SET UP ASK

NOTE: SET UP TELL THE SAME WAY.

NOW, ADD A SPEAK TO VERB:

THE EASY ROUTE:

TRANSCRIPT

Sources:

http://docs.textadventures.co.uk/quest/conversations.html

http://docs.textadventures.co.uk/quest/ask_about.html

UP NEXT: A MORE COMPLICATED WAY TO SET UP THE SPEAK TO SCRIPT

Set up an attribute for each NPC. Call it topics.

Make it a String List:

Now, add a string to match each of your ASK topics:

Now, back to our SPEAK TO verb...

Change what's there to something like this:

OPTION A:

OPTION B:

<!--Saved by Quest 5.7.6404.15496-->
<asl version="550">
  <include ref="English.aslx" />
  <include ref="Core.aslx" />
  <game name="conversations">
    <gameid>d8c62ce2-69e0-4776-897d-8dcce76cac97</gameid>
    <version>1.0</version>
    <firstpublished>2017</firstpublished>
    <feature_asktell />
  </game>
  <object name="room">
    <inherit name="editor_room" />
    <object name="player">
      <inherit name="editor_object" />
      <inherit name="editor_player" />
    </object>
    <object name="Rondo">
      <inherit name="editor_object" />
      <inherit name="namedmale" />
      <speak><![CDATA[You say something or other to Rondo.<br/><br/>He might respond bettter if you ASK RONDO ABOUT something...<br/>]]></speak>
      <ask type="scriptdictionary">
        <item key="game author story">
          msg ("\"Well, I think you'll like what my creator has cooked up for you, after all is said and done,\" says Rondo.")
        </item>
        <item key="conversations conversation">
          msg ("\"They're not simple to set up,\" Rondo replies, \"but conversations are a bit complicated in real life, as well, aren't they?\"")
        </item>
      </ask>
      <askdefault type="script">
        msg ("Rondo just shrugs.")
      </askdefault>
      <usedefaultprefix type="boolean">false</usedefaultprefix>
    </object>
  </object>
</asl>

<!--Saved by Quest 5.7.6404.15496-->
<asl version="550">
  <include ref="English.aslx" />
  <include ref="Core.aslx" />
  <game name="conversations">
    <gameid>d8c62ce2-69e0-4776-897d-8dcce76cac97</gameid>
    <version>1.0</version>
    <firstpublished>2017</firstpublished>
    <feature_asktell />
  </game>
  <object name="room">
    <inherit name="editor_room" />
    <object name="player">
      <inherit name="editor_object" />
      <inherit name="editor_player" />
    </object>
    <object name="Rondo">
      <inherit name="editor_object" />
      <inherit name="namedmale" />
      <speak type="script">
        ShowMenu ("What would you like to ask Rondo about?", Rondo.topics, true) {
          if (not result = null) {
            msg ("You ask Rondo about " + result + ".")
            HandleSingleCommand ("ask Rondo about " + result + "")
          }
        }
      </speak>
      <ask type="scriptdictionary">
        <item key="game author story">
          msg ("\"Well, I think you'll like what my creator has cooked up for you, after all is said and done,\" says Rondo.")
        </item>
        <item key="conversations conversation">
          msg ("\"They're not simple to set up,\" Rondo replies, \"but conversations are a bit complicated in real life, as well, aren't they?\"")
        </item>
      </ask>
      <askdefault type="script">
        msg ("Rondo just shrugs.")
      </askdefault>
      <usedefaultprefix type="boolean">false</usedefaultprefix>
      <topics type="stringlist">
        <value>game</value>
        <value>conversations</value>
      </topics>
    </object>
  </object>
</asl>

Right click this to download it: ConvLib

Make sure to copy/move the library to your game's main folder.

Then, add the library:

Make sure you save then reload.

You will now see the Conversation tab:

Set up an NPC, and make the NPC a Character under the Conversation tab:

Then add TOPIC objects INSIDE of the NPC

• Open the Conversation tab, and select Starting Conversation Topic
• Add the NPC's response in the conversation field
• Enter the topic as the object's alias

That's it for this example.

This will automatically set up speak/talk to on this NPC.

Just start up the game and check it out:

From here, use Pixie's guide-in-progress to set things up (sorry, I haven't played with this until just now, and it's a little complex):
https://github.com/ThePix/quest/wiki/Conversations:-Library

In the last post, we set up an ASK topic object for the dancer. Now, we will build off of that.

