Sleepy-Does-Games

Hi! I'm Domini, otherwise known as Sleepy. This is my sideblog for my progress in game development. I mostly post updates of what I'm doing, samples of my work, and the occasional experiment. Visit Camera Anima's Dev Blog @ camera-anima.tumblr.com

[camera-anima]

March 2025 Updates

Heyo~

First update of 2025! Lots of parts are moving, lots of assets getting getting pushed to completion.

Editing:

Big update on the editing front: we've finished editing Act 2 and Act 3! 

Some levels will need minor changes to match (add a QTE; add or remove a cursor) but the core narrative experience is nailed down. Next up, all the edited text needs to be added to the build, played through, and reviewed. Once we've gone over the feedback and made any necessary changes, we can start prepping the text for lockdown so we can start copyediting (which is both amazing and makes the content feel concrete!)

There's still some writing left to do, mostly with the codex entries. However, they won't require the same level of work or focus.

Art:

Speaking of Act 3, background and CG work now into Act 3! All act 3's backgrounds have been inked, and we're now in the process of colouring them. Meanwhile, our CGs are now focused on depicting the big, climatic moments of the finale.

This year, we'll be focusing on getting levels towards "finished", which involves a lot of assembly work. It also puts things like release dates closer in the mirror.

We have a rough timeline for the remaining work, and we'll be keeping an eye on it to decide when we're ready to commit to release.

[renpyhandbook]

Imagemap Tutorial Part 4 - The Preferences Menu

Imagemap Tutorial Navigation:

Part 1 - Imagemap Basics |Part 2 - The Main Menu | Part 3 - The Save/Load Menu | Part 4 - The Preferences Menu | Part 5 - The Navigation Menu | Part 6 - The Yes/No Prompt

——

Welcome to part 4 of the Imagemap Tutorial! 

In this part of the tutorial, I’m going to show you, step-by-step, how to make a functional imagemap for the preferences menu.

Let’s begin!

——

Step #1: Make the images for your save/load menu imagemap using an art program of your choice.

Just like with the main menu and save/load imagemaps, the preferences menu imagemap requires images for the ground, idle, and hover states.

However, in addition to these, images for the selected ground and selected idle states are also required; this is because they are needed in order for the player to know what game settings are toggled on/off. When a game setting is toggled on, the player needs to see a visible difference in the menu in order to differentiate between settings that are “on” versus those that are “off.” The selected hover state is also needed, but if you don’t want this state to be different from the selected idle state, you can make it the same as the image for the idle state.

**Protip: I decided to make the images for the selected states show only the game settings because that’s what they’re for; this also saves file space.

Don’t forget to make your images have transparent backgrounds if you already have a custom background defined for your preferences menu!

Let’s move on to the coding!

Step #2: Imagemap coding.

The default preferences menu in Ren’Py includes a navigation menu, as shown in the beginning of the code below:

screen preferences: tag menu # Include the navigation. use navigation

If you want your preferences menu to have a navigation menu on it (which is preferable so that the player can use it to go to different menus or return to the game), you’ll need to make a separate imagemap for it and put the coding within screen preferences section in the “screens.rpy” file. In addition, you’ll also need to make separate state images for this imagemap (e.g. ground, idle, and hover).

The coding for the navigation menu is exactly like any other imagemap coding. Let’s go through this first before tackling the preferences menu itself.

Here’s what my code looks like:

##Code for navigation menu imagemap on the preferences screen imagemap: ground "GUI/prefs screen/prefs_menu_ground.png" idle "GUI/prefs screen/prefs_menu_idle.png" hover "GUI/prefs screen/prefs_menu_hover.png" hotspot (132, 543, 85, 42) action ShowMenu("load") hotspot (227, 544, 76, 39) action ShowMenu("save") hotspot (314, 547, 72, 39) action Help() hotspot (480, 546, 74, 37) action Quit() hotspot (389, 547, 77, 35) action MainMenu() hotspot (558, 546, 103, 39) action Return()

See? The above code is nothing new; if you’ve read the previous imagemap menu tutorials, you should be familiar with it. You’ll notice that this code is just like the imagemap code for the main menu as well, except that there’s no “Bonus” hotspot defined here, but there’s a “Main Menu” hotspot defined instead.

Make sure to define the images for the three states – ground, idle, and hover – as well as define them in the code and copy/paste the images in your game folder. (Here’s what my navigation menu images look like!)

Use the Developer Menu in Ren’Py (or the slice tool in Photoshop) to determine the coordinates for the hotspots using any one of the image states you designed, and type in your coordinates.

