rink

rink, an ink parser for Roblox Lua/Luau, which uses pink, an ink parser for pure Lua.

DISCLAIMER

This parser's behavior is subject to change! pink is still WIP, and as such, its derived projects are also WIP.

Dependencies

import by Vocksel

Setup

Download the src folder and put it in your folder of choice.

Usage

local getStory = require(path.to.pink)

local storyPath: StringValue = "/ReplicatedStorage/Dialogue/Story"
local story = getStory(storyPath)

story.continue() -- Prints all lines before a choice
story.chooseChoiceIndex(1) -- Choose a choice
story.continue() -- Prints the choice (if not surrounded by square brackets) and all lines after it
... -- Reach the end of the story (-> END or -> DONE in ink file)
story.continue() -- Returns ""

TODOs

Proper test dialogue using ink test cases
Publish to wally

Gotchas

Some of these gotchas reflects the expected behavior as documented in Writing With Ink.

Ink files are StringValues in Roblox; they must have the .txt extension.
story.continue() returns all lines before selecting an option, rather than each line. This seems to be the default behavior for pink, but I'm not certain if this was the author's intention.
Pass variables with {type, "value"}, where type takes on the following values,
- type = "float", "int", "bool", "str"
- Variables are not set until after choice selection. This appears to be unintended behavior.
After selecting an option, if the option isn't suppressed (e.g. [option]), then story.continue() also prints the option and the lines after it.
After selecting an option with story.chooseChoiceIndex(k), the choice is removed from story.currentChoices.
pink trims the last character on the last line, which can result in some unexpected behavior. I recommend adding an empty line at the end of your ink file.