hi hello how are you
i was simply wondering how difficult deus ex machina was... i can see the program you were using, but i know only very little about coding and i'm wondering if it's particularly beginner-friendly, at least in your experience?
Hello there! Happy to answer this, I personally found deus x machina not very difficult to put together together (the graphics + script were the most tedious part for me). On the coding side of things, I would argue that it is beginner-friendly since the Ren'py language is basically a simplified form of the already-beginner-friendly python language, but in the end it is still coding, so going into it understanding the basics of programming and python is probably going to be very helpful. I found it very easy to pick up and am self-taught on python, but I do work a lot with other languages so I was already familiar with coding concepts and what to expect when picking up a new framework.
My suggestion for someone new to both coding and Ren'py would be to read the beginner documentation for the engine, try it out, and if you're struggling to follow, take a step back to look up online tutorials for python. There are tons of these that are very accessible and very helpful, and I would think just a few basic lessons on syntax and how scripting works would be sufficient to provide a foundation for Ren'py.
Relatedly, I did also write a little blog post about getting started with Ren'py here that goes into a few more specifics, and I welcome others to download the source code for DxM to reference if they so wish.
Hope that helps, and good luck if you try it out! ^_^