Sleepy Time Jack Report 01/07/23 (Patreon)

Happy first Saturday of 2023! This is BáiYù here with a weekly report on Sleepy Time Jack's development; we made some exceptional strides with implementing new features and preparing for more content and translations. Quite frankly, we're blown away by all of your support smashing all three of the goals so fast!

Version 0.01.1 Changelog 

Preferences:

• [NEW] Message Interval variable adjustable to 5, 10, or 15 seconds. Determines the amount of time that passes before Jack initiates a new line of dialogue when the player does not manually interact with the game.
• [NEW] Sleep Timer variable adjustable to 15, 30, 45, or 60 minutes. Determines the amount of time that passes before Jack checks if the player has fallen asleep (AKA not manually interacted with the game at all). This initiates dialogue that automatically proceeds after a 5 second wait and brings the player to a timed choice where Jack will close the game unless the player confirms with a manual interaction to keep talking to Jack (continue running the game).
• [NEW] Added Accessibility settings, including the option to switch between the Bubblegum and Kinto font.
• Made preparations for possible Spanish and Japanese translations to the game.

Miscellaneous:

• Fixed issue where the top of the next line of dialogue shows while the current line is displaying due to the text outline style.
• Organized blocks of code into new files as needed. Code comments are being added as well.
• Expressions have been properly added to each line.
• Properly named the new framework: Digital Dakimakura Engine (DigiDaki Engine for short!)
• Internal beta-testing has begun.

New Content Unlocked!

Thanks to your support, we've got enough funds to write and voice new lines in Sleepy Time Jack! As promised, we'll start writing in more content for Jack's Shirtless clothing mode before we move onto his Nude clothing level. We're also configuring the variables we need for the game to track the player's local date for day of the week and holiday-specific greetings. Luckily I've got some experience messing with those variables from a previous game I made, so I don't expect that to take too long on the back end.

As we've also reached the $4,200/mo goal of unlocking the secret alternate character, we'll begin preparing to add him in, though you may not see him for a while since we have to finish his expressions, write a whole new array of dialogue, and get those lines voiced for him. Thank you for your patience 🙏

Under the Hood

The framework we're using for Sleepy Time Jack is actually based on a different framework that was personally commissioned by me from another developer, Moleworks, called the Skinship Engine. If you're familiar with one of Fire Emblem Fates' character support features or even Pokémon Amie from Pokémon XY, then you can already guess what the Skinship Engine did. For everyone else, the Ren'Py Skinship Engine is a framework that allowed players to interact with different areas on a character to get different reactions (ie. a kiss would be sweet, stroking their arm would be comforting, rubbing their *ahem* genitals would be arousing, etc.). I felt that this was a good base to work off of for Sleepy Time Jack as random dialogue would cycle through when "petting" a character. The underlying code has significantly changed with the addition of the Message Interval and Sleep Timer function however, eventually becoming its own unique fork of the Skinship Engine that we're now calling the Digital Dakimakura Engine!

So what are the Message Interval and Sleep Timer settings for? The Sleepy Time Jack  game will automatically play messages after a certain amount of time even if the player doesn't poke the game to initiate a new line from Jack; before the Message Interval setting was added, the game would only wait 5 seconds then start the next line of dialogue. This setting should help prevent Jack from getting too chatty. Meanwhile, if you've ever used a white noise generator app on your phone intended for relaxation or sleep, you may have seen that there are options to stop playing sounds after a certain amount of time, as your phone battery would drain if you were asleep but the app was still active. The Sleep Timer setting will check if Jack has only been talking due to the automatic dialogue system, and after a set amount of time passes, he'll ask the player if they're asleep. If you happen to still be awake, you can tell him that you want to keep talking and reset the Sleep Timer.

Sleepy Time Jack has now entered its first stage of internal beta-testing inside the team so they can see if it works on their machines, including Android devices and possibly even the Steam Deck.

Moving Forward: New Lines & Translations?

We now have enough funding to voice new lines and the secret alternate mode, which means... we need ideas for things for Jack to say! At this time, Jack has 38 randomized pieces of dialogue (23 lines when fully clothed, 8 lines when shirtless, and 7 lines when nude) he'll cycle through once you've gotten through his greetings, of which he currently has 3 that he'll choose on the start of the game.

I'd like to add 15 more lines to both the shirtless and nude clothing level dialogue arrays, and as a special thanks for getting us to all three of our Patreon in the first week of 2023, we'll be open to everyone's suggestions for lines in the comments section of this post until 01/14/23. Please note that this is no guarantee of what will actually end up in the game and we may edit lines for any reason.

As for translations, at this time it's difficult to determine how much it will cost to have Sleepy Time Jack translated into Latin Spanish and Japanese until all content in English is completely done; I definitely do want it to happen though, so for our foreign language fans, please hang tight! We will likely confer with our translation teams once the alternate character's lines are complete.

And that's a wrap for today! Once again, thank you all for your support. We're looking forward to your suggestions and thoughts~