Branching question - multiple path choices?

[Twilit]

Sorry if this seems like a newb question, but I'm starting my first big, actual project, and while I'm still planning things out story wise, I had some questions with scripting so I know what exactly to limit myself to.

1) Is it possible to do something where, perhaps, a cutscene or some plot event happens, and afterwards give a choice of 3 different character scenerario's (Ie. Character A doing one event, Character B doing another, etc.), and be able to have all 3 be done in whatever order the player chooses? If so, what scripting would be required for that.

2) In the situation that Character A is perhaps trapped in the form of an animal/object/etc of somesort, what scripting would need to be used to register it as an Actor instead of an animal/etc. Also, what kind of scripting would be needed to show of an 'transformation' (not exactly have to show, but give it that feeling)?

3) I know that in RPG Maker's Scripting, there is a conditions option. In the situation, for example, Character A is needed to do certain things plotwise, how would I use the conditions? Would that be under switch or Actor?

Sorry again if these seem like basic questions, and thanks in advance if you can answer my questions!

 

[Ashton]

I would quote, but I'd basically be quoting the whole thing, so...

First - watch your terminology, "Scripts" and "Scripting" are specific to Ruby Scripts in RPGM, while *events* and *Eventing* are don't through the point-and-click interface on the map.

1. Yes. Though it will be tricky without scripts purely because the window only lets you display 4 lines of text at a time... If your players don't mind having to read three pages of text in a 4-line-at-a-time format, it's quite easy to set them all up with conditional branches and switches/variables. You can even set the events of one to impact the events of another (either in minor ways, such as an NPC saying "Oh, hey! I heard about that thing you did!" or in major ones (completely rewriting the geography of a reagin because, for example, the party blocked off a river and it's now flooding the lower region)

2. Quite simple, you just set up the new actor the same as the old, but use animal sprites. (while I've not done this specifically, I have done an animal-character, and a transformation) For the transformation, all you do is set up an animation on the character to hide the swap, then go in and event "Remove actor from party" and then "Add actor to party" to remove the old character and replace with the transformed character.

3. I think you mean eventing (though scripting does use conditional statements, but your diving into programming with If-then-else and Case, and >= !! ==, etc) I would suggest using switches or variables, it would be a lot easier if you provided a little more information, but in short, have the completion of each "quest" activate a switch, and your main event check to see if they're all active before allowing your player to progress to the next stage of the game.

 

[Twilit]

I would quote, but I'd basically be quoting the whole thing, so...

First - watch your terminology, "Scripts" and "Scripting" are specific to Ruby Scripts in RPGM, while *events* and *Eventing* are don't through the point-and-click interface on the map.

1. Yes. Though it will be tricky without scripts purely because the window only lets you display 4 lines of text at a time... If your players don't mind having to read three pages of text in a 4-line-at-a-time format, it's quite easy to set them all up with conditional branches and switches/variables. You can even set the events of one to impact the events of another (either in minor ways, such as an NPC saying "Oh, hey! I heard about that thing you did!" or in major ones (completely rewriting the geography of a reagin because, for example, the party blocked off a river and it's now flooding the lower region)

2. Quite simple, you just set up the new actor the same as the old, but use animal sprites. (while I've not done this specifically, I have done an animal-character, and a transformation) For the transformation, all you do is set up an animation on the character to hide the swap, then go in and event "Remove actor from party" and then "Add actor to party" to remove the old character and replace with the transformed character.

3. I think you mean eventing (though scripting does use conditional statements, but your diving into programming with If-then-else and Case, and >= !! ==, etc) I would suggest using switches or variables, it would be a lot easier if you provided a little more information, but in short, have the completion of each "quest" activate a switch, and your main event check to see if they're all active before allowing your player to progress to the next stage of the game.

Thank you for the heads up, I'm a bit used to referring to it as scripting, so I'll try to adjust the terminology as needed.

1)Okay, that's good because at the moment I am only thinking about 3-5 choices max, so there wouldn't be too many pages. Out of curiosity, you mentioned that it would be possible for events to effect other events- that would be through conditions as well, I assume? Also, is there any big difference between switches and variables?

2)Alright, that seems simple enough.

3) Ah yes, I did mean eventing in this situation. To provide a bit more context, what I had in mind was Characters A being like a side protagonist to the plot, and after a certain amount of time passed in the game, you would be able to get them through a quest. Once part of the party, they would be able to unlock certain events in the game that would elsewise not be achieved, if that makes any sense.

 

[Ashton]

Yes, mostly the trowing of switches once another condition is met (i.e. defeating the water guardian makes the lake level fall, that woudl throw a switch "lake" and in the city below you have events reference lake (either villagers with an "if (lake=on), then show text "Wow the lake sure went down today, I wonder what happened!!" or with other events, such as flood-waters (which each one would be it's own tiny event) being set to only show up if lake=on)

Variables can hold *any* data, Words, phrases, numbers, if you really get creative with scripting you can even have arrays with multi-mimensional tables in them! (plain eventing cant do this, obviously) Switches are "on" or "off" that's all (but most of the time, that's also all you need)

That's easy to do with conditional branches for the events where this character plays a part, just do an "if (actor X is in the party)" condition.

I would also suggest you look through the youtube series "Tutorial Town" it walks you through how to use the engine and do a lot of eventing, dialogue, etc, and he explains it both visually and with audio, so it's probably a LOT easier to understand than what I'm saying.

 

[Twilit]

Yes, mostly the trowing of switches once another condition is met (i.e. defeating the water guardian makes the lake level fall, that woudl throw a switch "lake" and in the city below you have events reference lake (either villagers with an "if (lake=on), then show text "Wow the lake sure went down today, I wonder what happened!!" or with other events, such as flood-waters (which each one would be it's own tiny event) being set to only show up if lake=on)

Variables can hold *any* data, Words, phrases, numbers, if you really get creative with scripting you can even have arrays with multi-mimensional tables in them! (plain eventing cant do this, obviously) Switches are "on" or "off" that's all (but most of the time, that's also all you need)

That's easy to do with conditional branches for the events where this character plays a part, just do an "if (actor X is in the party)" condition.

I would also suggest you look through the youtube series "Tutorial Town" it walks you through how to use the engine and do a lot of eventing, dialogue, etc, and he explains it both visually and with audio, so it's probably a LOT easier to understand than what I'm saying.

Ah, okay, thank you for all your help! I'll definitely get to looking at those videos.

 

[Shaz]

I have edited your thread title to clarify that you are eventing, not scripting.


Do you still need assistance with this, or are you happy to spend some time looking through tutorials? There is also a tutorial forum here which would be good to look through.

 

[Twilit]

No, I think my questions have been answered I'll be looking through some tutorials in the meantime.

 

[Shaz]

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