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Post by insomniac on Sept 12, 2006 22:44:03 GMT
Hello. As I've previously mentioned, I'm working on a gamebook. So far I've been doing research and mapping out the plot. I've done some writing (2 single-spaced pages of "The Story So Far," the disciplines, and two random name charts), but nothing on the actual numbered sections.
I figure this is nothing new in the Lone Wolf fan community; in other words, others have surely written full or partial gamebooks. Any advice? Any common problems? Anything you hate seeing in gamebooks, or anything you love finding in a gamebook? Any tips/hints on the writing process?
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Post by Black Cat on Sept 13, 2006 16:31:48 GMT
Check over at Tower of the Sun: some fan-made gamebooks are available for download there. You might find interesting ideas for your own creation.
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Post by insomniac on Sept 13, 2006 18:42:42 GMT
Ok, thanks. Is there any one in particular you'd recommend? BTW, I'm looking less for advice on plot, which I've almost completed outlining, and more for advice on the writing process and common problems that may have befallen others while writing a gamebook, and how to avoid these problems.
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Post by Oiseau on Sept 14, 2006 2:18:57 GMT
Well, you might have heard of Advelh. It's a little program I made for the sole purpose of writing gamebooks painlessly. It's a text editor that scans your sentences for the telltale "turn to X" references and creates graphs (trees) and grids (written and reserved sections) on its own. You can use it to swap paragraphs, and the program will change the text of the other sections to match the new numbers. The big function is called MasterMix and scrambles the whole adventure while keeping its structure intact. Using this program, you can avoid a lot of the pratfalls of writing gamebooks, such as using the same paragraph twice, having to reserve and randomize section numbers, etc. You should give it a try. The only hiccup is that the most recent version (32) is in French. Advelh link : homepage.mac.com/siyanlis/Xhoromag/Advelh.htmIf you were wondering more along the lines of game processes, then my suggestions would focus on playability. Don't include too many falling masts, if you know what I mean. You shouldn't need the luck of the gods to win a gamebook (ahem-Deathlord-of-Ixia-cough). Make sure the adventure is winnable with low stats. If not, change the way player stats are computed to make it fair. Maximum stat values can be used to limit strong characters while allowing weak characters to power up. Non-linearity is a bonus. It adds replay value. It's also a good idea to make important choices depend on brain matter rather than guesswork. Anyway, those are my seven or eight cents. EDIT : Forgot to answer one of your questions. Recommended are the two existing volumes of the Saga of Lone Wolf series. They're the best fan-made Lone Wolf gamebooks I've read so far.
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Post by insomniac on Sept 14, 2006 3:18:02 GMT
Cool, that sounds very useful, but I checked your website and I only saw a download link for version 32. I can't read French so I may simply have been unable to find an English version of the program due to my inability to read the instructions. Is there an English version of the program on your site?
I also don't like excessive random death rolls. I initially thought that would be a problem in my book, since there are WWI-era firearms in it, but I've worked out a few ways to keep the instant-death-by-bullet rolls to a minimum.
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Post by outspaced on Sept 14, 2006 8:50:27 GMT
Common problems include: - Overreaching: Don't plot out a series of 12 adventures, each containing 800 sections, until you've written a couple of standalones and seen all the problems inherent in writing interactive fiction, and tested whether you have the staying power as a fanfiction (read: unpaid) author.
- uber monsters: Sure, it may sound cool as all heck to have a superpowerd Giak with CS60 and EP120, but it ain't justifiable, nor is it any fun for anyone trying to play by the rules. But . . .
- Repetition: . . . that shouldn't stop you from throwing a few unexpected twists into the adventure. Suppose the player has defeated two standard Drakkarim and bumps into another one, expecting another easy fight, only to be told that he's actually a Drakkarim General--keeps the player from becoming too blasé.
- No story: The most important thing to start with is a plot. Make sure this permeates the entire adventure. Don't just make it a series of combats.
- Please yourself: No, really. People will offer a lot of advice on various parts of the adventure, asd well as having firm opinions on various aspects of it. As long as the adventures has a good plot, is balanced, has interesting ideas in it, and isn't volume 1 in a projected series that (if we're honest) is never going to be written, any griping will come down to readers opinion, and we all know what opinions are like. As long as you can take a step back from the adventure and enjoy it, that's the main thing. If you like it, likely others will too.
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Post by Doomy on Sept 14, 2006 9:21:40 GMT
On that note, any news on your Bodies in the Docks follow-up?
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Post by Oiseau on Sept 14, 2006 14:35:01 GMT
To answer Insomniac -- no, there isn't actually an English version downloadable. The last English version was Revision 29. I could still send it to you. You'd miss out on a few new functions, but the program would still work well.
