The Approaching Rot is a visual novel set in the universe of Teren. As you play you play, you meet new characters, unlock passages in the codex, and gain stats. The game also has a fighting mechanic, although it’s not fully implemented in this build.

I was the lead programmer for TFTTAR, and as such, I implemented many of the systems used in the game. As well, I had to find solutions to many of the things that we wanted to implement.

The ChoiceScript suite can be rather limiting if you want to add new features. So, I had to code a system that allows for the replacement of existing functions.

function hookFunctions() {
    let hookedFuncs = [
        ["replaceBbCode", "replacementReplaceBbCode", "originalReplaceBbCode"],
        ["setButtonTitles", "replacementSetButtonTitles", "originalSetButtonTitles"],
        ["changeFontSize", "replacementChangeFontSize", "originalChangeFontSize"]
    ];

    // Is this particularly safe, probably not.
    // Do I care? ... :) 
    for(i in hookedFuncs) {
        eval('${hookedFuncs[i][2]} = ${String(window[hookedFuncs[i][0]])}');
        eval('${hookedFuncs[i][0]} = ${hookedFuncs[i][1]}');
    }
}

The first string in the hookedFuncs array is the name of the function, the second is the name of the function that adds on to the original function, and the last string is the name of the function that the original function gets moved to.

The writers could not directly into the ChoiceScript format, so they had to write the chapters into a Google Doc and I would then import the chapter manually.

Coding in ChoiceScript is a slog due in part to ChoiceScript’s need to be intuitive to non-coders. However, since ChoiceScript has global variables and you can jump to functions regardless of where the function is, you can essentially simulate a machine code-like environment.

With this, I was able to implement skill checks, helper functions, and attribute updater functions.

ChoiceScript, for whatever reason, scrolls to itself when it loads. To combat this, I’ve locked it behind a button.