How do I make a presentation for my save point or my restore point?

Sometimes, to be sure that the player knows what you expect from him/her you need to include a presentation. Let's take an example : you have made a mini game which consists in pushing npcs. You want the player to know that he/ she has to use the arrows and that he/she can play not for free. This is even more important if you have added keys for the player and that the space bar and esc won't be of any use whole the game because you have worked very very far on the gameplay.

1 Text box presentation

To do this, we'll need to use the jump instead function of the text box. But what is particular in this situation is that we want the explanation to be launched only one time! (the first time the player meets the npc) We asume that he won't forget what keys have been predefined and that he/she regularly plays at our game! (and this of presentation should help him/ her to play until the end!)

But first you need the mini game indeed. In our example, the pushing npcs mini game starts when the player chooses "play " and thanks to a tag turned on launch the script "pushing mini game" The text box in question is text box (23). To add a presentation just do as follows

Go under custom.exe

Pick up a free tag and name it "push intro" 'or any other name that may help you to remember what the tag is used for. It will be tag 15.

Pick up a free text boxes and write in it something!

   Hello! I can offer you a treasure but not for free. You have to find you way in this room until backwall!
   Use the arrows to push the rocks

Then edit the conditionnals and made changes until you see

  Instead "if tag 7= ON (push intro)"
  jump to text box 21 instead

  SetTag = "if tag 7= OFF (push intro)"
  Set tag 7= ON (push intro)

Give this text box to the NPC that offers to play the mini game and voilà!

2 Text boxes for presentation and more

Now let's imagine that we need 3 text boxes instead of one? What should we do? Well, we'll just use more text and not more tags (cause the custom.exe is marvellous isn't it? ^_^) The only main change will be text cbox chaining!

We'll make a 2 text boxes four our presentation!

First just like above, you pick up a free tag and name it "push intro" 'or any other name that may help you to remember what the tag is used for. It will be tag 15.

You pick up 2 free text boxes text box 32 and 34. Text box 23 is always the one that starts the game and the most important one. (The one that ends the chain)

In the first text box (txt box 32) make sure you see this when you edit the conditionnals

  Instead "if tag 7= ON (push intro)"
  jump to text box 21 instead

   After "if tag 7= OFF (push intro)"
   jump to text box 34 instead

In the second text box (txt box 34) make sure you see this when you edit the conditionnals

  SetTag = "if tag 7= OFF (push intro)"
  Set tag 7= ON (push intro)

  After "if tag 7= OFF (push intro)"
  jump to text box 34 instead

And that's all! When the player will see text box 34, the tag will turned on and from now on he'll just be asked to play!

Presentation included in a script

Sometimes, we are in a trouble, because we would like to include a presentation to our mini games but the text box is included in a plotscript because we have prepared the ground for the mini game and needed to start the script rather early.

Well we still use the same principal. You use the show text box command to show the first presentation box in your script.

You can also include a line with the last one (in the example in would text box 21) but with A IF CHECK TAG! Yeah you read well: you need two tags! Why? because the first time the script launch it will skip the text box with choice and will run what follows instead.

To prevent this, we need to sure that the text box with choice appears.

So you just need include the following lines in you game script

 
 # other game code lines
 show text box (34)    #presentation and then text box 23 that asks if the players is on or not.
 wait for text box    
 
 if (check tag (tag: push intro2 ==off) then, begin #make pop up text box23 only the first time
 show text box (23)
 wait for text box
 set tag (tag: puch intro2, on)
 end
 
 # your game code lines

To be sure you get the right effect always keep in mind what text box starts and which one will stay (and therefor "be jumped instead) once the tag is turned on. If you have some troubles with all this remember you can always ask questions on the forum.