helena's Forum Posts

  • I think dialogue designer comes close to what you are after.

    https://www.construct.net/en/tutorials/dialogue-designer-construct-2624

    I have actually looked into that, as far as I can remember, the software itself is a bit glitchy/clunky/no good for large projects. At least that's the impression I got from reviews. It could be wrong, of course. It is a paid software with no trials afaik so I could not evaluate it if it would work for me.

    But at first glance it does look close to what I would like to have. Maybe I will look it up again.

    Unfortunately it (the tutorial's project file) will not open up in trial version of C3 so I could not see if it is the thing that would make me go up to C3. For now I will stick to C2 (I prefer C2:s gui, simple as that).

  • I am not going to have problems with setting up the engine. (as for the reading the strings/json, and making the interface including the text output) that I can do, no problems.

    I just have problems with wrapping my mind about how to structure the thing. In a way that will work in all the way I want, and with being expansion-friendly, and... ughhh.

    I have bought a Twine importer for C2, but I am not even sure if it is the right way to go either. It would require me to learn Twine's language as for the variable and array passing around, and to me it looks clunky and not.. very visual. lol.

    Might even end up with me making event sheets for the whole thing.. I hope there's no limit of event sheets. ;)

    *googled* ouch, there's a limit on events. Oh well, there goes the hope to keep it in one place.

  • In my view these flowchart systems look like they work well for simple cases, but for more complex cases you end up with a pile of spaghetti and endless scrolling which makes it hard to even find anything. I doubt it would be easy to track dialogue in this type of system if you had a novel-sized amount of content (e.g. 300+ pages, 80,000 words). You'd have a huge scroll distance and everything scattered over an enormous area with incredibly long lines joining tiny fragments of text.

    For that I would break up into smaller units of "flow charts". Or even implementing a kind of "collapse/expand" system. Group one particular set of location, and then collapse/expand it to make it clearer in view.

    It would be harder for the developer for the game maker engine to write, but would be easier for the end users to use. :)

    But I know you, Ashley, are very set against this idea and that I can respect, that's YOUR software.

    As for the going to JSON route of things.

    I know how to import JSON (in a very general idea as I have used it, however together with RexRainbow's plugins, to import levels made in Tiled, in a wildly different type of game)

    but I am just not seeing how I can organize the dialog branching in a visual/easy way when coming to a book size volume, with spagetti branching, in a such linear format as JSON. idk. Even more so when I need to expand the game (expansions is planned to gradually release new releases - demo - first release 1 release 2, 3, 4, 5, introducing more and more characters, ending with 100+ characters and interactions between those.. )

    I just can't wrap my mind around how to organise it. It is my major issue.

  • Nono it's just I've had past experiences with scene graphs that got way out of hand and unmanageable, so I just don't like them myself. There are other softwares that do visual novels and branching dialogue much better than construct.

    I understand fully. I just wanted to make a game that combine the best sides of both. As I want to have full control of the game side of things, so I can put in mini games (imagine the player visiting a video arcade hall and playing arcade-like mini games!) and things like these. Highly customizable and I personally love Construct's event system.

    So going back to let's say Twine is making me feel VERY limited. lol.

  • I imagined it, and gagged a little. I'm here almost specifically because Construct DOESN'T use a scene graph based system. It's pretty common in other engines though, and I understand how it can be more intuitive to other people. Maybe just learn and use another engine if your preference is that over the event sheet system.

    I am not talking about replacing Construct's event system.

    I just wanted a visual tree for the dialog aspect of the game.

    Why would it be gagworthy? It is very nice and clear way to show how people talk and do branching from there.

    How would you make a visual novel with 1000s of dialogue, with lots and lots of spaghettis going everywhere?

  • IMO, you're better off building a branching dialogue system using JSON. Similar approaches have been the standard for dialogue-driven interactions in games since such things existed, and only in more recent years have node-based approaches taken off. It's also much easier to translate file-based than node-based dialogue.

    I suggest you check out Laura_D's tutorial series on implementing a JSON-based dialogue system: construct.net/en/tutorials/introduction-json-dialogue-2331

    Where's the visual component of that system? I feel a linear text is bad to visualize the branching.

    Also what if you need to work in more turns in mid somewhere?

    I am not sure if it is like this in this tutorial but usually they want you to number the text flow, and if you need to patch in more dialog, you have to rework the entire thing, including in construct.

    But even not then,

    Lots of going back and forth with referencing when someone said this and that...

    By then it would even be simpler to just write in the dialog raw in construct.... At least you will see what you get. Even in a very linear, non branched way. hm. idk.

  • Something that would make me buy Construct 3 subcription in an instant:

    If Concstruct 3 has a built in the editor a visual branching system, where you can place passages, just like in Twine.

    To make rpg/text adventure/adventure game/visual novel style games.

    Built in the editor itself, and would work from get go, without importing stuff.

    How does it look like?

    It looks like a flowchart system!

    rpgmaker.net/media/content/games/6568/screenshots/mossy_stone_editor_shot.png

    Imagine having this in C3!

  • I tried to reply to one add-on topic, and I would like to keep it there so the original author of the plugin would be alerted and keep it in one place.

    But I get this:

    "The topic you're replying to has been inactive for over a year. Please create a

    new topic if you need to. "

    What can I do?

    The plugin is still available in the author's itch.io and I purchased it. The author has no contact info there on itch.io so I thought better go to the original thread here on Construct forums.

  • just play, don't try to mod by yourself :D

    What do you mean?

  • Since I posted my initial question/discussion starter I have stopped to focus on the developing part, maybe I wrote that? Well, so I am taking a break from that so I am not touching that for a while. So if you want proto, please try to do it yourself.

    As for the server side thing, well with my stopped focus I will also wait with that, so I am going to study on this part later on when I am taking up time with the game again.

    I can't code PHP or SQL so I want something that would take the whole backend thing done and updated without me worrying about safety and whatnot.

    So the issue is to find a backend solution that is free to try out (have free low tier), that it has a supported and working plugin for C2* and, well..

    *I know there's more alternatives for C3 but C2 is what I prefer to work with at the moment (due to me preferring its interface), sorry about that.

  • I was more asking for the server side of things. To be able to see people's work and all that.

    The editor itself I am sure I will manage to make on my own.

    My idea is to make an array to keep track of the tiles.

    Save data to json file. Write the level width and height in tiles in separate fields.

    Then take the array content and put it together into one string. (I figure you could use hexadecimal and keep to 2 character width per tile type and you have access to 255 different tiles)

    And then to open it, you take that string, bite off 2 characters at one time to form the hexadecimal number and parse it back into the editor.

    It is just an idea I have, but could be done differently. You could also analyse how TILED tmx level data looks like and do it like them.

  • I am bumping this now.

    I have tried to go through some of rexrainbow's plugins for various services, such as Scribe and Backendless but most are either too expensive for me to try around at first or the plugin is just simply outdated.

    Are there any plugin that are maintained and actually works?

  • Hello!

    I am considering adding level editor to my game.

    I then thought of the popular Super Mario Maker game where users can browse and share levels, and then rate them too. It would be an interesting approach.

    What would be the best approach to do this for lowest money, that is still relatively safe to hack attacks?

    I do not know PHP and SQL, however I have worked with installing and manually setting up Wordpress and doing backup routines.

    I presume I would have to have a web server, some kind of php going on and sql database?

    Or are there any services I can use of that is moderately priced and would be easier to use plus helping with the backend part of that part, keeping it relatively safe against hacker attacks.

    I have really tried my best to google and search but the most results weren't good (mostly returning content about construct 2 instalation itself, sharing construct 2 developer side, how to login at forums here and so on)

    I found a plugin for a service called Scribe but sadly Scribe has now changed so that the plugin isn't useful anymore.

    This is just an question to see if it is a realistic approach for me to aim for someday in the future or if I should scrap the idea.

    Thank you for reading.

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  • Hello!

    I hope you will visit this old thread at Construct 2 as I still use C2. :)

    I am making a game where the game would search for pairs and match them.

    I am using matcher and using "for each 2 continuous symbols" and then only compare at horizontial or vertial.

    The Matcher is made to turn all two matches, no matter whether it is pairs or not. So one line of three cells would return two matches when it should only return ONE match.

    And following above,

    can I order the examination sequence depending on where I want to search, left-to-right, right-to-left, up-to-down, down-to-up?

    Basically I want to make this game but with my own twists: - 2048game.com (game in this link)

  • Thank you two.

    I did a new capx with only these events and it seems I have bad "coding" earlier, so it is something else, indeed.

    And if I try to go back beyond the start the return value is zero. Good to know too.