It is possible to crash the editor. You can successfully mess up the data files. General solution: Don't do the thing that makes it break. There's thousands of error checks already, but go easy on the editor~

That being said, if you're doing something that's clearly a feature, and something crashes, I really need to fix it so let me know.

I'll be referring to arts of the engine throughout this wiki, and it's important to explain, briefly, what they mean in the context of the programming, data, and conceptual organization. To see how the terms fit together, see Hierarchy in SLUDGE.

A file is an arbitrary collection of Scenes (see below). You can divide your dialog content into multiple files, or keep it all in one file. Some reasons to possibly use multiple files:

• Speed. Files load very fast, but if your game is hugemongous, you might split up some dialog.
• DLC. If your game will have downloadable extra content, you'll have files for that.
• Localization. You can use the game's language suffix to load different sets of files for different languages

The engine works seamlessly across files, so these are primarily used by you to keep things straight.

A scene is a collection of Moments (see below) that must be played in order. Scenes can be used to arrange pieces of dialog and character movements and choices. Typically, a Scene ends when the player is faced with a set of choices: each choice then links to a new scene. Every scene has a set of properties:

• End Link: This is the name of a Scene, or it's a variable that contains a Scene name
  • After the final moment in a scene plays, the engine follows the End Link on to the next Scene
  • If there's no valid End Link, the dialog has ended. The Show Object will remove itself.
  • If Choices are used, a Scene might never reach the End Link due to redirection via choice links
• Entries: Internally tracked property to count entries (usually moments) within one Scene

A Moment represents one visual set of information presented on the screen. For example, several characters standing on the screen with a line of dialog might be a moment. In the next moment, those characters might move or a “next” line of dialog might appear. Moments have a set of properties associated with them:

• Sound: A sound to play when the moment starts. If the sound file is still playing when the moment ends, it continues unless another moment plays a sound.
• Background: A graphic to display behind all other dialog engine content
• Time: Moments can advance automatically if you wish.

There's 2 objects packed with the engine, and they are interchanged when you need swap between editing and playing back dialog.

Used while designing your game. It displays dialog moments in the given Scene, but adds a visual interface to the screen for setting all of the various things supported by the engine. Automatic “things” like animating between moments, advancing to another moment after a time, and applying typewriter text will not occur in the editor.

Used to play dialog without the editor. Your final game ought to use this object.

The objects do 4 simple things:

1. draw the background
2. draw the characters
3. draw the textboxes
4. draw the choices

The editor object and the show object use the same 4 function calls in their draw event. It's truly what-you-see-is-what-you-get.

Formats are at the links below. Description of how JSON and SLUDGE “work” follows

Formats: scenes - styles - characters

Based upon the terminology section, here's how information is grouped inside the engine's data:

Conceptual structure of 1 scene containing 2 moments with text, characters and choices:

• File
  • Scene
    • Moment 0
      • Background
      • Textboxes
        • Specific Textbox
        • Specific Textbox
      • Characters
        • Specific Character
        • Specific Character
    • Moment 1
      • Background
      • Textboxes
        • Specific Textbox
        • Specific Textbox
      • Characters
        • Specific Character
        • Specific Character
      • Choices
        • Specific Choice
        • Specific Choice

SLUDGE stores information using the JSON format. This format can be loaded into Game Maker data structures, and it provides a hierarchical way of storing data. The structure makes adding new features very easy, and helps to ensure that future changes won't totally break existing projects.

If you've never used JSON before, it will be useful to learn the basics before using SLUDGE.

• Data in JSON comes in several forms:
  • Numbers: These are just..numbers
  • Strings: Text inside of “quotation marks”
  • Lists: A set of pieces of data, contained within [square brackets], listed in order, and separated by commas
  • Objects: A set of pieces of data, contained within {curly brackets}, paired with a key, and separated by commas. The key is like a label to help you find that data later.
• Notice that Lists and Objects contain pieces of data; these can include Lists and objects!
• All of this data can be looked up later by name or list number.

Here's a sample bit of JSON, with commentary added:

{                           <-Start of an object
   "name"   : "SLUDGE",     <-String of text paired with the key called "name"
   "number" : 1.0000,       <-Number paired with the key called "number"
   "list"   : [             <-Start of a List
               1,2,"A","B"  <-Several data in a List
              ]             <-End of a List
}                           <-End of an object

In JSON, new lines and extra spaces don't really do anything–I put each thing on a new line in order to make it readable and to give myself space to comment on it.

Hopefully, it's reasonably clear from the example above that there's an Object containing 3 pieces of data called “name”, “number”, and “list”.

The values assigned to “Name” and “Number” are just a name and a number, but “List” is where it gets interesting. “List” has a JSON List assigned to it, and there's multiple items inside. This is the key to achieving hierarchy.