Where do I go to start programming ChoiceScript?

This may sound like a dumb question, but I went onto the “make your own game” section of the main site and I downloaded the GitHub file. Now I have the folder and everything, where do I go to start making my game?
Thanks!

http://choicescriptdev.wikia.com/wiki/ChoiceScript_Wiki has lots of good advice.

And in the folder you downloaded, have a look in web -> mygame -> scenes. That’s where startup.txt and the other files where you write your game live.

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I found this very helpful

Also the link @FairyGodfeather shared is very helpful. You can also browse through the choicescript help. Lots of info in there from others who have previously asked questions.

Good luck with your story :smile:

You may also want to get something like notepad++. A normal text editor isn’t very good for programming in choicescript.

@OdicHastings

A text editor is good. Text editors just use raw text, like Notepad, Notepad++. You’ve no fancy formatting, fonts etc.

Word processors like Microsoft Word, Wordpad , that are bad, especially when they like changing your quotation marks to the curly ones.

I actually meant notepad specifically when I said ‘normal text editor’.

That said, I can agree that it’s far better than Word. Still, I really didn’t like working with it when I tried. I thought notepad++ was leagues ahead. Just having numbered lines alone was a huge boon, plus there’s fun little extras like customizable background colors and such.

If you’re into that sort of thing anyways. My eyes get a little sensitive when writing for too long on a computer screen, so having the option to make the background dark really helps me.

And not forgetting @CJW’s Syntax Highlighter for Notepad++, which is very helpful:

Thanks for all the help guys!

Huh… I’ve never heard of this syntax highlighter. I’ll have to look it up. Thanks for providing the link.

You should check out this Amazing Tool for beginners.

I second the CS-IDE in the forums. I was kind of baffled til I used that. Just realize you can only work on one game a time.

If you can’t run or can’t understand CS-IDE, there’s a lovely free code editor called Sublime Text 2. (It’s an unlimited free demo period, so basically unless you decide to pay for it, it will periodically ask you to register. Not a big deal.) I finally switched from Notepad to that, and it’s saving me a lot of time and trouble.

You can open a whole folder at once, so your scenes folder will stack neatly on the left side to navigate between, rather than having fifteen windows open at once in Notepad. It has text-complete based on your variables, so my unnecessarily long scene names or attributes are easily filled in after three letters.

The Choicescript highlighting plug-in is a little complicated to install (I found an easy tutorial online, since the Help feature is not that great) and it’s not perfect, but it’s still a lot more useful than Notepad.

Sublime Text 2 was recommended by someone on the forums, so once I figure out who it was they’re getting a thank-you note.

FWIW, especially if you publish a game with us and begin to collect royalties, I strongly urge you to purchase the full version of Sublime Text.

A lot of us use it, we’re grateful to the devs for making it, and the unlimited trial period is awesome for our community. So if you end up making money using the software, you should eventually purchase it.

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I’ve looked up the original people who recommended Sublime Text 2. Thank you to @dinosw, @indykatya, @Shula, and especiallt @seryou who coded the CS highlighting plug-in.

The license for Sublime Text 2 is $70. I multiplied the number of hours it had saved me so far by my hourly wage, and it was well worth it.

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I hadn’t heard of Sublime Text 2. I’ve just been using notepad++. I might give that a shot.