Official Game Dialog script language extension for VS Code

This is the VS Code extension project for full support of the Game Dialog script language. Scripts themselves should be written in *.gds files.

For comfortable work with the language you should install the CLI tool gdialog.

Installation for macOS

If you are a macOS user the easiest way is via Homebrew.

If you don't have Homebrew yet, run:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Then to install gdialog itself, run:

brew tap bitpatch/tools
brew install gdialog

Installation on any system

You can also install gdialog on any other system using dotnet. If you don't have dotnet yet, install it in any convenient way. Easiest is to start at the official site: dotnet.microsoft.com. Or ask one of the AI assistants — that's the time we live in :)

After that install the tool with:

dotnet tool install -g gdialog

Briefly about the language

Game Dialog Script is a language intended, as the name obviously suggests, for writing non‑linear dialog in games. An important point: the language is fully written in C# 9 and therefore can be used seamlessly with the Unity and Godot (Mono) game engines.

A script can look at and change variable values directly in C# on the fly and return them. This lets you seamlessly connect the dialog script logic with the game state written in C#. That makes this language a great choice if you develop games in Unity or Godot.

To test your dialogs you don't even need to run the game; just execute them in VS Code using the CLI tool gdialog and this extension.

Quick start on Unity

Download the C# language library from the repository game-dialog-lang or add it as a submodule.

Create a simple script script.gds and you can immediately test it right inside VS Code without launching the game:

playerName = "Arthur"
reputation = 75

<< "Welcome, traveler!"

if reputation > 50
    << "Good to see you again, " + playerName + "!"
else
    << "I don't know you."

You will get output:

Welcome, traveler!
Good to see you again, Arthur!

After that create a simple MonoBehaviour script:

using BitPatch.DialogLang;

var script = @"
playerName = ""Arthur""
<< ""Hello, "" + playerName + ""!""
<< ""How are you doing?""
";

var dialog = new Dialog();
foreach (var line in dialog.Execute(script))
{
    Console.WriteLine(line);
}

Done! You can do something like this for Godot too. Good luck!