/arcweave-godot-playmode-example

Primary LanguageGDScriptMIT LicenseMIT

Arcweave Play Mode in Godot

This is an example project of the Arcweave Play Mode implemented in Godot 3.5 using the Arcweave Godot Plugin.

It uses the plugin to integrate an Arcweave project, in this case our Example "Castle" Project and create a simple text interactive game.

You can also find the project .arcw file in arcweave_project/the-castle.arcw and use this file to import it in your Arcweave account using our Import Project feature in the Project List page.

We have also created a couple of YouTube tutorials demonstrating this process.

This project showcases three main concepts of the Plugin:

Scenes

We have one main scene where the main components are:

  • a RichTextLabel that we will call text_container
  • a VBoxContainer that we will call options_container, containing the selectable options/buttons of an Element

Scripts

The main implementation and usage of the Plugin is in scripts/main.gd. In this file you will find some extra code for button handling as well as style customizations. In the examples bellow, you will find the bare code to use with our Plugin.

Initialization

Firstly we have to initialize our Story

var story: Story = Story.new()

Drawing the Element Contents & Options

On _ready we will draw the contents of the starting element.

func _ready():
    redraw()

func redraw():
    var content: String = story.get_current_content()
    text_container.bbcode_text = content

This is enough for drawing the contents of an element. We can also add the options as buttons in our options_container

func redraw():
    var content: String = story.get_current_content()
    text_container.bbcode_text = content

    addOptions(story.get_current_elements())

The addOptions function gets the options of the current element and creates their corresponding buttons.

In the Arcweave Play Mode implementation, the text of the option can be one of the three:

  • The label of the last connection (in case we follow some branches, jumpers etc.)
  • If there is no label in the connections, the title of the target Element
  • If there is no title on the target Element, the content of the target Element

We follow the same process in our Godot implementation too.

func addOptions(options):
    # Firstly we clear the old options if they exist
    for n in options_container.get_children():
        options_container.remove_child(n)
        n.queue_free()

    for option in options:
        var lastLabel = null
        for connection in option.connectionPath:
            if connection.label:
                lastLabel = connection.label
        if lastLabel == null:
            lastLabel = self.story.elements[option.targetid].title
        if lastLabel == null:
            lastLabel = self.story.elements[option.targetid].get_content(self.story.state)
        createButton(lastLabel, option.targetid)

func createButton(text, id):
    var button = load("res://scenes/OptionButton.tscn").instance()

    button.connect("pressed", self, "_on_option_selection", [id])
    options_container.add_child(button)
    button.text = text

Element Iteration

When clicking on an option, we have to select the option in the Story so the new element is selected as the current_element and the new options are generated. Then we redraw the new content of the element and their options.

func _on_option_selection(id):
    story.select_option(id)
    redraw()

Game State Save & Load

We can also save the state of the game to save our progress:

const SAVE_PATH : String = "user://arcweave_saved.json"

func save_state()->void:
    var currentState = self.story.get_state()
    var currentElementId = self.story.get_current_element().id

    var saveObject = {
        'state': currentState,
        'element': currentElementId
    }

    var file = File.new()
    file.open(SAVE_PATH, File.WRITE)
    file.store_string(JSON.print(saveObject, '\t'))
    file.close()

And then load it to resume our game:

func load_state():
    var file = File.new()
    if file.file_exists(SAVE_PATH):
        file.open(SAVE_PATH, File.READ)
        var data = JSON.parse(file.get_as_text()).result
        file.close()
        story.set_state(data['state'])
        story.set_current_element(data['element'])