@Nighten I'd love to know if there's a way to make the phone slide off screen the same way it slides up -- right now it just dissolves when you're done
@@wraithrose If I remember correctly the way the nvl screen is made make it a pain to play a slide off animation when the screen is hiding (because, under the hood, it constantly hide and show the screen, so it's hard to know when you should play the animation). It's probably possible, but I went for a simple solution when making this code
You said you would deliver the revised code by last weekend. Still, you don't have any answer. You are unilaterally disconnecting without giving a reason. I gave you the money first because you said you would have to pay to deliver the code. However, requests for correction of errors found in the code are being ignored. Please respect my project. Your behavior is too violent and irresponsible.
This is absolutely amazing! My Ren'py game is heavily based around a phone system for questing, navigation, inventory, etc. I was already planning in adding a chat system but later on. But this... Being able to add it really early in the development phase, but also almost effortlessly... Dude, I really love these videos of yours. Thank you so much.
It is scary how close you are to my coding process. I tried something similiar for a few days now and boom this video gets uploaded and now I know how to do it properly. Thank you!
I am a year late to this but I am trying to incorporate the phone into my VN but both the main character and the others are all received frames, the main character is not yellow they are all just white and on the left hand side. somewhere its not recognizing my character but ive read through the code and just dunno whats happening.
I screamed when I saw the title and thumbnail, thank you SO so much for making this. There aren't a lot of tutorials that showing texting for Renpy, so this is amazing!!
Thank you Vimi for this great video. But I have a hesitation with adding more than one chat icon. I tried adding a third icon, but the icon photo from another chat was repeated. How can I solve it?
You need to make sure every character with a unique icon gets their own nvl character definition, then get a name definition, and use that name definition to set their icons in the "elif d.who==" section there. You gotta ago through absolutely everything to make sure you have all the variables set for each of your characters.
Hello, thank you very much for sharing this code, it is very useful to me! However I have a problem that I can't solve. When the number of 6 messages is exceeded, the oldest message is deleted, so the number of messages displayed is never greater than 6. How can I solve this problem?
Hi Vimi, I just recently found your channel and I just wanted to say thank you so much for creating such amazing and easy to follow tutorials. Learning to program is so daunting for newcomers like myself but you make it so much fun and interactive! I feel so motivated every time I watch one of your videos to go out there and see what I cook up (hehe!) I was wondering if maybe for your future mini tutorial or cookbook series you'd consider things like teaching how to customize your executable renpy game's icon or maybe customizing the main menu a little more like making sprites dissolve in/ out of it or animating the buttons when they first appear. Just my wild opinions, haha, but I can't wait to see what's next for you! Much love from Brazil! 🇧🇷
Thanks so much for this! I think it will add a great feel to my VN. As a way to give the player the ability to gain some fun context about the game, I'd like my text history to show past texts as well as those that were sent during the game... in other words: messages that were exchanged before the game even started I'd "seed" the history with. How would I do that?
Not only have I found pretty much all of your videos incredibly informative but I really appreciate your personality as well so thank you for making me laugh out loud on over a dozen occasions keep up the great work!
I'll probably get to it at some point! For now, in your ren'py launcher under "Build Distributions", you'll find "ANdroid". Click on that, and it will give you access to some debugging tools where you can test your game in an android environment, and lets you export your APK!
You're doing amazing work with these videos, i've been wanting to make a visual novel for years, and i was able to make a simple little coffee date visual novel because of you! (and some other videos, but you break things down in such a way, where i can't mess it up lol) Thank you!
Hi awesome tutorial! 👍 I'm not very practical but I would like to know how I can do it if, for example, my project is 1280x720 and I would like to proportion the phone to more suitable measurements👍🙏😅
'Vimi'? Thank you sooo much for this vid! i just started to code and i had the dream to do a phone in my game and since i am new it was such a nighmare for me....but now thanks to you i can do this!!!! THANK YOU!!!
Currently working on my first Ren'py game, and your videos have been giving me a lot to think about. I already wanna try using this script in another project
@@vimi I was watching the video like "Okay. This seems handy." But the moment you showed off making the entire game just the phone screen, my mind went off on ideas. I love your videos so much!
thanks for the tutorial! very useful and helpful and easy to understand - but it's so difficult to pay attention when i keep getting distracted by how goddamn handsome u are 😂
wow! this is really awesome :D thanks! I'm just having trouble to fix the sender when the MC has a variable name - the player chooses it. Do u know how to fix that?
I have some ideas, but nothing that I've tested out! I've suggested to other people that they should find another variable to associate with it other than the character name, but I'd have to revisit this at some point to figure out a specific solution!
Here is what I did. I went into the PhoneTexting.rpy and deleted the MC_Name definition. Then, I took the variable I was using for players (based on their input). In my case, it was player_name and then replaced each MC_Name in the code with that variable: player_name. Only the replace is really necessary.
Not a fan of using the nvl system for this, but the code did help. I tried to get the message background done properly, but when using a Solid you can't have rounded corners and when using an image it never resized properly for me. The solution apparently is to use a frame within a frame. Sometimes coding makes me hate the person whose code I have to work off of. Apologies my dear RenpyTom. I still hold you in high regards ;)
I see that the nvl mode scene is set up as "if nvl_mode == "phone" to use the phone and if it isnt, to use the default nvl window. How do you set that up in the actual game script? I have tried doing "nvl_phone", "nvl mode = phone", and "nvl phone".
It should work like changing any other variables, like with $ nvl_mode = "phone". To change it back to regular nvl mode, you can set it to anything else, like $ nvl_mode = "classic"
Currently working on a game with a ratio of 1280, 720. The phone appears to not fit on the screen and I was wondering if there's a way to shrink it without editing the images themselves
It's a LOT easier to just edit the image themselves - adjusting image scale directly using screen language is a bit difficult. The best way to do it in code is to rescale the images with a custom image definition, where you can rescale them, and then use those image definitions in your screen language.
Thanks for the tutorial. I'm wondering how can I have multiple "phones" like this with separate conversations and backgrounds.. any idea where to start?
You'd have to create something more robust than this nvl method. It'd get pretty involved, and I don't think there's a good one-size-fits-all solution that works for all games.
