Digital Novel Markup Language

Digital Novel Markup Language

Original author(s)	Karin (Internet name)
Developer(s)	J. Miguel
Initial release	1998
Stable release	2.24 / 2000
Development status	In hiatus
Written in	C++
Operating system	Windows
Size	3MB
Available in	Japanese, English
Type	Visual novel engine
License	Freeware
Website	http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA015183/ http://kamuixtv99.deviantart.com/journal/20949314/ (English)

Digital Novel Markup Language (DNML) is one of the first scripting language game engine for creating visual novels, an interactive fiction game. It was developed using C++ by a Japanese programmer only known by his or her Internet name, Karin. The programming structure is similar to HTML which it made it easy to produce dōjin games. Up until 2001, dōjin games were not yet popular on the Internet except in Japan which caused the developers to cease the development of DNML. As years went by, it was succeeded by software like KiriKiri, Nscripter and Ren'Py. Despite limited success in the English-speaking community, DNML is still widely used in Japan.

Programming structure

<plugin src="jpg" name="ifjpegv6.spi">

<plugin src="png" name="ifpng.spi">

font color="#ffffff"  ; font color similar to HTML

<Background Src="G028.jpg">  ; displays background images

<BGM SRC="d-g88.mid"  ;; plays midi files

<Sound src="end.wav">  ;; plays wav file

Outside Japan

In 1998, J met Karin by looking for resources for the English fan translation of Isaku. He is a co-founder of a dōjin group (BAO Team) in the Philippines. He told Karin to introduce DNML outside Japan, so otaku around the world would be aware of dōjin games. Since then he joined the development of DNML and translated all the related documents into the English language. In 2000, Karin left the development of DNML to J however according from him, the project is in hiatus for a very long time.

External links

• Author's website (Japanese)
• DNML Webring (Japanese)^{[dead link]}
• DNML on Open Directory Project
• DNML notes