Built-in Dialogue Tree Editor/Maker

GDevelop general Feature requests
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In my preference, I think yarn it’s quite complicated to work with when it comes to heavy storytelling. So I came up and designed an interesting solution for this problem.

I introduce you to the dialogue editor (Remember these are designed in canva). This dialogue editor will function like an event sheet.

Whiteboard of Ideas (1)
Whiteboard of Ideas (1)2192×1233 117 KB

The Dialogue Tree Editor Interface

  • As you can see, I designed it to be a node based system for an easier organization.
  • There are different types of nodes. The basic nodes are “Scene”, “Choices”, “Jump to GameScene”, and Transitions
  • The Scene node is composed with different buttons: “Text”, “Character”, “Animations”, and “Triggers” which you can place in the add button scene.
  • “Triggers” is a button similar to flags in Renpy where it can add, toggle, and change a variable in game.
  • Characters can be added and highlighted in game.
  • Text is where you add the dialogue
  • And Animations can be added to a character with already made presets.
  • The Choice node is self explanatory, it makes choices.
  • Transition node is used to put animated transitions between two nodes. It can fade, shake, etc.
  • Lastly is the Jump to GameScene node. It jumps to another GameScene, it can act like a chapter if it’s a visual novel.

(There’s more :3)

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This is what the input dialogue text would look like

Whiteboard of Ideas
Whiteboard of Ideas2192×1233 97.9 KB

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Whiteboard of Ideas (4)
Whiteboard of Ideas (4)2194×1233 151 KB

Next is the Character Editor

  • Here you add and import your characters. You can change the name and color. You can also edit their dialogue boxes.
  • The characters would have multiple sprites for expression or anything else. Mainly expressions
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Whiteboard of Ideas (3)
Whiteboard of Ideas (3)2194×1233 105 KB

Lastly is the Dialogue Box editor

  • Here you can edit the dialogue boxes directly in the engine or import your own. The dialogue boxes are UI separated in the game scene so you don’t have to worry about the layers. It will automatically hide when the scene is finished and automatically be in front of all the objects and layers.
  • My idea for the choice button would be global so if you edit it, it will affect every character.

Finally how will appear in game. Again my idea is, it will appear in game when the dialogue is called. t will automatically go through all the nodes of the dialogue tree without the trouble of calling it again and again.

it can be Open “(dialogue tree name)” dialogue, as simple as that.

The purpose of this suggestion is to help developers create an easier dialogue system without the difficulty of having unorganized clutter. It can also help in specific project like visual novels, rpg, or any story driven games. I hope you all find my idea helpful. Again these are all just edited in canva :3 thank you <3

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Others: I don’t know if I have a say in this but if this is picked up I hope premium are minimal as possible so this feature is more accessible to all beginner and experience developers out there. My suggestion is the premium feature is placed some some parts like custom images on dialogue boxes or some preset animations are premium. But i am not the developer this are some considerations i wish they also pick up. :'3 please don’t attack me tehee <3

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Do you know about Ink? It’s based on a readable text syntax. According to their authors: “it’s designed to be easy to learn, but with powerful enough features to allow an advanced level of structuring”.

There is an extension to use it in GDevelop:
https://wiki.gdevelop.io/gdevelop5/extensions/ink-js/

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