Like others have said, there's no
best way of doing it, and generally, if you're going to actually make a scripted system for it, chances are, no matter how you do it, it's gonna get pretty nesty. This is one solution I've come up with:
Code: Select all
shopkeeperDialogue = {
text = "Hello! How may I help you?",
choices = {
{
text = "Buy Item",
dialogue = {
text = "What would you like to buy today?",
choices = {
{
text = "Sword",
action = buySword,
dialogue = {
text = "Here's your sword. Thank you for your purchase!",
},
},
{
text = "Shield",
action = buyShield,
dialogue = {
text = "Here's your shield. Thank you for your purchase!",
},
},
},
},
},
{
text = "Who are you?",
dialogue = {
text = "I'm the weapons keeper. You can buy swords or shields from me.",
},
},
},
}
This would basically be an example format for an NPC dialogue table. It'd start at the top level, showing the text property. Then it reads if the dialogue has choices. If so, displays them all to the user and waits for them to select one. When they select the choice, the choice's "dialogue" property becomes the new displayed dialogue, and the process is repeated until the current dialogue doesn't have a "choices" field. The action field is an optional function that can be called whenever a choice is selected, such as, buying a weapon, or opening up a shop GUI for instance.
For example, here, the shopkeeper will ask "how may I help you", then display the choices "Buy Item" or "Who are you?". If you select "Buy Item", the text "What would you like to buy today?" will be displayed, then the choices "Sword" and "Shield". Whichever you pick, their subsequent dialogue text will be shown, and the dialogue will end.
Here's a raw Lua implementation to get somewhat of an idea of how you'd implement something like this.
Code: Select all
function buySword()
print "You've bought a sword!"
end
function buyShield()
print "You've bought a shield!"
end
shopkeeperDialogue = {
text = "Hello! How may I help you?",
choices = {
{
text = "Buy Item",
dialogue = {
text = "What would you like to buy today?",
choices = {
{
text = "Sword",
action = buySword,
dialogue = {
text = "Here's your sword. Thank you for your purchase!",
},
},
{
text = "Shield",
action = buyShield,
dialogue = {
text = "Here's your shield. Thank you for your purchase!",
},
},
},
},
},
{
text = "Who are you?",
dialogue = {
text = "I'm the weapons keeper. You can buy swords or shields from me."
},
},
},
}
local dialogue = shopkeeperDialogue
while dialogue do
print(dialogue.text)
if dialogue.choices then
for i,choice in ipairs(dialogue.choices) do
print(i, choice.text)
end
io.write('> ')
local choiceNum = io.read('*n')
local choice = dialogue.choices[choiceNum]
if choice then
if choice.action then
choice.action()
end
dialogue = choice.dialogue
end
else
dialogue = nil
end
end