How to Make A Custom Visual Novel (w Godot and Dialogic)

if you are like me you sometimes ask yourself is it possible to make a strange dating SIM without dumping hours upon hours of time and learning a brand new complex software well luckily for us both the answer is apparently yes today I will be covering how to make your own dating Sims using the Godot engine and dialogic both of which are free so with no Moto a let's get right into this [Music] so to start off the first thing we are going to need to do is install go dot engine luckily for us this is actually stupid easy to do simply look up the software on Steam and boom it's installed and you're good to go if you don't have steam they do have their own website where you can still install it for free and really with no large hassle next we would only need to install the dialogic plugin this is also pretty easy simply go to their GitHub page which I'll link below and download the build that works for you the base install on Steam is dot 3.5 so for the link I have below I have the dialogic 1.4.5 because that is the bow that works in that version as well as the update I will be using for this video however this diode really should work for any build or version of both to finish setting up go to Godot and make a new project folder this can easily be done just by clicking create new project then choose a spot for that folder to go after you've done so drag the dialogic add-on folders into your project folder let it import this resource in your Dot engine and then click project on the top then project settings then plugins enable dialogic and you should be to the dough now this plugin will enable a new editor on the top of your godep project that says dialogic click on this to begin create on this screen you will see many different things timelines characters definitions and themes I will now walk through setting up each of these first navigate to the box right below the project Navigator there should be a series of icons that state create a new and then each of those items I mentioned earlier for now click the new character you will then need to choose a name for this character a name that will display when they are speaking this is called the display name and if you so want nicknames for this character you can then below that fill out a description for the character finally no visual novel would be complete without images for our characters you can import this using the new portrait button though if you click this now you may notice that you can't really just select any file on your computer to import as a portrait is because you can only use files that are inside your project folder so whatever files you wish to use simply drag them into your project folder and then you'll be able to do so so now with our first character setup we can get started on creating our own story to do this click new timeline when you do so you will now enter the timeline editor this features many various different code blocks that you can drag it over to do various things first up we have Main Events these are text bubbles character interactions and save points text bubbles when dragged under the timeline will let you fill them up with text and whatever you write will be displayed when the player gets to that point you'll also set it so your character is the one who is saying this by tapping above the bubble where it says no character and simply setting it to the character you wish we can't have people speaking if they're not on screen here's where character comes in this is a command that controls characters joining weaving or being changed in a scene this command also Sports an animation toggle that lets you make their entrances and exits a bit more showy but it wouldn't be all that much fun if the only thing that happened in your visual novel was well reading we need to have the player make some choices and here's where the logic classes come in to provide the player with a choice we must first ask them a question or prompt cause a choice to be available this is done with the question class the answers to these questions then are done with the choice branches and by using multiple different Choice branches you can give your player the avoided to answer in various ways the importance of these Choice ranges is that they separate themselves from the main timeline allowing you to add text and events following the choice that occur as a result of that choice and not of other choices but let's say you finish with all the outcomes of the choice and you want to get back to the main timeline simply at the bottom of all the choices drag in the End branch class and all Choice branches will be connected back to the main timeline with everything being connected back together doesn't mean we can't save the results of those choices and this can be done using variables and glossaries variables are what they say they are set statements that hold a value which can be checked as a condition glossaries are text definitions of words that the player can use or see by moving their cursor over the words variables and glossaries can be changed using the set value and set glossary commands within a branch and the change will persist outside of that Branch allowing the decision to impact the results of waiter gameplay without a need for a new timeline to be created for every single decision to make these variables in glossaries simply do the same part of the screen when you made a territory and timeline the x is a variable and the book thin is glossaries so we can save the results of a decision how can we use those results well there are two ways one is a if class this is a class that creates a branch that occurs when a variable holds a certain value this can be used while players get special dialogue if they have been nice to certain characters or mean or get special endings this other way to lock choices behind a condition is to Simply made it so that choice is only available if the player has a certain value in that stated variable to do this simply click the enable condition button on a choice however when creating parts of the timeline sometimes we want the ability to jump to other parts of the timeline this can be done in dialogic using the Weeble class this class has a point on the timeline this point can then be traveled to by anywhere in the timeline using the go to class however be careful about a go-to and a label do not accidentally cause a loop that would just be unpleasant for the player now let's say we want to have choices that cause major changes changes that are so separate that a branch really isn't going to do enough well this can be done by making a new timeline simply do what was done earlier again and give this new timeline a name that is relevant to you then go to your original timeline and use the change timeline class this will allow the player who goes through that point to switch timelines to this new one that you have created but in the end no visual novel could ever be complete without the addition of personalization and dialogic offers a easy way to do exactly that first audio events and background music can be added into a scene using those respective classes just simply import the audio files and enable them on top of that of the background of the game we can easily set that using the change background Clause you're gonna make sure to do this in the beginning of the game to set your initial background and it can be changed using this class as well throughout the course of the game depending on the setting and occurrences within your day however the customization does not end here as the use of themes takes customization to a whole nother level again making your way to the top of the screen and clicking create new theme you should quickly see the amount of customization before you from changing touch color font margins the dialog box the name label Choice buttons how the glossary looks and even the audio that plays when text is added you can truly use this resource to make the visual novel you dreamed and make it something that's really different than anyone else using this our final step is to get this to load inside Godot today this is actually really simple on the side of the screen you're going to hit the little plus button and select a dialog class then select your specific starting timeline over on the inspector and boom it should all work now you can easily just export this project and everything will be fine you'll be able to play and send it to other people so with that I've now covered the basics of using dialogic and Godot to make that visual novel that you have been dying to make so what's stopping you go out and give it a shot if you do be sure to share it with me I'd love to play some wacky begins hopefully you enjoyed this video this has been Christopher Reese until next time ciao [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Cristiferbeast

Views: 23,168

Keywords: Visual Novel, Game Creation, Free, Dialogic, Godot, Easy, C#, NanonReno2023

Id: shryWhm6GaQ

Length: 8min 44sec (524 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 01 2023