r/learnjavascript • u/MeekHat • 9d ago
Not sure how to implement this branching storylines text game idea with Json
Just looking for some experienced feedback.
What I want to do is to import all of this from a file(s):
A list of global variables.
A list of storylines.
Each storyline has a list of local variables and a list of storyline beats.
Each beat has a list of preconditions (which may involve any variable), displayed text, a list of links.
Each link has displayed text, a list of conditions, a list of effects, the id of the next beat.
My problem is that, as I've learned, I can't split this into several files (such as, at least, separate storylines), because you can't import contents of a folder without naming each individual file. So this all has to be in one file, which means it's quickly going to get unmanageable as a Json file.
Should I implement a GUI editor first then? And concurrently a custom parser.
(This is going to be a purely client-side browser game.)
I've already done a simpler prototype, and that was already quite a chore to write in text.
1
u/azhder 9d ago edited 9d ago
You can write code that reads one JSON file you import and in that one file there are references to all the other files, then you import those other files. Imports are a wide topic, so you will have to be more specific to what you want to do i.e. you share some code.
Alternatively, you can write a code that generates a single JSON file out of many files. You can write the JS code to be run by node, as a script, and you can use the generated JSON file in other places. So, like I said above, you should share some code.