Dialogue Studio

Dialogue Studio is a node editor for Blabber dialogue in the site’s theme. Each state is a node, each reply is a wire to the state it leads to, and both languages are written on the node itself. Documents keep the current Blabber format; the Studio only adds paths, node positions and bilingual text around them.

What you are making

Open Dialogue Studio. The English route is /en/tools/dialogue-studio/ and the Chinese route is /zh-cn/tools/dialogue-studio/. The site repository owns the tool; this repository owns the game resources.

Work happens in a session: one workspace kept in the browser’s IndexedDB. You can keep several sessions, switch between them without losing anything, and download any of them as a workspace backup. A workspace uses isekai-dialogue-workspace version 1:

Translations are optional at every step. A resource export writes every referenced key in both languages and uses "" for absent or whitespace-only text. Only structural errors block an export.

Requirements

The tool runs in the browser with no service, API key or extra npm dependency. If the browser blocks storage, the session is kept in memory only and the status bar says so; download a backup before closing the tab in that case.

An imported file becomes a dialogue only if it is JSON with a states object and its resulting path passes the path rule above. Other files are listed as skipped with the reason. A dialogue with structural problems still imports; the Issues tab and the file tree mark it until it is fixed.

Steps

1. Bring dialogue in. Import accepts dialogue JSON, en_us.json / zh_cn.json, a workspace backup and ZIP files; A whole folder takes a picked folder. You can also drop files and folders anywhere on the Studio. Anything under a blabber_dialogues/ folder keeps the path after it, so the mod’s src/main/resources/data/isekaiexpansion/blabber/blabber_dialogues folder imports as-is. When an incoming path already exists you choose Replace them or Keep mine. A workspace backup opens as a new session, or merges into the open one.
2. Or generate a family in Generate. Pick a template (simple, branching, NPC trade, conditional reply, or the open dialogue), a scope — unique, common, simple, combat, citizen, villager or allegiance — and toggle routes, relationship tiers, phases and genders. The panel runs the generator on every change and shows the file count, the first paths and any skipped combinations. Scenario variants are 0–5, matching runtime lookup. Existing paths are skipped or stop the run, whichever you choose. $key in a template becomes the resource’s key prefix.
3. Build the graph. Drag from a reply’s port (●) onto a node to link it; drop on empty space and the node library opens there, and the new node is linked. Double-click the canvas to add a node, or right-click for more. The library holds dialogue, end and confirmation states, plus ready-made states with isekaiexpansion:open_npc_trade, blabber:open_trade, isekaiexpansion:give_item, isekaiexpansion:emoji, blabber:redirect, blabber:command and isekaiexpansion:open_guild_bounties. New text gets keys under the dialogue’s prefix: <prefix>.<state> for the line and <prefix>.<state>.reply_<n> for replies, where the prefix is dialogue.isekaiexpansion. followed by the path with / as ..
4. Edit a node in the Inspect tab. Change its ID, type and start flag; write the line and each reply in English and Chinese side by side; set each reply’s destination and condition; add, order and fill actions from a form; or edit the node JSON directly. Custom fields the form does not know are kept. When the selected language is empty, nodes show the other language’s text, tagged 中 or EN, instead of the key.
5. Delete, copy and paste freely. Deleting a node unlinks the replies that pointed at it; they show a red port and count as errors until relinked, and a deleted start moves the start to the first remaining node. Pasting renames clashing IDs (line → line_2), keeps links between pasted nodes, keeps links to states the target already has, and unlinks the rest. Keys that belonged to the source dialogue are copied to fresh keys under the target prefix with their text; shared keys such as a common “continue” stay shared.
6. Write text in bulk in the Text view. Filter by status (unfinished, English missing, Chinese missing, complete) and scope (workspace, folder, dialogue), and run find & replace across the filtered keys. Copy for AI puts the unfinished filtered keys on the clipboard with their source locations; Paste text merges the filled result back. Empty values never overwrite text already written.
7. Check structure in the Issues tab and play the dialogue in Play. Conditions and actions are listed in the playthrough but not run.
8. Export. Resource bundle covers the whole session; Selected files and a folder’s menu export part of it. A file’s menu or the inspector exports one dialogue as JSON. Language files, the translation to-do and a workspace backup are also in the Export menu.
9. Review the bundle, copy the dialogue files into src/main/resources/data/isekaiexpansion/blabber/blabber_dialogues/, merge the language fragments into language_assemble/categories/dialogues and run ./gradlew.bat assembleLanguageFiles.

Moving or renaming a dialogue, or a whole folder, can also rename the keys that follow its old path and carry their text across; old keys nothing uses any more are removed. Duplicating a dialogue gives the copy its own keys by default.

The everyday, romance and command presets in Generate fill routes, relationship tiers and phases. Romance includes bond conversations and responses to the Engage Ring. Presets author dialogue only; the game still controls proposal eligibility and spouse binding. See NPC favour and romance.

Declaring it

The runtime chooses a dialogue by resource path; generating a file does not register a new menu route. See Dialogue data for the game format and allegiance runtime for racial owner routes.

The validator rejects a missing start, unlinked or dangling replies, unknown state types, singular action, malformed action containers, an isekaiexpansion:emoji action without an emoji ID, and reachable states with no path to an ending. It warns about unreachable states and start-state actions. Custom action codecs still need an in-game reload check.

A resource bundle contains:

translation-todo.json lists only unfinished keys; the language files also contain completed ones. Workspace backups keep dictionary entries no dialogue references; resource exports include only referenced keys.

Copy for AI produces a brief that Paste text and Import both read back:

Writers and AI agents fill language values while preserving keys, paths, actions and requirements. Either language can come back on its own; the remaining empty values stay available for later.

Checklist

• Download a backup before clearing browser data or moving to another device. Sessions live in one browser only.
• Empty text is fine while authoring and handing off. Review both languages and the exact resource paths before shipping game content.
• Clear the Issues tab, then test every branch in the game, including custom actions and denied requirements.
• Use Sessions → Clean up to drop unused text keys and unreachable nodes before a final export.
• In the site repository, run npm.cmd run test:dialogue, npm.cmd run check and npm.cmd run build:fast.

Related

• Dialogue data — runtime fields and routing.
• NPC dialogue runtime — server admission and transactions.