Add a new topic to the NPC that you'd like to show up after it is brought up during play:

Remember to add the alias:

Now go to the Conversation tab, and make it a Conversation Topic:

Now, go back to the dancer clear heels object and add the newly created topic to Follow-on topics:

Add a Rondo topic to the dancer.

Create a new topic, dancer beer, set up it's alias, and make it a Conversation topic

• I'm adding a script to this one, too.

Add the newly created topic to the Follow-on topics of the dancer rondo topic object:

TRANSCRIPT

Create a guide, and make it Consultable:

Add a topic object in it (just like you did in the previous steps), and uncheck Automatically hide after showing so the topics won't 'disappear' once they've been accessed:

(I've been adding JS.scrollToEnd to the end of all my scripts that utilize ShowMenu (and, in turn, ClearMenu), but not all of the time. Most of the time, it lines everything up the way I like it, but, if the menu is too long, it will scroll down past ALL of the outputted text.)

Don't forget to add your topic's alias! (Fix your display verbs, too. Add 'Consult' and remove 'Take' if applicable.)

Command pattern:
ask about #text#

Script

npcs = NewObjectList()
opts = NewStringDictionary()
foreach (o, GetDirectChildren(player.parent)) {
  if ((HasTopics(o)) or HasAttribute(o, "ask")) {
    list add (npcs, o)
    dictionary add (opts, o.name, GetDisplayAlias(o))
  }
}
if (ListCount(npcs) = 0) {
  msg ("You can ask, but no one is here to tell you anything.")
}
else if (ListCount(npcs) = 1) {
  if (HasAttribute(GetObject(ObjectListItem(npcs, 0))), "ask") {
    DoAskTell (ObjectListItem(npcs, 0), text, "ask", "askdefault", "DefaultAsk")
  }
  else if (HasTopics(ObjectListItem(npcs, 0))) {
    // TODO: Learn how to trigger the responses like Pixie does it.
    msg ("This part of the command is not set up yet.")
  }
}
else {
  game.npcs = npcs
  game.askabouttext = text
  ShowMenu ("Ask who?", opts, true) {
    if (not result = null) {
      o = GetObject(result)
      if (HasAttribute(o, "ask")) {
        DoAskTell (o, game.askabouttext, "ask", "askdefault", "DefaultAsk")
      }
      else if (HasTopics(o)) {
        // TODO Learn how to trigger the responses like Pixie does it.
        msg ("This part of the command is not set up yet.")
      }
    }
  }
}

It works for Rondo (who has the old setup, not ConvLib):

ALSO

You can't directly ASK NPC ABOUT a topic you set up with ConvLib. You have to SPEAK TO THE NPC first and work from the menu.

This is to keep everything all tidy, you know. Pix has this set up to keep up with every topic that's been discussed and all sorts of other things.

So...

Set up an attribute on game. Name it showreactions, make it a Boolean, and set it to true.

EXCERPT FROM PIXIE'S WIKI:

You should now find that characters have a Reactions tab, with a big text area.

Each character can have a set of reactions. Each reaction will fire only once in a game, and will fire the first time the reaction's condition is true AND the character is in the same room as the player. A character will only ever have one reaction in any turn.

Each reaction is described by four or more lines, composed thus:

The first line must be a @ on a line on its own; this indicates the start of the reaction.

The second line is the name of the reaction. You can give a set of reactions the same name; only one will ever be used.

Third is the condition. The condition should be standard Quest code that will evaluate to true or false (you can use "this" as normal to refer to the character).

The four and all subsequent lines are "what will happen". You can use these to change the game world (to a limited extent) and to display text. These lines can be of various types, depending on the first character, however, most text (anything beginning with a letter or number) will be printed directly to screen.

So, let's apply that:

Rondo will say 'Hi...' the first turn he's in the room with the player, and he'll say the next bit when the player is carrying the beer for the first time.

NOTE: I had to actually create the beer object in the editor, rather than on the fly like it was in the last example, or the turn script checking for the beer's location would throw an error every turn.

Notice how the greeting didn't fire on the first turn even though we were in the room with Rondo?

(Also notice I put the line reading   before his line of dialogue? A <br/> didn't work. That did, though.)

