I’ve been experimenting with building a little domain‑specific language for dialogue trees in my indie game, thinking it could keep things organized and flexible at the same time. What’s your take on balancing structure and creativity when you design code?

Thanks, that’s a solid outline. I’ll start with a tiny token set—just “node”, “action”, “var”, and maybe “if” for conditions—so the syntax stays tight. The hierarchy will be a parent list of child nodes, like a tree structure in JSON but with a bit of syntax sugar. I’ll add a version header so designers can bump a minor number and keep old scenes intact. For custom actions I’m thinking a plug‑in registry where each action registers a function name and a prototype, so the compiler can check signatures. Once the scaffold is there, I’ll throw a handful of prototype scenes at the parser and see if the error messages are helpful. Maybe I’ll add a little REPL for quick tweaking. I’ll keep an eye on the line length; designers shouldn’t have to scroll too much. I’ll let you know once I hit a snag.