Docs User guide
Cutscenes
Tell your story with scripted scenes: camera moves, fades, letterbox bars, captions, dialogue and objects moving.
A cutscene is a short scripted scene: the camera drifts over a gate in the rain, a ghost rises out of the water, runes light up and the boss wakes. Open View ▸ Cutscenes (or Create ▸ New Cutscene…). In the Simple layout the tab is hidden from the menus, but the command palette still opens it.
The Lichgate Depths sample has four to look at: the opening at the gate, Brother Hollis's confession, Morvane waking and the epilogue at dawn.
#The Cutscenes tab
- Top bar: pick a cutscene or make a + New cutscene, give it a Name, and choose Plays when: only when played, or when a level starts. First time only plays a level start's cutscene once per game. Can skip lets players skip it. ▶ Preview plays the game straight into the cutscene.
- Steps (left): the steps in order. + Step adds one after the picked step, ▲ ▼ move it, and ✕ removes it. A step marked With previous runs at the same time as the step above it, so a camera move and a caption can happen together.
- Settings (right): the picked step's settings. Objects are picked by their Script name, set in Properties.
Every change can be undone with Ctrl+Z.
#Steps
| Step | What it does |
|---|---|
| Camera moves to | Glides the camera to look at an object, a tile or the player, from a distance, height and angle. Keep following it keeps the camera on a moving object. |
| Camera looks at | Turns the camera to look at something without moving it. |
| Camera back to the player | Glides back to the game camera. |
| Fade | Fades the screen out to a color, or back in. |
| Letterbox bars | Black bars slide in or out. |
| Wait | Waits a number of seconds. |
| Show text | A caption at the bottom, or a big banner. |
| Run dialogue | Runs a conversation from the Dialogue tab and waits until it ends. |
| Move object / Turn object | Glides or turns an object. An enemy moved this way stays there and fights from there. |
| Show / hide object | Shows or hides an object. |
| Play animation | Plays an animation on an object or the player. |
| Play sound / Change music | A sound, or new music. |
| Set switch / Set variable | Changes a switch or a variable. |
| Time of day | Moves the clock to an hour over some seconds. |
| Run actions | Any trigger actions, such as giving items or particles. |
#Playing a cutscene
- From a Trigger, a zone, a dialogue or a visual script, use the action Play cutscene. The actions after it wait until it ends.
- In Quick code,
cutscene("Opening")plays it and waits. See Waiting, timing and tasks. - Set Plays when to a level to play it when that level starts.
Only one cutscene plays at a time.
#What players see
While a cutscene plays, the player can't move and the gameplay HUD is hidden. Dialogue boxes, choices and banners still show. When it ends, the game camera, the HUD and the controls come back.
Players skip with Esc or the gamepad's B, pressed twice. Skipping jumps every step to its end, so objects, switches and music end up just as if the player had watched. A Run dialogue step is never skipped over, because the player's answers matter.