Line Groups

Learn about using line groups, which allow Yarn Spinner to choose which content to run, depending on conditions.

To give your dialogue more life and variety, you can also provide lines in a line group. When lines are in a line group, Yarn Spinner will choose one of them for you.

Line groups are collections of lines that begin with a => symbol:

title: Start
---
Captain: Navigator, fire the glitter torpedoes! That'll confuse the enemy ships!
=> Navigator: *sighs deeply* Sir, we don't have 'glitter torpedoes.' Those were in your dream last night.
=> Navigator: *eyes roll skyward* Captain, weaponizing craft supplies is not part of standard space combat protocol.
=> Navigator: *Slumps shoulders in defeat* I'll... make a note in the log that you suggested tactical glitter, sir.
===

In this example, the Captain will say "Navigator, fire the glitter torpedoes! That'll confuse the enemy ships!", and then Yarn Spinner will choose one of the subsequent lines to respond with.

Line groups are great for running ‘barks’ - collections of short lines that need to run in response to an in-game event. It can be useful to think of them like Yarn Spinner’s existing options -> syntax, but instead of the player choosing which content to run, the computer picks it for you:

=> Guard: Halt!
=> Guard: No entry!
=> Guard: Stop!

You can attach conditions to lines in a line group, to ensure that they only run when it’s appropriate to do so. Conditions can be any true or false expression, and can also be combined with the once keyword to ensure that a line can only run once:

=> Guard: Greetings, citizen.
=> Guard: Hello, traveller.
	Guard: Stay vigilant. // runs after 'Hello, traveller.'
=> Guard: Hail, adventurer! <<if $player_is_adventurer>>
=> Guard: I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow in the knee. <<once if $player_is_adventurer>>

A line in a line group can also have additional lines belonging to it, which will run if the item is selected.