Room Class

A Room represents a physical area in the game which the player can travel to and/or be in. It does not have to physically be a room—a garden could be a Room, or part of a hallway, or a graveyard. It's just a container meant to represent a defined area in the game world.

You will typically work with Rooms as children of a Map node.

Exits

A Room has ten defined exits; eight in compass directions, one up and one down. These are represented as variables with the following naming convention: exit_<direction>. For example, the exit to the southeast is exit_southeast. The exit up is exit_up. The exist down is exit_down. By default, these variables are set to null; to make an exit work, the intended direction's variable should beset as a refrence to another Room. For example, if we have two Rooms, LeftRoom and RightRoom, and LeftRoom is located to the west of RightRoom, LeftRoom's exit_east variable should be set to RightRoom, and likewise RightRoom's exit_west should be set to LeftRoom. This will enable the correct navigation between the two Rooms. These variables are all exports, so they can be easily set in the editor.

Describing a Room

When looking at a Room or entering one, it is important that the Room be described to the player. In order to do this with some flexibility, multiple variables and functions have been provided to do this.

The primary description of a Room should be housed within the look_description variable. This is the description that should be provided when the player looks at the room, and should include information such as what exits are available and any Interactables that may be present.

However, there may be cases where the description needs to change depending on outside factors. In order to achieve this, simply override the Room base class' look() function to return a different string:

func look() -> String:
    if !Data.screwdriver_taken:
        return "There is an echo in here. There is a [sign] on the wall. Sitting on a table in the corner is a [screwdriver]. A door to the west leads to the Right Room."
    else:
        return "There is an echo in here. There is a [sign] on the wall. An empty table sits in the corner. A door to the west leads to the Right Room.";

By default, all the look() function does is return the look_description variable, so you don't need to accomodate any special logic here.

In addition to the look_description variable, there are also the entry_description and enter_<direction>_text variables. Both are used in the Room's enter() function.

When navigating into a new Room, the resulting description that is shown to the player comes from calling that room's enter() function. enter() combines several descriptions (including the one produced bylook()) into one description, which it returns. These descriptions are in the following way:

room_name
enter_<direction>_text entry_description look()

room_name is the name of the room, i.e. "Left Room".

enter_<direction>_text is a String corresponding to the direction the Room was entered from. There is an enter_<direction>_text for each exit_<direction>: exit_southeast corresponds to enter_southeast_text, etc. For example, "You leave the Right Room, shutting the door behind you."

entry_description is something that is described when you are in the Room, i.e. "You are now in the Left Room."

So, with the previous examples, calling enter() produces the following description:

Left Room
You leave the Right Room, shutting the door behind you. You are now in the Left Room. There is an echo in here. There is a [sign] on the wall. An empty table sits in the corner. A door to the west leads to the Right Room.

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Variables

exit_<direction>

exit_<direction>: Room

A set of variables dictating the exits to a Room. There is a corresponding variable for every compass direction as well as up and down. For example, the exit to the southeast is exit_southeast. The exit up is exit_up. The exist down is exit_down. If there is no exit in a given direction, that direction's exit variable should be set to null. Otherwise, it should be set to the Room that is reached by travelling in that direction.

enter_<direction>_text

enter_<direction>_text: String

A set of variables that can be used to provide additional description when entering a Room from a specific direction. There is an enter_<direction>_text for every exit_<direction>.

entry_description

entry_description: String

Used to provide an additional description when entering a room.

look_description

look_description: String

Used to provide a description of the Room.

room_name

room_name: String

In the default look() function, this is returned. Provides a convenient way to set the description of a Room for Rooms whose description does not change.

interactables

interactables: Array[String]

An array of Interactable identifier strings. These can be defined either in the Interactables script or in this Room's room_interactables property.

room_interactables

room_interactables: InteractablesInterface

Used to hold room specific Interactables. These should be Interactables that will never leave this room or be used elsewhere; therefore, they can share identifiers with other Interactables in other Rooms. Notably, they will still be overridden by Interactables with the same identifier in the Interactables script. For more information on how to interact with this property, see InteractablesInterface.

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Functions

get_room_in_direction

get_room_in_direction(direction: Narrare.Direction) -> Room

Returns the Room in the corresponding exit to direction, where direction is a Narrare.Direction. Returns null if there is no Room in that exit.

look

look() -> String

By default, returns the value of look_description, but can be overridden for custom behaviour.

enter

enter(from: Room) -> String

BCompiles a description of the player entering the room from room_name, enter_<direction>_text, entry_description, and look(). from should be the Room that the player was in before entering this one. Note: does not actually change the player's position in the map; see Map for information on how to do that.

enter_trigger

enter_trigger() -> void

By default, does nothing, but is called when the Room is entered. Override with custom behaviour if needed.

exit_trigger

exit_trigger() -> void

By default, does nothing, but is called when the Room is exited. Override with custom behaviour if needed.