rpg-dialogue

Install

$ npm install --save-dev rpg-dialogue

Description

An es6 class for handling dialogue trees, useful for RPG games.

Features

• Simple interface: dialogue.interact(id);
• Dialogue tree defined in HTML
• Conditional branches
• Branch actions

Usage

Code:

import RPGDialogue from 'rpg-dialogue';
import template from 'demo.pug';
 
let dialogue = new RPGDialogue(template());
dialogue.interact(id);                     //interact with a specific dialogue branch

Dialogue tree:

d#0 Hello world
  d(next=1) A good day to you too, sir and/or madam!
  d(next=2) Bye.
 
d#1 Thanks!
  d(next=2)
 
d#2 Bye

API

Instantiate a new dialogue with a template dialogue tree

let dialogue = new RPGDialogue(template);

.interact(id, [conditions, actions])

Interact with the dialogue tree

let response = dialogue.interact(0);
 

This will return a JSON object containing a response text and subsequent dialogue options

{
  "text": "Hello world",
  "responses": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "text": "A good day to you too, sir!"
    },
    {
      "id": 2,
      "text": "Bye."
    }
  ]
}

You would then have the option to continue with dialogue.interact(1) or dialogue.interact(2).

Templates

Templates are entirely defined as HTML.

To make life easier it is recommended to combine this with your favourite templating language. For the purpose of this documentation we will use Pug but you are free to pick whichever one you prefer, even native html.

d#0 Hello world
  d(next=1) A good day to you too, sir!
  d(next=2) Bye.
 
d#1 Thanks!
  d(next=2)
 
d#2 Bye

import helloWorld from 'hello-world.pug';
import RPGDialogue from 'rpg-dialogue';
 
let dialogue = new RPGDialogue(helloWorld());
dialogue.interact(0);

ID

Use an ID to define a point in your dialogue that can be interacted with.

d#0 Hello world

Next

Use the next attribute to have dialogue options lead to a different point within the dialogue.

d#0 Hello world
  d(next=1) Thanks
 
d#1 Bye!

Linear text

ID's can be omitted for non-branching dialogue trees

d#0 Stay a while and listen
  d I have an amazing story to tell you
   d But time is running short
    d(next=1) Ok...
 
d#1 Bye!

Conditions

Conditions can be defined to control which branches can be accessed by the dialogue. This lets your application have control over when a specific dialogue option is available or not. Conditions can be negated with !.

d#0 Are you alive?
  d(next=1, if='IS_ALIVE') Yes!
  d(next=1, if='!IS_ALIVE') Nope!
  d(next=2) Maybe...
 
d#1 Cool!
d#2 Hmmmm...

Then, in your code:

const CONDITIONS = {
  IS_ALIVE: () => player.hp > 0,
  IS_PLAYER: true
}
 
let response = dialogue.interact(0, CONDITIONS);

The conditions must map to a truthy value or a function that returns a truthy value

Actions

Actions can be defined to trigger when a certain branch is reached in the dialogue. This lets the dialogue trigger functions within your application.

d#0 Do you feel lucky? Punk.
  d(next=1) Yes!
  d(next=2) Nope...
 
d#1 Okay then.
 
d#2(then='KILL_PLAYER') Wrong answer!

const ACTIONS = {
  KILL_PLAYER: () => player.kill()
}
 
let response = dialogue.interact(0, null, ACTIONS);

Any action that is not a valid function will be ignored