Relative References

#expandme

Entities

• %SELF% — the entity running the script
• %PLAYER% — the player entity

Unlike relative entity names, you can use these two relative entity references everywhere, including the arguments of actions.

%PLAYER%

When used as the target of an action, %PLAYER% refers to the player entity (the entity marked is_player on the map in Tiled).

When used in the body of a message (e.g. "Hello, %PLAYER%!") it will use the current name of the player entity.

%SELF%

When used as the target of an action, %SELF% refers to the entity running the script.

When used in the body of a message (e.g. "Hey, there! My name is %SELF%!") it will use the current name) of the entity running the script.

Example

#updateme

Let's say we have two entities:

1. Bender
2. Strong Bad

Plus the %PLAYER% entity:

3. Bob

And the script:

"dialog-introduction": [
  {
    "alignment": "BOTTOM_LEFT",
    "entity": "%SELF%",
    "messages": [
      "So you're %PLAYER%, huh?\nWell, My name is %SELF%!",
      "Got it memorized?"
    ]
  }
]

If the entity Bender ran the script above, you would see the following dialog boxes:

Bender:
So you're Bob, huh?
Well, my name is Bender!

Bender:
Got it memorized?

Because Bender was the entity running the script, the MGE interpreted %SELF% to be Bender.

If the same script were run by Strong Bad instead, the %SELF% reference would be Strong Bad instead:

Strong Bad:
So you're Bob, huh?
Well, my name is Strong Bad!

Strong Bad:
Got it memorized?

Best Practice: Consistency

All entity references) should be consistent within a dialog, whether they are relative or absolute references. If there are multiple dialogs inside the same script, they should be consistent with each other, as well.

If we change entity to Bender instead of %SELF%, but leave the %SELF% reference in the dialog messages alone, the conversation would appear correct if run by Bender, but no one else.

"dialog-introduction": [
  {
    "alignment": "BOTTOM_LEFT",
    "entity": "Bender",
    "messages": [
      "So you're %PLAYER%, huh?\nWell, My name is %SELF%!",
      "Got it memorized?"
    ]
  }
]

If Strong Bad runs the above dialog:

Bender:
So you're Bob, huh?
Well, my name is Strong Bad!

Bender:
Got it memorized?

NOTE: the entity property is already a relative reference, whereas name is not. So if Bender's in-game name were changed by the player or a script — let's change it to Flexo for the sake of this example — then the dialog would still appear consistent (as long as Bender was the one running the script):

Flexo:
So you're Bob, huh?
Well, my name is Flexo!

Flexo:
Got it memorized?

However, if you were using name instead of entity, then you would begin to have issues even when the correct entity is running the script:

"dialog-introduction": [
  {
    "alignment": "BOTTOM_LEFT",
    "name": "Bender",
    "messages": [
      "So you're %PLAYER%, huh?\nWell, My name is %Bender%!",
      "Got it memorized?"
    ]
  }
]

Bender:
So you're Bob, huh?
Well, my name is Flexo!

Bender:
Got it memorized?

In such a case, you would want to use %Bender% for name so that your dialog message and dialog label would be consistent.