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Choices
In this tutorial, you will learn to let the player choose what a character says, with the Choice_List command. In the morning scene, after Alice offers John a coffee, a menu of four choices lets the player pick John's answer, and Alice or John reacts to it. Before You Start This tutorial continues the Dialogue of the Branching tutorial. It must be open in Candy Dialogue Creator: if you saved it (File > Save) and closed Candy Dialogue Creator since, open it again with File > Load Dialogue... The reactions to the choices use the LM, Return and Bridge commands, as the results of the If chain do in the Branching tutorial. 1. Writing the Reactions Each choice has its own reaction. The four reactions are written in one Block, Drinks, each starting with an LM command and ending with a Return command. 1. Add a Block to Conversation_1, named "Drinks". 2. Write the four reactions in Drinks: for each one, an LM command with its Reference, a Spoken Line, and a Return command.
LM ReferenceSpeakerPortraitText
CoffeeAliceHappy.pngOne strong coffee, coming right up.
TeaAlice(empty)Green or black? Never mind, I will surprise you.
WaterJohn(empty)I think I had enough caffeine for a week.
NothingAliceSkeptical.pngSuit yourself. More coffee for me.
2. Adding the Menu The menu goes in Block_2 of Conversation_1, after Alice offers a coffee. 1. In Block_2, select Alice's Line: "Come on, I will make you a coffee." 2. Add a Spoken Line after it: Alice, with no portrait, saying "Or would you prefer something else?" 3. With that Line selected, open the Choice tab of the Buttons panel, and click Choice List. The Choice_List command is added before the End command, and its form is displayed. 4. In the Title field, write "Morning Coffee". 5. In the Prompt field, write "What does John want?"
Tutorial Choices List
The Title and the Prompt are displayed at the top of the menu, above the choices. Both are optional: a menu without them displays only its choices. The form contains many other fields, for menus of every kind. A simple menu leaves all of them at their default value. 3. Adding the Choices A menu contains categories, and each category contains choices. A menu with a single category displays all its choices at once. 1. In the Field Tree, on the left of the form, click + Category. Category_1 is added to the menu, and selected. 2. Click + Choice four times. Choice_1, Choice_2, Choice_3 and Choice_4 are added to Category_1. 3. Select Choice_1 in the Field Tree. In its Label field, write "A coffee, please."
Tutorial Choices Choice
4. Scroll down to the Finish fields of Choice_1. Leave Type at Bridge. In Block, write "Drinks", and in Line, write "Coffee".
Tutorial Choices Finish
5. Fill in the three other choices the same way:
ChoiceLabelFinish Line
Choice_2Tea, if you have some.Tea
Choice_3Just water.Water
Choice_4Nothing, thanks.Nothing
Every choice's Finish Block is Drinks. How the Menu Works A choice's Label is the text displayed on its button. A choice's Finish fields set what happens when the player picks it. With the Type Bridge, the menu is hidden, and the Dialogue continues in the Block and at the Line set by Block and Line, like the Bridge commands of the If chain. When the reaction's Return command is reached, the menu closes, and the Dialogue continues after the Choice_List command: here, with the End command. 4. Testing the Menu 1. Click Test. If you entered a Conversation in the Test window in the Conversations tutorial, empty it first, with its ✕ button, so that the test starts with the morning scene. After Alice asks "Or would you prefer something else?", the menu displays its Title, its Prompt and the four choices:
Tutorial Choices Menu
2. Pick a choice: click its button, or select it with the arrow keys and press Enter. The menu closes, the reaction to the choice is displayed, and the Dialogue ends. Test again to pick another choice. Picking "A coffee, please." displays Alice's reaction:
Tutorial Choices Coffee
Picking "Just water." displays John's:
Tutorial Choices Water
If the Test Fails • The menu isn't displayed: check that the Choice_List command contains Category_1, and that Category_1 contains the four choices. • Picking a choice ends the Dialogue without a reaction: check the choice's Finish fields. Block must be "Drinks", and Line must be the Reference of an LM command in Drinks, written exactly the same way. • The Dialogue continues into the next reaction: check that each reaction ends with a Return command. The player now decides how John answers Alice, and each answer has its own reaction, all of them in the Drinks Block.