Pixie will probably show us a better way, but I turned the ReactionsTurnScript into a function (called ReactionsFunction), then I call that function from the ReactionsTurnScript (from which I cut and pasted the code into ReactionsFunction; am I being hard to follow? sorry if so). I also call ReactionsFunction AFTER entering the first room for the first time.

Now, Rondo says 'Hi' when play begins.

(NOTE: You may not want this to happen for numerous reasons, but I did in this instance, so I included it.)

More from Pixie's wiki

If the line starts ~ then the rest of the line should be the name of another reaction for this character; that reaction will be removed along with this one.

If the line starts with &, then a script is run. The line should be in the format:

& mary myscript

You can use "this" to stand in for the character the reaction is attached to.

& this myscript

If the line starts with =, + or - then the given attribute is set to, incremented or decremented by the given amount. As before, "this" is supported. You can use strings with =, but + and - are restricted to integers.

Okay, so let's give the dancer a name once you've asked her about herself...

And, just for giggles, lets add a reaction from Ralph (since he's had nothing to do so far):

NEXT UP: Part 8 - FINALE

Set up a Starting Conversation object on Ralph:

Now, set up a Reaction on Ralph that calls the script created in the script we just set up on the Starting Conversation

Here's the entire excerpt from the final section of Pixie's wiki page:

You should now find that characters have a Reactions tab, with a big text area.

Each character can have a set of reactions. Each reaction will fire only once in a game, and will fire the first time the reaction's condition is true AND the character is in the same room as the player. A character will only ever have one reaction in any turn.

Each reaction is described by four or more lines, composed thus:

The first line must be a @ on a line on its own; this indicates the start of the reaction.

The second line is the name of the reaction. You can give a set of reactions the same name; only one will ever be used.

Third is the condition. The condition should be standard Quest code that will evaluate to true or false (you can use "this" as normal to refer to the character).

The four and all subsequent lines are "what will happen". You can use these to change the game world (to a limited extent) and to display text. These lines can be of various types, depending on the first character, however, most text (anything beginning with a letter or number) will be printed directly to screen.

If the line starts ~ then the rest of the line should be the name of another reaction for this character; that reaction will be removed along with this one.

If the line starts with &, then a script is run. The line should be in the format:

& mary excitedscript

You can use "this" to stand in for the character the reaction is attached to.

& this excitedscript

If the line starts with =, + or - then the given attribute is set to, incremented or decremented by the given amount. As before, "this" is supported. You can use strings with =, but + and - are restricted to ints.

Here is an example, with five reactions. The first will fire immediately, and is just text. The second will fire when the player is wearing a plain hat, and the third when wearing a fancy hat. However, the third will delete the second, so if the plain puts on the fancy hat first, the second reaction will never be seen. The last two have the same name, so only one will ever fire.

@
greeting
true
'Hi!' says Mary

@
plain hat
# ghhjhj
plain_hat.worn
'Oh, you are wearing a hat,' says Mary.
& this testscript

@
fancy hat
fancy_hat.worn
'Wow, what a fancy hat,' says Mary.
~ plain hat

@
trophy
player.won_competition and trophy.parent = player
'Cool trophy,' says Mary.

@
trophy
player.won_competition
'Hey I heard you won the completion,' says Mary.
= this alias "Happy Mary"
+ Mary happiness 5

Other things from the ConvLib guide that I didn't use here (just for the sake of completion):

Consultables

A new feature is the "consultable" type. Use this for encyclopedias and computers that the player can use to look stuff up on.

Topics are set up exactly as with conversations. In this case you probably want to untick the "Automatically hide" checkbox for each one.

At its simplest, that is all there is to it, however, you might want to change the "consult" script to fit your system, for example to check if the computer is turned on and connected to the internet.

Go to the object's Attributes tab, and find consult (it will be in grey). Click on Make editable copy, and then you can modify it as you wish.

The important bit is this line, which will handle the topics:

  Converse(this, "Consult ")

However, you may want to test first that the computer is switched on for example (the keyword this refers to the object the script is attached to, by the way).

  if (not this.switchedon) {
    msg("You wonder if you should turn on the computer to use it.")
  }
  else {
    Converse(this, "Consult ")
  }

Display and Hidden

Behind the scenes, each topic has two flags controlling whether it will appear in the menu list or not, display and hidden. The topic will only get show if display is true and hidden is false. Any other combination and it will not appear.

What this means is that if you set a topic to be hidden, and later set it to be displayed, the hidden will take priority, and it will stay hidden.

