Dendry

This is a new project aimed at developing a suite of command line tools and a common file format for hypertext interactive fiction.

The best way to get started with dendry is to read smhwr's guide.

To install:

npm install -g .

To create a new project:

dendry new [project name]

To create a playable html/js from a dendry project:

dendry make-html

Dendry scene keywords

These are elements that can be used following a scene declaration. A scene declaration is a line that contains @scene_name.

Note: all of these can be written in camelCase or dash-between-words.

    title: string
    subtitle: string
    unavailable-subtitle: string
    view-if: boolean expression
    choose-if: boolean expression
    on-arrival: semicolon-separated list of commands
    on-departure: semicolon-separated list of commands
    go-to: name of scene, or semicolon-separated list of the format 'scene1 if <condition>'
    tags: comma-separated list of tags
    max-visits: int
    priority: int (I'm not sure how this works yet)
    frequency: I'm not sure how this works yet

    is-special: boolean
    set-bg: path to background image, or hex color
    set-jump: name of scene

Special scene names

prevScene - always goes to the previous scene.

jumpScene - always goes to the scene designated by the last set-jump command.

backSpecialScene - goes to the previous scene visited before entering the last visited special scene (a special scene is designated by is-special: true).

Dendry syntax reference

All of these are elements that can be used in the body text.

    *some words* - emphasis
    **some words** - strong emphasis
    > paragraph - quotation
    >> paragraph - attribution
    = paragraph - heading
    // + <newline> - manual line break
    <blank line> - paragraph break
    --- - horizontal rule / break
    [some words] - hidable section
    [+ foo : bar +] - insert quality value with optional qdisplay
    [? if condition: text ?] - conditional display of text
    {!<span class="foo">aaa</span>!} - raw html
    #comment - comment

Examples

Displaying variables in text: [+ var +]

Varying text based on a condition: [? if var = 1 : something ?]

Basic scene example:

title: scene0
go-to: scene1

# this is the start of the .scene.dry file.

@scene1
title: Scene
subtitle: subtitle of the scene
unavailable-subtitle: scene cannot be selected
view-if: var1 = 1 and (var2 = 2 or var3 = 3)
choose-if: var4 = 4
on-arrival: v2 = 1; v3 = 3; vs = "abc"
tags: start, tag1, tag2
new-page: true
max-visits: 2

Content goes here.

var1: [+ var1 +]

vs: [+ vs +]

[? if var1 = 1 : aaaaa ?]

# these are links

- @scene2: Choice 1
- @scene3: Choice 2


@scene2

Content for scene2 goes here.

@scene3

Content for scene3 goes here.

Including javascript in on-arrival: {! Q['var1'] = Math.cos(Math.PI/4); !}

Including javascript in view-if: {! return ((Q['a'] || 0)===(Q['b'] || 0)); !}

Debugging

In the browser, the state is stored as dendryUI.dendryEngine.state. Qualities are at dendryUI.dendryEngine.state.qualities. You can use these variables in the browser console to inspect or alter the current state of the game.

Example projects with source code

Given the current sparsity of the documentation, a good way to learn dendry is to read through the source code of existing games.

Bee by Emily Short

Pageant by Autumn Chen

New Year's Eve, 2019 by Autumn Chen

For a list of currently known dendry projects, see IFDB.

aucchen / dendry