I'm going to code the game in Ren'Py, and release it to Android. Once that's done, I'm going to have someone recode the game into iOS. I still have a lot of what the original programmer gave me and that could be used as a basis to recode the game into iOS.
This comes after a lot of hard thinking and I am not happy to make this decision, but it's the best financial and strategic decision I can make at this point.
Here is why I'm going this route (at least for now):
- Ren'Py was based for text/graphic adventures. It's made to make my life easier.
- I looked over some of the code, and it inherently makes sense to how I want to code the game. All of the text shortcuts that exist in Ren'Py right now are all the kinds of things I wish were available in my iOS build. They're not. (Or rather, they are, but they're in a crashy, unstable format)
- Ren'Py games are relatively stable. I can't think of one release of a Ren'Py game that's crashed.
- I looked over my game script, which is organized almost to a tee in structure to how the coding is structured. I have no idea how I did that, but I'm not sad about it. With a little tinkering, I may very well copy past the entire document. (Which would be. AMAZING.)
- Ren'Py can be ported to Android 'relatively' easily. Whether it will work well, might require a 'real' programmer at that point.
- I'm kind of annoyed that I decided I wanted to go the mobile route, after looking over Ren'Py more carefully than the first time I thought about it. I could have saved myself a lot of time, money, and energy.
This is also because of these challenges I see I have with the code as is:
- No matter who I get to program for iOS using Cocos2d, I need someone with a design eye for these details. The best person to do that right now is me. (Or someone else with equivalent knowledge of games and design) The problem with hiring a programmer is that they can't read your mind. Sometimes the best way to show them would be with a finished product that I've made. Probably much easier than doing comparisons to games I enjoy already on iOS.
- The text boxes are a mess in the demo, there are many nagging details that I'm having issues with, and frankly the whole thing is just a mess. It looks ok, it plays ok, but that's the problem. It's just ok. And just ok doesn't justify money and time spent, nor does it give me what I wanted, which is a really fun game that speaks to the kind of audience that likes these kind of games. Namely, me. I wanted it to at least be fun for me to play, and not be thinking about little details while I play it.
- I can potentially make bigger, better pieces of art because of the extra screen size (at least on PC/Mac)
- The current code is still bug written and apt to crash. Not to mention, a lot of small design details are nagging. I would need to be much more involved in the coding process from the design side for things to work out the way they should.
And that's that.
I'm now going to go look at a couple other Ren'Py games (Yay, fun research) but basically I'm going to start the coding, if not tonight (I'm exhausted) then tomorrow night,
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