I'm new to choicescript. I did read the tutorial, but am still frustrated

Game Development ChoiceScript Help
1

Hello,

I’m sorry if this kind of discussion has been started already. However, I’m a newb, so please be kind.

I have no computer programming experience. I’m an aspiring writer who was turned to choicescript as an idea to get myself writing more, and in a creative way.

Cut to the chase-- I downloaded choicescript. I’ve read the tutorial and the help files many, many times. My head hurts from trying to understand.

Without explaining in irritating newbie fashion what I’m not getting, I was wondering if there is a kind soul that wouldn’t mind communicating with me and at least walking me through this beginning stage.

I very much want to learn how to do this. I was excited to learn about choicescript, but while I did feel daunted I became determined to learn. However, I feel the tutorial is…er, a little lacking for someone like myself with absolutely no programming experience.

So if anyone can please help, I’d be ever so grateful!
Thank you.
Natalie

2

First of all, Welcome to Choice Of Games! :smiley:
I’d be happy to PM you once I get on my computer because unfortuately, phone keyboards aren’t my thing, but i’ll try to explain the basics to you.
-Daisuke

3

Hi Natalie, you might also see if Reaperoa’s ChoiceScript Guide is helpful:
http://cogcommunity.webs.com/ChoiceScriptGuide/index.html

4

It’s incredibly hard to teach someone programming theory AND teach them how to use a particular framework (in this case, choice-script) at the same time, granted.

But you’re not alone, so please, do not feel dumb or defeated, or anything like that, we’ve all been there at some point, just give it time!

If you need any help at all, I’ll be more than happy to give it you, whether it’s specific choice-script questions or from-the-ground-up programming/scripting, as long as you’re willing to learn, we can get you through this in no time.

If you like the sound of that, I have but one question of my own:
Do you have a preferred method of communication? Email/Skype/MSN etc

5

@writerwitch First, welcome, yada yada ect.

Now, @Havenstone pointed out my guide (thanks), and I think that covers everything that the documentation doesn’t. In the case that it doesn’t, can you try to specify what problems you’re having? It’s really hard to know what ‘helps’ without knowing anything about what’s wrong in the first place.

6

Hi all,

First, Daisuke, I sent you a message.

Havenstone, thanks for the link. I was so happy to see that there was another, more detailed tutorial.

Reaperoa, I love your tutorial, except there’s one thing. I went through the help where it talked about how to create choices. When I selected the option to “go on” I got an error message. The next page had some button which when clicked, went to another page. On this page there were options, but no button to click next. I’m not sure if there is a problem on my end or with the tutorial, but I thought I’d put that out there.

In any event, bless you for that tutorial!

Now, CJW I believe? I have AIM and MSN. If any of you kind souls want to contact me via that, I would be ever so grateful. I really think I’m going to need someone to go back-and-forth with this.

But to get you guys started, this is what I’m having an issue.

I followed Reaperoa’s tutorial on how to make choices. I swear I followed it to the letter, but it was first only showing me choice 2 and not choice one.

Somehow I added a space somewhere and suddenly, great I thought, both choice 1 and choice 2 are ther!

Unfortunately, when I clicked the option for my choice 1, it gave me an error.

Choice 2 is fine appaerntly and does what it’s supposed to do with no error messages.

I’ve fiddled and fiddled and fiddled, but I don’t know what’s wrong.

The error message says:

Line 23: Invalid indent, expected at least one ‘choice’

I’m obviously having issues understanding this spaces and indent thing. Forgive the stupid question, but how do you know how many spaces/tab indents to put on each line?

I’ll say thanks in advance for the help! As I said, I know this will take some time to get used to, however, at the moment I have nothing but time.
Natalie

7

There is no set amount of spaces you are required to indent your code by, however, it is vital that you keep it consistent. For e.g.


*choice
 #Option 1
 #Option 2

^That’s fine,
so is this:


*choice
       #Option 1
       #Option 2

However, this is not,


*choice
   #Option 1
 #Option 2

because your indentation isn’t consistent. In a nutshell, your *choice commands should all line up, and all your choice options (#'s) should all line up.

You can use the ‘tab’ key to indent things if you like, it’s an easy way to keep things even, but don’t use that if you want to use spaces, choicescript doesn’t let you use both.

If you message me your msn id, I’ll see if I can’t help you in real-time as and when I can. Other than that, feel free to just ask away in this thread, you’ll get answers a lot quicker where more people can answer :slight_smile:

8

@CJW < code> doesn’t work, but < pre> does.

@writerwitch Yea, I never finished the tutorial, but I don’t remember there being any point where it would crash. I may have to get back to it some day soon. I thought I set it up to work until it put up a message where I stopped, but I may be wrong (or I may have worked on a touch more after posting and never updated it).

Anyways, it sounds like you’re indeed having trouble with indentation.
-First, can you post what you’ve written? Put < pre> before the first line and < /pre> (not including the spaces) after the last to preserve the spacing on the forums.
-Second, let me recommend Notepad++, that way you don’t have to count line numbers to find out where the problem is.
-Third, you may want to turn off auto-indentation for Notepad++ if you’re using it. (Setting>Preferences>MISC.>Auto-Indent).

9

Honestly @Reaperoa I personally think you should be gifted with endless bounties for that tutorial idea. I went through it, and actually understood a bit. If i ever get the time (and a good idea) your tutorial would really be my only chance at writing a game, given my cluelessness with all things programming.

P.S. Thought it was genius to make it choicescript, very fitting

10

@Reaperoa …looks fine to me?

11

@CJW I actually edited your post. IIRC, it look fine for half an hour (how long you have to edit a post) then it screws up. For example, look at this in a half hour or so.
This in the line with on it and zero spaces.
This has zero spaces
This has one space
This has two spaces
This has three spaces`

12

Weird… But, thanks :slight_smile:
I’ll use pre next time!