As usual, excellent work xD I use Ren'py for my TH-cam video's and I have to admit, since discovering your channel, I'm getting lots of creative ideas ;) Many thanks
You can change the phone background dependent on a variable set when the the user decides between the 3 MCs. Something like: image whatever_the_phone_image_is: if MC == 1: "mc1_phonebg.png" elif MC == 2: "mc2_phonebg.png" else: "mc3_phonebg.png"
Hello, i'm here because I just used Renpy recently and feel i learned new thing to try from this video. The thing i wanna ask is can we made RPG game in Renpy?
Yes, but with more work depending on what you need. It's easier to add Visual Novel elements to an RPG engine than it is to add RPG elements to a Visual Novel engine.
Hi Vimi! I got the phone working and showing up just fine. However, I am having the same trouble that some of the others here have had. I have defined all my characters (both normal and NVL), but no matter what I do to the code, it doesn't recognize the MC as a sender. I get the received frame and alignment (the icons work fine). I even copy/pasted the original PhoneTexting.rpy file into my game as is just to test it, and it still doesn't recognize the MC as the sender (I realize the syntax should cause an error, but mysteriously it doesn't). Other than the color and alignment of the main character's frame, the phone works great in my VN. Any suggestions?
Question! would it be possible to have the fun stay up as you are making a dialogue choice instead of it disapearing? it would be nice to be able to re read the previous texts to make your choice. thank you!
hey could you do an additional tutorial that expands on "changing" the phone? like to a more desktop-style format, ie discord, with characters still being able to talk like this.
There's a team working on a psuedo-OS that does what you describe, but it's a LOT of work. Check out the video here: th-cam.com/video/NNLygJyBBlY/w-d-xo.html Depending on what game you're making though, that might be too much! It's a lot easier to determine EXACTLY what your "desktop style format" needs, break it down into manageable chunks you know you can make, and build it from there. Usually, what you build will end up being surprisingly simple on the dev end, but if you design it well, it should look fairly robust on the player end!
Everything working out perfectly! Was able to adjust the size, background, add new characters & their respective icons, etc. Only thing I can't seem to add to this is changing the color of a character's name while in the phone messages. I can change their text color (VIA [what_color]), but not their name's color (tried [color="#FF80C9"]). Apart from me being incredibly picky about a small detail, EVERYTHING I was looking for in a code like this was here, and it's flabbergasting how easy it's been made to use. Thanks so much for the tutorial, and thanks to Nighten for writing all of this as well!
@@fagatron420blitz I THINK i figured it out if youre still wondering! Right in the section that says "if d.who != MC_Name and previous_d_who != d.who: text d.who" i changed "text d.who" to "text d.who color d.who_args["color"]" and now it's pulling the colors from the names i defined.
Hello I tried using it in my game but whenever a character other than MC starts speaking "type error must be real number not ALT trasnform" occurs even when I copy paste the entire code for original source can someone please help
Anywhere there is an error, it will generally tell you what line the error is occurring at. Take a look at that line, and see how it differs from the example code the project comes with; either you wrote it in a slightly different way, or something else that isn't running properly.
Hello! If you have time can I please get some help? How do I get the nvl navigator to start a new conversation? It works but I want a new window for a new character
This is probably a very dumb question (bc I'm but a clueless beginner), but could you go back and forth between fullscreen phone and standard visual novel with this?
Yup! This takes advantage of Ren'py's NVL mode, and provides transitions whenever you enter and exit NVL text. If you want to move from the text system to ADV mode, you just type out regular character text instead of NVL text!
Where do I have to modify the code to fit the dialogue into a smaller frame? I can't get the text boxes and the dialogue to line up when I try to move and scale them around to fit.
I wanna do something similar to this, but I just can't find out how to make it so that if you type a specific thing, it'll lead to a different route. Any suggestions?
There are a LOT of different ways to do that, depending on exactly what your needs are, so I have a hard time answering that question - sorry! Best I can say is to try to plan out some feasible architecture early on, and try to stick to your technical constraints!
OMG, I love it but I would like to know if there is a similar one or what can I configure so that instead of being vertical the phone is horizontal and bigger?
You can just change the size of the phone screen - I cover most of the basics at the time stamp below, and you can even see the script for setting the phone background size where I cover "how to change the phone background". th-cam.com/video/yNPikwPCfks/w-d-xo.html
Hi Matthew! i have a question. if i were to want to have multiple chats going on where you can type to multiple different people? like a contact list almost. would that be possible?
Hello Vimi!! Thank you so much for the tutorial, I have a question. How can I make the fullscreen texting horizontal? I tried my ideas but it looks a bit broken. The project is 1920x1080
Hi, I first want to say thanks for such informative videos. I learn so much from every one of them. I am still learning my way through everything. I know this is an older video but I'm still holding out hope. I am trying to use this phone in my game. I have everything working flawlessly except for one thing. The different images for the different speakers. I can change the icon for the send and receiver no problem. They show up as they should. My problem is when I try to add more characters with their own images with the elif statement. It still shows the default icon. I am sure it's something so simple that I am missing, but I have been going back and forth for hours and can't figure it out. Like I said, I know this is an old video but I do hope someone can enlighten me. I'm at my wits end. Thanks in advance and thanks again for the helpful videos.
Did you define the character name first? Because I have 3 characters in my sample game, and it depends on just a couple of things being set: First, defining the name for the character: define vimi = "Vimi" Then, displaying the icon: #If this is the first message of the character, show an icon if previous_d_who != d.who: if d.who == MC_Name: $ message_icon = "phone_send_icon.png" elif d.who == vimi: $ message_icon = "phone_vimi_icon.png" else: $ message_icon = "phone_received_icon.png" Those are the only two big tweaks I made to include more characters!
@@vimi Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I definitely did. I have the character defined in the script.rpy and the phonetexting.rpy. I have tried only one or the other as well. I know the image works, I tied it to the Mc and it displays fine. The text all displays correctly with the correct names. I even got the user defined Mc name displayed correctly, it's just the image for added characters that does not work, goes back to default. I know it is something simple just can't figure it out. Thanks again for taking the time, I know you have got to be busy.
hey buddy, could this be manipulated to play a mini game on the phone? for example a tinder style like or not! just in case your wondering i'm creating a dating sim and looking to add a smash or pass system, thank you kindly for the excellent videos
Hey ! this was a very infomrative video!! I wanted know what you would do if you wanted the text mesaging part to happen at the end of your game rather than the begining . how would you go about that?
