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There are only two requirements to get started with this tutorial:
1. You have to download Ren'Py from the Official Download Page and install it.
2. You have to have some idea what the story that you want to tell is. You don't need to have a complete outline, or know all of the characters, though that might be a good idea as a story telling practice (many, though not all, people believe that you should know your entire story at least at a high level before you start to write any of it down). But at a minimum you just need to have a basic idea of at least two characters, a setting, and some idea of where your plot is starting.
You can, of course, jump straight into a mega project, but experience shows that one of the main reasons for projects not being completed is that it was just too huge and ambitious.
It's a good idea to consciously aim to keep your first project small and simple.
As a guide, 5000 words of story-text is usually about 15 minutes of playing time. 30-45 minutes of playing time is a realistic target.
Producing art takes a lot of time. While you don't want to let it dictate the story, it's sensible to limit the number of locations (and therefore backgrounds) where you can. Likewise having a large cast will increase the artist's workload dramatically - unless you're happy for the characters to have only one pose and one expression.
Just to give you an idea, below are the "profiles" of some completed first-time projects:
Project 1
Creative team: 2 (1 writer, 1 artist)
Development time: 1 month (NaNoReNo)
playing time: 30-45 minutes
Story length: 17466 words
Cast: 3 characters, 38 sprite images
Story world: 15 backgrounds (filtered photos)
Music: none.
Project 2
Creative team: 1 person
Development time:
Playing time: 30 minutes (but had shoot-em-up elements)
Story length: 8000 words
Cast: 3 characters, 45 sprite images + 3 minor characters
Story world: 12 backgrounds, plus rendered spaceships
Music: from the web.
Project 3
Creative team: 1 person
Development time: 2 months
Story length: 1507 words,
Only one ending (kinetic).
Cast: 3 characters. Everyone has only one pose.
Main character has 7 expressions, while the others have 4 and 1.
Story world: CG and 4 painted backgrounds
Music: 3 tracks from the web.
And a major project just for comparison:
Project 4
Creative team: 2 people (artist/writer, musician)
Development time: 2 YEARS
Story length: 51756 words,
6 main endings plus a couple of "you die" dead ends.
Cast: 9 characters, 65 sprite images
Story world: 86 backgrounds (50% filtered photos)
Music: 8 tracks, composed for this work
So you see, projects can be as big or as small as you like.
That's it. You're now ready to get started.