Dialogue System

Data-driven dialogue routing — not beginner typewriter tutorials.

NEVER Do in Dialogue Systems

• NEVER hardcode dialogue text in GDScript — Store lines in Resources / JSON / CSV so localization works.
• NEVER show choices the player has not unlocked — Hide (or intentionally gray) gated options.
• NEVER use unvalidated loose strings for node transitions — Typos in next_node_id soft-lock mid-convo; assert / registry IDs.
• NEVER force a typewriter without skip — Click/confirm must finish the line immediately.
• NEVER drive reveal with per-character Timer / OS.delay_msec() — Use visible_ratio / visible_characters + Tween (see typebox_effect.gd).
• NEVER store dialogue cursor state only in the UI node — Scene changes drop the player; keep progress in the manager Autoload / session object.
• NEVER get_node() from NPCs into Dialogue UI — Start via manager signals (start_dialogue(res)).
• NEVER invent regex for BBCode — Prefer RichTextLabel BBCode / custom effects.
• NEVER save/load inside a dialogue node Resource — Nodes are data; persistence belongs to SaveSystem.
• NEVER hardcode portrait paths in code — Assign textures on node Resources or a portrait database.