DavyCroquette: why wasting so many code lines for the side images if you could simply use renpy's own system there.
You only have to define this for each character like:
Code:
define s = Character("Sophie", color="#123456", image="sophie")
In
screens.rpy there is the code that will show these images for each dialogue line:
Code:
screen say(who, what):
...
if not renpy.variant("small"):
add SideImage() xalign 0.0 yalign 1.0
Your
script.rpy file has like 20k lines so far juggling these images on and off all the time with few actual dialogue between.
With renpy's internal SideImage system, you could save so much time to focus more on scenes and dialogue writing.
The game "Haley's Story" is one example where this system is used if you need some pointers.
If you like to use more than one side-image, it would be still much less work with several char-definitions, like sophieBig/sophieLittle/sophieNew and use these as different speakers.
Your scripts will gain much more overview with less scrolling involved.
I also recommend to separate character and variable definitions to different files, and maybe even each chapter. That could possibly improve savegame-compatibility if major revamp changes are done on single chapters in the future. I'm no renpy expert either, but learned a thing or two from digging through scripts since the last hundred games.
Btw, if you like to separate the movie volume from music then use following line:
Code:
define config.movie_mixer = "voice"
replace "voice" with "sfx" if you prefer the sound volume slider for movies.
I just wanna help.