If you want to flip between regular nvl mode and the texting nvl mode, I'm pretty sure you can change the code " define nvl_mode = "phone" " to use "default" instead of define, and then whenever you want to change from one to the other, change the variable nvl_mode between "phone" and "other."
Thank you for teaching us how to make a test messaging system! This is so helpful. Could you please also teach us how to make a calendar system, that there is a year, month and day system (not real local current time) in the game, like on a certain day, you will receive a text from one of the characters?
Yeah, I have a simplified version of that in my Night/Day Cycle video - in that, I only cover a few months worth, but it can easily be expanded for a full year!
could you make a similar tutorial with a discord type of layout? (discord is a messenger app) I understand, I'm just very confused on how to change the layout.
That's a very complicated request! I probably won't tackle anything like that anytime soon, but if I were you, try to break down your project into manageable chunks, and built it segment by segment! For a mock discord, the text messaging app, with some modification, could work as the text window, but you'll have to build a system for adding time stamps, decide how complicated you want to get with channels and tabs, as well as any DMs! Personally, I like to try to fake a lot of that functionality whenever possible, but it's still quite an undertaking!
@@vimi ah, sorry. to be more specific, what confuses me is how to get the messages to smoothly appear and move the previous ones up every time the player clicks on the mouse.
Hi Vimi, I love your video. I just got into Renpy and currently working on very important project. My project have a mechanism where you can see your achievement through the phone. But I found myself stuck in this situation. If you read this, can you provide me some advice?
First I'd like to say, amazing!! This video helped me so much in learning how to use the phone system, as well as being a bsis for customizing it. Keep up the awesome work. Second, After going back and forth with this for a bit, I've finally got it working the way I want bar one feature I'd like. If anyone has thoughts on how to achieve it I'd love to hear them. Put simply, I want a character to be able to send a text, change their mind and delete said text after a couple seconds. I can't really find any info on how to do this, so I'm hoping someone here might have some idea. Thanks in advance for any help, and apologies for using a youtube comment to ask for help :p
I'm back again! It's probably pretty messy, but at least for my needs it works. Figured I'd put it here just in case people in future want to do the same kinda thing. It doesn't have a timer on the secret message, mostly because I myself just prefer to have time to read it. I hope this helps at least someone. Please let me know if you use it, just because I'd love to see what people make! Edit: After a bit more digging, I've found that I have a LOT to learn, and there is a much simpler way. You can also add {nw} into the message, to make it send immediately but I'd suggest not doing that for the secret, it makes it nigh impossible to actually read before it disappears. t1 "Oh no my big secret!" $ nvl_list.pop() t1 "And now it's gone!" default persistent.admission_y = False # tbh I'm not 100% on if this is needed but I like having my stuff documented up the top so I can keep track of it all. $ persistent.admission_y = False # this is mostly for testing purposes $ renpy.checkpoint() if persistent.admission_y == True: t1_nvl "You uh.. didn't see that, did you?" # what they will say after deleting below text else: $ persistent.admission_y = True t1_nvl "Insert secret here" # the text that will show and then be deleted $ renpy.rollback(force=True, checkpoints=1)
First of all, everything works correctly and I thank you very much. One question, is it possible to view chats without having to write? Let me give you an example: A chat ends and I close the phone. With a button, I would like to view that chat I wrote, but without additional dialogues, as if I just wanted to observe it. But if possible, trying to separate the chat between player with guy 1, and player with guy 2. (Obviously by clicking a different button) I know how to use buttons and screens, I just wanted to understand how to show chats
Because this system uses the nvl mode as a base, I'm not sure how to do that with this code; you might be better off writing your own dialogue screen system, instead of trying to make this one fit.
I tried to put this in my renpy project. Everything is works fine besides the fact if I go back into messages it runs through them all again rather than remembering where it left off at, suggestions?
Hey vimi I hope you're doing well, Ikk it's been a long time since this video was out but do you have any idea how can the background change throughout the game? Like idk after a certain choice the background of the phone changes? Any advice? Thank uu i advance
Use a condition switch to define an image dependent on another variable, and use that image as the phone background: www.renpy.org/doc/html/displayables.html#ConditionSwitch
Thank you so much for the helpful video. Got the phone working like a charm. Now, I'm trying to make the images that are sent through the phone be clickable. Seeing as the pictures need to be pretty minimized to fit into the phone, I'd like to be able to click on them to see a bigger version of the picture. I'm struggling with this, however, as I understand I'd have to use screens to make a functioning imagebutton. The way to implement images in the phone seems pretty set in stone, so I can't wrap my brain around how I'd solve this. Anyone got any ideas?
Hello, your video is very helpful for me to make a game. Thank you. But I have one question for you. I want to change the message text size. Where is the value to change the text size?
Hey, I was wondering if there was a way for Ren'Py to create a text file on the users desktop? Its something I think would be cool to implement in a horror setting or as a fun way to break the fourth wall. Love the tutorials btw!
Ren'py natively only lets you modify files within the game directory; this is how the original DDLC did most of their file manipulation! If you want to save files outside of the game directory, you can do that with python code! Here's a stack overflow thread with a solution: stackoverflow.com/questions/55926097/write-to-any-users-desktop-in-python That being said, SOME players might find it spooky, but MOST will assume the game is malware, uninstall it, warn others not to download it, and you might have your game taken down from whatever sites you have it hosted on. After all, if you're installing files on their desktop, what ELSE could you have installed on their computer?
Hi, thank you for the video. I'm a little confused why I have to define the characters twice in both the script and the phonetexting.rpy. Am I missing something here? Also I tried replacing the icon/frame files but it's all showing up as the main character icon. Could you please elaborate on how to link what we do in phonetexting.rpy and script characters? Mine doesn't seem to be working at all as intended haha
The name in the phonetexting.rpy definition - for example, the name "Nighten" in the line: > define MC_Name = "Nighten" has to match the name of a defined NVL character: > define n_nvl = Character("Nighten", kind=nvl, image="nighten", callback=Phone_SendSound) If I change the name "Nighten" in either of those definitions, the connection will break.
@@vimi thank you for the reply, I thought that's the obvious answer but had a typo breaking it. Is it possible to then do dilemma branching/choices through this phone system then too?
