.vns - Visual Novel Script

About

Visual Novel Script is an easy-to-read, easy-to-write scripting language for interactive visual experiences.

project
    name: Bob's Inferno
    description: A story about a man with untreated mental health issues, who is also a bit of a silly prankster.
    version: 1.0.0

# This is a comment; comments can be used as a way to leave notes for yourself or your co-authors and friends.

# A variable can be thought of as a little box that can hold a value, ie. a number, a series of characters, or a switch that can be turned on or off (true or false).
$score = 0

=> start

    fade in
    play comfy-music.mp3

    Bob
        Hello Alice, how are you doing today?

    Alice
        If you don't respond to this message, your mom will die at 3 AM tonight.

    Bob
        Oh no. Are you serious?

    What does bob do?
        (1) Respond
        (2) Ignore her and turn off your computer.
        (3) Respond with her IP-address, an image of her house and an image of a handgun.
        -> choice

=> choice
    => 1
        Bob
            I'm not taking any chances. Are you happy now?

        Alice has logged off.

        Bob
            What?!

    => 2
        Bob ignores the message, but can't help but a lingering albeit fading sense of a paranoia for a while.

    => 3
        $score += 1
    
        A mischievous little jokester, maybe even a bit of a silly prankster, if you will; 
        Bob sends Alice a picture of a handgun, her IP-address and an image of her house. That little
        checkmark next to the message indicates that she has seen it, but she doesn't respond for a while.
    
        "Alice is typing..." appears below the message box.
    
        Bob
            Well, what do you have to say for yourself?

        Alice
            I'm calling the police.

        Bob
            Oh no, I'm so scared. Please don't call the police on me, I don't want to go to jail... NOT, ROFLMAO!
            Isn't it cool how I'm coming over to your house right now? I'm going to bring my gun and shoot you.

        Alice has logged off.

Status

This project is not finished; I just published the work-in-progress to this repository after refactoring and cleaning up the files. Currently, I'm taking a somewhat rigid, not-so-elegant approach to parsing the context tree. If anyone knows how to define an AST that does not make you want to rip your eyes out (where every node contains its own callback function) you can send me a message or make a PR.

Goals

Core goals

• Create a web component <visual-novel> that can be embedded on in any web page which accepts a src attribute to a .vns text file.
• Standardize and implement the .vns language format in a way that streamlines visual novel script writing.

Stretch goals

• Implement a lightweight visual novel editor for the web that allows for management of projects and visualization of its flow.

Building

1. Clone the project

git clone "https://github.com/mkgiga/vns/"

2. Enter the directory and install the dependencies.

cd ./vns && npm install;

3. Build the project -- the output will be inside ./dist

npm run build