Progress Report: Version 0.0.28
Yap, it's coming...
Comments (2)
So what, in simple terms, is "Coding", actually? An AVN is really an automated slideshow, right? So is coding the work of telling Renpy (which actually performs the task of presenting the slideshow on the audience's screens) the correct sequence of ***"slides"*** to present? Is this effectively what Coding is? ***Each "slide" consists of the combination of different elements such as a render (the background image), perhaps a musical loop or a short sound effect (alarm/knock or moan) and, almost always, a line or lines of either descriptive narrative or dialogue which, when all linked together in the correct progressive sequence, visually tells the audience its story, click by click by click...with each click moving the story forward a slide. Oh, I just thought...this isn't "state secrets" is it?
Coding *can* be what you said, but can also be much, much more - even in the Ren'Py engine. In this game, for instance it is responsible (at *this* stage) for collecting and calculating variables that are influenced by the player, then deciding which route (which image / animation / sound) to display, and which rabbit-hole to go down through. It is quite simple at first but gets very robust and complicated as you add more branches to the tree. Even now, at such an early stage, "Saving Paula" has about a hundred possible options to choose from as you progress. And we barely even started the game, as far as I'm concerned. In other games, of course (and in later stages probably in this one, too), it is also responsible for interacting with the screen and the various elements in it, movement by input devices and so on. Basically, it's programing. And as almost every good plan, the most important stage of coding - and the most difficult - is the planning, before you touch the keyboard. I didn't get the "State Secrets" remark, I'm afraid.