User-Created Content Through Ren’Py

Tyler Ellis Trosper

May 3rd, 2011

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Table of Contents

Abstract 3

Executive Summary 3

Introduction 3

Literary Review 5

Methods 6

Data 6

Analysis 7

Findings 8

Conclusions 9

References 10

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Keywords Ren’Py, visual novel, community, collaboration, writing, art

Abstract

Executive Summary The research paper tackles the concept of the cognitive surplus, thought of by Clary Shirky, in regards to an online message board and its use of the Ren’Py visual novel engine. In order to tackle the issue, I posted on the Lemma Soft Forums, the official forum for the Ren’Py engine, asking for volunteers to fill out my survey. I also asked for three volunteers to do a one-on-one interview with through private message. I was able to gather the results in a relatively short amount of time and I was able to connect my findings to cognitive surplus. However, I did find some flaws within the community, most notably the decline in quality collaboration with members. This was evidenced through the interviews, especially with the creator of Ren’Py, PyTom, and through the survey results when asked how many of the respondents had actually finished a visual novel, which proved to be a large 32%. As a smaller community, Lemma Soft Forums worked as a place to easily find someone to collaborate with along with gain feedback, as people only had to sift through a few visual novels at a time. With the increase popularity of the engine, however, more visual novels are being made and many people are unable to keep up with the demand for critiques and collaborators. I recommend activities that promote a common goal, such as more competitions, in order to increase the amount of people collaborating.

Introduction “Visual novels are just that, visual novels. It can have all the intricacies of a novel with added visuals and sound to add, complement, and overall craft a better experience. It's an art form like any other, no one thing being more important, but how you use them is quite key.” The above quote was taken from an interview from a Lemma Soft Forums member. Visual novels are a medium that blends reading with imagery at a technological level. Not unlike a child’s picture book, visual novels have images accompanying text to tell a story. The medium is experienced electronically, through such devices as computers, consoles or even a handheld device. Though the medium originates from Japan, visual novels have slowly created a niche in the United States. Titles such as the Phoenix Wright series, Ghost Trick, and 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors have garnered rave reviews from critics while also developing a cult following among gamers. Despite this success, Western game developers have not really jumped onto the phenomenon that is the visual novel genre. It is still mostly an Eastern concept.

Ren’Py is a development program for the creation of visual novels, a type of electronic medium that mixes art, sound, and reading to create a unique experience. The Ren’Py program has a dedicated online forum, Lemma Soft Forums, for collaboration and development, which is the emphasis in my paper. I conducted three interviews and received responses to an online survey from 28 respondents. The results of this research revealed the importance of collaboration with the community, even when the forum users vaguely knew each other. Furthermore, the investigation will connect to Clay Shirky’s theory of the cognitive surplus, connecting the development of Ren’Py and the collaboration between Lemma Soft Forum members.

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However, visual novels are being made in the West, but not by big name companies. Instead, small groups and even individuals are creating their own visual novels to share with others by various means. In regards to creation of visual novels, creators have a wide variety of tools at their disposal to help them accomplish their goals. Three of the most significant engines to create visual novels with are the Blade Engine, Novelty, and Ren’Py. The most popular of the three, with a healthy online community and a user-created library containing over 100 visual novels, is the Ren’Py engine. Since its creation in 2004, the Ren’Py engine has gone through many updates based on the feedback of the Ren’Py community, Lemma Soft Forums. Furthermore, the community itself has developed as an area for users to critique others’ work, find collaborators on projects, and talk about visual novels in general or other subjects. It is this area, the collaboration between forum members, I will explore throughout my research paper. First, I approached the research of the Ren’Py engine and its user base with several questions in mind. How does Ren’Py work? What kind of programming went into its development? How much programming skills do people need in order to manipulate the program? Why are people drawn to using Ren’Py over other programs? Why do people collaborate with complete strangers on projects? Furthermore, what I plan to argue with this paper goes along with Clay Shirky’s theory of the cognitive surplus, that, with more free time that people have the potential to use this spare time to create and develop something beneficial (27). The members of Lemma Soft Forums are the consumers, but, at the same time, they are also producers. Also, as consumers, they can determine the end results of a product, an already established testing group. I will argue that such a tight and collaborative community is beneficial in resulting in an improved program along with individual products in the form of visual novels. In order to argue my point, I will delve into the results of my survey and interviews. Specifically, I will investigate the extent of collaboration within the Lemma Soft Forums. I will compare the results of several interviews to determine a common trend and develop a conclusion. Also, I will compare how much work is being done within the Ren’Py program and at what level a user must be at in order to collaborate. I will then analyze how the users collaborated, if it was done at a professional level or anonymously through the internet.

