games/src/bin/trees

🌲 Trees 🌳

How to Play

currently in hella alpha so subject to change and/or be out of date

• Left click a tree to start a Monologue
• Right click + drag to move a tree
• Middle Click to delete a tree
• F12: Debug Menu
  • Click a monologue script to spawn a tree

Monologue File Format

In assets/trees/ there are .mono files that contain the monologues that drive this game.

Here is an example of a simple monologue:

This is a simple monologue

There are two options for this fist batch

---

This is the second batch of lines

There are three options

You get the idea

---

This has one option

• Files contain "Monologues"
• Monologues are broken up into "Line Option" batches
• Lines are separated by one or more blank newlines
• Batches are broken up by lines with ---

Monologue vs monologue, Batch vs batch, and Line vs line. The capitalized versions specify a game object, the lower case specifies the common meaning of the word.

Comments

Comments are lines that start with a #. Comments are discarded by the parser so are only for the reader of the raw text files.

# This is a comment
This is a dialog line
# If you connect two lines with a comment
They count as part of the same line

# Comments can exist on their own

This line of monologue # Will include the comment
# So always start a line with the comment

Empty batches

Batches with no lines are a no-op. Even if the batches contain comments and/or directives.

Monologue Directives

This feature is in planning, not implmeneted

Monologue Directives are basically how we "script" monologues.

With directives you can:

• Set variables based on what a user sees or does.
• Add pre-requisites to a line or entire Monologue.
• Requirement that an "actor" meets some criteria.

In general directives can be set at the Monologue, Batch, and the Line scopes.

• At the Monologue scope they must be set at the top before any batches.
• At the Batch scope they must be separated from Lines by at least one blank line.
• At the Line scope they must be on an adjacent Line.

Example:

# This directive affects the monologue as a whole
@directive

---

# This directive affects this entire group
@directive

this is a line

# This directive just affects this line
@directive
this is another line

# This directive also affects the entire group
@directive

last line in this batch

---

# This batch has no directives

option one

option two

@set var val

The @set directive sets a variable to a given value upon the user interacting with the affected scope.

• At the Monologue scope this is set when the monologue starts.
• At the Batch scope this is set when the user views the Batch.
• At the Line scope this is set iff the user chooses the Line.

Example:

# Monologue scope
@set foo 1
---
# batch scope
@set bar true

# Line scope
@set baz "value"
this line sets baz to "value"
---
this batch...

...has no directives

@if var op val

The @if directive is a constraint requiring var op val to return true for the scope to be visible.

• At the Monologue scope this causes the monologue to either be or not be in rotation.
• At the Batch scope this causes the Batch to be included or skipped from a Monologue.
• At the Line scope this causes the line to be included or excluded from a Batch.

@has var op val

The @has directive constrains which trees can deliver a given monologue. For example if a tree has family set to fir it could deliver a monologue about being a fir tree.

@has family = "fir"
---
man i love being a fir tree

At all scopes this operates similarly to @if, skipping/including Monologues/Groups/Lines based on tree properties.

Other possible directives

The following directives are not strictly required but might be "nice to have":

• @after a.mono: This monologue should happen after a.mono.
  • Could be achieved with @set and @if
• @in scenario: This monologue relates to a specific random scenario.
  • Could be achieved with backend setting values and @if
• @bump var: Increases a variable's value by 1.
  • Requires a specific use-case.
  • Causes types headaches if var is not an integer.
• @event event_name: This Monologue/Batch/Line triggers an in-game event.
  • Could be achieved with @set and @if

Monologue Templating

With variables we can template monologues like so:

This is a regular line of dialog

This line is templated, mentioning {{ some_event_outcome }}

Templated variables add an implicit constraint to that line, so the above is equivlent to:

This is a regular line of dialog

@require some_event_outcome
This line is templated, mentioning {{ some_event_outcome }}