This code goes within screen preferences in the “screens.rpy” file. Copy/paste the code below into the “screens.rpy” file, replacing everything within screen preferences after tag menu in the default code. Like this:

screen preferences: tag menu ##Code for navigation menu imagemap on the preferences screen imagemap: ground "GUI/prefs screen/prefs_menu_ground.png" idle "GUI/prefs screen/prefs_menu_idle.png" hover "GUI/prefs screen/prefs_menu_hover.png" hotspot (132, 543, 85, 42) action ShowMenu("load") hotspot (227, 544, 76, 39) action ShowMenu("save") hotspot (314, 547, 72, 39) action Help() hotspot (480, 546, 74, 37) action Quit() hotspot (389, 547, 77, 35) action MainMenu() hotspot (558, 546, 103, 39) action Return()

Now that we’ve got the navigation done, let’s get back to the coding for the game settings on the preferences menu.

I’m going to show you my code, and break it down for you. Don’t worry, it looks like a lot – but it’s not that bad! This code goes right after the navigation menu imagemap in the screen preferences section of the “screens.rpy” file.

imagemap: ground "FILE NAME HERE" idle "FILE NAME HERE" hover "FILE NAME HERE" selected_idle "FILE NAME HERE" selected_hover "FILE NAME HERE" alpha False hotspot (#, #, #, #) action Preference("display", "fullscreen") hotspot (#, #, #, #) action Preference("display", "window") hotspot (#, #, #, #) action Preference("skip", "seen") hotspot (#, #, #, #) action Preference("skip", "all") hotspot (#, #, #, #) action Preference("transitions", "all") hotspot (#, #, #, #) action Preference("transitions", "none") hotspot (#, #, #, #) action Preference("after choices", "stop") hotspot (#, #, #, #) action Preference("after choices", "skip") bar pos (#, #) value Preference("text speed") style "pref_slider" bar pos (#, #) value Preference("sound volume") style "pref_slider" bar pos (#, #) value Preference("music volume") style "pref_slider" bar pos (#, #) value Preference("auto-forward time") style "pref_slider" init -2 python: style.pref_slider.left_bar = "FILE NAME HERE" style.pref_slider.right_bar = "FILE NAME HERE" style.pref_slider.xmaximum = 164 style.pref_slider.ymaximum = 30 style.pref_slider.thumb = "FILE NAME HERE” style.pref_slider.thumb_offset = 4 style.pref_slider.thumb_shadow = None

Now, let’s break down this code from top-to-bottom:

Imagemap – This defines the whole imagemap. Where it says ground, idle, hover, selected_idle, and selected_hover is where you define your images. Make sure that you’re putting the location (if you have your images in a sub-folder), name of the file, and the extension of the file.

alpha False – This allows the player to interact with the imagemap, even with the parts that are transparent. If you set this to “True,” then the player won’t be able to click anywhere on your images that is transparent (which sucks if your images have transparent backgrounds).

action Preference – This is unique to the preferences menu. It defines the preferences – or game settings – that the player can change. The preferences are defined in quotation marks in the parentheses; these are default game settings that Ren’Py already has. Each preference has its own hotspot, so make sure to define each one properly (here’s an example, if you’re stuck).

bar pos – This is needed for the game settings that require slider bars to change (e.g. text speed, volume, and auto-forward time). The position of the slider bars is indicated by (#, #), where the pound signs represent (horizontal position, vertical position) on your image.

style “pref_slider” – This is needed so that you can customize the appearance of the slider bars.

Init-2 python – This is an “init” block defined with Python language. In this block, you use coding to customize the slider bars; it refers to the style declared above (“pref_slider”).

style.pref_slider.left_bar – This refers to an image of your slider bar; specifically, what it looks like when it’s full. (Here’s a diagram illustrating my slider bar when it’s full and empty, as well as what my slider bar’s thumb looks like!)

style.pref_slider.left_bar – This refers to an image of your slider bar; specifically, what it looks like when it’s empty.

style.pref_slider.xmaximum – This refers to the width of your slider bar in pixels.

style.pref_slider.ymaximum – This refers to the height of your slider bar in pixels.

style.pref_slider.thumb – This refers to an image of your slider bar’s thumb, which is the little part in the middle of the bar that you can move around. You don’t have to have one of these; if you don’t want it, just remove all of the code that has thumb in it.

style.pref_slider.thumb_offset – This refers to the size of your slider bar’s thumb; specifically, half of the width of the thumb in pixels (e.g. my slider bar thumb is 8 pixels wide, so I typed in 4 in my code).

style.pref_slider.thumb_shadow – This defines whether or not you want your slider bar thumb to have a drop shadow. If you don’t want one, set this equal to None (as shown).

