Making a Side Story

How to make a Side story;

This page will (hopefully) help you make your own side storie(s). A lot of things here were taken from Gnomes Laboratory, the main blog for MGQ-side-stories. This tutorial only covers side-stories for Chapter 1, since I didn't find a good list of Chapter 2 material.

Required items

 * A text editor
 * A (basic idea for a) story

Optional, but advised items

 * Excel, or a likewise program, just to make editing your text much more easy.
 * The monster lab converter (Everything can be made without it, but else it can be found on Rogue's website here (top link doesn't work, use the link provided by "dark" at the almost bottom of the page). The converter can be found in the folder "mon_labo/tool"
 * The lists of background music, sound effects and original in-game character and background codes, found in the same folder as the above converter.

Looking at the competitors

 * I'm not joking, before you get started, take a look at the stories other people made and then especially at the "story.ini" files. (Just open them with notepad)

Notepad only?

 * If you only use the notepad, just copy the following in, and start editing.
 * Now you have to have every new line start with a next number and add your message between the " " with as last symbol (so before the second quotation mark) a SPACE. if your story is done, your end it by changing the 9999 into the next number you should use.
 * Now you have to have every new line start with a next number and add your message between the " " with as last symbol (so before the second quotation mark) a SPACE. if your story is done, your end it by changing the 9999 into the next number you should use.
 * Now you have to have every new line start with a next number and add your message between the " " with as last symbol (so before the second quotation mark) a SPACE. if your story is done, your end it by changing the 9999 into the next number you should use.
 * Now you have to have every new line start with a next number and add your message between the " " with as last symbol (so before the second quotation mark) a SPACE. if your story is done, your end it by changing the 9999 into the next number you should use.
 * Now you have to have every new line start with a next number and add your message between the " " with as last symbol (so before the second quotation mark) a SPACE. if your story is done, your end it by changing the 9999 into the next number you should use.
 * Now you have to have every new line start with a next number and add your message between the " " with as last symbol (so before the second quotation mark) a SPACE. if your story is done, your end it by changing the 9999 into the next number you should use.
 * Now you have to have every new line start with a next number and add your message between the " " with as last symbol (so before the second quotation mark) a SPACE. if your story is done, your end it by changing the 9999 into the next number you should use.
 * Now you have to have every new line start with a next number and add your message between the " " with as last symbol (so before the second quotation mark) a SPACE. if your story is done, your end it by changing the 9999 into the next number you should use.
 * Now you have to have every new line start with a next number and add your message between the " " with as last symbol (so before the second quotation mark) a SPACE. if your story is done, your end it by changing the 9999 into the next number you should use.
 * Now you have to have every new line start with a next number and add your message between the " " with as last symbol (so before the second quotation mark) a SPACE. if your story is done, your end it by changing the 9999 into the next number you should use.
 * Now you have to have every new line start with a next number and add your message between the " " with as last symbol (so before the second quotation mark) a SPACE. if your story is done, your end it by changing the 9999 into the next number you should use.

Monster lab converter?

 * If you use the monster lab converter, you can leave the numbers and " but you still need to add the end-of-text-spaces (more about that later)

Excel?

 * Excel requires a bit more setting up, but that might pay off in the long run.
 * In column A type in row 5-7 the numbers 1-3, select them all and the use the drag the square at the lower right corner down, to let excel number further for you
 * In column B, row 5 type " = "" (so SPACE, equal symbol, SPACE, quotation mark) and also click and drag down the black square in the lower right corner
 * In column D, row 5 you do a space and a single quotation mark and again you repeat it downwards
 * After the last line you use, you put the end-line as seen above.
 * The text you use can now by normally typed in column C.
 * When you are done with the story, copy all the cells to notepad and replace (Control+H) the TAB's with nothing.

Now you have a basic story, but without any names above the text boxes, pictures or sounds. Here we will talk about in the next steps.

Backgrounds, sprites and sounds
To add anything else then just plain text, you will have to do a bit more research and testing. Especially if you write the story first, and choose and add the rest later it is handy to use (a program like) Excel, so you can move parts of your text, without having to re-number everything.

Backgrounds

 * To have a background you need the following line in your end-product:
 * 0 = "bg,bg002,10,1500 "
 * This line has 4 parts:
 * The "bg,: signalizes the game that you want to add a background.
 * The bg002,: selects what background you want, in this case, Luka's house. In the list_bg.jpg file, found in the tool folder of the download, you can see all the available backgrounds in chapter 1 and there codes.
 * The 10,: sets location data (can be played with, but 10 is usually fine).
 * The 1500 ": sets scaling data (can be played with, but 1500 is usually fine). Also note that there is a SPACE at the end of this line.
 * You can add your own background,in that case you need to have it in the same folder with all the rest of the files (story.txt) etc... Most of the backgrounds are in BMP format so i reccomend keeping it that way

Sprites

 * Sprites are the pictures of the monster girls, and are used as such:
 * 0 = "sp,8,alice_st01,0,1,10,100 "
 * This line has 7 parts:
 * The "sp,: signalizes the game that you want to add a sprite.
 * The 8,: selects the layer, similar to Photoshop. For those who don't know how it works, the higher the number, the further "back" the picture gets. So if you have a picture on layer 7 and 8 at the same position, the picture on layer 7 will appear in front of the picture on layer 8.
 * The alice_st01,: sets the sprite you want to use (look at the list_chara.txt file for all the sprite names)
 * The 0,: sets the position horizontally, accepts the - symbol for negative starting positions.
 * The 1,: sets the position vertically, accepts the - symbol for negative starting positions.
 * The 10,: sets the way the sprite appears on screen (sliding in, fading in, etc). Must have a value between 0 and 14 (including 14).
 * The 100,: sets the time it takes for the appear-animation to finish.