I'd recommend changing the dimensions of the phone images directly in an image editor, and then change all the positional data, like I showed in the last section of the video.
This reminds me a lot of Mystic Messenger...And gives me a lot of ideas! Also, your videos are amazing, i made some projects for my university that worked really well! Thanks a lot!
I imagine there is, but I haven't messed with that at all. If I were you, I'd start with trying to replicate the structure for multiple receivers, and use that in the sender format.
Hi again, I would like to correct my question, I was wondering I’d there was a way to make multiple main characters all with their perspective use this phone trick
@@vimi thx for quick reply. saved me time trying it out only to end up disappointed. My current project uses a fair amount of NVL but I'd like to incorporate the phone also!
I don't understand why...but when I try to add the phone system to my own game, the mc dialogue shows in the same way as eileen: white circle on the left and white bubble background. I let the player to input their first name and last name and combine them to be the full name. Below is how I define main character name: in script.rpy: define n = Character("[full_name]") define n_nvl = Character("[full_name]", kind=nvl, callback=Phone_SendSound) $ full_name = last_name + first_name in phonetexting.rpy define MC_Name = "[full_name]" Is there a way to solve the problem? And I would also like to know, is there a way to clear the phone dialogue everytime that event has ended? I want to call the phone screen up in a certain event showing dialogue with character A. And then in another event, call the phone screen to show dialogue with another character B. It is strange to have the previous dialogue shown when talking to new character....
Another user had that problem with custom names, and I'm honestly not sure what the solution is other than to try to link the phonetexting variable to something other than the name. Clearing the dialogue text is easy, though! It's just NVL mode as a base, so you can just add "nvl clear" to clear that text~
I downloaded the phone thing and literally as soon as i ran my game, the whole setup, the images, the positions, everything was completely changed and i have no idea how to fix it 😭
Just a question, so I did it where the player can insert their own name in the game with renpy.input and labeled it as [player_name]. But when I put in MC_Name “[player_name]” it doesn’t show the phone send icon like it’s supposed to. Just the received icon as if it’s another character and not the main character. (Unless of course the player decides to literally put [player_name] as their character name in the game) Anyway to fix this?
This uses nvl mode, so you can still use choice menus in here, but if you want to make the choices something external to the phone, you might want to make a separate screen>
@@jiyeonkim9130 If you're just using the menu options, that's the .rpy file. If you're thinking about making a custom choice screen, check out my screens tutorial!
This is perfect! Your videos have been getting me through this game jam. Do you think it would be trivial to be able to add choices for the player to choose in the cell phone? 👀
i was wondering the same thing! the creator of the code also made one where the phone takes up the full screen which has a menu system built into the code if that's helpful, but i can't figure out how to make it work in my game (where the phone is only part of the screen) D:
commented on something else recently but I really love your videos. a text messaging tutorial has literally no value for my visual novel, but I still feel like I learned a ton and have new ideas and inspiration. looking forward to more videos in the future !!!
Hi Matthew! I just found your video, and I'm soo so glad my code is helpful ❤ Thank you for making this video, it really warm my heart!
Thanks for making such useful code!
@@vimi could you make a cookbook Video on how to upload your game/turn it into an application without Renpy
@Nighten I'd love to know if there's a way to make the phone slide off screen the same way it slides up -- right now it just dissolves when you're done
@@wraithrose If I remember correctly the way the nvl screen is made make it a pain to play a slide off animation when the screen is hiding (because, under the hood, it constantly hide and show the screen, so it's hard to know when you should play the animation). It's probably possible, but I went for a simple solution when making this code
You said you would deliver the revised code by last weekend.
Still, you don't have any answer.
You are unilaterally disconnecting without giving a reason.
I gave you the money first because you said you would have to pay to deliver the code.
However, requests for correction of errors found in the code are being ignored.
Please respect my project.
Your behavior is too violent and irresponsible.
Vimi, you have just given both the Blooming Panic AND Mystic Messenger fandoms a LOT of power, and I'm all for it! X3
Those...would have been good examples for me to use in this video 😶 I really need an advisory board for these things 😳
You might have posted this like a year ago but I seriously just found blooming panic yesterday. Just finished xyx route 😍
This is absolutely amazing! My Ren'py game is heavily based around a phone system for questing, navigation, inventory, etc.
I was already planning in adding a chat system but later on.
But this... Being able to add it really early in the development phase, but also almost effortlessly... Dude, I really love these videos of yours.
Thank you so much.
That's pretty serendipitous!
It is scary how close you are to my coding process.
I tried something similiar for a few days now and boom this video gets uploaded and now I know how to do it properly.
Thank you!
Next Ren'py Tutorial: how to spy on fellow devs 😈
how can I change the size to 1280 x 720?
I am a year late to this but I am trying to incorporate the phone into my VN but both the main character and the others are all received frames, the main character is not yellow they are all just white and on the left hand side. somewhere its not recognizing my character but ive read through the code and just dunno whats happening.
Same here
I screamed when I saw the title and thumbnail, thank you SO so much for making this. There aren't a lot of tutorials that showing texting for Renpy, so this is amazing!!
Glad to help!
Im having trouble with the icons for the texts as it only shows one of the icons how do I make it so it shows the persons respected icons??
I'm having this problem too
Thank you Vimi for this great video. But I have a hesitation with adding more than one chat icon. I tried adding a third icon, but the icon photo from another chat was repeated. How can I solve it?
You need to make sure every character with a unique icon gets their own nvl character definition, then get a name definition, and use that name definition to set their icons in the "elif d.who==" section there.
You gotta ago through absolutely everything to make sure you have all the variables set for each of your characters.
Hello, thank you very much for sharing this code, it is very useful to me! However I have a problem that I can't solve.
When the number of 6 messages is exceeded, the oldest message is deleted, so the number of messages displayed is never greater than 6.
How can I solve this problem?
Fixed! Problem was "define gui.nvl_list_length = 6" located at "gui.ryp".
Hey do you have any idea how to keep the phone up on screen as you are making a choice? Thanks!
Can some one help i'm pretty new to all this and the code isn't working for me.
Hey, can you do “a character will remember that” pop up message and how to make more complex choice depending features? Telltale games style.)
