.
Downloads are available here. I haven't made a DMG for Mac OS X yet, but tomorrow i'll upload it.
I've also made a demo that you can find here.
Documentation is still unfinished, but now that i've released 0.3 version i'll have more time to finish it.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask, thanks.