My late Ren’py update

I updated to Ren’py 6.14.1 today. I had 6.13.something before. I didn’t even know there was a new version until I looked for answers to some coding problem I had. I found the answer and when it didn’t work I realised it was because I hadn’t upgraded Ren’py.

The launcher looks great and I looove the new features.  I switched to the new editor as well. Editra is pretty cool and has spellcheck which is awesome.  I also changed the enviroment colors, for example the background to a nice dark blue that’s easier on the eyes then the stark white it was before.

One thing that bothers me is that it doesn’t seem to auto-indent (on pressing enter) like jEdit did, nor does it have the Ctrl + I thing that automatically indented a chunk of code. (unless I’m missing it?). These aren’t big problems though and I’m willing to live with them.

Other than that, I wrote today. I reached 4500 words which is not a lot, but it’s progress. I wrote the first encounters between MC and some of the other chars: Casper, Finn and Alba. They were pretty fun to write, I feel like I’m getting a better handle on their personality. I try really hard not to make Alba a total b with an itch. I want her to have redeeming qualities and not be just another one-dimensional stuck-up mean girl.

Also, I started using placeholders for the characters. They don’t have color or emotion, but they help me visualize the story. ^_^

I’m still debating Crypto’s functionality. Right now it’s made in a way that the player can go in, check what’s new or not. That’s not gonna fly though. Some things are optional (like all the random threads people write), but some should definitely be read to further the story. On the other hand, if I force the player to click through everything, why even give them the option to click? Same goes for 1-on-1 conversations. These should go in the private tab of the Crypto menu. Say MC receives a new IM that she absolutely has to read in order to further the story, do I force the NVL dialogue to pop up or just pause the game until the player goes to click on the conversation? I’m sure there’s a perfect way to handle it, I just have to find it.

In happier news I managed to make clicking on a thread work. I now opens it up and shows the replies. Woot!

Random screenshot:

MC tries to avoid Finn by hiding in a crowd of people, Assassin’s creed style. She ends up falling on her ass in front of everyone.

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Statistics of the day:

The game contains 418 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 4,492 words,
for an average of 10.7 words per screen.
The game contains 1 menus.

Random name FTW

So, I originally had a fixed screen name for the character to take.  The narrator would say that there are randomly generated but the others were silly so MC was forced to go with the only good one. Then I thought, why not actually generate random screen names for the player to choose? I already had a system for it anyway (word1+word2, complicated, I know). So that’s what I did. Using two arrays of words that would more or less work together I generate the names and the players chooses one of three.  There are over 2000 combinations. Sometimes the names are silly, but nothing you won’t find online.

Today I also wrote the first dialogue between MC and Hollow (who is Hollow? let’s just say he’s the antagonist of the story). It’s not set in stone, but I kind of liked the tone of the conversation.

I’m still not sure about the coding. I’m doing it NVL style for now (same as with Summer). I think it’s the best way, I just wish I could make the damn thing scroll like a real chat box. I tried using viewport but no dice. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

Let’s show some pics!

I’m not sure about the thoughts apearing in the chatbox. There’s no sideimage so I think I need to show some reaction from MC somehow. On the other hand I fear some people might see it as jarring. Arrrgh! What do I do?

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Statistics of the day:

The game contains 244 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 2,600 words,
for an average of 10.7 words per screen.

 

Custom screens are more fun than writing

Even when I first started thinking about CryptoHaven (the game) it was always a given that there will be an actual interface to mimick CryptoHaven’s (the program) functionality. Not once did I think “If you decide to make this game YOU will have to program that.” Nope. Well it finally hit me.

I tried writing the part where Mia first uses Crypto, but without the actual interface it seems impossible to get into the mood, so I guess until I create it, I’m stuck.

I think my way of mimicking a forum is pretty stupid, but hey, it works. So far I can only list the topics, views and creator and I made the titles into buttons. It doesn’t link to anything as I’ve yet to figure out how to do the next part (the actual forum posts).

Yeah, anarchy! Go WhiteCrow!

Ain’t that the truth.

Overachiever. not

Oh, I’ve been good, thanks for asking. I just made my game a CG/endings gallery, no big deal. Except… it was a huge deal! I think this took years off my life! I almost banged my head against the wall a few times. *Shakes fist at stupid buttons*. It’s not perfect, but it should do. Finally some pics I can show off!

View of the gallery page

And here’s the button on the main page. Sure, it might not be obvious what it does, but I am not ruining my layout for that. (too lazy)

It’s so tiny, look at it!

Coding trouble and points philosophy

Here in our lovely country we have a saying that would describe what I have been doing lately. After censoring it would translate to “If you have an itch somehwere… “, you have to scratch it.  You just had to scratch it, didn’t you? And today I had an itch and I boy did I scratch it.

Basically the whole “problem” was that I wanted to modify the main menu so that it would change after obtaining some endings. The whole thing escalated into me redoing the whole code for ALL the menus. I have to “translate” every customization into the screens.rpy file. Yes, I touched the feared screens.rpy file! Le gasp!

I only did the main menu, which works, the navigation menu which also works, and the damn preferences menu which I cannot get to work and I don’t know why! I’ll try not to think about it, since I might start crying in frustration.

I couldn’t bear to look at it anymore, so I decided to do something else. Point management I shall call it. Which to me is making a huge graph of all the choices and places points are assigned. So I went through the whole game and did a review.

 

Here are some things I realised I have to consider :

• All chars should have roughly the same max points. Because I want all of them to be equally hard to get.
• All chars should have enough special events as well as mandatory events.
• All chars should be interesting in their own way. Damn hard to do this one. Even though I can’t help having a favorite, if these guys were real I’d want to be friends with them all.
• Choices should be a mixed bag. Some should be rather easy (What do you think x thinks about me? vs What do you  think about me?), some are medium (choose a gift based on the guy’s interests/conversation you should have had with him if you were pursuing him) and some are pretty much impossible to tell the outcome of (stay home or go to the park). I have quite a few choices that I would consider hard, usually in conversations. Ex: Tell him out front or tease him about it. But once you read what happens, I think it becomes much clearer.
• Each character should have points that are easy to get as well as points that are harder to get, all must have 2-point answers as well as answers that subtract points.

It’s hard to find the right balance and I’m still working on it. It’s pretty tiring calculating what points whould be places where to insure fairness for all. Sometimes when I’m tired I have conversations in my head with my characters. That’s totally normal, right?

 

 

For a computer game in which everything is 100% digitally made, I sure have used a lot of paper…

Damn all these if clauses!!!