Repeat [Side Stories Episode 1] By Shirokoi

Side Stories Episode 1
Owen’s Shopping Trip

• The first episode of Repeat Side Stories is Owen’s Shopping Trip
  Episode features a short story at 8,427 words long.
  Some of my coding experiments in this episode include:
  Custom UI experiments like a more stylized dialogue box/name box as well as Side Image sprites for every speaking character, including Euca:
  A phone texting setup that shows conversations between multiple characters.
  UI Notification pop ups that explain certain mechanics.
  Character “health” bars that change in response to player actions.
• Clickable Image Maps that allow players to hover and interact with map objects:
  Please note that the “hovering over objects to highlight” feature does not work on the Android version due to the usage of touch screens.
• A brief Dress Up (or so I say dress down?) minigame where you help Owen with his clothes in the fitting room.
• A short animated sex scene at the end of the episode.
  
  Coding improvements under the hood:
  All character sprites are now coded and stored as Layered Images.
  
  Advantages:

• This means a character’s body, facial expression, and clothing are stored as separate images and layered on top of each other to fit each scene.
• Much smaller storage size, since I no longer save every expression/outfit/body pose combo as a separate image.
• Despite the Repeat Side Story sprites being much higher res than the original Repeat sprites, they take up 1/8th of the file size.
• Future facial expressions and outfits additions will be much easier to add.
• Implemented an action camera editoraddon into Renpy.

Advantages:

• Allows me to precisely control camera/artwork positions and movement during CG transitions.
• Speeds up the coding workflow during CG scenes. Previously I had to do stuff like nudge a CG position by 0.1 in the code and then reload the entire game, see if the image moved to the correct spot, re-adjust the position again, rinse/repeat until it was just right. Now I can just move stuff directly on my screen and visibly see that the position is correct. This thing is literally a lifesaver ;;w;;