Besida (¨бесіда¨) ─ language for defining dialogue

Usage

Your text file - let's call it the_part_where_he_kills_you.txt:

--- Chapter 9 Transition ---

GLaDOS:
    Well, this is the part where he kills us.

Wheatly:
    Hello! This is the part where I kill you!

[announce_next_chapter]
[unlock_achievement]

Initialization:

use besida::Besida;
use std::path::Path;

// ...

let dialogue_file_path = Path::new("the_part_where_he_kills_you.txt");
let besida = Besida::new(dialogue_file_path);

Somewhere in loop:

{
    let Some(node) = besida.get_node_mut() else { return };
    let Some(event) = node.get_event() else { return };

    match event {
        Event::PrintChar(char) => {
            // append character for typed out text effect
        },
        Event::Action(action) => {
            match actions.as_str() {
                "announce_next_chapter" => {
                    // call UI to announce chapter / animate transition
                },
                "unlock_achievement" => {
                    // call achievement system to set specific achievement unlocked
                }
            }
        }
        _ => {},
    }

    node.next_event();
}

---

Implementation:

• Besida: struct that is initiated with path to dialogue file (example) and parses it to dialogue nodes
• Dialogue node: holds speaker name and their speech (in form of events and in form of plain text)
• Event: enum that drives the design - pattern matching when iterating over events makes it very easy to execute actions in sequence as intended when writing dialogue in proposed format

Here's an example with godot-rust where event_tick is triggered by letter display timerevery n milliseconds to simulate typing:

    #[func]
    fn event_tick(&mut self) {
        let Some(node) = self.besida.get_node_mut() else { return };
        let Some(event) = node.get_event() else { return };

        let mut dialogue_box = self
            .base
            .get_parent()
            .unwrap()
            .get_node_as::<DialogueBox>("DialogueBox");

        match event {
            Event::PrintChar(char) => {
                let speech = dialogue_box.bind().get_speech();
                let new_speech = format!("{}{}", speech, char);

                dialogue_box.bind_mut().set_speech(new_speech.into());
            }
            _ => {},
        }

        node.next_event();
    }

Moving forward I want to add more events such as expressions/emotions of speaker, text speed control, text highlighting or styling in general. Also better ways to read actions when matching.