Expresso Condition and Instruction playback functionality

[ei8htbit]

Hey team,

This may be a dumb question, but is the use of conditional and instructional Expresso statements using global variables purely for visual reference or is it meant to functionally operate, for example in branching path playback? In other words, does articy actually track and maintain project variables in any way? My assumption was that it would be functional for playback, but it does not seem that way in practice because even when I have instructions with conditional branching paths in place that reference specific variable values the presentation play through journey editor seems to ignore those instructions and present all possible options in a branching path anyway, regardless of the specific conditions I have in place. I have tried using conditions directly via pins on nodes as well as using separate condition nodes with the same result.

For instance, here is a simplified scenario I have in place:

Variable set = GameState
Variable = TalkedToMerchant
Type = Boolean
Default = false
Implementation = GameState.TalkedToMerchant

I have a Dialogue Fragment flow as follows:

{ DIALOGUE FRAGMENT
MERCHANT: "A pleasure to meet you, please come again"
INSTRUCTION ON OUTPUT PIN OF THIS FRAGMENT: GameState.TalkedToMerchant = true
}

{CONDITION NODE:
GameState.TalkedToMerchant == true
}

{DIALOGUE FRAGMENT CONNECTED TO GREEN(if true) PIN:
HERO: "I have talked to the merchant."
}

{DIALOGUE FRAGMENT CONNECTED TO RED(if false) PIN:
HERO: "I still need to talk to the merchant."
}

Now when I play through the journey of this simple path as a test, the sequence plays through in order, but when I get to the conditional node it allows me to choose either path, regardless that I have set the instruction and condition of the control variable to specifically choose the "true" path and prohibit the "false" path.

So is the purpose of these control variables strictly for visual reference when reading through the flow or do they function in any way within articy I may have missed?

Thanks for your help, sorry if this is a silly question

[Julius Kuschke]

Hi ei8thbit,

Don't worry, this is definitely not a silly question. Articy:expresso statements can already be evaluated easily when using our middleware articy:access. So, they are functional, but there's no possibility of testing them inside of articy:draft.
But right now we are working on the evaluation of articy:expresso statements within journeys, so that every articy:draft user can test their game logic conveniently without leaving the application. This feature is coming along quite well and will be part of our next update 2.4.

[ei8htbit]

Ha OK that's what I thought might be the case I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

I just have a single user license without articy:access (so no API for me) but this is really exciting news if such game logic testing functionality within journeys will be added in future updates.

thanks for your help