Builder Guide
1 - Basics
2 - Chapter Editor
3 - Actor Editor
4 - Interactions
5 - Flags and Conditionals
6 - Graphics
Let's take a look at how to add a bit more interactivity to a game using Actors.
Part 3 - The Actor Editor
In Project PD, an Actor is anything that the player can directly interact with in the world. Actors can be people, but they can also be objects or anything else that the player needs to interact with to continue the story. For example, if you want the player to pull a lever to open a door, you should create an Actor that represents the lever so the player can interact with it.
Just like Area Descriptions or Transitions, Actors are part of an Area. In game terms, an Actor must always stay in the Area that it is assigned to (if you need to, you can create the illusion of an Actor moving between areas using Conditionals, but we'll get to that in a bit). When the player enters an area and reads the Area Description, he or she will then be presented with a list of Actors and Area Transitions in that room. The player then chooses what to do next.
Let's take a look at creating and editing an Actor.
3a - Creating Actors
If you read part 2 of this guide (Part 2 - Chapter Editor) you'll already be familiar with this. Creating an Actor is quite simple. Just open up the Area that you want your new Actor to reside in, and click the "+" button in the Actors list. Here's the example Chapter we created in Part 2, with our New Actor already added.
Now, to edit the Actor, click the "E" button. Since Actors are a bit too complex and have too many variables for the editor to appear in the Chapter editor, editing an Actor opens an entirely new window: the Actor editor. (Keep in mind that although the Actor editor is a new window, Actors are still tied to their Areas.)
The Actor editor is actually a lot simpler than the Chapter editor. Let's take a look at what we can do with it.
3b - Naming an Actor
You'll notice at the top left of the Actor editor (under the title bar) is the Actor's name. In our example (and with all new Actors), the Actor's name is "New Actor." Since that's a pretty boring name for our Actor, let's change it.
You can change the Actor's name exactly as you would a Chapter's title. Just click on the name, and the editor will change to a text box. Change the text to your desired name, then click "Set." Done!
We're going to skip over Conditionals for now, since they're out of the scope of this section of the guide. If you want to skip ahead and learn about Conditionals, you can follow this link: Part 5 - Flags and Conditionals.
3c - Actor Graphics
This topic will be covered more thoroughly in Part 6 - Graphics.
The Actor's graphics editor is an all-in-one combo editor. To change an Actor's graphics, hover over the portrait on the left (for a new Actor, it will have a big "?" on it).
You'll notice a button appears, marked "Change." This, as you may have guessed, allows you to change the Actor's graphics.
When you click the Change button, the graphics editor will switch to a new state, allowing you to pick which Graphics Set you want to represent this Actor. If you've previously added a Graphics Set (don't worry, we'll cover how to do that later), you'll see it in the drop-down list at the top of the graphics editor.
Since we haven't got that far yet, we only have the default graphics set available. That's fine! We'll just leave our Actor with the default graphics for now. Later, when we learn how to add our own graphics, we'll come back to this. For now, just click "Set" to save your changes.
3d - Actor Actions
At this point, our Actor will appear in our Area, but since we haven't added any actions, the player won't have any way to interact with the Actor.
In Project PD, an Actor action is simply a way to start an Interaction. While playing your game, the player will see a list of Actors in a room. When they select an Actor, they will then see a list of the actions they can perform on that Actor. Then, when they select one of these actions, an Interaction will start.
We'll get to Interactions in the next part of this guide. Before we get there, however, we need to add an Actor action to start the Interaction.
To add an Actor action, just press the "+" button in the Actions list.
Now we've got a new, blank action. You'll notice that the Actions list works exactly the same as other Project PD lists, such as the Area Description and Transition lists. So let's click the "E" button to edit this Actor action.
Actor actions are pretty simple. There are only three pieces to an Actor action. First, there's the Action Description. This is the text that the player will see that lets them know what this action does. Since our particular Actor is a person, it might be a good idea to let the player speak with him.
Since we're still not quite ready to talk about Conditionals (if you want to skip ahead, you can head over to Part 5 - Flags and Conditionals), let's go right into Interactions.
The Interaction drop-down list will allow you to pick any Interaction that you've already created. Since we don't have any yet, let's make a new one! The action editor has a shortcut to create a new Interaction an automatically set this action to start the new Interaction you create. Just click the "+" button.
Now we've created a new Interaction (tagged, surprisingly, "new_interaction"). When this game is run and the player sees our actor (who've I've called "Hatman"), they'll be able to click the action "Talk to Hatman." which will start up our Interaction "new_interaction." Make sense?
But unless we fill out the Interaction, not much is going to happen. Let's move right along to the next part of the guide, Part 4 - Interactions, and learn how to effectively utilize the most important piece of Project PD!
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