Oh, there's definitely more to love here.
The post One to Love by Michelle Monkou appeared first on HOT SAUCE REVIEWS.
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Thursday, April 30, 2015
Sibyl Moon Games: Debugging ChoiceScript
I’ve been working on a ChoiceScript project lately, and for the benefit of other ChoiceScript users, I thought I’d describe the debugging and testing techniques that I’m using.
If you’re not interested in using ChoiceScript, this is not the post for you, because it’s all technical from here.
This post … Keep reading →
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The People's Republic of IF: May meetup
The Boston IF meetup for May will be Friday, May 29, 6:30 pm, MIT room 14N-233.
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Storycade: Visual Novel: Rising Angels: Reborn
Rising Angels: Reborn is a sci-fi mystery visual novel which shows that people can always change (for better or worse), that the vast reaches of space make for a great visual novel setting, and that some of the best VNs out there are free from small studios. The story follows Major Natalie Puccile, a Special […]
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Storycade: Visual Novel: Rising Angels: Reborn
Rising Angels: Reborn is a sci-fi mystery visual novel which shows that people can always change (for better or worse), that the vast reaches of space make for a great visual novel setting, and that some of the best VNs out there are free from small studios. The story follows Major Natalie Puccile, a Special […]
The post Visual Novel: Rising Angels: Reborn appeared first on .
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Emily Short: April Link Assortment
The Oxford/London Meetup group is meeting Wednesday May 13 in London (conversation in a meeting space and then drinks at the pub). Please join us if you are in town and are so inclined — we’ll have some guests from … Continue reading →
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One last thing…
Hello all! Thanks for joining me for the April A to Z! I hope you had an enriching experience and have learnt a lot about gamebooks. Maybe you might even want to write one. I just wanted to leave you with my current project – Legend of the Wayfarer – a gamebook series where you […]
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Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Goblin Mercantile Exchange: Feu de Joie: Session 3 now online
Good news, the third Session of Feu de Joie is now online. The rabbit hole is deeper. You as a…
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April A to Z – Z is for Zines. An interview with Alexander Ballingall, editor at Fighting Fantazine
Hello all! Last day of the 2015 April A to Z challenge and we have someone who I love to have on easy way to get Z in either.the blog, and not just because he gives me an Here we have Alexander Ballingall, the editor behind the excellent Fighting Fantazine. Which is also free! Go […]
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April A to Z – Y is for Yet more gamebook goodness from Yulia
Hello all! We have Yuliya from the Adventure Cow project, a team that has been working on helping people make interactive stories and has also been making the Destiny Quest app, Destiny Quest Infinite.Here she is…How is the Adventure Cow project going?It’s going pretty well overall. We’re on track to release the last and biggest […]
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Tuesday, April 28, 2015
April A to Z – Y is for Yet more stuff from Graham Bottley – Advanced Fighting Fantasy
Hello all! Today, we have Graham Bottley, writer of many games and also star of Gogglebox. He has been a busy boy and we talk Advanced Fighting Fantasy, Maelstrom and more… How is the Salamonis book going? The Salamonis book is being written, and is mostly planned. I will be really cracking on with this […]
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Zombocalypse Now in the Humble Bundle
The app version of the first Chooseomatic book, Zombocalypse Now, has just been added to the Humble Tin Man Mobile Bundle! Which means you can get it along with 11 other RAD gamebook apps, name your price, and decide how much of that price goes to charity! It's a WIN/WIN/WIN/WIN/WIN, so if you have an Android phone or tablet, YOU WOULD BE A FOOL NOT TO CHECK THIS OUT
But jump on it now, because as I write this the sale will only last for 6 more days, YOUR TIME IS RAPIDLY DIMINISHING
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Beautiful Oblivion by Jamie McGuire
The names of the characters are different, but it's the same book. I guess the author doesn't want to break what's not broken.
The post Beautiful Oblivion by Jamie McGuire appeared first on HOT SAUCE REVIEWS.
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Apple Store Workshop by Cubus Games
Hi there!
Last April 23th we had a different World Book Day, we gave a workshop at Apple Store Passeig de Grà cia, in the heart of Barcelona.
Giving a talk at Apple Store was a privilege for us and a great opportunity to present and explain all the keys of our gamebooks.
At 19:00h we started the workshop with a great gaming atmosphere among the audience.
We also played our gamebooks The Sinister Fairground and Necklace of Skulls with the attendees, discussing the characteristics of each of them.
Afterwards, the audience enjoyed and took part of a mini-gamebook, taking decisions, facing challenges and winning battles against dragons.
The workshop ended with very interesting questions from the attendees. We hope our answers have been helpful for the audience, otherwise you can write us at hello@cubusgames.com
See you soon!
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Monday, April 27, 2015
New Resumes
The next couple of months will see me finishing a batch of projects, and I still have some availability in the second half of the year. I’ve updated my resumes (link at the top of the page) so get in touch with your needs or leads. I am particularly interested in projects involving history, myth/folklore, […]
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April A to Z – X is for eXtra stuff from Andrew Drage
Hello lovely gamebookers! Today, we have Andrew Drage, writer, gamebook creator and editor and all round genius who is going to talk about his latest creations. You can read Andrew’s blog here. Q: What are you working on right now (both gamebook and non gamebook related)? A: You’ve probably noticed I’ve been quiet […]
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Sibyl Moon Games: Know When To Fold
“You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s … Keep reading →
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War with the Evil Power Master by RA Montgomery
Bwahahaha at the title. Yucks at everything else.
