Making with Code

Story Lab #

In this lab, you are introduced to the structure for writing a branching story. You will use this in your unit project.

[0] Setup #

🌐 Github Repo: github.com/Making-with-Code/lab_story

💻 Enter the Poetry shell and install the requirements: 
poetry shell
poetry install

This repo includes the following files:

  • game.py
  • story_setup.py
  • view.py
  • node.py
  • story.py

[2] How do you write a story? #

Stories are made up of connected connected Node() objects.

[Node] #

👀 Let’s start by looking at the Node constructor:

class Node():
  def __init__(self, id, option_title, description):
      self.id = id
      self.children = []   
      self.option_title = option_title                    
      self.description = description
  • id: a unique id (str, float, or integer)
  • children: a list of Node() objects
  • option_title: the text for the display in the menu (str)
  • description: the additional text for when a user selects an option (str)

It has the following methods:

  • __str__: defines how a Node is printed
  • add_child(child_node): this adds child_node to its children
    • this is how the story pieces are connected to each other.
  • find(id) - searches through the nodes to return the node with the id

[Story] #

Now, let’s look at the Story() constructor. This is the primary class you will be interacting with when writing your story.

class Story():
  def __init__(self, title, start_id, start_option_title, start_description):
      self.title = title
      self.current_node = Node(start_id, start_option_title, start_description)
      self.first_node = self.current_node
  • title: the title of your story (`str)
  • current_node: the current Node of your story, at the start of the story it is the same as first_node
  • first_node: the first Node of your story

A Story() has 4 main methods.

def add_new_child(self, parent_id, child_id, child_option_title, child_description):
  parent_node = self.current_node.find(parent_id)

  new_child_node = Node(
      id = child_id,
      option_title = child_option_title,
      description= child_description
  )

  parent_node.add_child(new_child_node)

def get_current_children(self):
  return self.current_node.children

def set_current_node(self,chosen_node):
  self.current_node = chosen_node

def is_finished(self):
  return len(self.current_node.children) == 0
  • add_new_child(): adds a new child node to a parent node
  • get_current_children():returns a list of the children of the current node
  • set_current_node(chosen_node): sets the current_node to the chosen_node
  • is_finished(): returns True or False based on if the current node has children

[3] Building your first story #

👀 Let’s start taking a look at story_setup.py As you can see, the current story has only has 4 unique Node() objects and it call .add_new_child() to build the story.

💻 Try to play through the short story in by running: python game.py

$ python game.py

==================================================
Title: Lunch.

It's lunch time.
Where will you go?
==================================================

[what will you do?]
❯ Walk to cyberport.
  Elevator down to A Block Cafeteria.

🧐 Hmmmmm…. it works, but it the story does not continue with your choice.

[Finish game.py] #

💻 Finish game.py so it properly plays through the story. It should:

  1. loop through the given chosen options
  2. display the description of each chosen node
  3. end when there are no more options for the chosen node

🧐 Consider…:

  • What methods exist in the View() and Story() that you could use?
  • how do you loop until a condition is met?

👾 Be sure to play test the game to ensure it works as expected: python game.py

[Continue the Story] #

Now that you’ve gotten a working game.py, let’s build out the story.

Come up with your own options to continue the story! We’ll share out at the end of class.

💻 “Continue the story, add at least 3 unique Node() objects. Some ideas…

  • add additional lunch options in ISF A Block Cafeteria
  • add lunch options in Fusion
  • add other locations to purchase lunch in Cyberport

👾 Be sure to play test the game to ensure your story additions work as expected: python game.py

[5] Deliverables #

⚡✨

Once you’ve successfully completed the game be sure to fill out this Google form.

💻 Push your work to Github:

  • git status
  • git add -A
  • git status
  • git commit -m “describe your drawing and your process here”

    be sure to customize this message, do not copy and paste this line

  • git push

[6] Extension: #

For your project, you will need to build out one additional feature to this Story framework. Here are a few suggested features:

  • looping stories with the ability to set an Node as a current Node’s child
    • e.g. player can go back to a previous area
  • a Player class with unique properties
    • e.g. hunger, money, health
  • variable messaging in the story
    • e.g. "you have visited this store 5 times"
  • a special Node child-class that gives items or status effects
    • e.g. a locked door where you need to first collect the key in a certain room.

💻 Use this time to experiment with of these features! If you have your own ideas, feel free to experiment with that!