Post by Banjo on Jul 11, 2016 14:33:35 GMT
In 2008 (wow, that long ago?!) I started on a project to expand the Freeway Warrior books. After several years work, I gave up on the project and thought the files lost until I found them again a couple of years ago.
This week I've been sorting through old files and came across all my Lone Wolf/Freeway Warrior stuff from long ago, and decided it would be a shame to let literally years of work just disappear when my computer (or I!) finally give up the ghost.
The original idea behind the project was to do something like the "expanded fights" several Lone Wolf fans have worked on (here on these very forums) but on a much larger scale. I've heard Mongoose added extra bits to their Lone Wolf editions (sadly Mongoose stopped printing them long before I'd ever seen a Mongoose LW book!), but I wanted to go in and actually add to the heart of the books themselves, not just add fun little bonus mini-chapters (as appealing as that idea is still; I've always wanted to write a "Kate's Escape" prequel mini-adventure).
Being the masochist I am, I thought why not go in and expand the whole book series? I started with Highway Holocaust, both because it was then the only FW book Project Aon had finished and because it is the book I am by far the most experienced with, having played it over my lifetime probably ten times more than any other gamebook (like I said: masochist).
It was obviously a more daunting task than I expected, but I chipped away at editing passages and adding new ones, going through every path and picking out any moment I felt needed or deserved expansion. I didn't want to change things for the sake of it and sought to alter as little of the original text as possible (often the change was a simple new single "turn to" option), but any time I reached a point and thought "I wish I could do X", I'd see if it was logical to allow for it.
As I said, I never finished. I got as far as the final blockade run before real life (family loss combined with an unexpected promotion; I'd been doing a lot of this secretly in spare time at work) forced a halt. A few years and a new hard drive later, I thought the work was lost.
But the files were backed up and rediscovered in 2012. I'd still not finished Highway Holocaust, though there were notes for the last few changes to be made, as well as many pages on potential changes to the other three books too, all three of which Project Aon has since finally published.
The other day I found these files again, having let them (and FW/LW) slip my mind for a while. Although a bit rough in places (I'm a writer, but my craft has thankfully improved over the years!) I still had a blast playing my old "Highway Holocaust: Expanded Edition", blasting helpless Rad-Vics with a shotgun, getting radiation sickness because I didn't have a geiger counter, blowing up clan snipers with grenades, failing to save poor little Maria in the storm (sob), befriending Hammer Harlan, staying behind to kill the leader of the bikers in single combat during the Santo ambush, and even forgetting to go find Mountain Goat and ending up shot with a rocket launcher by trying to negotiate with raider town of Strawn!
I had also started implementing an expanded weapon and armour system (sawn-off shotguns rock but chew through ammo!), though it is also unfinished and not properly balanced.
Anyway, I'm thinking I should really finish this up, at least for Highway Holocaust and to get some feedback to see what needs tweaking or balancing. Checking my notes and files, there are just over 100 changed passages and 150+ new passages (506 total), with notes for about 30-40 more to "finish up".
I know there are far more LW fans than there are FW ones, but I hope at least a few people would be interested in this project.
My questions now are, once I've finished it enough to get this to a postable form:
1) How would I make it available (especially given Project Aon's request only they host the books in any format).
2) The work was done on the 2008 version of HH. I assume the code has changed for the books a bit since then. Would I need to somehow "update" my files to reflect the current 2015 HH version?
3) Would people ACTUALLY be interested in this? I would love to finish up HH at least, but it is still a few months of work if nobody else wants to play it!
Sorry for the long post; like I said, it's been a long time since I dug through this stuff and it was exciting for me to rediscover all of it again.
This week I've been sorting through old files and came across all my Lone Wolf/Freeway Warrior stuff from long ago, and decided it would be a shame to let literally years of work just disappear when my computer (or I!) finally give up the ghost.
The original idea behind the project was to do something like the "expanded fights" several Lone Wolf fans have worked on (here on these very forums) but on a much larger scale. I've heard Mongoose added extra bits to their Lone Wolf editions (sadly Mongoose stopped printing them long before I'd ever seen a Mongoose LW book!), but I wanted to go in and actually add to the heart of the books themselves, not just add fun little bonus mini-chapters (as appealing as that idea is still; I've always wanted to write a "Kate's Escape" prequel mini-adventure).
Being the masochist I am, I thought why not go in and expand the whole book series? I started with Highway Holocaust, both because it was then the only FW book Project Aon had finished and because it is the book I am by far the most experienced with, having played it over my lifetime probably ten times more than any other gamebook (like I said: masochist).
It was obviously a more daunting task than I expected, but I chipped away at editing passages and adding new ones, going through every path and picking out any moment I felt needed or deserved expansion. I didn't want to change things for the sake of it and sought to alter as little of the original text as possible (often the change was a simple new single "turn to" option), but any time I reached a point and thought "I wish I could do X", I'd see if it was logical to allow for it.
As I said, I never finished. I got as far as the final blockade run before real life (family loss combined with an unexpected promotion; I'd been doing a lot of this secretly in spare time at work) forced a halt. A few years and a new hard drive later, I thought the work was lost.
But the files were backed up and rediscovered in 2012. I'd still not finished Highway Holocaust, though there were notes for the last few changes to be made, as well as many pages on potential changes to the other three books too, all three of which Project Aon has since finally published.
The other day I found these files again, having let them (and FW/LW) slip my mind for a while. Although a bit rough in places (I'm a writer, but my craft has thankfully improved over the years!) I still had a blast playing my old "Highway Holocaust: Expanded Edition", blasting helpless Rad-Vics with a shotgun, getting radiation sickness because I didn't have a geiger counter, blowing up clan snipers with grenades, failing to save poor little Maria in the storm (sob), befriending Hammer Harlan, staying behind to kill the leader of the bikers in single combat during the Santo ambush, and even forgetting to go find Mountain Goat and ending up shot with a rocket launcher by trying to negotiate with raider town of Strawn!
I had also started implementing an expanded weapon and armour system (sawn-off shotguns rock but chew through ammo!), though it is also unfinished and not properly balanced.
Anyway, I'm thinking I should really finish this up, at least for Highway Holocaust and to get some feedback to see what needs tweaking or balancing. Checking my notes and files, there are just over 100 changed passages and 150+ new passages (506 total), with notes for about 30-40 more to "finish up".
I know there are far more LW fans than there are FW ones, but I hope at least a few people would be interested in this project.
My questions now are, once I've finished it enough to get this to a postable form:
1) How would I make it available (especially given Project Aon's request only they host the books in any format).
2) The work was done on the 2008 version of HH. I assume the code has changed for the books a bit since then. Would I need to somehow "update" my files to reflect the current 2015 HH version?
3) Would people ACTUALLY be interested in this? I would love to finish up HH at least, but it is still a few months of work if nobody else wants to play it!
Sorry for the long post; like I said, it's been a long time since I dug through this stuff and it was exciting for me to rediscover all of it again.
A shame, it was a lot of work to just sit on my hard drive. As a final attempt, does anyone know if there's a larger LW/FW fan community anywhere where I might look at posting this?