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Literary Review The primary resource for my study is Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age by Clay Shirky. Shirky discusses his theory of the cognitive surplus, the potential for creative and beneficial things to manifest through society’s ever increasing free time. Stemming in roots to Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Cognitive Surplus goes beyond condemning television to saying that our lives are being changed from mere consumers to producers with the advancement of the internet. Shirky continues to develop his theory of the cognitive surplus through many examples, such as Ushahidi and its social networking to map out government attacks when the mainstream media had been banned from reporting it (15). In regards to my topic, Ren’Py is a collective program that is developed through user interaction, just as Ushahidi developed through the reports of others. Overall, Shirky finds the cognitive surplus to be a positive thing, a right for every individual to share, collaborate, and publish whatever they wish. He does acknowledge it could be used for negative purposes, but, for the sake of my topic, the cognitive surplus is very useful in developing a tool for expression. Another source used for the research project was Digital Literacy for Technical Communication: 21st Century Theory and Practice, edited by Rachel Spilka. I speak primarily of the section written by Dave Clark, Shaped and Shaping Tools: The Rhetorical Nature of Technical Communication Technologies. The article discusses the rhetoric of technology through various approaches (87). In regards to Ren’Py, I believe that the engine is on the path of the “Technology Transfer and Diffusion” approach, which is “how new technologies are moved into organizations and then used, implemented, and in some cases, rejected” (94). The article goes on to say that defining the rhetoric of technology is tricky and that there are many more approaches to make in order to completely define it. Another source used for the research project was the article Supporting and Transforming Leadership in Online Creative Collaboration by Kurt Luther. The article mentions that, as a tool acquires more users, the more complicated it becomes to collaborate, which is a growing issue within the Ren’Py community (2932). The study within the article investigated the online collaboration of several groups, such as the videos created on Newgrounds.com (2932-2933). The article discovered that less than 20% of collaborations on Newgrounds resulted in a finished product, a problem that rose up in my survey responses (2933). Though the article is only a thesis, the glimpse of data already within the document proves to be incredibly helpful when comparing the situation of Newgrounds with Ren’Py and the Lemma Soft Forums. Lastly, another literary source used in the research project was the article Involving Consumers in

Product Design Through Collaboration: The Case of Online Role-Playing Games by Shu-Yu Yeh. The article discusses the recent trend of the producer-consumer relationship in developing products, most notably in online role-playing games. Through a balanced collaboration between the producers of the game, who are skilled at technical solutions, and the consumers, who know exactly what they want, development of a product can be more well-rounded for consuming purposes (602). The collaborative effort between the producer and the consumer connects strongly to the activity on the Lemma Soft Forums. The users of the forum are both producers and consumers, leading to collaboration amongst each other to improve each other’s final products.