To get a topic to display, use the ShowTopic function. To hide it, use HideTopic.

  ShowTopic(topic)

  HideTopic(topic) 

Hiding topics is useful when a player's actions stops that being an option. For example, if the player has to choose between two option, each option should hide the other one in the script section.

Tracking status

Setting something to be a Character will automatically give it an integer attribute called state, set to zero. This is not used by the conversation system, but can be useful for you when you are tracking the state of a character.

Every topic has an integer attribute called count, set to zero. This will be increased by one each time the topic is seen, so gives a quick way to check if the player has seen it yet.

Testing

There is a function called TopicTest that will do some basic testing. You can add it to game.start to check your game; it will flag any obvious issues.

Topics without aliases

Topics that try to display new topics that do not exist

Delete it from game.start before publishing!

Alternative Topic Placement

Rather than having the topics inside the character, you can create a new room, and put them all in there. The new room must be named exactly the same, but with "_topics" appended. You may find this more convenient, especially if the character is carrying several items anyway.

Note that you cannot have some topics in the character and some in the topics object. However, you can use one for one character and the other for another.

Topics That Expire

There is a time and place for everything, and what may be a witty retort on moment is a sad and bitter comment ten minutes later. To have topics expire, you must set up a turn script, and have it call IncConvTime (no parameters).

For topics, tick the checkbox to have it expire, and then put the number of turns it will be until it disappears.

More customisation

Various functions and templates can be overriden (i.e., you create your own version of them in your game), to further customise the library.

These are the dynamic templates it uses:

<dynamictemplate name="NoSpeakTopics">"You wonder what you can talk to " + GetDisplayName(object) + " about..."</dynamictemplate>
	

<dynamictemplate name="NoConsultTopics">"You wonder what you can look up with " + GetDisplayName(object) + "."</dynamictemplate>

AddExtraTopics You can use this as a way to add extra topics, for example if you want all your characters to have some standard topics, add them this way.

  <function name="AddExtraTopics" parameters="c, topics">
  </function>

AfterTopicEvent Override this to have something happen after each exchange.

  <function name="AfterTopicEvent">
  </function>

P Generally I recommend meaningful names for functions; in this instance I am copying the name of a print function in Ruby.

This gets called only when the action is successful; for text that is part of the narrative. You can override this in your own code to flag that a command was successful or to display narrative text differently to meta text.

  <function name="P" parameters="s">
    msg(s)
  </function>

<!--Saved by Quest 5.7.6404.15496-->
<asl version="550">
  <include ref="English.aslx" />
  <include ref="Core.aslx" />
  <game name="for ITSLEO">
    <gameid>898e90ef-b9c6-4bc6-9afa-da13651c5f27</gameid>
    <version>1.0</version>
    <firstpublished>2017</firstpublished>
    <feature_asktell />
  </game>
  <command name="alttellto">
    <pattern type="string"><![CDATA[^(?<object>.*), (?<text>.*)$]]></pattern>
    <script>
      text = LCase(text)
      if (StartsWith(text, "how are you")) {
        HandleSingleCommand (text + " " + GetDisplayName(object))
      }
      else {
        DoAskTell (object, text, "tellto", "telltodefault", "DefaultTellTo")
      }
    </script>
  </command>
  <object name="room">
    <inherit name="editor_room" />
    <object name="player">
      <inherit name="editor_object" />
      <inherit name="editor_player" />
    </object>
    <object name="KV">
      <inherit name="editor_object" />
      <inherit name="namedmale" />
      <speak>"Ciao!" says KV.  "Try entering: ASK KV ABOUT something."</speak>
      <howareyou>"I'm fine," KV replies.  "I hope you are, too!"</howareyou>
      <askdefault type="script">
        msg ("\"I'm not programmed to know that,\" shrugs KV.")
      </askdefault>
      <telldefault type="script">
      </telldefault>
      <ask type="scriptdictionary">
        <item key="game">
          msg ("\"It's just an example game,\" says KV.")
        </item>
      </ask>
      <usestandardverblist />
      <telltodefault type="script">
        msg ("KV doesn't take orders from the likes of you.")
      </telltodefault>
    </object>
  </object>
  <verb>
    <property>howareyou</property>
    <pattern>how are you</pattern>
    <defaultexpression>"You can't how are you " + object.article + "."</defaultexpression>
  </verb>
</asl>