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Post by insomniac on Sept 14, 2006 22:25:17 GMT
Unpaid? I've worked out a solution to that problem: product placements. For example:
For six months the Kai monastery has suffered an unprecedented drought. The merciless sky has released no moisture upon the parched land, and the scant relief from Tyso and Holmgard has been unable to meet the needs of the Kai Lords under your supervision. Now the situation has grown so dire there is talk of abandoning the monastery. The Lords of the Kai, the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, and King Ulnar himself have gathered before the Shadow Gate of Toran, deep within the Brotherhood's guildhall, to beseech Kai and Ishir for relief.
Suddenly, there is a burst of light from the Shadow Gate. A two-foot long transparent cylinder, roughly six inches in diamater and colored light green, rolls from the void. As it nears your feet, you see it is filled with a refreshingly clear liquid. The middle of the cylinder is wrapped in a strange parchment, a label of some sort. You reflexively reach for your weapon, but your hand is stayed when your basic Kai senses fail to detect any threat. The cylinder comes to a halt when it gently bumps against your feet.
There is an expectant silence in the guildhall as all eyes turn to you. With bated breath, you pick up the cylinder and examine it. There is a white cap on the top of the cylinder - which is clearly a bottle - though it is made of a flexible, opaque substance unlike anything you have previously encountered. The label is indecipherable. Most prominent among its many markings are the characters "SPRITE." You cease your inspection and turn to your king. "What do you wish of me, my Liege?" you enquire.
The King lays a paternal hand on your shoulder. "The will of the Gods is clear," he intones for the benefit of the entire assembly. "This is the relief we have prayed for. Kai and Ishir have sent us a beverage worthy of our parched throats." His looks into your eyes, joy and relief evident on his noble face. "There is but one act I require of you, my son," says the benevolent lord. "Obey your thirst, as you have so loyally obeyed me."
Restore any ENDURANCE points you have lost due to thirst, then turn to section 258.
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Post by Zipp on Sept 15, 2006 0:49:51 GMT
Hi, Insomniac. I've attempted to write several gamebooks, using different rules and combat systems. The only one I ever completed in full was the supplement for book1, the Gourgaz Boss Fight. I also completed the first couple hundred sections of a series I deemed too complicated to continue. I can provide you with both of those for reference, if you want.
The main advice I can give you is to start small and simple, just so you can see how much work goes into making one of these books. A fifty page supplement took me nearly a month to complete. It took me six months to plot out a 500 page gamebook, and I never got to the actual writing.
A good idea is to start by drawing boxes with breif descriptions of the action and the choices in them. Each box represents a section. Connect the boxes to other boxes to makle a flow chart of your book. When you have it all planned out this way, then start writing.
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Post by outspaced on Sept 15, 2006 13:01:31 GMT
Unpaid? I've worked out a solution to that problem: product placements. For example: Bwah-hah-hah-hah! ;D Or perhaps when journeying through the Stornlands Lone Wolf could call into a jala-house-cum-observatory called "Star-Looks".
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Post by Doomy on Sept 15, 2006 14:21:19 GMT
The only one I ever completed in full was the supplement for book1, the Gourgaz Boss Fight. Which I thought was really good, BTW.
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Post by Doomy on Sept 15, 2006 15:12:06 GMT
Or Lone Wolf could return from yet another adventure to find the monestary in a terrible state as the initiates have been partying in his absence.
Lone Wolf (horrified): "Not even my Kai abilities will clean THESE surfaces!"
-A man enters-
"Hi, I'm Barry Scott, and this is Cillit Bang!"
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Moo
Kai Lord
Mooooooo
Posts: 101
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Post by Moo on Sept 26, 2006 5:38:24 GMT
Flowcharting is the most important thing you can do for a gamebook. If you don't flowchart, nothing will ever work. My preferred flowchart format is to write a short description of a scene or circumstance in a box, then the appropriate number to lines to other boxes, the lines labeled with potential actions.
Start small. Try to get at least a half dozen solid 50 section gamebooks under your belt before starting on your magnum opus. They can be episodic, whatever, just keep them short and manageable.
When flowcharting, start with the most important events/puzzles, and work from there. You want your plotlines to converge and diverge several times, in longer books. If they never converge on key events, you quickly end up with an enormous mess of ever-branching, ever-complexifying fractal writing. You want all roads to lead to Rome, so that you can start a brand new "tree" before the old one gets too huge. TCoK is a great example. If you do short 50 section episodes for your first project, that accomplishes this goal automatically. When you get more experienced, you may do something like multiple convergence points, where all successful paths lead to the foozle or to the widget, and then keep going from there.
