Project Ideas

[PyTom]

This thread contains ideas for projects people can do to help out Ren'Py development. I'll be updating this first post occasionally to add ideas for new projects people can work on. I'll try to keep these small enough that they could be accomplished in a few days, and yet they could yield an improvement in the quality of Ren'Py games.


Image Map Menu Templates

The idea here would be to create some sort of photoshop template that could be used to make imagemap menus. The templates would have pre-defined regions into which the game-maker could insert their menu images. There would also have to be a .rpy file, that maps those regions to buttons. (This might wind up in the Cookbook, but it would really help people out in making games.)

Added: 2009-04-19


New Default Theme

The RoundRect theme is getting kinda old, and was never all that good looking in the first place. It would be nice to ship a future version of Ren'Py (7.0?) with a new default theme, giving new games a more modern look. Creating a theme involves defining a new look for the buttons, frames, sliders, and bars. Ideally, this would be a family of themes, parameterized on a few colors.

Added: 2009-04-19

[Fang-tan]

The new theme is a good idea I think. Maybe also a way to switch between the new layout and the old (current) one like you switch through the theme colours? Although I guess that could be sort of complicated maybe...

[PyTom]

The new theme is a good idea I think. Maybe also a way to switch between the new layout and the old (current) one like you switch through the theme colours? Although I guess that could be sort of complicated maybe...

That's being vaguely planned. I'll probably rewrite the launcher within a few versions.

[delta]

Image Map Menu Templates

The idea here would be to create some sort of photoshop template that could be used to make imagemap menus. The templates would have pre-defined regions into which the game-maker could insert their menu images. There would also have to be a .rpy file, that maps those regions to buttons. (This might wind up in the Cookbook, but it would really help people out in making games.)

Added: 2009-04-19

Like this? I don't really see what's the big use for this is, since people will want to change the dimensions of the buttons anyway... but it's a nice demonstration, I guess.

[PyTom]

Something like that... but I'd like it if the areas were a bit larger, so artists could do more.

[delta]

Well, that's pretty pointless in my opinion, since the whole idea is to customize the look, and whatever you do, you'll never fit the look the developer actually wants (unless they don't care, in which case they should be fine with the baseline defaults).

Not to mention that it's totally trivial (it took me 10 minutes, from reading the request to submitting the post, and I had no prior experience with imagemaps), and I seriously don't want to play a game made by someone too thick to comprehend this even after seeing a working example like the one above. Finally, making an example you are comfortable with should take yourself no more than 10 minutes either.

[blakjak]

Like this? I don't really see what's the big use for this is, since people will want to change the dimensions of the buttons anyway... but it's a nice demonstration, I guess.

Heh that's good, any chance you could show the way to customizing the other game menus ?

[delta]

Well, here's the game menu at least. Maybe I'll do the others as well, but the preferences in particular do indeed get rather elaborate.

[blakjak]

Well, here's the game menu at least.

Nice, thank you.

Maybe I'll do the others as well,

Please do if you can, that'd be very useful.

but the preferences in particular do indeed get rather elaborate.

They surely do.

On a side note, what is that avatar of yours from ? Is it a blowtorch weapon she's holding ?

[Jake]

On a side note, what is that avatar of yours from ? Is it a blowtorch weapon she's holding ?

It's the Mary sprite from Moonlight Walks with a gun from Musashi Gundou.

[blakjak]

Thanks. I love Monkey punch's designs.

The series has been infamous for hideously bad animation, and has attracted a cult following for this reason.

interesting

edit : Mary's darkside ?

edit² : ok forget it, I got the picture.