Ren'py has a native "notification" function, but I'd recommend just making a custom screen that you manually call when you make these decisions!
Hi Vimi, I just recently found your channel and I just wanted to say thank you so much for creating such amazing and easy to follow tutorials. Learning to program is so daunting for newcomers like myself but you make it so much fun and interactive! I feel so motivated every time I watch one of your videos to go out there and see what I cook up (hehe!)
I was wondering if maybe for your future mini tutorial or cookbook series you'd consider things like teaching how to customize your executable renpy game's icon or maybe customizing the main menu a little more like making sprites dissolve in/ out of it or animating the buttons when they first appear. Just my wild opinions, haha, but I can't wait to see what's next for you! Much love from Brazil! 🇧🇷
I'll add those topics to my list!
Thanks so much for this! I think it will add a great feel to my VN. As a way to give the player the ability to gain some fun context about the game, I'd like my text history to show past texts as well as those that were sent during the game... in other words: messages that were exchanged before the game even started I'd "seed" the history with. How would I do that?
Mine is only showing "Incoming"(grey) and not "Outgoing"(yellow) images. How do I fix this?
This is so cool
I'm writing a psychological fantasy thriller right now; but I wonder which type of projects I might work on in the future
Not only have I found pretty much all of your videos incredibly informative but I really appreciate your personality as well so thank you for making me laugh out loud on over a dozen occasions keep up the great work!
Hello! i have a question, how did you send messages as the main character on the phone! i cant figure it out
Hi could you make a tutorial on how to build Ren'py games for Android devices. Thanks
I'll probably get to it at some point!
For now, in your ren'py launcher under "Build Distributions", you'll find "ANdroid". Click on that, and it will give you access to some debugging tools where you can test your game in an android environment, and lets you export your APK!
i dont understand, i watched this video several times and I can't grasp it or implement the phone into my game... :( I'll try another day
Is there any specific element of it you're having trouble with?
Hey, so I solved my last problem, but how do I clear the chat history so whenever someone opens the phone again, it's a clear chatroom?
Sorry I saw this so late! I think "nvl clear" is what you need!
You're doing amazing work with these videos, i've been wanting to make a visual novel for years, and i was able to make a simple little coffee date visual novel because of you! (and some other videos, but you break things down in such a way, where i can't mess it up lol) Thank you!
Thank you! I'm glad I could help!
Hi awesome tutorial! 👍 I'm not very practical but I would like to know how I can do it if, for example, my project is 1280x720 and I would like to proportion the phone to more suitable measurements👍🙏😅
'Vimi'? Thank you sooo much for this vid! i just started to code and i had the dream to do a phone in my game and since i am new it was such a nighmare for me....but now thanks to you i can do this!!!! THANK YOU!!!
please if you're seeing this how do you make the character dialogue like the name of how pls im losing my mind huhuhu please help my brain
FIRSTT! I always love your videos Vimi, they're so helpful and insightful. Appreciate the effort into helping Renpy developers!
This is partially self motivated - when people ask me questions, I can refer them to my videos 😜
@@vimi That's very inspiring!
Currently working on my first Ren'py game, and your videos have been giving me a lot to think about. I already wanna try using this script in another project
This script is so cool i wanna make a project just to use this feature :0
That's so interesting! Let the Renpy community know when you finished the game!
@@vimi I was watching the video like "Okay. This seems handy." But the moment you showed off making the entire game just the phone screen, my mind went off on ideas. I love your videos so much!
thanks for the tutorial! very useful and helpful and easy to understand - but it's so difficult to pay attention when i keep getting distracted by how goddamn handsome u are 😂
THANK U GOAT
wow! this is really awesome :D thanks!
I'm just having trouble to fix the sender when the MC has a variable name - the player chooses it. Do u know how to fix that?
I have some ideas, but nothing that I've tested out!
I've suggested to other people that they should find another variable to associate with it other than the character name, but I'd have to revisit this at some point to figure out a specific solution!
Here is what I did. I went into the PhoneTexting.rpy and deleted the MC_Name definition. Then, I took the variable I was using for players (based on their input). In my case, it was player_name and then replaced each MC_Name in the code with that variable: player_name. Only the replace is really necessary.
Not a fan of using the nvl system for this, but the code did help. I tried to get the message background done properly, but when using a Solid you can't have rounded corners and when using an image it never resized properly for me. The solution apparently is to use a frame within a frame. Sometimes coding makes me hate the person whose code I have to work off of.
Apologies my dear RenpyTom. I still hold you in high regards ;)
This was not nearly in depth enough
... or I just suck
Hi, thanks for your videos!!!! Could you have several nvl with different backgrounds for each character?
I see that the nvl mode scene is set up as "if nvl_mode == "phone" to use the phone and if it isnt, to use the default nvl window. How do you set that up in the actual game script? I have tried doing "nvl_phone", "nvl mode = phone", and "nvl phone".
It should work like changing any other variables, like with $ nvl_mode = "phone".
To change it back to regular nvl mode, you can set it to anything else, like $ nvl_mode = "classic"
Man I can not say Thank you enough! Before this video I was going crazy trying to get this to work! Thank you so much for helping me!
Currently working on a game with a ratio of 1280, 720. The phone appears to not fit on the screen and I was wondering if there's a way to shrink it without editing the images themselves
It's a LOT easier to just edit the image themselves - adjusting image scale directly using screen language is a bit difficult.
The best way to do it in code is to rescale the images with a custom image definition, where you can rescale them, and then use those image definitions in your screen language.
@@vimi thank you!
Thanks for the tutorial. I'm wondering how can I have multiple "phones" like this with separate conversations and backgrounds.. any idea where to start?
You'd have to create something more robust than this nvl method. It'd get pretty involved, and I don't think there's a good one-size-fits-all solution that works for all games.
thank you so much for sharing!!
Honestly amazing!
Hi! How can I change the style of the names? I find only the hex code of messages.
You should be able to change the character's nvl style the same way you would any other character!
As usual, excellent work xD I use Ren'py for my TH-cam video's and I have to admit, since discovering your channel, I'm getting lots of creative ideas ;) Many thanks
Subscribed!
@@vimi Thanks so much! I hope you like Danganronpa xD
Hey, Vimi, I'm a total newbie, my game has 3 MC options to chose, do you have any tips on how to make each of their phones different?
