This is great fun, thanks for making it! The one thing that would improve it would be the option to mark which squares are definitely *not* filled, but it's also great as is :)

Definitely :)

Yeah, for Pride or Prejudice I decided not to be so restrictive.

This is an interesting idea, and a cool fact! I've turned off custom honorifics for now because a beta player said they found them too confusing, but will think about the potential of 'friend'. 

Hi! Sorry for the slow reply, I was having trouble grasping what you were describing and thought it might be clearer if I waited a little but I'm still not quite getting it. However, I am indeed very interested to see your code, and am sure I'll understand it better once I experiment with it. Thank you for going to so much effort! 

I hope you enjoy it! Please let me know if you have any issues.

I don't know if you saw but I was inspired to add the option to remove some gender restrictions so thank you :)

I must admit that I haven't looked at the Northanger Abbey code in so long that I don't entirely trust my ability to interpret it, but I think it tests whether the main character is a cis woman. Which is pretty narrow! I've actually been thinking of adding the ability to skip all the gender restrictions, they seemed like a good idea when I made the game but have ended up impacting the enjoyment of a lot of players. So you've given me an extra push in that direction!

Thank you, that's great to hear :)

:D

Good luck! Also if you're changing pronouns in text I found this useful: https://npckc.itch.io/pronoun-tool

Ah, thank you, it feels nice to have all those little details appreciated! I do intend on writing things up as I go when I'm sure I have a technique locked down, if only for my own future reference. Currently my posts don't cover the things you've listed but I will hopefully get there eventually. I post any tutorials on https://spiral-atlas.dreamwidth.org/, and link to them on my twitter https://twitter.com/spiral_atlas

I have written two games that do things like that: Pride or Prejudice and Northanger Abbey, and you are welcome to use the code if you can untangle the mess. But unfortunately I can't easily make an example game with this sort of functionality using Sprite Maker code.

Sprite Maker uses layeredimages, because they make the code relatively easy to read. But I couldn't figure out how to get a layeredimage to do all the things I wanted, such as changing based on a gender toggle. So Northanger Abbey, Pride or Prejudice, and the dollmaker within Sprite Maker, all use DynamicDisplayables instead of layeredimages.

You could turn a Sprite Maker sprite into a DynamicDisplayable but it would be a bit fiddly, and the final code would end up looking pretty different. I should probably write that up, along with how I use DynamicDisplayables in general, since some people might find it useful.

It's quite possible that there is a way to do things like this with layeredimages, I just don't know it myself.

The problem isn't the randomisation, it's that the various dollmaker variables are elements of an array, which Renpy doesn't store in save files. I finally figured out how to store dollmaker variables in a way Renpy will save for Pride or Prejudice, and have been meaning to edit this project to use the same technique, but hadn't gotten around to it. It'll require some fiddly editing so may take me a little while to edit in and then test, but it's definitely on my to do list!

Oh wow using examples in the title screen is such a good idea, I can't believe I didn't think of it! I did this in the version I just uploaded. 

I'll poke at making the examples only show up on a first playthrough. 

The example sprites are intended as, well, examples, since they use dollmaker output and you can see how they're called in script.rpy. But I guess some people could find the fact that there's also code to run the dollmaker in there confusing/intimidating, and it wouldn't be too hard to make a little example project. I'll see if I can make something that feels useful.

Thanks for the great suggestions!

Thanks for this! After poking my code I remembered that I actually fixed this months ago but forgot to upload the fixed version, so I'm grateful you pointed it out.  It should work now.

Thank you :)

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Ah, that's great to hear! Whenever I test the feature I keep seeing characters I can imagine having fun stories written about them :)

Oh sorry about that! I've fixed it. Thanks for your other suggestions, too, those'll require some more thought but I am definitely going to poke at them.

Thanks, I hope it's helpful!

Thank you so much, it's great to hear people like what I have so far!

Thanks!

A supernatural romance, maybe :D

Yeah, it's the start being the same that gives me an unpleasant jolt of "Oh no I screwed up", I realise that's not the case pretty quickly because of the visuals and sound but that doesn't make the jolt less unpleasant.

This is a lot of fun, I really like that a mis-click only slows you down instead of causing the game to stop like in most Minesweeper clones. One simple suggestion: have the correct click sound more different to the incorrect click one, I kept getting an unpleasant jolt of "oh no I broke a fossil!" when I hadn't. 

I would be interested to see it, yes! My email address is fractalbestiary at gmail.

Sorry about the script not working! Is it working on the default sprite_code.txt file? If it is, can you cut and paste the sprite_code.txt file that breaks it or put it on gdocs or something? If it's not working on the default sprite_code.txt either figuring out the problem may be trickier but I'll do my best :)

I'll do my best! What part are you stuck on?

Oh, cool! Wouldn't have thought of it as a government meeting room but I can see it :)

This is fantastic, one of my favourite logic games I've ever played. 

https://spiralatlas.itch.io/northanger-abbey-the-game

Thank you so much, I'm really glad you enjoyed the game!

I'm really glad you liked Eleanor's design, as a plus sized person myself it frustrates how little body diversity there is in visual novels, even in games that are diverse in other ways.

This was my first game offering character customisation, it involves a lot of decisions balancing player immersion versus the practicality of making all the art assets etc and I probably wouldn't make the same decisions if I wrote the game again from scratch. It's always good hearing what did and didn't work for players, since I'll bear that in mind for future games. 

Hi, your game looks great, but would it be possible to add back the "autoplay" button renpy includes by default? Or is there on I'm not seeing? Having to click through every line is causing me too much wrist pain to continue, which is sad because I was really excited to play!

Thank you! I'd love to see any games you make with them :)

...that is a good point and I hadn't really thought about it that way. HMM. 

When I made this game my aim was to create space for players to express gender the ways I've always wished I could in other games, which I largely achieved. But one of the things I've learned from players and playtesters is all the other ways people want to express gender in games, that I didn't even think of, and didn't make space for. I'm not sure there's much I can do with this game at this point, but you've given me food for thought for what I'll do with future games.

(also yes I am also sad I never managed to get the Isaac/Isabella route to work. They are a love interest in my heart)

Oh no ,thanks for catching that about hero/heroine! I'll go try and fix that now.

You have to dress as a man or androgynous to DANCE with women, and as a woman or androgynous to dance with men, but can flirt with and get together with both male and female love interests regardless of presentation. 

I tried but hit an error, hopefully I'll figure it out eventually /o\

You're welcome! Link me if you use them in a game, I'd love to see :)