Eka's Portal

I have a couple of interactive story-type projects that I wanna do, both of which are meant to be dating sims with a single person.

Here's what I want support for:

- Multiple choice responses
- Narration, maybe, although I like to 'show' not 'tell'.
- Images
- Sounds
- Simple animations or sequences, maybe. Not pixel art.

What are my options? Besides Flash. Because fuck Flash.

RPG Maker is also undesirable due to the difficulty of making text that isn't a nightmare to read.

Renpy?

No doubt, the thing you want is Ren'py.
Basically, it operates through the programming language Python and is specifically designed to be a visual novel engine, which lends itself well to the whole dating sim style of game. I can tick off nearly everything on your list if you'd like.

- Multiple choice responses
By far probably the easiest to work with. Ren'py can save string, float and integer responses, and can even seamlessly integrate this in with dialogue between characters. You can summon 'menus' with choices listed out for the player, or you can program your own to use your own design if you want.

- Narration, maybe, although I like to 'show' not 'tell'.
The narration is also super simple, write dialogue, assign to a specific actor in the project, and bravo that character is now saying the spoken dialogue. Can also do all basic bb code in the text, even links if you want to be able to explain something by a person clicking on a piece of text.

- Images
Ren'py is designed to use images as it's sprites, mainly just import pictures using specific programming, and that image will be logged under an easy to use the tag for the rest of the game.

- Sounds
Ren'py sports not only sound but three different sound channels for music, sounds and voice, all with customizable volumes, as well as the ability to create unique sound tags with different internal volumes.

- Simple animations or sequences, maybe. Not pixel art.
It's got the basics, this is the one I'm not as sure about, as I'm not sure what is required for the project. It has your fades, dissolves, slides and the basic movie maker level of effects available. (even pixelate )

The only issue Ren'py presents is that it doesn't have much in the way of user-friendly mechanics, it creates a project, here's the base code, go wild. For those more unfamiliar with programming, wrangling this thing beyond an absolute basic text adventure can be troublesome. Of course, there are those that would be happy enough to help out with issues (such as myself, just hit me up with a PM if you have any issues ), but without a basic knowledge of programming, I honestly wouldn't recommend Ren'py, otherwise, Yes yes yes.

If you feel still uncomfortable with Ren'py, I can also recommend something along the lines of Novelty, however, the options available to you with building block editors are far inferior of the freedom Ren'py grants, but that's all up to you, it is your game.

Quest? Twine? Something I've never heard of because most dating sims seem to use RPG Maker. Or something like it.

i do love me a vore dating sim. too bad "to a girls heart" hasnt shown or said anything for over a year (i think)

I definitely second renpy! You can pick it up and learn it in a week. It's easy to set up dates and dialogue and forks with lots of flavor and flair.

It sounds like you want more than an interactive fiction maker? You want a visual novel maker?

It's not free, but Steam has TyranoBuilder ($15 USD) for making dating sims and other visual novels.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/34537 ... el_Studio/

It has a super easy what-you-see-is-what-you-get drag-and-drop system and has a simple TyranoScript command list on their website. It even has some pre-drawn environments and characters with multiple expressions. I've been having a lot of fun with it.
(For advanced users I think it uses Python?)

There are several TyranoBuilder tutorials on Youtube if you want to see exactly how it works before purchasing.

Seconding Ren'Py. That thing is a handy thing

Ren'py, definitely.

Though there is some hentai game out there that allows you to unbuild it and start from scratch. If I remembered it and have played it, I'd recommend it to, since some say it's even easier than just starting from scratch.

Don't know your time frame, but I'm finishing up an engine for GameMaker Studio.
It'll feature a fully visual editor for handling all of the dialog-related parts, and then, since it's in GameMaker, there's easy drag and drop logic or a well-documented programming language to help you add any custom mechanics that aren't traditionally in a visual novel. Gonna be another month or so, though, before version 1 is ready to go.