#if template

I'm finally getting into writing my very own interactive fiction story. After hemming and hawing over which scripting language to use, I settled on Ink because of its unobtrusive syntax.

Problem is, I couldn't seem to find a web template with all the features the Twine templates have (or even the default Choice of Games template for that matter).

So I added a ton of functionality to the basic Inky HTML template. Now, it's got a lot of the stuff I wanted:

proper save/load (with autosave + export/import!),

easy markdown-style text formatting,

support for user input to Ink story variable,

support for images and audio,

a notifications system,

special pages for things like character sheets,

a font setting (with OpenDyslexic option),

light/dark themes,

a mobile-friendly design.

The whole thing is designed so you literally don't have to touch any code (unless you want to) - just compile your Ink story to JSON and swap it in. That's it.

I figured I'd share in case anyone else is looking for a good home for their interactive Ink stories, so I put together a little demo to show it off.

Demo: https://remy-vim.itch.io/ink-template

Source: https://github.com/RemyVim/ink-if-story-template

It's all free and open source, obviously. And it's in active development since there are still some features I'd like to add.

Is this procrastination? Probably. But is it fun to make? Definitely!

Hello Folks! I hope you are all having a good day. I finally uploaded the basic Interactive Fiction Template for Ren’Py the other night. It’s very basic at the moment but it’s a good starting basis. It’s main features so far are

- Text Box being changed to suit a IF Template - Full page rather than dialogue box.

- Save layout changed to suit IF Games (No pictures) Also added nameable saves thanks to Ayael.

- Pronoun tool thanks too Npckc.

- A quick intro that shows off Variables.

Special Mention to Shawna for all your coding help!

Things I have planned

- More in-depth Variables and explanations. - Stat’s page that has some placeholder stats that can be changed to suit your needs. 

- Codex page.

Hello Everyone!  I should be studying but instead I decided to procrastinate and make some example pictures of coding choices in different IF Programs. I wanted to do this to show people how very similar they actually all are. The formula is pretty easy. 3 choices leading to 3 separate sections. I haven’t added any variables to these yet. (Variables are like setting the MC’s Eye colour or adding +10 Charming)

Ren’Py

Twine

First picture is the first “box” with the choices

Second is so you can see how they link

Choice Script

Ink

The first is the coded choice The second is how it appears once picked

As you can see by the examples the layout is actually pretty similar on all the programs.

List the choice.

List where it links too.

The linked choice 

So if you can code one style, You can probably code in any of them so it’s really about what you prefer and what program is gonna give you the features you want. Hope this helps to clear up any confusion about the programs. Do people like seeing these comparisons? 

Are they helpful?

Would you like me to post more?

Hello Folks,

Today I’m going to take you through how to set up Variables in Ren’Py and what they would be used for in Interactive Fiction or Visual Novel games.

What is a variable?

A variable is basically just a way to store information or value as it is called in coding.

Some examples of that are Player Names, Pronouns, Stats, Health, Inventory. Honestly the list is endless and is only limited by your imagination.

You want a counter for every time you player sees a puppy. You can do that haha.

There are 3 main types of Variables I’ve found that come up the most in coding IF games. 

Boolean Values

Number Values

String Values

Things that are super important to remember. Variables have to be unique. This is because if you use the same variable name twice it will overwrite the input data to the new data. This works great if you want to add increases in Stat’s or decreases in health as it updates it but not for things like the Player Name for example. Steps

1. Create the Variable

You can set this up at the top of you main script.rpy Page or a separate variables.rpy 

My IF Template will come with a varaibales.rpy included for you to edit. 

Formula for True/False (Boolean) variable_name = False

Word Variables (String) You can set up Word Variables as None if you prefer it’s up to you. I always do false simply to save time when I writing a bunch of new variables some people prefer None so they can tell the difference between the 2 variables at a glance. variable_name = None or variable_name = False

Formula for Number Variables variable_name = 0

This is because Ren’Py will give you an error when it tries to run if it can’t find a variable. So it must be created first. You don’t have to type in init python: if you are listing the variables in the main script file as it already has it at the top. But if you create a new file for variables (like I have in the template) you need to type this at the top so Ren’Py can recognise it. 

2. Make the menu for the variable

If you want to see how to make a menu in Ren’Py please take a look at my Coding Choice Examples Post. I will be looking at doing a more in-depth post on Ren’Py in the future as well as having a few example menus in the template.

3. Set the variable in the menu. This is done by writing $ variable_name = "value"

And that’s it Voila! Your Variable is created and set, when the player chooses this menu choice it will set the string_name variable to words.

Want to display your variable? Simply type

[variable_name] 

So if we wrote

"Tell me the [string_name]."

The player would see the 

Tell me the words. I will show you different ways to display your variable soon.

Wait whats the difference between the Variables?

I will be going into more detail in a future post about variables but at the moment you can take a quick look at the top picture for a brief explanation. 

Variables are super important to Interactive Fiction so it’s great that Ren’Py makes it so easy to code. 

Today I'm back to show you how to use variables in IF Statements.

If you didn’t see my last post about setting up variables I suggest checking it out so you know how to set up variables in Ren’Py.

If you already know then please Read On!

