Branching menus: How to create them?

Hello! I'm Venomous Woe, and I'm new here. Pleased to meet you!

I'm designing a game using Construct Classic, and I'm running into a bit of trouble. See, the game is basically a 2D,top down, twin stick version of Wing Commander Privateer, and one of the functions I want to implement are space stations where the player can buy ships, receive quests, and save their game. What I'm stuck on is how to create the menu system.

See, I want the menu system to present four main options when the player comes in contact with the station: Buy Ships, Talk, Trade, and Save Game. From there I want to implement additional options. Here's an example of what I'm talking about (names are tentative and subject to change):

Root Menu -> Buy Ship -> Viper-class (2000 credits)

                      Scythe-class (5000 credits)

                      Doberman-class (15000 credits)

              Talk -> Andrew Veers

                      Emily Free

                      Donald Stone -> (Quest Line)

                      Vagabond

              Trade -> Buy -> (List of commodities)

                      Sell -> (List of possessions)

              Save Game -> (List of save slots)

Any how I can implement this? Thanks! Having a lot of fun with Construct so far!

You'll have to make the menu on its own layout, then use layer inheritance( that or the layout object, but the layer inheritance seems to work better.) to get it into the main game screen.

you'll probably need to compile each group into some sort of data file, array, hash table, .INI file.. whatever you feel comfortable working with.

then in the menu layer have the info printed out using the list box object, if you want the quick, easy, and ugly option.

or make your own list using sprites, loops, and functions. if you want it to look pretty

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making menus in construct is probably one of the more difficult things to do. there's no real quick fix that I know of.

If any of this seems too confusing, just look around the forums for examples,or just ask, and me and who ever else will help elaborate a bit more.

making menus in construct is probably one of the more difficult things to do. there's no real quick fix that I know of.

You can say that again!

Thanks Bartosh!

I think I might need that elaboration though, as I'm not sure how to use ANY of those objects. I'll keep plugging away and looking at the forums, but I'm not sure how far it's going to get me.

Thank you very much for your help, though.

I'd just design the menu on the first layout as global objects in their own layer on each layout. Then you can show/hide the layer whenever you want menu options to work by importing a global event sheet for them.

Maybe also use a global variable to decide when to show/hide the menu and how it functions.

Using the menu's code, you can change the text/animation frame of each menu option

Edit: Ah, the menu objects need only be placed on the first layout, other layouts just need the additional "Menu" layer in them at the top of the stack.

Thanks for the tips, Jayjay. Thanks to you guys, I've got a branching menu now. It's not perfect or complete, but I do have it thanks to the use of an INI file and a global variable. And I didn't have to do multiple layouts!

Thanks for all your help, guys. I'll be sure to come back if I have any other questions.