Suggestion: Level Select menu

[catprisbrey]

I've been digging in trying to learn the ins and outs of these menu setups, and thinking about how to expand on them, and the next menu i want to make next may actually be useful enough for others it's worth suggesting here.

Thinking about the scope of game jams, or even longer games with many missions/levels across a bigger game. I was thinking it'd be handy to have include a level select menu, even if just as a base example. It looks like you have the scripts to pull lists of levels from the level loader, and obviously lots of menu nodes. So I'm imagining a menu that propogates an item list or buttons of every level it's detected in the level direction. The label on the button is the filename of the .tscn level, printed prettier with spaces not underscores, and proper case, no extension.

Just a way to bounce between levels you have, not always in sequence 1-10, etc. Users could extend this further to customize it for their own needs (like level unlocks once a previous level is completed, or something). But the basic backbone of fetching levels, and propogating a level list for the MainMenu menus, seems handy and universal enough to suggest.

[Maaack]

I appreciate the suggestion! I've also used a level select in a couple of game jams, but hadn't gotten around to adding it to the template. The way you describe it working makes perfect sense to me, too.

The one caveat I'd have is that I want to keep the main menu as game-agnostic as possible. My first pass may just be the new menu, on it's own. Perhaps the "continue" button could have an optional link to the scene, before it tries to load the game scene, instead.

I'm in progress on an update, but also welcome contributions. Either way, this should be available soon. Thanks for the feedback!

[catprisbrey]

Sounds great. A level list at its most basic would already be a great help. For real games as well as during the dev/debugging process (bouncing between levels without needing to win_level in order to cycle through them.)

I'll be tinkering building something for my own needs, and if it turns out decent I'll share.