Hey everyone, I’m new to the community and trying to figure out how to write in this language. The official tutorial isn’t very clear to me, does anyone know of a simpler way to get my teeth into the system? I tried to read Reaper’s tutorial but it kept coming up as page not found. Any help would be great, thanks!
Specifically my current thing is, how do I set statistics? in my file that I’m using to get used to the language I began with
*create gender
*create headpain
*create awesomeness
*create stupidness
*create moneis
*set moneis 100
*set headpain 50
*set awesomeness 50
*set stupidness 50
And then began the actual story, but I find when I hit stats the stats I put in do not come up, and instead two other stats that are unfamiliar do. Also, how do I create a variable for money, the same way the other variables are made? Money obviously wouldn’t be on a scaleof 1-100, though.
Go to mygame.js file, edit the stats ,strenght: 0 or whatever you have in there, and change it to ,headpain: 0, with the proper indentation and comma in front. Do the sane with all the others unless you want text, in which case make the stat like this ,name: “no_name”. If you need more help pm me.
The lack of a simplified, complete tutorial has been a problem for a while now. It’s just a lot of information that takes a lot of time to put together.
I’m working on one for some of my more tech-challenged friends but I might just release it for everyone once I’m done. Unfortunately, I’m still working on the variables section so it can’t help with the immediate problem. >_<
For now, lots of people working on their own games are willing to answer questions if you PM them. 
- All variables are created in a similar manner (the create command, the temp command, or by defining them in mygame.js). The create command however has been deprecated and is being phased out. So you should use one of the other two methods whenever possible.
No variable is limited to 100. It’s just that with “fairmath” you can keep values between 1 and 99 if you wish, and scale increases/decreases depending on the current score. You don’t have to use fairmath however. You are free to add, subtract, multiply, and divide variables to your heart’s content. Fairmath is described in the advanced choicescript tutorial. Regular math with variables is explained in the introductory tutorial.
- Stats will only come up if they’re listed in the choicescript_stats.txt file in the scenes folder. The Customizing the ChoiceScript Stats Screen manual will help you with that. Note that if you want to take advantage of the pretty bar chart for stats, they’ll have to be on a percentile scale between 1 and 100.
I unfortunately have to agree with OP and CS_Closet-- the official tutorial (and even the wiki) can be quite a bit for a beginner to digest, especially if you don’t already have a strong background in programming.
However, on that note I want to thank CS (VERY MUCH) and provide this link, as it helped me immensely to get started:
http://countersongscloset.webs.com/tutorial
Thanks again, CS! And do you have any plans to expand on the work you’ve already done on that?
I absolutely can.
Work stopped on it since I thought it might be a bit redundant with the far more detailed wiki established, but if interest is still there, I’m happy to expand. Glad I could be of service.
I’m glad people still find it useful. I’ll work on adding to it after New Years. I also want to add some links to the wiki so that more detailed information is easily accessible in case anyone wants to look into more advanced concepts.
@CS_Closet - You could just add your tutorial to the wiki, it would make it much easier to find? It is lacking a more comprehensive introduction.
I think the tutorial on the site and the wiki, while valuable resources, are written a little more in a manner that someone already familiar with programming will understand.
I thought the way you (CS_Closet) set up the examples was nice too.
In defense of whoever wrote the official tutorial, I will say that writing instructions, especially regarding technical stuff, can be VERY tricky sometimes. Especially if the author is highly knowledgeable and writing for the benefit of a beginner. It can be more difficult to spot where your extensive knowledge may be causing a gap in someone else’ understanding.
@CS_Closet Just to echo @CJW here; yours is still the tutorial I’ll most often provide a link to when I see a complete beginner asking for help, and then add the Wiki’s “Beginner’s Tutorial” link to move on to if they can follow yours . . . (no real point if they can’t).
It’s fair to say that the current Wiki Tutorial provides too much information for a complete novice, i.e. it has ended up as more of an “Intermediate Level Tutorial” than something for beginners. This is a topic the Wiki Admin have discussed but it does come down to someone having enough spare time to do something about it, and lately we’ve all been very busy with our own projects.
Rather then replicate efforts unnecessarily, it would indeed make sense to somehow combine the two.