If you’ve defined all your images, hotspots, and put the code within the screen preferences section in the “screens.rpy” file, your preferences menu should look totally customized! Congratulations! (Here’s what my preferences menu looks like!)

I should note one last thing: if you have a navigation menu, the “Save” and “Main Menu” hotspots won’t react to the mouse until a save file has been made in your game. If this happens to you, don’t worry! Your hotspots will work when you make a save file.

That’s it for this menu imagemap! In the next part of the Imagemap Tutorial, I’ll show you how to make a custom navigation menu that appears elsewhere (e.g. below the dialogue box during your game).

I hope this helps! ^_^

[bargu]

Rook will obliterate every barrel and crate he finds like any graceful and sublime assassin should. He is truly the pride of Antiva.

And Viago is at his limit. Lucien de RIva and art made by Barguest, do not copy or reupload please.

[camera-anima]

Dec 2024

Heyo~

Happy Holidays, from Santa Cleaner and us!

We're winding down for the year to take some deserved rest before we hit the project again in the new year. A lot of our focus these last few months has been on "How many assets can we get ready before the end of the year?" And while we didn't get everything we wanted, we got a lot of what we wanted. In narrative, in art, in audio, and more, to the point it made it difficult to decide which highlights to share  this update. 

UI:

One of the biggest updates we've done to the game is updating our UI with the help of Sasquatchii's Designs! While there were things we really liked about our previous UI, we wanted a more overall cohesive experience. As such, we decided to give the whole UI an overhaul, and the results are gorgeous! 

There's still work being done, but we've been in love with the progress so far.

Editing:

We've also completed most of Act 2's editing! Act 2 is the largest act in the game, with some of the stickier puzzles, but it's also been more fun t work with. In addition to editing our exploration content, we've been able to drill down on the granular levels. Some lines we edited to better match our polished assets, some were to support gameplay changes, and others were in response to questions like, "Does the information feel repetitive?", "How does the flow feel between levels?", or "Can we give this moment more narrative oomph?"

Act 2 also introduces one of our favorite characters, and working on their interactions with Essie has been one of the highlights of editing.

Art:

Art-wise, we're continuing to plug away at zoom-in images! We've gone through Act 1 to update all our flyers, papers, and cryptic images, and are currently working on Act 2's in tandem with editing. A lot of zoom-in images are used for puzzles, so there's been a lot of back-and-forth to make sure they give you the information you need while also interesting to look at.

Audio:

Excitingly, we now have sound effects for all three acts of our game! Putting in SFX is a huge part of assembling and polishing, and it's one of the moments where levels start feeling "finished". We'll start implementing them in earnest in the new year, but here are a few sounds you can expect:

There's one particular sound effect that was a standout for us, intended at a key narrative moment. We can't share it because of spoilers, but we think it'll hit players just as hard as it hit us the first time we heard it.

Thanks for reading, and have a happy rest of the year!

[camera-anima]

Sept 2024 Updates

Heyo~

It's autumn and the spooky season again.

First off, we wanted to address how our current progress is looking against our previous goal of releasing in 2024.

Unfortunately, while we really wanted to hit 2024, it's become clear to us we can't physically can't hit that while maintaining quality. We're very sorry to push the game back again, but will keep you updated on our release plans.

A bright spot, though, is we're increasingly confident in saying we can see a finish line and we do feel confident that we can finish the game. A lot of our focus lately has been on polish and finishing assets rather than huge structural changes or additions, and we have some really pretty things to share in the next update or two. The biggest challenges, though, have come from balancing the progress we want to make versus our time and capacity.

Editing:

We finished editing Act 1 and have imported it into the game! The next steps include looking at the text in-game to see how well it plays, if there are any pacing or cohesion issues, and if we need to make tweaks to match its timing with sprites/CGs/gameplay/etc. Ideally, changes are minor so we can hand it off for a final edit pass.

Meanwhile, we're continuing right into Act 2 edits. Fortunately, we already did a pass on most of Act 2's story scenes and have imported them into the build, meaning edits to those scenes will more likely be very targeted. However, we still need to go over the exploration scenes and do rewrites to reflect gameplay changes that happened while building out the levels.

Art Things:

Progress on art assets continues at a steady pace. RL obligations slowed things down a bit since the last update, but we're happy to say we've finished art for all items and that they've been added to the game! The next step will be to finish puzzle art and zoom-in images (i.e.: newspaper clippings; pages; formula sheets; et.). 

We're also working on the final area of Act 2 that needs background art, and we're continuing CGs. Here's a tiny peak from one of our recent WIPs:

Thank you for reading, and thank you, sincerely, for support.