You can change the phone background dependent on a variable set when the the user decides between the 3 MCs. Something like:
image whatever_the_phone_image_is:
if MC == 1:
"mc1_phonebg.png"
elif MC == 2:
"mc2_phonebg.png"
else:
"mc3_phonebg.png"
@@vimi thank you, I'll try
Pretty sure it will work if I have a different model for each phone
Hello, i'm here because I just used Renpy recently and feel i learned new thing to try from this video. The thing i wanna ask is can we made RPG game in Renpy?
Yes, but with more work depending on what you need.
It's easier to add Visual Novel elements to an RPG engine than it is to add RPG elements to a Visual Novel engine.
Hi Vimi! I got the phone working and showing up just fine. However, I am having the same trouble that some of the others here have had. I have defined all my characters (both normal and NVL), but no matter what I do to the code, it doesn't recognize the MC as a sender. I get the received frame and alignment (the icons work fine). I even copy/pasted the original PhoneTexting.rpy file into my game as is just to test it, and it still doesn't recognize the MC as the sender (I realize the syntax should cause an error, but mysteriously it doesn't). Other than the color and alignment of the main character's frame, the phone works great in my VN. Any suggestions?
did you fix it?
Question! would it be possible to have the fun stay up as you are making a dialogue choice instead of it disapearing? it would be nice to be able to re read the previous texts to make your choice. thank you!
did you found a solution?
hey could you do an additional tutorial that expands on "changing" the phone? like to a more desktop-style format, ie discord, with characters still being able to talk like this.
There's a team working on a psuedo-OS that does what you describe, but it's a LOT of work. Check out the video here:
th-cam.com/video/NNLygJyBBlY/w-d-xo.html
Depending on what game you're making though, that might be too much!
It's a lot easier to determine EXACTLY what your "desktop style format" needs, break it down into manageable chunks you know you can make, and build it from there.
Usually, what you build will end up being surprisingly simple on the dev end, but if you design it well, it should look fairly robust on the player end!
Everything working out perfectly! Was able to adjust the size, background, add new characters & their respective icons, etc. Only thing I can't seem to add to this is changing the color of a character's name while in the phone messages. I can change their text color (VIA [what_color]), but not their name's color (tried [color="#FF80C9"]). Apart from me being incredibly picky about a small detail, EVERYTHING I was looking for in a code like this was here, and it's flabbergasting how easy it's been made to use. Thanks so much for the tutorial, and thanks to Nighten for writing all of this as well!
hii were u able to find a way to change the character names?
@@fagatron420blitz I THINK i figured it out if youre still wondering! Right in the section that says
"if d.who != MC_Name and previous_d_who != d.who:
text d.who"
i changed "text d.who" to "text d.who color d.who_args["color"]" and now it's pulling the colors from the names i defined.
Honestly, I'm just having fun learning this and you're making it easier I appreciate it Vimi
Yay! I'm glad I'm making learning fun!
Hello I tried using it in my game but whenever a character other than MC starts speaking "type error must be real number not ALT trasnform" occurs even when I copy paste the entire code for original source can someone please help
Anywhere there is an error, it will generally tell you what line the error is occurring at. Take a look at that line, and see how it differs from the example code the project comes with; either you wrote it in a slightly different way, or something else that isn't running properly.
Hello! If you have time can I please get some help? How do I get the nvl navigator to start a new conversation? It works but I want a new window for a new character
nvl clear
This is probably a very dumb question (bc I'm but a clueless beginner), but could you go back and forth between fullscreen phone and standard visual novel with this?
Yup!
This takes advantage of Ren'py's NVL mode, and provides transitions whenever you enter and exit NVL text. If you want to move from the text system to ADV mode, you just type out regular character text instead of NVL text!
Too bad the source code has no comments at all. Makes it kinda difficult to modify and "to grow" from there...
Where do I have to modify the code to fit the dialogue into a smaller frame? I can't get the text boxes and the dialogue to line up when I try to move and scale them around to fit.
I wanna do something similar to this, but I just can't find out how to make it so that if you type a specific thing, it'll lead to a different route. Any suggestions?
There are a LOT of different ways to do that, depending on exactly what your needs are, so I have a hard time answering that question - sorry! Best I can say is to try to plan out some feasible architecture early on, and try to stick to your technical constraints!
OMG, I love it but I would like to know if there is a similar one or what can I configure so that instead of being vertical the phone is horizontal and bigger?
You can just change the size of the phone screen - I cover most of the basics at the time stamp below, and you can even see the script for setting the phone background size where I cover "how to change the phone background".
th-cam.com/video/yNPikwPCfks/w-d-xo.html
Hi Matthew! i have a question. if i were to want to have multiple chats going on where you can type to multiple different people? like a contact list almost. would that be possible?
Multiple chats simultaneously? I think that would require a separate, far more robust system; this just hijacks the nvl screen setup.
Hello Vimi!! Thank you so much for the tutorial, I have a question. How can I make the fullscreen texting horizontal? I tried my ideas but it looks a bit broken. The project is 1920x1080
Hi, I first want to say thanks for such informative videos. I learn so much from every one of them. I am still learning my way through everything.
I know this is an older video but I'm still holding out hope. I am trying to use this phone in my game. I have everything working flawlessly except for one thing. The different images for the different speakers. I can change the icon for the send and receiver no problem. They show up as they should. My problem is when I try to add more characters with their own images with the elif statement. It still shows the default icon. I am sure it's something so simple that I am missing, but I have been going back and forth for hours and can't figure it out. Like I said, I know this is an old video but I do hope someone can enlighten me. I'm at my wits end.
Thanks in advance and thanks again for the helpful videos.
Did you define the character name first? Because I have 3 characters in my sample game, and it depends on just a couple of things being set:
First, defining the name for the character:
define vimi = "Vimi"
Then, displaying the icon:
#If this is the first message of the character, show an icon
if previous_d_who != d.who:
if d.who == MC_Name:
$ message_icon = "phone_send_icon.png"
elif d.who == vimi:
$ message_icon = "phone_vimi_icon.png"
else:
$ message_icon = "phone_received_icon.png"
Those are the only two big tweaks I made to include more characters!
@@vimi Thank you so much for taking the time to reply.
