Objects that point to each other

Comments

• L

  June 2014

  You currently can't store cyclic objects in Twine variables - the game state has to be serialisable as a string so that the bookmark link can be generated and the back/undo button can behave correctly even after navigating away from the page. (1.4.2 does a few ad-hoc tricks to allow "pure" functions to be serialisable, but other than that it's basically the same as JSON.stringify's restrictions.)
  
  (I say "currently" but I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about lifting this restriction for stories that opt-out of undo and serialisable state via StorySettings.)
• TheMadExile

  June 2014

  Just to throw my 2 in.  Cyclic references should be avoided as a general rule.  Besides unnecessarily complicating the back-end header code, unless authors are extremely careful it's all too easy to do something which will lead to a recursive death spiral.
  
  Beyond that, you don't need cyclic references to accomplish what you want.
  
  One solution would be to put all your characters into a object and then use symbolic references.  For example:

  
:: Start
<<set $chars = {
paul : { name : "Paul MacIver" },
joe : { name : "Joe Blow" }
}>>\
<<set $chars.paul.enemy = "joe">>\
<<set $chars.joe.enemy = "paul">>\
[[Check your work]]

:: Check your work
''paul says:''
I am <<print $chars.paul.name>> and my mortal enemy is <<print $chars[$chars.paul.enemy].name>>.

''joe says:''
I am <<print $chars.joe.name>> and my mortal enemy is <<print $chars[$chars.joe.enemy].name>>.