[camera-anima]

June 2024 Updates

Heyo~

Happy summer!

The last few months have been rougher development-wise, both due to offline issues and the grind to push assets from rough->polished. However, we're continuing to chip away at CA to get it to a finished state.

Editing:

We're currently in the middle of Act 1 editing, working on the level that's required the most rewrites so far. This has largely been a consequence of it being one of the very first levels ever created for CA.

When this level was originally created, it was more 1:1 adaption of the short story version and meant to be a portfolio piece. However, since it now has to work within the overall game, we've gone through it to improve the writing quality, shift its focus to areas of the game that matter more, and edit Essie/Giselle's characters to more closely match who they've developed into over the project.

Backgrounds, CGs, Items oh my:

Lots of progress on art front! We're limited on how many backgrounds we can show at the moment due to spoilers, but we're a few areas away from finishing Act 2's backgrounds.

CGs are likewise hitting spoiler content. While we're excited to see certain moments illustrated, it's hard not being able to share them yet. For now, here's a tiny peak at one of our recent ones:

 

As for items, we're in the process of swapping out our placeholders for real art! More than half the items are arted, and older items are getting some additional polish to bring them in-line with newer work.

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

[camera-anima]

March 2024 Updates

Heyo~

First update of 2024! 

Starting off our year, we participated in February Steam Next Fest 2024. It was a really great experience with lots of new players checking out our game, posting their impressions, and giving us lots feedback. Among the people playing our game includes GlitchKat, who created a pre-recorded video of their playthrough for our steam page! It's only available until the end of April, so if you'd like to check it out you can watch their playthrough here.

We've also been looking over the game script for editing. Tentatively, the script looks approximately 50-55k words before editing/rewrites, codex entries, and item text, but that number is expected to shift around.

Sprite Work

As small but big milestone for us, all the game's sprite work has been completed! Every major character has a sprite or is represented in some way. 

This allows us to focus on completing CGs and backer death photos.

Gameplay and Polish

We've also shifted focus into looking into our mechanics and finding places where we can improve the overall experience. One of our first big pushes has been to look over quick-time-events and how they're currently working. 

Among pieces of feedback we've received have included that it can be difficult sometimes to tell if you're meant to wait or do anything during scenes, which can be confusing. We've considered using different coloured timed bars to help better signal that to players. Likewise, we're looking into carrying over your remaining time between interactions where possible. 

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

[camera-anima]

Camera Anima on Steam

The Artisan, one of Awyr’s most infamous killers, is said to walk the cloudy streets looking for his next masterpiece. Pursue the Artisan, s

Heyo~ We're in this week's SteamNextFest showing off our horror point-and-click visual novel!

Play as a smart-mouthed girl and save your twin from a soul-stealing serial killer

Remember what happened 5 years ago

Beware the Artisan

Play the demo and don't forget to wishlist!

We'll also be streaming Glitchkraft's playthrough throughout SteamNextFest on our page so check it out for their impressons!

[camera-anima]

Heyo~ Less than 48 hours until Steam Next Fest! We're participating with Camera Anima.

You can check out our demo on Steam now! Check it out and wishlist us if you like:

- Female Protagonists - Visual novels - Point-and-Click - Horror - Beautifully illustrated levels to explore - Dapper-dressed robots

[camera-anima]

December 2023 Updates

Heyo~

Happy Holidays, and seasons greetings from Santa-Artisan (non-festive version further below)!

The last two months have been quiet as usual during the end of the year, as we finish up obligations and take a break for the holidays. We recently finished setting up the build for early feedback and testing, with a focus on how the narrative and progression experience feels before committing to polished work.

This also will help us in the coming year, when we move into overall script editing and rewrites.

Sprite Work

Since our last update, we've completed almost all the game's sprite work! The Artisan now has his complete sprite set, giving him more variety in poses he uses to stalk plucky heroines.

We've also completed a sprite set for an unrevealed character! They're one of our favorite characters, and require a bit more thought in how we portray them in story scenes compared to characters like Essie or Giselle. Figuring out how to solve that, though, has given us more potential ideas for how we can improve overall presentation during scenes for when we get to polishing.

As always, thank you for reading! Happy Holidays, and have a Happy New Year.

[carolathhabsburg]

Miss Nora Kerin, edwardian stage actress. 1907

[camera-anima]

Heyo~ 7 days until Halloween and 2 Days until Steam's Steam Scream!  Play Camera Anima's demo between 26th October - Nov 2nd, and tag us to let us know what you think! About:

Camera Anima is a steampunk horror VN where you follow Essie as she attempts to save her twin from the soul-stealing Artisan.

