It’s been another busy month at Yarn Spinner HQ, with many plates a-spinning. I have more updates than we can do justice this month, and many more on the way, but here’s a quick look at what we’ve done this September…
Ongoing Work#
Yarn Spinner for Godot (GDScript) is about to be out of beta. A good number of teams have already started using it in projects, and we’ve made a bunch of really valuable changes in response to feedback. Bug fixes and UX improvements galore. The main barrier to us calling it 1.0 was reaching docs parity with the Unity version, and we’re almost there. You can see how that’s going on our new docs site here.
Yarn Spinner for Unreal Engine will remain in beta just a little longer. Its adoption has gone well but our making example projects for the docs is a bit more involved than it is in Godot. That’s what we’re working on now. Stay tuned.
Yarn Spinner for Unity’s VM rewrite is done. We fixed our last niggling bug yesterday, so after some more extensive testing it will be ready to ship for 3.3 next month. We’ve spoken mostly about the internals of this work but it enables some really cool new features in custom functions and cancellable commands, so we have a full blog post on those additions coming soon.
async-vm branch, and try and break stuff. Then tell us how you go!Story Solver is a full platform now. We’ve got some features we’d like to add, and there’s still work to be done as we better integrate it with our vision for standalone and web-based editors for Yarn Spinner, but it’s ready to show off. It touches on some pretty complex story concepts, so we’re sure it will need some heavy tutorialisation for public release. But in the meantime, we’re eagerly accepting bookings to show it to people online or at any of our upcoming events.
Many small updates to Visual Studio Code since we shipped out extension rewrite a while ago. They will keep coming as we work on making the editing experience more consistent between VSCode, compatible alternatives like VSCodium, and our in-development standalone editor.
Visual Novel Kit for Yarn Spinner ?!#
Last year we teased that we were working on a Visual Novel Kit for Yarn Spinner, an Add-On set of pre-defined commands that emulate a Ren’Py-style API for adding and manipulating characters and views on-screen.
With just a few commands, you can skip straight to a functional story using portraits, backgrounds, and effects.
<<bg ImageName>>
<<show CharacterA neutral left>>
<<show CharacterB happy right>>
<<shake right 0.5>>When a set of old bugs came to a head with newer Unity versions, we diverted to work on the async VM issues described previously. It made sense to stow VNKit until we could get that work done, so then our VNKit plans could expand to make use of the new async abilities it would unlock. Now, as that other work comes to a close, we have picked this project back up. And it’s mighty close to ready.
Here’s what that looks like:
Other Bits and Pieces#
We’ve written some nice code to support integration with Rewired that will ship in Yarn Spinner+ for Unity in 3.3, and we’re working on porting the Speech Bubbles Add-On to Godot as a new offering.
We’ve parked work on the VO app stuff we were noodling on until Christmas when we have some more free time. But it’s not the only internal demo we’re itching to work on, so we should have some fun updates to that and more early next year.
We’ve written a whole new docs platform that we’re in the middle of porting our existing docs site content to. This new design improves the experience of navigating the huge amount of content that is now mirrored between different engines and tools and look similar enough to get confusing. We’ve also laid the groundwork to be able to more easily serve more dynamic content in the future, as we are actively seeking funding to translate our docs content so that it can reach more users.
AND we’ve added a whole new subsystem to Yarn Spinner called TestPlans which lays the foundation for auto-playing test tools and the like, by using files to either direct YS during play or check content against what was expected.
Alongside this, we’ve made some sweet improvements to the editor flow for flagging dialogue during preview—like “I don’t like this line” notes to review later—including a prototype iOS app for remotely controlling preview dialogue. More on that next month.
Upcoming Travel#
Being down at the bottom of the world, we don’t often get a chance to go overseas and meet your smiling faces in person. But this year, the stars have aligned, and we’ve got a whopper of a trip coming up:
- 🇦🇺 Melbourne, Australia (GCAP, others)
- 🇹🇭 Bangkok, Thailand (gamescom asia)
- 🇩🇪 Munich, Germany (GodotFest)
- 🇬🇧 London, UK (AdventureX)
At each of these events, we’re posting everywhere we’ll be and welcome anyone who would like to chat with us about (almost) anything. We especially love to talk about narrative game tools, what you’re using, and why it works for you.
You can see a full list of events and book a meeting with us via our new live events page. We have a bunch of shiny new demos and internal tools to show off (like Story Solver!) so be sure to catch us.
Fun Stuff#
One of our favourite game events of the year is about to start: LudoNarraCon. It’s always packed with great games we can’t wait to play, and this year is no different. And same as last year, about 20% of the selected games are made with Yarn Spinner!
And you can now finally cause pug chaos to your heart’s content, as Doggy Don’t Care is out now!
Summary#
- YS for Godot (GDscript) is about to leave beta and now has docs on the new docs site
- YS for UE is in beta a little while longer as we work on docs and sample projects some more
- YS for Unity has been fully re-plumbed and is in final testing for an imminent 3.3 release
- YS+ for Unity’s 3.3 release will include support for Rewired
- We have a new docs site, and existing docs will soon be migrating to that
- Visual Novel Kit is back
on the menuin active development - Our new events page shows where we’ll be at games events so you can say hi!
- You can book with us now for a guided look at Story Solver
- We’ve done editor features, bugfixes, marketing stuff for events, all sorts!
Header image: The sky above The Bass Strait, courtesy of Paris on his last trip.
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