Levrex's solution answer your original concern, but may I suggest something else completely?
Now let's say that for some reason, you do not want to alter the script file already there when updating, only adding new one. Now there are certain problem with your idea:
-You lost flexibility. Like it or not, you will still have to put a code somewhere among the original files (ie. those that you do not want to be modified) that check to see whether the file corresponding to each chapter are there, and present the menu based on what is there, that presumable also show certain basic fact about the chapter, such as its name. This will commit you to: (a) the name of the script file; (b) the name of the chapter; and (c) the name of the label you need to jump to to start that chapter.
-You lost control over potential problem cause by updating Ren'Py. This is because you probably don't want to publish the script file to the player, so you will send them a built and obfuscated file instead. The file name will at least have different extension, and it is possible that this choice of extension will change in newer version of Ren'Py. While there are way to deal with this issue too, I suggest that this is still a bad idea, since this method is not going to be used by anybody, so if say for example, if future Ren'Py update think that it might need to change the file name for the purpose of easy porting to a new platform for example, it will make that change.
-You cannot add more chapters than you already planned.
Hence I suggest using a different method altogether. Here is how:
In one of the original script file, insert the following:
Code: Select all
init -1000 python:
class chapter_info:
def __init__(self,ord,title,lbl):
self.chapter_ordering=ord
self.chapter_title=title
self.chapter_jump_label=lbl
chapter_list=[]
The purpose here is create a list of chapter which is the variable "chapter_list", and presumable it will contains elements of the type "chapter_info" which contains some basic information about the chapter such as ordering (the order to display the chapter in the menu), title (the name of the chapter), and the name of the label to jump to. Of course, you could always customize that code to add in more information perhaps.
Then whenever you make a new chapter, insert something like this into the script file of that chapter:
Code: Select all
init -1 python:
chapter_list.append(chapter_info(2,"The Lost Puppy","lost_puppy"))
label lost_puppy:
"I heard a sound at the door."
"I come out to check and to my surprise there is a puppy there."
This code add a chapter of ordering 2, titled "The Lost Puppy", and indicate that to start this chapter, you need to jump to "label lost_puppy:". This code will not run if the script file is not there (obviously
) but will automatically run if the script file is there, which will add the chapter into chapter_list. Using this, you can then make a menu that will go through chapter_list and see which chapter are there, what are their title, how to order them on the menu, it's all up to you. I am not going to put a menu code here, because I do not know what do you want to do with the menu. However, the process of reading the list usually start like this:
Code: Select all
python:
for chapter in chapter_list:
#do what you need here, for example chapter.chapter_title would be the title of the chapter
Of course, to start a chapter, you need to jump to the label with the corresponding name. So say the made your menu so that when the player select a chapter, you will story the label into the variable selected_chapter_jump_label, then you can jump like this:
Code: Select all
$renpy.jump(selected_chapter_jump_label)
Good luck.