Check it out if you want something spooky to play this month, or any of the following catch your interest:

Female Protagonists

Visual novels

Point-and-Click

Dapper dressed robots

Beautifully illustrated levels

[roksik-dnd]

For everyone who asked: a dialogue parser for BG3 alongside with the parsed dialogue for the newest patch. The parser is not mine, but its creator a) is amazing and b) wished to stay anonymous.

I uploaded the parsed dialogue for patch 2, and will add more folders as the game gets updated. (First patch dialogue was sadly lost due to an oversight on my part though).

Make sure to download the whole "BG3 ... (1.2)" folder and keep the "jscssetc" folder within: it is needed for the html files functionality (hide/show certain types of information as per the menu at the top, jumps when click on [jump], color for better readability, etc). See the image below for what it should look like. The formatting was borrowed from TORcommunity with their blessing.

If there are those who want to run the parser ahead of me but don't know how to mod (there might be someone, right?), make sure to:

UPD: there are issues with parsing some flags as of patch 3, but the parser WORKS, it's just that the paths in the .bat files should be very specific. I'm looking into that, I'll update the tutorial once I've had the time!

download BG3 Modders Multitool,

set it up as per Padme4000's tutorial, go to Configurations and link your game folder and game executable,

download ExportTool and add it to the Miltitool folder,

extract and decompress English, Gustav and Shared folders,

rename the english.loca.xml file to english.mxl,

change the paths inside of the parser's .bat file to wherever your UnpackedData folders are (inside of your multitool folder by default)

run the .bat file. If you're getting empty files/folders, you might need to change "py 1.py" to "python 1.py", based on what python version you have installed (same for py 2).

Feel free to ask if you have any questions! Please let me know if you modify the parser, I'd be curious to know what you added, possibly add it to the google drive.

[camera-anima]

Sept/October 2023 Updates

Heyo~

We typically post project updates on our Kickstarter page​, but we are looking to start sharing them here too!

Happy fall and spooky season! Short update, but we finished two big things over the summer.

Level Work

Act 3 and the remaining levels have been blocked out in-game!  

Second, we completed the rough draft of Act 3's script!

There is still a lot of work to get done:

Assets are still being created and implemented

Levels need to be tested, polished and looked at in the intended game flow

Scripts need to be edited and revisions implemented and polished.

Codex entry pass needs to be done

Quality of life improvements stretch goals, if we have time to implement them

However, a framework of the entire game exists and is playable, allowing us to pivot into building up that framework.

Thanks for reading and have a good day!

[camera-anima]

Camera Anima on Steam

The Artisan, one of one of Awyr’s most infamous killers, is said to walk the cloudy streets looking for his next masterpiece. Pursue the Art

Camera Anima is now listed on Steam with the Prologue Demo! Check it out and wishlist us if you like: - Female Protagonists - Visual novels - Point-and-Click - Beautifully illustrated levels to explore - Dapper-dressed robots

[sovonight]

how to do a few renpy things:

keep a character’s name a mystery until they’re introduced

customize the textbox and name/dialogue text properties for a specific character

change text placement between spoken dialogue and narration

hide the quick menu for screens and scene changes

only reveal a choice in a choice menu after it’s been unlocked

loop a choice menu, remove choices that have already been selected, and end the loop either after a specific choice has been selected or all choices have been exhausted

show a prompt, then show a choice menu while the prompt stays on screen, without replaying the prompt text

Keep reading

[askagamedev]

Hi Dev! I was watching some old press footage of some turn-of-the-millennia games, and it got me wondering: how is the decision made to pick what content to provide to the press/general public when showing off your game? Especially in the case of, say, showing certain stuff for trailers, or short gameplay clips/demos. Surely things like major twists or unfinished parts won't be shown, but who picks the rest, and how do they do it?

The marketing team usually requests interesting and exciting clips from the game for the trailers. Their goal is to craft a short trailer that tells a story and excites and entices players to want to know more about the product. The executive producer usually works with the design and art lead(s) to create a list of interesting and exciting bits that meet several requirements, like:

They are exciting

They don't require a lot of context to understand

They showcase one or more of the game's selling points like character, combat, vfx, etc.

They are in a showable/production quality state

These select members of the dev team then usually work with the marketing team to craft a cohesive narrative for the trailer given the materials they have available to work with. It is entirely possible that this process results in a shot list that has gaps that may be needed to fill. In such situations, a small strike team may be assembled from the devs to cobble a recordable scenario together to fill in the gaps in the trailer shot list. The marketing team then takes all of the footage and assembles a trailer. This iteration process may occur multiple times as the marketing folks figure out whether the trailer does what they want it to do, and repeats for each trailer that needs to be created.

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