The campaign window and saved games

The Play button at the bottom right of a board opens the campaign window and runs the story from that board’s Start, following Jumps from board to board until a path reaches an End.

A story being played: rendered prose above a list of choices

Property	Value
Engine	The native engine an exported campaign runs. Play and an export share one implementation.
What is compiled	The whole project, not the open board.
Before compiling	Play re-indexes what passages link to and where boards jump, the same index an export reads. A picture added to a passage since the project was opened is in the playthrough without exporting.
Compile warnings	Listed in Messages when Play is pressed, from the same compiler as an export. Examples: a roll that cannot vary, a macro missing one of its ends.
Board checks	Play checks every board with the engine’s checks. A finding names the cards it concerns. `W.GE.06` can be acknowledged per card with I meant that. See Diagnostics.
Python off	If the project has Python turned off (project settings, Capabilities), every Script node and every passage with Python in it is marked as an error and listed in Messages. The campaign does not play until none remain.

Window

Control	Behaviour
Size	The window grows to fit the screen it is on and shrinks to fit a small one.
Full-size button (header)	Takes the window to the app’s edges and back. Escape also brings it back.
Language (header)	The reader picks the language and can change it mid-passage. A passage with nothing in the chosen language says so; it does not fall back.
Mute (header)	Remembered between sessions. It belongs to the campaign: previewing a soundscape in its own tab is never silenced by it. A soundscape’s volume is the file’s and every clip’s is relative to it; there is no second master.
Bookmark (header, beside Play)	Saves the playthrough under a name. Any number may be saved. Saving does not end the playthrough. See Saved games.
Start over	Always available, from the first passage to an ending. Play again is also offered on an ending. While a story runs, the header’s Play control reads Start over.
Panel strip	A narrow strip down the right edge opens the four panels. An open panel takes a third of the window.

What a slide shows

Element	Behaviour
Passage	Rendered as Markdown with its Python already run.
Choices	The tiles beneath the passage.
Choice with a used-up Times limit	Stays on screen, greyed out and unpressable. A passage never becomes an empty slide.
Delay node	Holds the last passage on screen, greyed, with a thin bar while it waits.
Input node	A form. Enter in a field is Continue.
Loop that nothing breaks	Stops the campaign and offers the node that ran away.

Input form fields

Field kind	Control
Text	A text field.
Number	A number field that does not accept letters.
Truth	A switch.
List	A line of comma-separated values.

A story can be paused, saved and resumed at an Input node; resuming asks again. The terminal player asks one line per field, and an unattended walk leaves every field blank.

Loop ceiling

Property	Value
Meaning	The number of times one loop node may go round in a board before the campaign stops.
Default	512.
Choices	128, 512, 2,048, 8,192, or None for no ceiling.
Where set	Playing in Settings.
Interaction	A For node’s own Max iterations applies first when it is lower.
Travels with an export	No. The ceiling is the app’s.

Play from here

Right-click any node on a board and choose Play from here. The campaign begins at that node instead of the Start.

It starts with nothing made yet, and says so. The console in the campaign window sets up whatever the story should have had; it may do everything a Script node may. See How a story runs for why nothing is invented.

The four panels

Panel	Shows	Notes
Entities	Everything the story has made, grouped under the component each came from.	A count on each group heading. A search line finds an entity by name, or a component’s name to find everything made from it. Every row has a bin; nothing is asked first, the playthrough is ephemeral and the component file is untouched.
Variables	What every console variable holds now.	Editable by hand. See Console variables.
Python console	The Python console over the playthrough that is running.	The same console as the script editor, with the same scrollback and history.
Trace	What the story did, line by line.	See below.

Trace panel

Property	Behaviour
Lines	Written in the story’s own words, for example Read The gate chose “Bribe the guard”, Set gold to 2 (was 10), Rolled 2d6+3 → 11, Jumped to The yard, Ambience tavern where a passage brought a soundscape, and what a Script node printed.
Line decoration	Each line wears its node’s icon and colour.
Default reading	What a reader could have noticed.
Toggle	Shows everything underneath: every turn, the values evaluated, the scheduler’s remarks, with a technical line behind each.
Copy	Puts the plain lines on the clipboard.
Tapping a line	Pauses the story, closes the window, opens the board with the node selected and centred. Resume brings the story back.
Line inside a macro	Takes you to the card that called the macro, since that is what is on the board.

Host callbacks panel

The window has a Host callbacks side panel. It lists every fire: the name, the event, whichever payload fields are set, and what became of the lookup.

The editor publishes the names but has no game to react to them, so normally nothing is registered and every fire shows as a name a game would have looked up. A name with nothing registered is not an error; the story plays exactly as it would have. See Host callbacks.

Saved games

Property	Value
Location	`.ripple/saves/` in the project, one file per slot.
Automatic save	Pausing writes it, into the slot a pause owns. It survives closing the app.
Named saves	Made with the bookmark in the header, any number, alongside the automatic one.
Version control	Saves are left out. A playthrough is a fact about the reading, not the story, and the automatic one is rewritten on every pause.

Contents of a save

Recorded	Notes
Where the playthrough is	The place in a board.
Entities	Everything the story has made.
Console variables	What each variable held, not its type. Any of the 24 types, `json` included.
Node memory	What the FlipFlop, Once and State machine nodes remember.
Soundscape	Which one was playing, so a load hears it before it sees the page.
Times counts	A choice’s count is saved: loading finds the path as spent as it was, and starting over reopens it. A macro counts per call, so a corridor called from two places has a budget for each.

Opening a saved game

Property	Behaviour
Where	The bookmark beside Play, or the command palette command Open a saved game….
List	Each save with the passage it is waiting at and how long ago it was written. A save made while waiting at an Input node shows Asks for and the field names instead. A save whose file was changed outside the app is marked edited by hand.
Effect	Opening one discards the campaign in progress. The confirmation, Open this saved game?, says to save that first to keep it.
Changed story	A save is refused when the story has changed since: the save records a place in a board that no longer exists. The save is listed with the reason beside it and left alone.
Deleted board	A save naming a board the project no longer has is reported in Messages: there is nowhere to pick it up.
Pause and resume in one sitting	Not refused. Resume hands back the board just edited.
Newer save in an older build	Refused. A build older than the save does not reset a `json` variable to its default. Games saved before the upgrade have to be saved again.