Data storage for Quest system

Authoring Twine
,
1

Twine Version: 2.3.9
Sugarcube version: 2.32.1

I’m creating a twine game that uses a Quest system and a few day cycle passages.

Passage 1: Morning; Displays a short introduction line of you wake up etc. Then displays all possible actions: Walk around, interact and talk to…
Passage 2: Day; Displays the same but should directs you to a different passage (which is easy enough with a redirect passage I think)
Passage 3: Same as morning and day. Different passage with different style but functions the same.
Passage 4: Night, is used to handle codes and redirects the player into a short cutscene of sleeping and then wake up on Passage 1

Now for passage 1, 2 and 3 I also want to include a link to start or continue with a Quest. A Quest might be to build a home. Step one would be to gather supplies, step 2 is to create a place to build it. And in Step 3 you build the actual home.

For this I have created the following code inside the StoryInit passage

/*		Quests setup	/*
<<set $Quests to {
Active: [],
Completed: [],
Available: []
}>>

/*		Individual quest setup	/*
<<set $Quest1 to {
  name: "Quest 1",
  progress: [],
  deadline: 0,
  time: 0,
  short: "Start the Quest",
  passage: "C1Q1P1"
}>>

progress is being used as an array to keep track of progress. After completing step 1 I use:

<<set $Quest1.progress.pushUnique(1)>>

After step 2, the same happens with number 2. This helps create logic for when the Quest is supposed to be displayed in the day cycle passages.

Then after a few introductionairy passages I use the following code:

<<set $Quests.Active.pushUnique($Quest1)>>

To make Quest1 active and use:

<<for _i to 0; _i lt $Quests.Active.length; _i++>>
[[$Quests.Active[_i].short | $Quests.Active[_i].passage]]
<</for>>

This last piece of code is able to print out a link to every single ActiveQuest with the proper .passage information.

The problem I’m running into is that when I change the information of $Quest1.passage or $Quest1.name to something else,

	<<set $Quest1.passage to "C1Q1P2">>
	<<set $Quest1.short to "Create space">>

the information inside $Quests.active[0] does not update. And so when the player is send back to the passage of day the link created by the loop returns the player to the passage 1 because the array holds a copy of the data created in an earlier passage.

I read through other posts that this has something to do with the history of passages and the fact that the data is not static. Solutions are in the form of: Use setup object, reference by key and the use of Widget.

These solutions however do not achieve what I’m trying to do. I want to be able to start or initialize a new quest after another Quest has been completed. I want to create many different quests possibly having multiple active quests And I might want to display certain criteria to Quests like a timerestriction (complete within 5 days), or only being able to perform them during the morning passage. Or be able to wait 2 days before the quest is available again.

If anyone has a recommendation as to what I can do to achieve the desired outcome please let me know! I was so happy to have it working up until this point and I’m now fully frustrated that I’m unable to continue.

2

The problem is that variables are cloned on passage transition. This means that after a passage transition, $Quests.Active[0] is no longer a reference to $Quest1, but a new object. Modifying $Quest1 does not modify $Quests.active[0], and vice versa.

The way to get around this that would require fewest changes to you existing code would probably be to have the arrays inside $Quests simply contain the names of the quest variables instead, like this:

<<set $Quests.Active.pushUnique("Quest1")>>

Then you can use State.variables[$Quests.Active[_i]] to access the quest data, like this:

<<for _i to 0; _i lt $Quests.Active.length; _i++>>
[[State.variables[$Quests.Active[_i]].short | State.variables[$Quests.Active[_i]].passage]]
<</for>>

(That’s a little unwieldy. A more elegant way to do the same thing would be this.)

<<for _quest range $Quests.Active>>
[[State.variables[_quest].short | State.variables[_quest].passage]]
<</for>>
3

This works perfectly. Thank you so much for this!