Permanent root screen for ingame content that stays when say/nvl text boxes disappear

[komehara]

I want to add a permanent frame to my game. It may apply to the whole game (main menu, game menu, ingame) but for now I want at least to cover the ingame.

However, I could find no ingame root screen, unlike main_menu and game_menu. Since my game used NVL mode, the closest I could find was the nvl screen, but it disappears when the nvl box disappears.

Attachments:
- screenshot 1 shows what I want with a frame around the whole screen
- screenshot 2 shows what happens if I stop using the default narrator (in my case, nvl_narrator): the frame disappears

2023-11-11 NVL frame 1 - it works but.png

(256.72 KiB) Not downloaded yet

2023-11-11 NVL frame 2 - when no nvl text, frame disappears.png

(11.38 KiB) Not downloaded yet

How can I make the frame stick around for at least the whole ingame part? (then I could add it to main_menu and game_menu to make it stay for the whole game)

Should I add some Renpy/Python action to `show` the frame image on game start, then remove it on game end? It seems more elegant to use the available screens.

[plastiekk]

I want to add a permanent frame to my game.

I would try it with a function, depending on the condition of a variable displays the screen or not (there may be situations in which you don't want to display the image/frame).

Code: Select all

init python:
    def overlay_frame():
        if show_myframe:
            renpy.show_screen("always_frame", _layer= "master")
        else:
            renpy.hide_screen ("always_frame", _layer= "master")    
        return

    config.overlay_functions.append(overlay_frame)
    
default show_myframe = True         # set to false to not show the frame


screen always_frame():
    ## not sure if you even need the frame option for this
    frame:  
        add "the_image_name"

    
label start:
    $ show_myframe = True
    "Here we show the frame"
    $ show_myframe = False
    "An here we don't show it"
    return

[komehara]

Thanks, so using a screen would give me more control.

In the meantime I tried something simple: just show the image (on a custom layer above screens) on script start, and just let it for the rest of the game. It's working well so far.

If I need to hide it dynamically without having to call hide statements each time, I'll try the screen method.