A dirty way to reload the entire game?

MonsieurBouboule

Hi! I just finished a project and once the player reached the end of the game, I would like to reload the entire game. At first I tried to do it the "clean" way, by using a function called reload_game() that reset some variables etc, but I realized there are a lot of objects I have to instance again, and other stuff I would like to not have to deal with. So I decided to try to find another (dirtier) way to do it. Something that may not be optimal or nice, but is simple enough and actually works.

I red about the function called get_tree().reload_current_scene() and tried to use it at the root of my game (on a script of the "world" node), but when I Calle the function, the game crashes. As far as I can understand, there's something going on with my autoload, because it seems that it contains null objects. I don't understand why, since by reloading the root node, I thought it would reload the entire project, and my autoload with it (since my autoload is a child of the root node). Is there another way to reload the entire game in a very simple way? Ideally, something that's similar to closing the game and reloading it. In LOVE2D, my previous framework, there was a function called love.event.quit("restart") that was basically closing the program and opening it again. Is there something similar in Godot?

Thanks for the help!

cybereality

Usually you would just call "change_scene" and load the title screen or the first level. This should work fine, but if you have a lot of global variables in an autoload you would have to reset those too and I'm not sure how to do that.

MonsieurBouboule

Yeah that’s what I tried but my all game is a unique level (for gameplay purpose, it’s a platformer where you can fall from high places kinda like Getting Over It), and I have global variables in autoload yes (and I’m pretty sure it’s where the problems lies). You say I need to reset those too but why are they not reset when I reset the main node (since they are contained in that node)? Is it because of their autolaod nature?

I’m sure there is an easy way to do what I’m looking for, but for now I have not find it…

TwistedTwigleg

@MonsieurBouboule said: Yeah that’s what I tried but my all game is a unique level (for gameplay purpose, it’s a platformer where you can fall from high places kinda like Getting Over It), and I have global variables in autoload yes (and I’m pretty sure it’s where the problems lies). You say I need to reset those too but why are they not reset when I reset the main node (since they are contained in that node)? Is it because of their autolaod nature?

I’m sure there is an easy way to do what I’m looking for, but for now I have not find it…

Yeah, Autoloads are stored outside of the currently active scene, so they don't get reset when the scene itself changes. If you start the game, go to the scene, and then check the remote debugger, you will see the root node has the loaded scene and all the Autoloads as children. When the scene changes, it just changes the first child and leaves the remaining children alone.

What you could try doing is call a function on the Autoload in the _ready function of the level that tells it to reset. You might be able to do something like this to get it to reset, though I haven't tested it so I'm not sure if it will work or not:

func reset_autoload():
	# I'll assume the Autoload is called "Example" here
	
	# make a new instance of the autoload
	var new_autoload = Example.new()
	# rename this autoload so it doesn't conflict
	var autoload_name = name
	name = name + "_old"
	# name the new one
	new_autoload.name = autoload_name
	# add the new autoload to the scene and delete the current one
	get_tree().root.add_child(new_autoload)
	queue_free()

MonsieurBouboule

Thanks @TwistedTwigleg but I did not manage to make it work. I gave up and spent the time it needed to do it the proper way, which is by manually reset all the variables I needed to reset. It was kind of a pain but at least now it's more manageable and it works fine...

Thanks for the help anyway!