I definitely did. I have the character defined in the script.rpy and the phonetexting.rpy. I have tried only one or the other as well. I know the image works, I tied it to the Mc and it displays fine. The text all displays correctly with the correct names. I even got the user defined Mc name displayed correctly, it's just the image for added characters that does not work, goes back to default. I know it is something simple just can't figure it out. Thanks again for taking the time, I know you have got to be busy.
hey buddy, could this be manipulated to play a mini game on the phone? for example a tinder style like or not! just in case your wondering i'm creating a dating sim and looking to add a smash or pass system, thank you kindly for the excellent videos
Hey ! this was a very infomrative video!! I wanted know what you would do if you wanted the text mesaging part to happen at the end of your game rather than the begining . how would you go about that?
If you want to flip between regular nvl mode and the texting nvl mode, I'm pretty sure you can change the code " define nvl_mode = "phone" " to use "default" instead of define, and then whenever you want to change from one to the other, change the variable nvl_mode between "phone" and "other."
Thank you for teaching us how to make a test messaging system! This is so helpful. Could you please also teach us how to make a calendar system, that there is a year, month and day system (not real local current time) in the game, like on a certain day, you will receive a text from one of the characters?
Yeah, I have a simplified version of that in my Night/Day Cycle video - in that, I only cover a few months worth, but it can easily be expanded for a full year!
could you make a similar tutorial with a discord type of layout? (discord is a messenger app) I understand, I'm just very confused on how to change the layout.
That's a very complicated request! I probably won't tackle anything like that anytime soon, but if I were you, try to break down your project into manageable chunks, and built it segment by segment!
For a mock discord, the text messaging app, with some modification, could work as the text window, but you'll have to build a system for adding time stamps, decide how complicated you want to get with channels and tabs, as well as any DMs! Personally, I like to try to fake a lot of that functionality whenever possible, but it's still quite an undertaking!
@@vimi ah, sorry. to be more specific, what confuses me is how to get the messages to smoothly appear and move the previous ones up every time the player clicks on the mouse.
@@angshappy3424 I'm not sure! I'll look into that!
Hi Vimi, I love your video. I just got into Renpy and currently working on very important project. My project have a mechanism where you can see your achievement through the phone. But I found myself stuck in this situation. If you read this, can you provide me some advice?
Thanks vimi
First I'd like to say, amazing!! This video helped me so much in learning how to use the phone system, as well as being a bsis for customizing it. Keep up the awesome work.
Second, After going back and forth with this for a bit, I've finally got it working the way I want bar one feature I'd like. If anyone has thoughts on how to achieve it I'd love to hear them.
Put simply, I want a character to be able to send a text, change their mind and delete said text after a couple seconds. I can't really find any info on how to do this, so I'm hoping someone here might have some idea. Thanks in advance for any help, and apologies for using a youtube comment to ask for help :p
I am not sure how I'd go about that!
I'm back again! It's probably pretty messy, but at least for my needs it works. Figured I'd put it here just in case people in future want to do the same kinda thing. It doesn't have a timer on the secret message, mostly because I myself just prefer to have time to read it. I hope this helps at least someone. Please let me know if you use it, just because I'd love to see what people make!
Edit: After a bit more digging, I've found that I have a LOT to learn, and there is a much simpler way. You can also add {nw} into the message, to make it send immediately but I'd suggest not doing that for the secret, it makes it nigh impossible to actually read before it disappears.
t1 "Oh no my big secret!"
$ nvl_list.pop()
t1 "And now it's gone!"
default persistent.admission_y = False # tbh I'm not 100% on if this is needed but I like having my stuff documented up the top so I can keep track of it all.
$ persistent.admission_y = False # this is mostly for testing purposes
$ renpy.checkpoint()
if persistent.admission_y == True:
t1_nvl "You uh.. didn't see that, did you?" # what they will say after deleting below text
else:
$ persistent.admission_y = True
t1_nvl "Insert secret here" # the text that will show and then be deleted
$ renpy.rollback(force=True, checkpoints=1)
awhaduahw i was hoping you'd do a video like this- what a lifesaver!! Thank you for the very informative video!
You're welcome!
First of all, everything works correctly and I thank you very much.
One question, is it possible to view chats without having to write?
Let me give you an example: A chat ends and I close the phone. With a button, I would like to view that chat I wrote, but without additional dialogues, as if I just wanted to observe it.
But if possible, trying to separate the chat between player with guy 1, and player with guy 2. (Obviously by clicking a different button)
I know how to use buttons and screens, I just wanted to understand how to show chats
Because this system uses the nvl mode as a base, I'm not sure how to do that with this code; you might be better off writing your own dialogue screen system, instead of trying to make this one fit.
@@vimi Okay, thanks for the answer!
Your video just give me an idea I am gonna copy all the game files into the new Renpy games maker it’s not an edit game anymore it will be a new game.
I tried to put this in my renpy project. Everything is works fine besides the fact if I go back into messages it runs through them all again rather than remembering where it left off at, suggestions?
Is it possible that when SMS images are sent in nvl mode, the surrounding frame does not appear?🤔
Hey vimi I hope you're doing well,
Ikk it's been a long time since this video was out but do you have any idea how can the background change throughout the game? Like idk after a certain choice the background of the phone changes?
Any advice?
Thank uu i advance
Use a condition switch to define an image dependent on another variable, and use that image as the phone background:
www.renpy.org/doc/html/displayables.html#ConditionSwitch
@@vimi you're awesome, thank you for the reply!
Thank you so much for the helpful video. Got the phone working like a charm. Now, I'm trying to make the images that are sent through the phone be clickable. Seeing as the pictures need to be pretty minimized to fit into the phone, I'd like to be able to click on them to see a bigger version of the picture. I'm struggling with this, however, as I understand I'd have to use screens to make a functioning imagebutton. The way to implement images in the phone seems pretty set in stone, so I can't wrap my brain around how I'd solve this. Anyone got any ideas?
You got this
Thanks for yet another renpy masterclass
🧐
Hello, your video is very helpful for me to make a game. Thank you. But I have one question for you.
I want to change the message text size. Where is the value to change the text size?
Oh hey, I've been looking at this little project and trying to figure it out for a while now, thanks for covering it!
No problem!
Hey, I was wondering if there was a way for Ren'Py to create a text file on the users desktop? Its something I think would be cool to implement in a horror setting or as a fun way to break the fourth wall. Love the tutorials btw!
