Posted July 28, 2021 by ver
#writing #bitsy
These are a few notes I compiled during the making of Jem's Delivery Service in an attempt to explain the writing limitations and possibilities in Bitsy to folks new to the program. They've helped me give primers to friends and hopefully they'll also help you. Cheers!
In Bitsy, everything in a ROOM always LOOKS the same, but doesn’t need the exact same dialog for every sprite that you interact with.
For example, if you haven’t talked to Sammy, and talk to Jeff FIRST, he can say something that’s different than if you had talked to Sammy first and the room doesn’t need to change. But when we suddenly have Jeff playing the guitar, the room he’s in needs to change because he LOOKS different. He’s not just standing there minding his own business.
Things to keep in mind for ROOMS:
We can’t have dialog choices. (Unless you’re using hacks)
We can have BRANCHING statements
These are if/then statements
Example:
We can have SHUFFLED statements
These are random lists of dialog that change every time you interact with a sprite
NOTE: The way this is programmed is such that it will go through all the options available before repeating an option on the list.
Example:
[Jem’s interacting with Jeff]
Jeff: Hey. Wanna hear a song? How about
We can have a SEQUENCE of statements
This is a list of dialog that goes in order when you interact with a sprite and then repeats the last item on the list for every next interaction once the list has been exhausted.
NOTE: You can also make it so that you are no longer able to interact with a sprite once all the dialog options have been exhausted.
Example:
We can a CYCLE of statements
This is a list of dialog that goes in order when you interact with a sprite repeats once the last item in the list has been spoken.
Example:
Suggested Reading: