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Tiffany Chong edited this page Aug 4, 2020 · 6 revisions

Source Academy Game Storywriter guide

A guide to writing stories for Source Academy game

Getting Started

Important keywords to know as a story writer

  • Source Academy Game

    • Interactive visual novel representing students' CS1101S journey
    • Comprised of chapters

  • Chapters

    • Main division of the Source Academy game
    • Released on specified open date (can be specified in Ground Control)
    • Comprised of several checkpoints

  • Checkpoints

    • Within a chapter, checkpoints are played in progression as previous checkpoint is completed.
    • Basic 'programmable' unit of Source Academy story; every checkpoint is specified using a text-based CSV
    • Checkpoints are played in order based filename e.g. chapter0.0txt > chapter0.1txt > > chapter0.2txt
    • Checkpoint is a storywriter's tool to place the student in an entirely new scenario within the course of a single chapter.
    • Enables writers to provide students with different set of objectives and also a new map with a different set of locations/objects/dialogues to interact with.

Authoring Workflow

In order to author a story, the steps are typically the following:

  1. Use Object Placement to design a scene, print the generated text file from the console log
  2. Add dialogues and actions onto your checkpoint text file by following the Txt Guide
  3. Try out your checkpoint using Checkpoint Simulator
  4. Upload your text as an asset on S3 using Asset Uploader (and possibly make PR to bit bucket Repo?)
  5. Publish your chapter using Chapter Simulator (providing title, open dates, publish status, and component checkpoint files)

Story Simulator

Story Simulator provides a set of tools to help writers generate the .txt file and simulate a single checkpoint, which they can then upload. Story Simulator has various tools that you can use by clicking on their names on the Story Simulator Main Menu.

Object Placement

Description

Enables you to rearrange objects, bounding boxes and background in the scene and capture their coordinates and asset paths.

Tools available

  • At side panel:

    1. Asset Selection - The Asset Selection on the side panel is a place to look for assets you'd like to place on scene. You can click to open/close folders and click on assets to select it.
    2. Asset Viewer - Displays image that you selected with Asset Selection to let you visualise it before placing it on scene.

  • At game screen's Object Placement:

    1. Background Paint Bucket - Paints background on scene. To use, select an image from the /location folder of the Asset Selection section and click on the paint bucket to see the new background.
    2. Add Selected Object - Adds more foreground images to the scene. To use, select an object from any folder of the Asset Selection section and click on the paint bucket to see the new background.
    3. Bounding box - Lets you draw bounding boxes. To use, click on the tool and drag to draw rectangles on scene.
    4. Drag or resize - Lets you drag things around the scene. To use, click on the tool and start dragging objects and bounding boxes. ⌨️ Hint: Use the [ and ] keys to resize images and bounding boxes.
    5. Print coordinates - Lets you see coordinates on hover and print them out in the console. To use, click and look at console to see the .txt
    6. Erase all - Erases everything on scene. Be careful when using this as there is no Undo button.

Checkpoint Simulator

Description

Runs a checkpoint txt file using actual game engine. You may either load your local text files to the browser or use existing S3 files

  1. Choose a default (i.e. base) checkpoint file (from local or S3)
  2. Choose a checkpoint txt file (from local or S3)
  3. Click on 'Simulate Checkpoint' and play your story that combines these two text files.

Note: Do note that your game state is not saved to backend and txts are not uploaded. You may upload them once you're satisfied using Asset Upload (coming soon).

Asset uploader

Description

Enables you to upload and delete assets (images, sounds, and checkpoint .txts) that that are used by the game.

Uploading files

  1. Choose a folder that you'd like to upload your asset into.
  2. Choose file or files that you want to upload.
  3. Click on Upload image.
  4. Refresh page to see your new asset in Asset Selection.

Note: You may not overwrite existing files, but you can always delete them and then reupload them. This step is made so that you don't accidentally overwrite files.

Deleting files

  1. Click on the trash can icon to delete a file.
  2. Confirm whether you actually want to delete the file.

Chapter Simulator

Description

A place to control and simulate stories which are published to students.

Editing/Creating a chapter

  1. Use dropdown to choose a chapter you want to edit/create.
  2. Give a title for chapter
  3. Choose open date for chapter
  4. Choose a background image for the chapter
  5. Choose the checkpoint text files that should make up that chapter
  6. Adjust whether or not this story should be published.
  7. Hit Save to make changes to your chapter.
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