Ren'py natively only lets you modify files within the game directory; this is how the original DDLC did most of their file manipulation!
If you want to save files outside of the game directory, you can do that with python code! Here's a stack overflow thread with a solution:
stackoverflow.com/questions/55926097/write-to-any-users-desktop-in-python
That being said, SOME players might find it spooky, but MOST will assume the game is malware, uninstall it, warn others not to download it, and you might have your game taken down from whatever sites you have it hosted on.
After all, if you're installing files on their desktop, what ELSE could you have installed on their computer?
@@vimi hmmm I guess I never thought about it that way. That is very true.
I'll keep that in mind. Thank you!!
THANKS
You're welcome!
You can still keep the old nvl screen, too, by just changing the name of it, right?
Hi, thank you for the video. I'm a little confused why I have to define the characters twice in both the script and the phonetexting.rpy. Am I missing something here? Also I tried replacing the icon/frame files but it's all showing up as the main character icon. Could you please elaborate on how to link what we do in phonetexting.rpy and script characters? Mine doesn't seem to be working at all as intended haha
The name in the phonetexting.rpy definition - for example, the name "Nighten" in the line:
> define MC_Name = "Nighten"
has to match the name of a defined NVL character:
> define n_nvl = Character("Nighten", kind=nvl, image="nighten", callback=Phone_SendSound)
If I change the name "Nighten" in either of those definitions, the connection will break.
@@vimi thank you for the reply, I thought that's the obvious answer but had a typo breaking it. Is it possible to then do dilemma branching/choices through this phone system then too?
@@BlueBizen Yes!
Hey! sooooo the phone is too big. how do i change the size of it? the size of my game is 1280, 720
I'd recommend changing the dimensions of the phone images directly in an image editor, and then change all the positional data, like I showed in the last section of the video.
@@vimi Alrighty. Thanks for the help! :)
I wonder if there is a way to edit this to be able to have multiple characters sending and receiving texts not just one character sending texts.
New video from the bad boy of visual novels letsgooo
LETSGOOO
Hello, I wanted to know how to make a textbuttom be tocable after passing x moment of the vn
www.renpy.org/doc/html/screen_actions.html#SensitiveIf
I imagine this is the functionality you're going to want!
@@vimi yess, thank you very much
Always discovering something new here.
I love it!
Thank you!
how are you so close to what im doing with your tutorials -
MAGIC!
This reminds me a lot of Mystic Messenger...And gives me a lot of ideas!
Also, your videos are amazing, i made some projects for my university that worked really well! Thanks a lot!
is there a way to make the mc name a variable from the script file?
Is there a way to make a sender icon for multiple characters ?
I imagine there is, but I haven't messed with that at all. If I were you, I'd start with trying to replicate the structure for multiple receivers, and use that in the sender format.
Hi again, I would like to correct my question, I was wondering I’d there was a way to make multiple main characters all with their perspective use this phone trick
thank you!
This'll be real helpful for alot of renpy devs 🤩🤩
🤞🤞🤞
Can I still use NVL mode or does this override it?
Unfortunately, it overrides it.
@@vimi thx for quick reply. saved me time trying it out only to end up disappointed. My current project uses a fair amount of NVL but I'd like to incorporate the phone also!
I don't understand why...but when I try to add the phone system to my own game, the mc dialogue shows in the same way as eileen: white circle on the left and white bubble background. I let the player to input their first name and last name and combine them to be the full name. Below is how I define main character name:
in script.rpy:
define n = Character("[full_name]")
define n_nvl = Character("[full_name]", kind=nvl, callback=Phone_SendSound)
$ full_name = last_name + first_name
in phonetexting.rpy
define MC_Name = "[full_name]"
Is there a way to solve the problem?
And I would also like to know, is there a way to clear the phone dialogue everytime that event has ended?
I want to call the phone screen up in a certain event showing dialogue with character A. And then in another event, call the phone screen to show dialogue with another character B. It is strange to have the previous dialogue shown when talking to new character....
Another user had that problem with custom names, and I'm honestly not sure what the solution is other than to try to link the phonetexting variable to something other than the name.
Clearing the dialogue text is easy, though! It's just NVL mode as a base, so you can just add "nvl clear" to clear that text~
I downloaded the phone thing and literally as soon as i ran my game, the whole setup, the images, the positions, everything was completely changed and i have no idea how to fix it 😭
When you say "you downloaded the phone thing", what exactly did you import into your game?
monika texts... Just Monika
Thanks, this will be usefull!
👍
Just a question, so I did it where the player can insert their own name in the game with renpy.input and labeled it as [player_name]. But when I put in MC_Name “[player_name]” it doesn’t show the phone send icon like it’s supposed to. Just the received icon as if it’s another character and not the main character. (Unless of course the player decides to literally put [player_name] as their character name in the game) Anyway to fix this?
Ok, this is the second time I've heard of this happening! I would use a different variable to set who is speaking.
@@vimi Alright! I think I got it thank you! :3
@@bluewolfangel28 Did you have any luck? I have the same problem :(
@@rando99 I decided to use a different variable since technically for the player they don’t need to see their own name 👍
@@bluewolfangel28 Oh shit you're right, thanks so much!
thank you! I want to put in the options to answer in message, what should I do?
This uses nvl mode, so you can still use choice menus in here, but if you want to make the choices something external to the phone, you might want to make a separate screen>
@@vimi Thank you. Which rpy file code should I modify?
@@jiyeonkim9130 If you're just using the menu options, that's the .rpy file.
If you're thinking about making a custom choice screen, check out my screens tutorial!
This is perfect! Your videos have been getting me through this game jam. Do you think it would be trivial to be able to add choices for the player to choose in the cell phone? 👀
I haven't tried putting NVL menues in the phone yet, but I don't see why not?!
i was wondering the same thing! the creator of the code also made one where the phone takes up the full screen which has a menu system built into the code if that's helpful, but i can't figure out how to make it work in my game (where the phone is only part of the screen) D:
@@megdevine5784 D'oh! How did I not see this?! I'll add it to the description!
commented on something else recently but I really love your videos. a text messaging tutorial has literally no value for my visual novel, but I still feel like I learned a ton and have new ideas and inspiration. looking forward to more videos in the future !!!