Dialogue Strings & Quizzes

Game Maker Tutorial Templates

Open Game Maker and find tutorials in the Templates tab for hands-on learning. For more details on using text, see:

Speaker component
Asker behaviour
Rules system game screen options
- Banners
- Popup window
- Text variables
Text formatting
Objectives (quest UI)

See Dialogue in our Narrative Design resources for information about creating engaging dialogue that fits within the technical limits, and communicating plans with a team.

Dialogue Strings

An object may only have one Asker behaviour, so multiple objects (including invisible ones) must have logic set up so players can trigger more than one interactive question or statement with an NPC.

Dialogue strings are multiple objects with logic triggered in a sequence using messages so the correct text appears at the right moment. The amount of objects needed will be unique to your Experience setup, but the logic needed is simple.

Useful Logic

"Bark" - Get the player's attention

Add a Speaker component to an object, set to detect players, and add text to appear in the box. This may sometimes be used instead of setting up a quest Giver icon.

Speaker components can be set up in a string since they require a message to trigger and can send a message when triggered. There is no built-in delay, so you may want to use a Timed Events behaviour to receive the outgoing messages and trigger the next Speaker using precise timing so the player has time to read each Speaker's text.

Dialogue - Inform/hint the player

Add an Asker behaviour to an object, set a question or statement, set player responses, and set messages to be sent if the player selects each response

Toggle Behaviour - Turn on/off or toggle an object's Asker behaviour

Add a Toggle Behaviour component to an object (SP or MP depending on other logic applied to the object) to set messages to turn the object's behaviour on or off or set a message to switch between on and off states. Set the initial state.

This allows you to turn on or off any Asker behaviour dialogue to trigger only the right dialogue needed for the quest state or for a string of dialogue.