Arrow VS gdext

One way is to create your narrative in Arrow, then export and use it as a database for your runtime/interpreter. The official HTML-JS runtime is based on the same idea. Arrow uses this runtime to create playable exports (mainly for play-test and review). Yet it means you can use this runtime (with customization) to export text-adventures directly from the editor as well. Another way is to create multiple chapters, scenes, etc. and export them as assets for your game (e.g. each scene or branch as a dialog-tree for your RPG).

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JSON is just a text file with some specific conventions to be easily readable by other programs. Though, I took a look at the Inky's JSON export, and it's kinda convoluted. In your case Arrow might be a better fit. You can also consult with your programmer, since he'll be the person implementing your dialogue in game.

I use Arrow for dialogue/scene planning.

For others who are curious, here is the Arrow GitHub repository.

Arrow v1.0.1 is released and now has the textual save preference I promised.

New release of Arrow (v1.0.1) is out.

As an alternative, you can code in C++ or C#. If desired, Godot has bindings for other languages, such as Rust. Going ahead—in the end, C++ came in handy and useful for the project.

The world has moved on though to opinionated tools, and Rust isn't even the furthest in that direction (That would be Go). The equivalent of those two lines in Cargo.toml would be this example of a basic configuration from the jacoco-maven-plugin: https://www.jacoco.org/jacoco/trunk/doc/examples/build/pom.x... - That's 40 lines in the section to do the "defaults".

Yes, you could add a load of config for files to include/exclude from coverage and so on, but the idea that that's a norm is way more common in Java projects than other languages. Like here's some example Cargo.toml files from complicated Rust projects:

Servo: https://github.com/servo/servo/blob/main/Cargo.toml

rust-gdext: https://github.com/godot-rust/gdext/blob/master/godot-core/C...

ripgrep: https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep/blob/master/Cargo.toml

socketio: https://github.com/1c3t3a/rust-socketio/blob/main/socketio/C...

Starting with Godot 4.0, they now support GDExtension which allows you to basically write your own game code in C++ (and other languages), then have the engine import your code: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/scripting/g.... There is also a set of Rust bindings that utilize GDExtension too: https://github.com/godot-rust/gdext.

They might be worth looking into.

Godot currently has 2 versions, the 3.X LTS version has a different api for which rust support ist fully there, that version is I think like 6months old and quite mature. The timeline for GDExtention Rust is difficult to predict but this is the status: https://github.com/godot-rust/gdext/issues/24

Adding onto this, I successfully written a game in Godot using gdnative / gdext. I started with a split approach using gdscript and rust for CPU intensive but found that the API layer was slow at transferring large amounts of data (serialization?). I ended up rewriting it in all rust and it worked like a charm. I was able to target native and web assembly, the web assembly was much slower but worked on the browser.

You can always port performance-sensitive parts of your code later to C#, or even Rust using GDExtension modules: https://github.com/godot-rust/gdext

I’ve recently switched from my own custom game engine written in Rust to Godot and want to use my knowledge in Rust to create game logic. I’ve looked at the book for godot-rust and can’t figure out how to use it properly. My goal is to write Rust code and implement it as a script in Godot 4.

To add to your point, here’s also godot-rust if you want something semi-native in godot