Doki Doki Dollmaker Update: December 6th, 2020
(The Longest Post Ever...)
SCREENS, SCREENS, SCREENS!! I’ve been working tirelessly on these over the last few weeks and it feels great to see them all together like this. The images sort of speak for themselves, but if you’re interested in the details (and what’s coming next), read on!
TITLE: The buttons have changed a bit since the last time I shared this screen. I changed “Config” to “Settings” and “Extras” to “Gallery” for minor reasons. First, a friend of mine mentioned that he sometimes uses a camera app to translate bits of text into English. (He points the camera at the text he wants translated and it is converted real-time on his screen.) I considered the opposite: What if someone wants to use a similar app on these buttons? Since “Config” is short for “Configuration,” the app wouldn’t know how to translate this button correctly. I asked a group of people which word they preferred for this type of menu: “Settings,” “Preferences,” “Configuration,” or “Options,” and Settings won, so there it is! As for the previous “Extras” button, it made more sense to me if I changed it to “Gallery,” since the only content there would be CG images. Anyway, these changes are personal and ultimately inconsequential, but that was my thought process, if you were even remotely interested... haha!
GALLERY: OHHHHH THE GALLERY... Easily my biggest struggle next to the main menu. I sought coding assistance on the Ren’Py Discord on more than one occasion putting this sucker together. I’m VERY pleased with how it came out and everything operates smoothly! The unlocked CGs appear semi-transparent when idle (when the mouse isn’t hovering over them) and become opaque when the mouse hovers over the thumbnail. (You can see in the image that I am currently hovering over the third CG, the plush dolls sitting on the desk.) If you click the unlocked CG thumbnail, a full version of the image will appear on the screen. It’s a click-to-continue sort of thing, so if you click again, it will either close the full-size image and bring you back to the thumbnail gallery OR will move onto the next variant/expression until all alternate versions have been cycled through and THEN bring you back to the thumbnail gallery. (For example, that CG of Tilly has three alternate expressions, so all three of these will be shown one at a time before the full-size image closes and brings you back to the gallery.) The locked CGs are ones that you haven’t seen yet - play the game to unlock them! As soon as the CG appears in-game, the lock thumbnail will disappear and be replaced with a semi-transparent/opaque thumbnail just like the other unlocked images.
SAVE/LOAD: Pretty straightforward here. Select a slot where you’d like to save while playing the game and a screenshot, date, and time will appear to help you keep track of things. I’m hovering over one of the empty slots on the Save screen with my mouse to differentiate between the idle and hover states. When on the Load screen, you can select any of the dated screenshots to start the game up again at that exact moment. There’s a page for Auto Saves (which happen automatically when you reach a choice menu or attempt to close the game), a page for Quick Saves (where you can save mid-game and access it again with the Quick Load feature), and multiple pages for standard save states. If you notice on the Load image, I am hovering over the “Back” button in the upper right corner with my mouse. Clicking this button will return you to whatever screen you were on previously. It shares the same semi-transparent/opaque idle/hover states as the CG gallery thumbnails to indicate that it is clickable and works the same for all menus/screens where it appears. Also, that’s the first time I’ve ever shared Lyle’s chibi art. ISN’T HE PRECIOUS??
HISTORY: I’m sure you’ve already noticed the additional menu buttons on the right side. This taller menu only appears when accessed from IN-GAME as opposed to the title screen. The reason for that is because you won’t need a Title button to return to the title screen when you’re already ON the title screen... and you can’t view a history of story dialogue if you haven’t started up the game and READ any of the dialogue yet! Needless to say, the Start button is replaced with the Save button in this version of the menu. Anyway! Recent in-game dialogue or text that you’ve read will appear on the left side of this screen with a scroll bar if you needed to review it while playing. You can only go back so far though, so don’t expect hours worth of game-play text to appear here! It’s just meant to be a refresher. (There’s also some never-shared dialogue on the History sample image, so give it a read if you're curious!)
SETTINGS: This screen is basically Ren’Py’s default “Preferences” and “About” screens combined into one. I removed the “Voice Volume” slider, since Doki Doki Dollmaker does not have voice acting. I’ve got my mouse hovering over the Settings button on the right just to show that the menu idle/hover states are still active and operate the same way on all screens.
I hope my excessive descriptions show you just how hard I’ve been working on this, haha! The screens are finished, but I’m still polishing up the demo. I’ll be adding more character expressions next in order to better match later parts in the game. I noticed the more I programmed, the more “animated” characters became and looking back on the demo, they don’t change expressions nearly as often, so that’s gotta change! After that, more testing and cleaning up my coding/files the best I can. Finally, I’ll be dressing up the itch.io page where the download will be upon launch. Follow the project on Twitter @DokiDollmaker for mini-status updates between blog posts. Bye for now! (If you read all of that without skimming, thank you. LOL)
TLDR: Screens are done. Yay!
