Dialogue

NPC dialogue is always a pain to write; localizing text, creating naming conventions, and then having to connect it with commands elsewhere in your project takes an unusually long amount of time.

MCCompiled contains features for defining, displaying, and running code right out of dialogue, which as a result can be automated using metaprogramming, or automatically localized with localization.

Syntax

The dialogue command is slightly different from the vanilla version of the command; most notably being the addition of dialogue new. This syntax allows you to define a scene.

dialogue new <string: scene name> {...}
dialogue open <npc> <player> [string: scene name]
dialogue change <npc> <string: scene name> [player]

Defining Dialogue Scenes

A page of dialogue is called a "scene" in Minecraft. If you're familiar with writing dialogue, this will immediately ring a bell. Defining dialogue is made to be as easy as possible and as closely integrated with the language as possible.

Let's begin with the dialogue new subcommand, which defines a new scene. The command must immediately be followed by a block; however, the block does not contain regular statements. Each line in the block must be a valid field followed by a comma.

dialogue new "exampleDialogue" {
    name: "NPC Name"
    text: "Why, hello there traveller."
    button: "Hello!" {
        print "The man gives you six emeralds to begin trading with."
        give @i gold_nugget 6
    }
    button: "Goodbye!" {}
}

Forward Declaration...?

Since MCCompiled doesn't yet have two-pass compilation, it was easier to disable validation entirely for dialogue names. This means it's possible to misspell the names of defined dialogue, but it's also possible to use dialogue defined externally or create circular dialogues.

Available Fields

All texts in dialogue fields support localization, if enabled. The fields that can be specified in dialogue definitions are as follows:

NPC Name

Sets the name of the NPC showing this dialogue.

name: <string: name>

Text

Sets the text in the dialogue. This field supports placing \n to represent a new-line.

text: <string: text>

Event: On Open

The code to run when the dialogue is opened. Supports full MCCompiled code. The selector @s will refer to the player who ran the dialogue.

onOpen: { ... }

Event: On Close

The code to run when the dialogue is closed. Supports full MCCompiled code. The selector @s will refer to the player who ran the dialogue.

onClose: { ... }

Button

Adds a button to the dialogue with a name and action to perform when clicked. Supports all MCCompiled code. The selector @s will refer to the player who ran the dialogue.

button: <string: text> { ... }

Opening/Changing Dialogue

Once dialogue has been defined, it can be applied to an NPC so that it can be displayed when the NPC is interacted with or shown to a player manually. This is done using the dialogue change and dialogue open subcommands, respectively.

dialogue new "abc123" { ... }

// same as vanilla!
dialogue open @e[type=npc,name=Milton] @s "abc123"

Last modified: 28 October 2024