FolioTier 1

if

Conditional routing — evaluate an expression, branch to one of two scenes.

Parameters

Parameter	Kind	Required	Default	Notes
condition	expression	yes	—	Bounded expression evaluated against project state. Supports comparison (`>=`, `<`, `==`), boolean operators (`and`, `or`, `not`), arithmetic, membership (`in`), and subsystem references (`stats.<name>`, `inventory.has(<id>)`). Full grammar: see Phase 6 § Design — bounded expressions in verb arguments.
true target	scene target	yes	—	Scene to jump to when the condition evaluates truthy. Required — `if` is a routing construct, not a side-effecting block.
else target	scene target	yes	—	Scene to jump to when the condition evaluates falsy. Required, same reason as the true target. Use the same scene as the true target if you want a no-op fallthrough (rare in practice).

Canonical example

Folio

if has-key -> unlock-door else -> rattle-door
if love >= 5 -> emma-route-good else -> emma-route-neutral

Ren'Py

if has_key:
    jump unlock_door
else:
    jump rattle_door

if love >= 5:
    jump emma_route_good
else:
    jump emma_route_neutral

if is a one-line routing construct, not a Ren'Py-style block of conditional code. The shape is if <condition> -> <true-target> else -> <false-target> — both arrows are mandatory. The runtime evaluates the expression, jumps to one of the two scenes, and never falls through.

This is a deliberate narrowing from Ren'Py's if / elif / else chains. Folio's design favours making routing visible in the scene-graph (every conditional becomes two outgoing edges) over giving creators full control flow. Complex chains decompose into a series of small two-target if scenes — verbose to write, cleaner to read in the node editor.

Notes

The condition expression follows the closed grammar locked in G6.0. Common patterns:

Stat comparison: if love >= 5 -> ...
Inventory check: if inventory.has("key") -> ...
Membership: if location in ["bedroom", "bathroom"] -> ...
Boolean state: if eaten-cookies-today -> ...
Combined: if (love >= 5) and (charisma > 3) -> ...

What the grammar does not allow: function calls, list comprehensions, ternaries, modulo, chained comparisons. If you need one of those, you're probably hiding a subsystem the catalog should have — see Phase 6 § Failure mode #1.

The importer translates Ren'Py if/elif/else chains into a sequence of two-target ifs. elif is not a Folio construct.

Parameters

Canonical example

Notes

See also