To delete a sprite uses a similar function to calling a sprite. Using the above for an example, you could enter:

sp_del,8,10,500

This line has 4 parts:


 * sp_del: This signals that you want to delete a sprite.
 * 8: Similarly to the above, this calls the sprite layer of eight to be deleted. Note that you do not need to reference the name of the sprite - the game will delete everything on that layer.
 * 10: This is the way the sprite disappears from the screen, similar to the second-to-last (10) operation above.
 * 500: This is the time it takes for the transition to finish.

Background Music
If you want to add your own music you need to place a music file in .ogg format (converter) and use it with 1 = "bgm,somemusic.ogg ".
 * Background music, to have playing while you are going through the story, works as follows:
 * 1 = "bgm,alice1 "
 * This line has 2 parts:
 * The "bgm,: signalizes the game that you want to add a background music.
 * The alice1 ": selects music you want to have playing, can be found in list_bgm.txt.

Sound Effects

 * Sound effects are small pieces of sound that play over the background music. You can have multiple sound effects at a time, while you can only have one background music. Sound effects also have the OPTION to loop (don't HAVE to)
 * 1 = "se,1,bird,loop "
 * This line has 3 or 4 parts:
 * The "se,: signalizes the game that you want to add a sound effect.
 * The 1,: selects the "layer" of the sound effect
 * The bird,: Selects which sound effects to play, all can be found in list_se.txt and you can use your own in the same way as background music.
 * The loop ": makes the sound effects loop. To not loop you just remove the command (the line will look like 1 = "se,1,bird "). To STOP a looped sound effect use the command 7 = “se_stop,1 “, where 1 is the layer again. In a post it is said that if you use own sound effects and you want to stop them immediately, you have go one layer number higher.
 * Just like with backgrounds,it is possible to add your own sound effects.Its very simple to do it,first you have to make sure that sound effect is in proper format which is wav,if its not find and download a converter or use online converter(its lots of them out there).Once done with that just simply drop it to the folder with you story.Very simple,now to use it in a story? Just type in se,1,randomsound.wav of course if you are doing it use a proper sound effect name.Example se,1,thunder.wav and thats it you got your own sound effect in your story

Movie Clips

 * In order to play movie clips in the game, you need to make sure the movie file is encoded in MPEG-2 format (*.mpg).


 * 0 = "movie,your_video_filename.mpg"


 * This line has 2 parts:


 * The "movie,: tells the game the file name in the next arguement is a movie.
 * The your_video_filename.mpg: is the name of your video file.

Choices and skipping

 * To have the player choose an answer you have to enter the following line:


 * 646 = "select,Erubetie ,slime,Humanity ,man,Both ,both"


 * This line will show you 3 choices and is made out of 3 or 7 parts (7 if you count the multiple answers)
 * The "select,: this will signal the game that you want to have option boxes pop up
 * The "Erubetie ,: The TEXT of the first answer. This is what is shown on the button, and need to be ended with a space.
 * The "slime,: The IDENTIFIER of the first answer. This is the "route" the game will take when you choose this answer.
 * The other 4 parts are the same as these last two.


 * After a choice, there is usually a small bit different, and then it is back to the main story line. To not have to make large parts dubble, you can also skip certain pieces of text, so you can go back to the main line, that goes for every choice.


 * However if the choice also changes things further down in the story it is wise to when you duplicate large pieces of text, to still make it into new sections to improve readability if you need to change something.


 * If you want the game to skip to an other part you need to input the line:


 * 543 = "goto,op1a"


 * This line has 2 parts:
 * The "goto,: This will signal the game that you want it to go to the part after the comma.
 * The "op1a,: The name of the section you want the game to go to.


 * Here is an example of both the more advanced tools:


 * [story]


 * 0 = "some story "




 * 654 = "select,Option 1 ,op1,Option 2 ,op2"


 * [op1]


 * 0 = "story after option 1 "


 * 1 = "more story "


 * 2 = "goto,op1m1"


 * [op2]


 * 0 = "story after option 2 "


 * 1 = "more story "


 * 2 = "goto,op2m1"


 * [op1m1]


 * 0 = "Part of main story that has slight changes because option 1 was chosen "


 * 1 = "more story "


 * 2 = "goto,end"


 * [op2m1]


 * 0 = "Part of main story that has slight changes because option 2 was chosen "


 * 1 = "more story "


 * 2 = "goto,end"


 * [end]


 * 0 = "Last part of the story, where the options don't matter "


 * 1 = "finalizing "


 * 2 = "end"


 * In this example you can see the start of a story line, 2 options, 2 continuations with slight story differences, and then back to the main story line / ending.


 * As you probably also have noticed, the numbering goes back to 0 at the start of each new section.