The Question class

Many visual novels ask the player to make choices that influence the outcome of the story. In Iris Engine, this can be done using Question objects. Let’s see an example:

-- First, we define a function for each option
function drink()
    say "I'm thirsty too. I should have a drink."
end

function iceCream()
    say "Ice cream is probably the best option."
end

-- Then we create a Question object by giving it a list of options and
-- the corresponding functions to call when the player selects them
q = Question.new{
    "Have a drink", drink,
    "Have an ice cream", iceCream
}

-- We can ask the player by calling q:ask()
say "It's so hot here. What should I do?"
q:ask()

In order to create a Question object, you will need to specify the list of options the player can choose. This is done using a table that contains exactly two entries for each option: a string with the text of the button, and a value to associate to that option. In the previous example that value was a function with the code to execute if the player selects that option, but this value can be anything, including numbers, booleans, objects, strings and so on.

The choice is presented to the player using the ask method. After the call to this method has returned, the answer property of the object will contain the value associated with the option that the player selected. If this value was a function, that function will be called automatically.

Properties

Type	Name	Default value	Description
any	answer	undefined	Gets the value associated with the option selected by the player
bool	removeAfterSelection	false	Gets or sets whether or not options should be removed after the player selects them
count	count		Gets the number of options in a Question

Member functions

Method	Description
(constructor)	Create a Question object
ask	Present the choice to the player