I didn't know that, I have watched the entire manual from start to finish and I do refer back to it every so often but that thing is dense with a lot of information, so it's hard to read it once and remember everything. Plus the examples they give don't always display exactly what I want to try. So, of it's like:
Lady- "If you type this, then this will happen?"
Me- "But what if I wanted to change it slightly for a similar albeit different effect?"
Lady- "Then don't, now sit down and shut up loser, you decided to be a history major in college rather than learning to code, you made your bed so lie in it."
So, instead I look at many of the other games people have made and when I see someone has implemented a feature I'd like to have in my game, I study it to try and apply it to my own. So, that's where my usage of dollar signs came from.
Either that or just fiddle with different things until I get the effect I want. For example, check out the sweet skills on my main menu:
I'm still trying to come up with a solution for out-lining in-game text. What I'd like to do is get rid of the dialogue box entirely, as I think the dark rectangle is ugly as sin but lack the ability to do this:
Seriously, that dialogue box looks like it smoothly fades from dark to white but after looking at it for hours and hours I can clearly see a line now my life has been a complete lie.
So, I figured I'd simply have text that is clearly visible on the screen would be a good alternative, I figured white text outlined in black would be a good solution, if the picture is too dark for black text they can read the white inside, if it is too bright for white text, they can see the black outline.
...but I can't figure out how to do that without also making it where it outlines the character names, which also uses the digital clock type font and looks hideous with a black outline.
Plus, I'm only 10% sure that would actually work.
stuff about names that was written by you but to save space lets just amend it.
I managed to create some weird hybrid bastardization.
Python:
$ p = renpy.input("I think I'll go with")
$ p = p.strip()
define p = Character(color="#00ff00")
I wasn't sure what was actually coloring p(protagonist) so I just left the define variable in there under the assumption. "It works now, lets not mess with it."
One thing I would like to mess with is getting rid of the affection altogether. Right now I'm using it as a stopgap for keeping track of which events the user has seen but that quick fix is quickly proving itself untenable. To understand how each works, the core plot is linear, while the girls are routes which you have the option of selecting at fixed points, which are limited, there are eight girls but you can only hang out with 1-3 girls per prompt, and I disabled the text log to 50 lines, which is more than enough if you're trying to reread something, but prevents the user from using the mouse wheel to roll all the way back to the decision. So, harsh decisions must be made.
So, I'd like to do four things:
-Make the option disappear after the user has seen it
-Limit it the number of choices they can see.(so, for example, they have 8 girls to choose from but can only see 2-3 events per day)
-As the story progresses narrow down the options so that you can only continue to advance their route if you've made it at least a specified amount of progress down the each girls story.
-Use true/false statements to keep track of the events rather than a hidden affection meter
In essence, I want it to be possible to lose the game. I don't want the wild and unpredictable choices you see in some novels, but if they try and play Don Juan and romance every girl choosing different girls every time the prompt comes up in the game they will lose as they will reach a point where they can't see any options.
The point is to do each girl in turn, focusing on one, then the next, then the next. Allowing you to romance several girls if you do it right, but with each girl having(a planned) 5 events and 2 H-scenes, then maybe some combo scenes if you select the right pair of girls.
Personality, I'd like to use true/false to let renpy know that the user has seen the previous event and would like to move on to the next.
I'd like to just put:
Code:
label hang_out
menu:
"Who do you want to hang out with now?"
"Emily":
if emiliy_event_one == False:
jump emily_event_one
elif emiliy_event_one == True:
jump emily_event_two
elif emily_event_two == True:
jump emily_event_three
else:
--something that will get rid of the option entirely--
So, basically, click the option and it takes them to the next event, if there are no more events, then the option disappears.
Problem I have, is I'm not
quite sure how to inform renpy to keep track of whether the user has seen that label.
I'd like to say declaring at the beginning of the game:
default emily_event_one = False
default emily_event_two = False
default emily_event_three = False
then after each event I add:
$ emily_event_one = True
Problem is it seems to be temperamental, mostly due to my stupidity, as I don't understand it quite as well as I do menus or if statements.(Just because I didn't know that elif existed 24 hours ago doesn't mean I couldn't pump out a bangin' if/else statement) Plus, I don't know how to make the else statement to get rid of the choice once they have reached the maximum number of events, as I haven't attempted that before.
For example, I was getting rid of choices using this method. The first prompt gives you the ability to see all of the events, bringing all of the girls affection up to 1. So it looked like this:
Python:
menu:
"I still need to talk to the other girls, who should I talk to?"
"I'd like to speak with Emily" if emily_love == 0:
jump emily_event_one
"I'd like to speak with Karen" if karen_love == 0:
jump karen_event_one
"I'd like to speak with Claire" if claire_love == 0:
jump claire_event_one
"I'm done for the day":
jump afternoon_continue
So, you can see how the option would disappear as each event is seen until all you're left with is "I'm done for the day."
Eventually, I'd like the choices to look more like this:
Python:
menu:
"Who do you want to hang out with?"
"Emily" if emily_event_two == True:
if emily_event_three == False:
jump emily_event_three
elif emily_event_three == True:
jump emily_event_four
elif emily_event_four == True:
jump emily_event_five
else: ?
"Claire" if claire_event_two == True:
if claire_event_three == False:
jump claire_event_three
elif claire_event_three == True:
jump claire_event_four
elif claire_event_four == True:
jump claire_event_five
else: ?
I didn't want to extend that to the complete choice for all 8 girls, but you get the general idea.
It links them to the next choice no matter what progress they have made through but it doesn't display the choice unless they have seen event two. If they haven't, then the option never shows up.
But there are two things wrong with that:
a. There is no option to get rid of the choice once they have selected it and since all of the events would link back to the choice, a person could theoretically go through all 40 events in one sitting if they wanted to.
b. There is still no option to limit the number of choices.
c. In testing I tried changing the first choice to:
Python:
menu:
"Who do you want to hang out with now?"
"Emily": if emily_event_one == False
jump emily_event_one
"claire" if claire_event_one == False
jump claire_event_one
"Karen" if karen_event_one == False
jump karen_event_one
"I'm done for now."
jump "continue_first_day"
and I got this:
Is it possibly due to the events themselves being organized into a different file? For example, claire_event_one is located in claire_events.rpy while emily_event_one is located in emily_event.rpy while the main script is running in script.rpy
I've tried it several ways, I have cycled through all of the various definitions
default emily_event_one = False
define emily_event_one = False
$ emily_event_one = False
default emily_event_one == False
define emily_event_one == False
$ emily_event_one == False
all say "it is not defined."