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Methods For my methods, I investigated the Lemma Soft Forums directly. I had created a user account not too long ago, named Jintoki, in order to get feedback on a project. Using that account, I posted an initial thread on the Lemma Soft Forums with consent information attached in order to draw in participants. I posted a link to a survey within the thread and also requested interviews from three people. The survey was administered online through the website surveymonkeys.com. 28 people filled out the survey, which consisted of 10 multiple choice questions. Furthermore, the interviews were also conducted online through private messages on the Lemma Soft Forums by various members of the community. One of the interviewees consisted of the creator of Ren’Py itself, username PyTom. The data was collected over a short period of time, no more than a week. All of the data was conducted over the internet, so the collection was a simple process. After the data was collected I thanked the participants and began analyzing the data.

Data The results of the survey proved to be of valuable use, acquiring 28 volunteers. For my first question, “What is your highest level of education,” 53.6% said that their highest level of education was a high school degree, while 25.0% said they at least had a bachelor’s degree. Next, when asked to categorize their programming skills, 71.4% stated that they had decent to nonexistent programming skills.

For online collaboration, 77.8% of 27 respondents (one person skipped the question) admitted to collaborating on a visual novel online with someone, be it on the Lemma Soft Forums or elsewhere. Of that number, only one respondent actually knew their collaborator in real life, the rest either being from the Lemma Soft Forums or elsewhere. Furthermore, in regards to compensation, a whopping 85.7% stated

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that they did not pay their collaborator(s) for their work. For the creating process, 88% of respondents (three skipped this question) stated that the script of a visual novel, the actual writing, was the most important aspect. Likewise, 96% of respondents (again, three skipped this question) said that they work on the actual script to their visual novels. In regards to how long a project usually takes, the majority (again, three respondents skipped), at eight respondents, stated that they had never finished a project, whereas seven respondents stated that it took them a few months. All of three interview respondents at least had a bachelor’s degree backing them, which the founder of Ren’Py, codenamed PyTom, achieved a PhD. Also, the interviewees had acquired significant programming skills; one of the respondents having a bachelor’s degree in computer science. Overall, the respondent’s listed the support of the forum as the best resource for Ren’Py, as stated best by one interviewee: “It's not the critique but the support which I need. For critique I just compare my work to others out there and know what to improve for the next work.” As mentioned by PyTom, with the increase of forum members, however, the collaborative process has become more and more difficult while becoming more situated for promotional purposes. Furthermore, another interviewee said how the community can be “quite polarized and biased toward many opinions”, as the specific interviewee stated earlier in the interview that he had been thrown in the midst of a “flame war” after requesting assistance on a project. The majority said that they paid their collaborators sometimes, mainly depending on the skill required and whether or not the project is commercial.

Analysis From what can be gleaned from the survey and interviews, there seems to be a correlation between the highest education level and those who actually complete a visual novel. Those who actually had competent programming skills seemed able to finish a complete visual novel. However, those who actually did have experience with programming skills also had to mainly collaborate with others by request of artwork and sound, whether or not their collaborator was good with programming or not. Furthermore, critique did not seem to come up very often within the interviews. When it was addressed, the interviewees seemed hesitant to discuss critique among the forum users, as many valued the collaborative quality of the forum more so than any critique. At this, one of the interviewees mentioned the quote I spoke of earlier, how the community can be “quite polarized and biased toward many opinions.”

