This is an old revision of the document!
This documentation is out of date and needs to be updated to reflect the recent refactor.
Also need to redocument how to use it with Tweego, since it's now a combined HTML library instead of JS.
Howdy. Welcome to the LibEcho documentation.
LibEcho is a free and open-source library for Sugarcube 2 (a story format for Twine/Twee), intended to help prospective authors with the technical implementation of Erotic Transformation Games.
However, even if TF-pr0n isn't your thing, much of the library is also quite useful for any Twine/Twee game. The library is modular, so you can just leave out the TF libraries if you wish, and those mechanics won't be included in your game.
Too often, we see potential authors having to reinvent the wheel time and time again (vis-a-vis inventory, apparel, and transformation mechanics). They end up burning out on these technical details before they can complete their story, resulting in many dead-end projects. It is my hope that this library can help alleviate that problem, so that we can all bring many more delicious TF-pr0n games into the world. :D
LibEcho is released under the 4-clause BSD license.
The current implementation provides several modular libraries:
- Some prototype methods added to some built-in JS types, to assist with prose-generation (capitalization, serial-comma listing).
- Various useful macros and widgets that extend the functionality of Sugarcube 2.
- A defaults/delta persistence layer, running on top of Sugarcube's persistence/history system, to help economize that precious local storage space while keeping almost all object properties dynamic. The rest of the library is built on top of this persistence layer.
- A general inventory system.
- A clothing/apparel/jewelry system, built on top of the general inventory system.
- A grammar library and macro collection that allows one piece of text to be written so that it can display the correct pronoun references and verb tenses regardless of the current viewpoint character or gender of the subject or other nouns. (“He has blond hair.”/“She has blonde hair.”/“You have blond hair.”)
- A general implementation of “transformable values”, which can be linked to each other, intended to model the various physical and mental states of a character in a slow-TF story. (Currently incomplete and disabled.)
- An extensible PC/NPC class, built on the above inventory, apparel, and transformation systems.
If you're just getting started, try out the Tutorial. Once you've gotten your legs, read the documentation for the Macro Library and the Javascript API, and then you ought to be all set!