Today I’m going to talk about mainly Conditional IF Statements in Ren’Py but they pretty much work the same way in most programs.

There are a couple of levels of IF Statements so we are gonna take them one at a time as they build upon each other. Conditional Statements are pretty simple. They pretty much break down to - If the condition is met/true then do this action.

So that could be extra dialogue, jumping to a new section, unlocking a picture or a whole bunch of other functions. Today we are just going to look at it as adding extra text.

If Statement

If the condition (If Condition) is met (True) then do this action (If Block) then continue on (Continued Text).

If the condition (If Condition) is not met (False) then continue on (Continued Text).

Ren'py Code

So this means that if the stoic variable is True it displays:

Start Text

Stoic Text

Continued Text

If the stoic variable is False then it displays:

Start Text

Continued Text

If Else Statement

If the condition (If Condition) is met (True) then do this action (If Block) then continue on (Continued Text).

If the condition (If Condition) is not met (False) then do this action (Else Block) then continue on (Continued Text).

Ren'py Code

So this means that if the stoic variable is True it displays:

Start Text Stoic Text Continued Text

If the stoic variable is False then it displays:

Start Text

Else Text Continued Text

This allows you to still add extra text not attached to a variable. But what if you want different text to display for different variables. For Example Stoic, Funny or Charming.

IF Elif Statements

(Shortened to Elif - 'el'se 'if' = elif)

Also known as If Else If Statements

If the condition (If Condition) is met (True) then do this action (If Block) then continue on (Continued Text).

If the condition (If Condition) is not met (False) then go to (Elif Condition) and if this condition is met (True) then do this action (Elif Block) then continue on (Continued Text).

If the (If Condition) and (Elif Condition) are not met (False) then got to (Else condition), then continue on to (Else Block) then (Continued Text).

Ok, I get this looks pretty complicated but lets break it down!

Ren’Py Code

So this means that if the stoic variable is True it displays:

Start Text Stoic Text Continued Text

If the stoic variable is False then it continues on to charming variable and if that variable is True it displays:

Start Text

Charming Text Continued Text

If both the stoic variable and charming variable are False then it continues on to the else section and displays:

Start Text

Else Text

Continued Text

So the easiest way to describe it i can think of is.

If this is true do this! 

If this is not true go to next elif statement.

Repeat down the list until a statement is true or you get to the else statement. 

Important! - You can not display more than one statement at a time and it will always display the first one it finds to be true. So even if the stoic variable and charming variable are both true it will only display the stoic text because that’s the first statement it came across.  

You can do as many elif statements as you want just remember once it finds one that’s true it will use that.

Conculsion 

Using If statements is a great way to flavour dialogue or text and it’s very usefully in branching pathways of text and gameplay.

YOU DID IT! You got to the end.

I know it might seem like a bit to take in, but once you get the hang of it you will be using IF Statements like a pro.

I’ve been making some good headway on the Template! I’ve decided to theme it to the website to begin with and have it as a free resources for people. I’ve had a few people chat about it with me and the main question I’ve had come up is the option to have the player add their own variable. 

What does this mean?

It means when you ask the player what “Eye Color” they have for example and they can select from a list or they can enter their own. 

Hello everyone! Today I’m back with probably the main question I see popping up a lot around the place. Why use Ren’Py when you have other great options for IF writing?

I want to preface and say I have tried other programs, I have tried Ink and Twine and they are both amazing. I’ve played many Twine games and are following quite a few in-development games being made right now on Twine. So why didn’t I post about Twine? First up was the save issue.

Twine is great but saves can be tricky. Saves aren’t in built to the system so you need to code it yourself or use an add on. Kinda like a plugin.

You can use Harlowe but it’s not super simple to build the code in for saves, especially for a newbie starting out.

That’s why most people are using Sugarcube with Twine because it has a in-built save feature! Which is awesome and it looks so nice! 

However Sugarcube runs into issues saving on mobile devices and quite often if your history is reset or your cache, it wipes your saves. *crying* On PC you can Save to Disc which downloads your save files for safe keeping but sadly this doesn't work on mobile. 

I spent a lot of time looking into this and YES you can port Twine to mobile but it’s, it’s not easy. Like your getting into Node.js and command lines and rebuilding using Cordova and like it’s a lot.

So then we come to our second issue. Porting your game to Mobile

Some people will be like, why do you care about mobile? Mobile is dominated by those pay-to-win games and time-block games. I don’t need to have my game on there.  And I mean, you don’t. That’s totally up to you. I’m not here to tell you what you should do with your game. I’m just here to offer you some options that will hopefully, if you choose to, make your life easier in the long run. Or give your some direction if you are just starting out. 

The below graph is why I personally think Mobile is important. This is the results from my website landing page in the last 90 days.

51% of visits were from Mobile devices! More and more people are using their phones to play games, use apps and access the net.

I believe Mobile is a huge area of opportunity for Visual Novel games and Interactive Fiction games. 

It has a untapped market of standard book readers who can easily move over to interactive fiction of all kinds, both text-based and visual.  And it’s also about accessibility and reach. We can’t always be at our computers and there are some people who don’t have access to a computer at all so making games for mobile can really grow the amount of people who have access to your game. Even if it’s a free game.