Lock user input?

[negiman4]

      So I'm learning how to use RGSS3 and I'm slowly discovering all the cool things I can do with it. I haven't started building a prototype yet because I'm still in the planning stage of the game I want to make, and one of the features I want to add (well, not really a feature, but a preference, to control the flow of information) are self-advancing scenes. I want to be able to have a character say something, be a short pause, and then the dialogue box closes, and another opens, or something else happens, etc. Now, that part I can script, no problem. However, I don't want the player to be able to skip through everything by mashing the A button in certain scenes (like really important scenes in the story line).

      I want this feature because I'm planning on doing voiceovers. See where I'm going with this? So I want to be able to lock all player input at certain points, then unlock it when the scene ends. Is there a hidden method I can call that can allow me to do this? Or do I have to make my own? If I do, that's no problem, but what commands should I execute to achieve it? I'm still learning RGSS3 so I don't quite know all the commands yet, and I don't know all the stock variable and method names yet either. Thanks for the help!

 

[sokita]

If you talking about message/dialogue/text box, you can do escape characters by adding these to text: \. to make it waiting for 1/4 second, \| to make it waiting for 1 sec, \^ to make text box not waiting player input. For complete default escape characters, just hover to the text column. Help box shold popped out.

 

[Shaz]

Yep, you don't need to use a script for this.

 

[negiman4]

If you talking about message/dialogue/text box, you can do escape characters by adding these to text: \. to make it waiting for 1/4 second, \| to make it waiting for 1 sec, \^ to make text box not waiting player input. For complete default escape characters, just hover to the text column. Help box shold popped out.

I'm aware this feature exists, and yeah, that takes care of the timing. But while \^ makes it not wait for player input, the player CAN still give input. There are some scenes that will be really timing-sensitive, and a button-mashing player will mess up the syncronization of everything. Thanks though!

 

[Alexander Amnell]

I'm aware this feature exists, and yeah, that takes care of the timing. But while \^ makes it not wait for player input, the player CAN still give input. There are some scenes that will be really timing-sensitive, and a button-mashing player will mess up the syncronization of everything. Thanks though!

   Couldn't you use multiples of these to get your desired result though? It's quite simple that each consecutive \| freezes input for one second so you time your scenes and add or subtract accordingly to make it flow. So if your scene needs 3 and a half seconds then inputting \|\|\|\.\^ at the end and then added the needed timings to each subsequent dialogue box would suffice, unless I'm missing something perhaps?

   A word of caution however, the amount of people who will either quit or become frustrated with a game for locking their inputs at least on these forums vocally outweigh those that enjoy just sitting at and watching a scene play by. (I'm one of those admittedly, and thus biased, but if text exists I prefer to read it at my own pace than have the time needed to read it decided for me and hardcoded in, and get flustered when I finish a dialogue only to have the game freeze me into it for another few seconds.) I get the frustration with wanting players to actually pay attention to your story, but locking them into scenes tends to do more damage than good, making the players who are uninterested in the story quit the game and move on for being forced to participate in an aspect of it they aren't interested in, and tempting those who are actually interested in the story but can read a bit faster than average (as people who enjoy a good story usually can, as a side effect of enjoying stories in general) to do the same. Just a thought.

 

[negiman4]

Couldn't you use multiples of these to get your desired result though? It's quite simple that each consecutive \| freezes input for one second so you time your scenes and add or subtract accordingly to make it flow. So if your scene needs 3 and a half seconds then inputting \|\|\|\.\^ at the end and then added the needed timings to each subsequent dialogue box would suffice, unless I'm missing something perhaps?

A word of caution however, the amount of people who will either quit or become frustrated with a game for locking their inputs at least on these forums vocally outweigh those that enjoy just sitting at and watching a scene play by. (I'm one of those admittedly, and thus biased, but if text exists I prefer to read it at my own pace than have the time needed to read it decided for me and hardcoded in, and get flustered when I finish a dialogue only to have the game freeze me into it for another few seconds.) I get the frustration with wanting players to actually pay attention to your story, but locking them into scenes tends to do more damage than good, making the players who are uninterested in the story quit the game and move on for being forced to participate in an aspect of it they aren't interested in, and tempting those who are actually interested in the story but can read a bit faster than average (as people who enjoy a good story usually can, as a side effect of enjoying stories in general) to do the same. Just a thought.

Yeah I thought about that. I guess a better way to explain what I'm trying to do is use the dialogue boxes as subtitles. The lock would only apply to very specific scenes that have voice-overs. I definitely see what you're saying, and I agree. Which is why it won't be a very common thing in game, only a few, really important parts.

 

[sokita]

If you want to go further, check window_message class, process_input method or fiber_main. You can add extra boolean there.