One mistake which many beginners make, not mentioned above by Outspaced, is having too many "you dead" sections. Beginning authors seem to love making it so that there is one single correct path through their book, and any error whatsoever results in death. Don't do that. No matter what difficulty you're going for, deaths should only happen for logical reasons, and preferrably for either one huge mistake, or many smaller ones. One death section for ever 20-30 regular sections is probably plenty. Maybe 1:10 for a short, difficult book, but any more than that is a sign that you need to work on alternate solutions to puzzles, and developing the plot, rather than inventing new ways to kill off the player.
Finally, try to have good fiction writing skills before starting. If you already have a few works of written fiction that people have read without vomiting, that's a great start. I can't tell you how many gamebooks and things I've seen that were well laid out and had good puzzles, but were destroyed by sophomoric writing. The most common errors are too little description, and nauseatingly excessive detail. Read as many professional gamebooks and other works of fiction as you can, to get a feel for the proper balance. You want enough that the player can get a good mental image of what's going on, but not so much that they can't keep all the details straight.
Final advice is to make sure you have fun. Otherwise, you won't... have any fun. And don't be afraid to make mistakes. There's no such thing as failure, only opportunities to learn and improve (well, except with skydiving... bungee jumping... chainsaw juggling...).
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Post by insomniac on Sept 26, 2006 23:19:32 GMT
I've been doing that - I'd like to use Oiseau's flowcharting program, but I can't read French. Is there another flowcharting program available, or is there an English version of Advelh? The majority of my work so far has been re-making the world of Magnamund from what it was in MS 5050 to what it is, for the purpose of my book, in the year MS 7780, or thereabouts, and modifying the rules and thinking up Items and Weapons. As an example of how the political boundaries of the world have changed, the Vassagonian Empire has split into two smaller empires and a series of independent coastal cities. I've kept the original Disciplines, but since I'm writing a "steampunk" Kai adventure, there are some changes - for example, Tracking gives you bonuses to controlling vehicles, and Healing lets you use medical technology like syringes. I've also added two new Kai Disciplines: Espionage and Aviation. Surprisingly, most of the weapons used in the original books were still in use during WWI (which is roughly the level of technology I'm putting in the books). See, for example, the trench mace: That one's rather poorly preserved; here's another, but it's an E-bay sale that ends in 3 days, so the link won't work after the 29th: cgi.ebay.com/WW1-German-trench-mace-repro_W0QQitemZ190034442205QQihZ009QQcategoryZ13965QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem(BTW, how do I make links concise? The "a href" HTML command doesn't seem to work on this board.) Even the quarterstaff was still used in WWI, though it was called the "six foot pole," which I imagine caused a lot of laughter among the enlisted men. It was useful against a bayonnet charge, since bayonnets don't have a reach of six feet. The Japanese used similar weapons made from bamboo during WWII, though those were more like bamboo spears than bamboo quarterstaffs. The only weapons not used were spears, which were replaced by bayonnets, and warhammers, which were replaced by the military pick (usesful for both fighting and digging foxholes). The ranged weapons probably won't change the game too much, since, if you think about it, bows are so quick and deadly in the Magnakai/GM series that they're not much different, in a gameplay sense, from a non-automatic rifle. I am, however, not giving guns "Earth-style" names, like the M1 Garand, but more poetic "Magnamund names." Here's an example: Tears of Ishir. – The Kai designed this small pistol to be an instrument of assassination in the chaotic aftermath of the Great War. It first saw service silencing Drakkar warlords who urged their followers to advance on Sommerlund despite the destruction wrought upon the Drakkarim cities by the Brotherhood of the Iron Sun. Today it is used as a weapon of last resort by Sommlending landship commanders, pilots, and machine gun crews; its small size and power make it an ideal holdout gun in close quarter combat. Its four-inch long barrel is crafted from Sommlending oakwood and high-quality Ruanese iron. The pistol’s small size and secure safety lock allow it to be worn without a holster. While it does not allow for a second shot, it fires an intimidatingly high-caliber round and is easily concealed. This has made the Tears of Ishir a favorite tool of criminals and highwaymen, who believe the goddess Ishir weeps whenever this weapon of assassins is drawn. From this folk legend the pistol earned its poetic name. The Tears of Ishir is a Pistol, but due to its small size it does not count towards your maximum number of Weapons. It fires .45 caliber shells, and holds a single bullet at a time. You carry it tucked into the top of your left boot. If you select the Tears of Ishir, you may take 8 Hollow-Point .45 Bullets (remember to mark them on your Action Chart). [I've got a picture of this Weapon, but presenting it's going to have to wait until I finish the adventure].
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