After-School 🎮

📖 Short Description

After-School is a 2D life-simulation role-playing game built in the Godot Engine. The game places players in the shoes of a student navigating life outside the classroom, requiring them to balance work, academics, and personal finances in a Philippine-inspired urban setting.

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📑 Table of Contents

• Gameplay Overview
• Features
• Getting Started
• Project Structure
• Controls & Keybindings
• Configuration
• Export & Build Instructions
• Plugins & Addons
• Contributing
• License
• Credits & Acknowledgements
• Contact & Links

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🕹️ Gameplay Overview

The core gameplay loop revolves around resource and time management. Players explore various distinct environments — the street, their room, the school, the workplace, and a gambling hub — to complete objectives. Success requires managing digital finances via an in-game smartphone featuring EPera integration, and passing specific career or academic hurdles via distinct minigames.

The game adopts a critical lens on student life, presenting concrete challenges like scholarship interviews and the temptation of illicit gambling ("Sugal") rather than a purely idealized school experience.

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✨ Features

• Explorable Hubs: Seamlessly transition between distinct locales including school, street, room, workplace, and SugalHub.
• Dynamic Minigames:
  • Scholarship Exam: A trivia/quiz minigame driven by an external JSON data file (scholarship_questions.json).
  • Work Tasks: Scenario-based interactions to earn income and progress the story.
• Custom Dialogue System: Powered by a global DialogManager and an event bus (EventBus.gd), enabling rich NPC interactions (e.g., School Guard, Registrar).

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🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Godot Engine: Version 4.x (Standard Edition)
• No .NET/C# runtime required — the project uses GDScript exclusively.

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/jbndct/after-school.git

2. Open Godot Engine and click Import.

3. Navigate to the cloned directory and select the project.godot file.

4. Click Import & Edit to load the project.

Running the Project

• Press F5 or click the Play button in the Godot editor to run the main scene.
• To test a specific scene (e.g., MinigameWork.tscn), open that scene and press F6.

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📁 Project Structure

├── assets/                          # Art assets, sprites, and fonts
│   ├── sprites/                     # Characters, environments, and UI icons
│   │   └── Player/                  # Segmented player limbs and animation poses
│   └── ui/                          # Custom fonts and dialogue box textures
├── data/
│   └── scholarship_questions.json   # Data source for the scholarship minigame
├── scenes/                          # Godot scene files (.tscn)
│   ├── Levels/                      # room, school, street, workplace, SugalHub
│   ├── Minigames/                   # MinigameInterview, MinigameScholarship, MinigameWork
│   └── UI/                          # Player, Menu, SmartphoneUI, DialogueBox
├── scripts/                         # GDScript files (.gd)
│   ├── Core/                        # GameState.gd, RunState.gd, SceneManager.gd, EventBus.gd
│   └── Controllers/                 # menu.gd, player.gd, smartphoneUI.gd
├── singleton/
│   └── DialogManager.gd             # Global dialogue rendering and queuing
├── project.godot                    # Core Godot project configuration
└── icon.svg                         # Application icon

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⌨️ Controls & Keybindings

Action	Key / Input
Move Left / Right	A / D or ← / → Arrow Keys
Jump	Space or ↑ Arrow Key
Interact	E or Enter
Open Smartphone	Tab or M
UI Navigate	Mouse Click / Arrow Keys

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⚙️ Configuration

Game state is managed by global singletons (GameState.gd and RunState.gd).

• To adjust starting money, initial dialogue flags, or player stats for testing, modify the initialization variables in scripts/GameState.gd.
• Dialogue trees and NPC interactions are handled through DialogManager in the singleton/ folder.

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📦 Export & Build Instructions

1. In the Godot Editor, go to Project → Export...
2. If export_presets.cfg is missing, click Add... and select your target platform (e.g., Windows Desktop, macOS, Linux/X11).
3. Ensure the Godot Export Templates are downloaded for your editor version via Editor → Manage Export Templates.
4. Click Export Project, choose a destination folder, and uncheck Export With Debug for release builds.

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🧩 Plugins & Addons

The project uses standard Godot Engine nodes and features only. No third-party plugins from the Godot Asset Library were detected in an addons/ directory.

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🤝 Contributing

1. Fork the project
2. Create your feature branch: git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature
3. Commit your changes: git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature'
4. Push to the branch: git push origin feature/AmazingFeature
5. Open a Pull Request

Code Style Conventions:

• Follow standard GDScript style guidelines.
• Scene files (.tscn) should use PascalCase; script files (.gd) should use snake_case.

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🏆 Credits & Acknowledgements

• Development & Art: Created by the After-School team (John Benedict P. Baladia, Kirsten Gail A. Querubin, Arwen Fajardo)
• Typography: IosevkaCharon-Regular typeface
• Engine: Built with Godot Engine