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Findings The findings for the project fell within my predictions, that the Lemma Soft Forums evolved the Ren’Py engine based on the collaboration between the members. However, the process is beginning to hit the point where it is difficult to keep up with, as the creator mentioned in his interview. The dramatic number of members who had not finished a single visual novel in the survey (32%) revealed how, with a bigger user base, the amount of collaboration becomes staggering to keep up with (Luther, 2010). This problem is alleviated a little with free to use graphics, sounds, and music provided on the official Ren’Py website, but the problem persists with original visual novels. As mentioned by Clark, as Ren’Py becomes more and more popular the more difficult it will be to maintain. Recently, Ren’Py has begun to move to mobile platforms, such as the Android, and there have been several commercial games created using the engine. Ren’Py is not terribly close to hitting the mainstream, but the path is similar to the technology transfer and diffusion. However, it is the producer-consumer relationship that the Lemma Soft Forums has going for it. With the two in check, the final product (a user-created visual novel or even Ren’Py itself) can turn out most beneficial for the consumer (Yeh, 2010). Also, instead of relying on critiques to improve, one of the interviewees had this to say, “It's not the critique but the support which I need. For critique I just compare my work to others out there and know what to improve for the next work.” So, instead of relying on normal comments from the forum, some members compare and contrast their own works with others on the forum, a kind of critique in and of itself. With over 100 user-created games on the Ren’Py website there are many examples to compare and contrast one’s work to. According to the survey, many of the respondents (53.6%) had only a high school diploma and minimal programming skills, which, on the surface, shows how intuitive the program can be. However, the number of incomplete visual novels makes it appear as though this is not the case. The interviewees, having at least a bachelor’s degree, all had completed at least one visual novel. Perhaps more research must be done in order to find a direct correlation, but perhaps the programming in the Ren’Py is off-putting for some users. However, that is the point of having collaboration between the members. One member doesn’t necessarily need to be a programmer, just like a member doesn’t necessarily need to be an artist.

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Conclusions The collaborative effort in such a niche genre is fascinating. The Ren’Py engine constantly gets support through the Lemma Soft Forums as well as from its creator with constant updates. However, as the community develops along with the tool it becomes increasingly difficult for collaboration to happen, as mentioned by the creator:

Back in the "good old days", the forum was small enough that everyone knew what everyone else was working on, and pretty much everyone was working on a similar kind of game. (Bishoujo games.) Many people would have played every game, at least for a little bit. With the community much larger and more diverse, we can't do that anymore. To some extent, that makes collaboration more difficult. The forum has also turned more promotional, and less technical.

In those regards, the Ren’Py community has to find a way to get back to its niche roots in order to incite more collaboration and a closer community, but that may not be possible at this point. True, collaboration still happens on Lemma Soft Forums, so it has not gone too out of control, but the development could possibly go much smoother if the community was as tight as it was when it was first started. A possible solution could be a mass project that involves the entire Lemma Soft Forum. Or perhaps encourage more competitions on the board for more visual novels, encouraging members to work together toward a common goal. My solutions are only theoretical, but some common goal could increase the collaborative effort on Lemma Soft Forums. Overall, the investigation could have been a little smoother with the survey. There were several people who skipped some of my questions, so I could have had it so that many of the questions could not be skipped. Furthermore, for the collaboration questions, I could have had the respondent choose multiple answers on how they knew their collaborator(s) instead of just one answer, since many of the answers could have went together, such as the respondent not knowing someone who they collaborated with but the collaborator could have also been a member of the Lemma Soft Forums. Basically, I could have done a better job articulating my questions and choosing what questions really matter. Also, with as niche of a subject as it is, it was difficult to find any outside research to go along with the subject of visual novels. However, I could have researched more areas that are similar in nature, such as Wikipedia and its use of collaboration. Furthermore, it would have been interesting if I had designed a question or two asking the geographical background of the respondents and then compare and contrast the level of collaboration they might do across borders.

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References Clark, D. (2010). Digital literacy for technical communication: 21st century theory and practice. Shaped and shaping tools: the rhetorical nature of technical communication technologies. Rachel Spilka editor. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis. Luther, Kurt. (2010). Supporting and transforming leadership in online creative collaboration. Retrieved from http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1760000/1753888/p2931-luther.pdf?key1=1753888&key2=1647154031&coll=DL&dl=ACM&ip=147.226.105.156&CFID=19187788&CFTOKEN=43699427 Shirky, Clay. (2010). Cognitive surplus: creativity and generosity in a connected age. New York: The Penguin Press. Yeh, Shu-Yu. (2010). Involving consumers in product design through collaboration: the case of online role-playing games. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 13(6), Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=bb08baba-15f7-4c95-a01b-04c7bc9672f8%40sessionmgr110&vid=5&hid=107