The post War with the Evil Power Master by RA Montgomery appeared first on HOT SAUCE REVIEWS.
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April A to Z – W is for Writing with Ashton Saylor
Good day to you all! Today, we have Ashton Saylor, who, apart from writing lots of Windhammer gold, other wonderful gamebooks and a great series on how to write a gamebook. He’s been a bit quiet recently, but that’s because he’s been hard at work. Here he is… What have you been doing since […]
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The XYZZY Awards: 2014 Awards results
The winners of the 2014 XYZZY Awards have been announced. Congratulations to all our winners, and many thanks to the many people who make the XYZZY Awards possible. I’ll be taking a short break before getting to work recruiting post-XYZZY analysis writers. Without further ado, the results! Best Game: 80 Days (inkle, Meg Jayanth) Best Writing: With […]
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Sunday, April 26, 2015
IFComp News: Congratulations to the 2014 XYZZY winners
The results of the 2014 XYZZY Awards for excellence in interactive fiction were announced this evening at the usual gala ceremony on ifMUD. Congratulations to all the winners!
I am very pleased and proud that three IFComp entries — all top-ten finishers from last year, and all very different examples of IF — took home awards. In alphabetical order:
-
Creatures Such as We, by Lynnea Glasser (2nd place, IFComp 2014) won the Best NPCs award.
-
Fifteen Minutes, by Ade (6th place, IFComp 2014) won the Best Puzzle award.
-
With Those we Love Alive, by Porpentine and Brenda Neotenomie (5th place, IFComp 2014) won the Best Single NPC and Best Writing awards.
The larger nominees list honored other IFComp entries as well.
I offer especial congratulations to inkle’s amazing 80 Days as the winner of the coveted Best Game XYZZY award. This isn’t the first time a commercial game has taken this prize, but I would hazard a guess that it’s the most commercially successful game to do so, having received mainstream recognition in quarters far beyond the hobbyist community. As inkle co-founder (and 2001 IFComp winner) Jon Ingold said while accepting the award,
I’ve been making IF in this community and its fringes for 15 years or so, and it’s pretty remarkable how much the landscape has changed since those days - back when choice games were considered childish, simplistic. And a lot of us had the feeling that there was something really interesting in interactive fiction that was worth plugging away at despite the fact lots of people said there wasn’t.
We all said there was a thing here. And maybe there’s a thing here. And next year there might be another thing. And that’s a great place to be.
So — we got this. It’s going to be fine.
I agree. With just over five months to go until IFComp 2015, I look forward to our own next crop of great things.
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SPAG: And Your 2014 XYZZY Awards Go To…
Another year has come and gone, and with it have come a year’s worth of interactive fiction works, across more mediums and formats than ever. But only a few can become XYZZY nominees, and of those, only a few of those can take home the GRAND PRIZE. SPAG will have further details, quotes and statistics […]
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April A to Z – W is for Marc Wilson
You managed to get the books funded on Kickstarter. What was using crowdfunding like? For me it was a great opportunity to promote the book I was writing, and the ideas I had surrounding a fledgling series. It was pretty exciting, and waking up each day to find perfect strangers backing my project was personally […]
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Wild and Willful
When Oksana’s village is raided and she’s taken for slave auction, the spirited young woman must fight for her freedom — and her heart.
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Various States of Undress: Carolina by Laura Simcox
Warning! Peen-hungry daughter of the POTUS is on the prowl! Okay, it's like that, but not really like that. Or something.
The post Various States of Undress: Carolina by Laura Simcox appeared first on HOT SAUCE REVIEWS.
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The Perfect Mistress by Victoria Alexander
Wait, did anyone say "perfect"? Not today, dear, not today.
The post The Perfect Mistress by Victoria Alexander appeared first on HOT SAUCE REVIEWS.
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Cheating..?
Everyone cheats in gamebooks. It’s just so easy. How was he supposed to know about the boulder? “Oh, really, I’m dead after opening that nondescript door. I guess I’ll just pop right back to the previous paragraph and open the other one.” “I’ve fought this combat four times now and lost. I’m just gonna pretend […]
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Saturday, April 25, 2015
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Joss Whedon once again proves that he's overrated when it comes to his ability as a writer and director.
The post Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) appeared first on HOT SAUCE REVIEWS.
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Inspiration for gamebooks – Iron Heroes
Iron Heroes is a D20 RPG created by Monte Cooke. It has some similarities to Dungeons and Dragons, but its setting is distinctly low magic. However, it is not simply Dungeons and Dragons with the magic removed; rather, new classes and rules have been created in order to make play more awesome than ever. Out of […]
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Inspiration for gamebooks – Iron Heroes
Iron Heroes is a D20 RPG created by Monte Cooke. It has some similarities to Dungeons and Dragons, but its setting is distinctly low magic. However, it is not simply Dungeons and Dragons with the magic removed; rather, new classes and rules have been created in order to make play more awesome than ever. Out of […]
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Quest: Squiffy 3 – a new web-based editor for interactive fiction
The third release of Squiffy is now available. The big new feature in this version is you no longer have to download anything! Previously, the only way to use Squiffy was by creating a file in a text editor and compiling it from the command line. You can still do that, but you can now just […]
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Trouble on Planet Earth by RA Montgomery
The real trouble is the presence of crappy gamebooks like this one.
The post Trouble on Planet Earth by RA Montgomery appeared first on HOT SAUCE REVIEWS.
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The Governess Club: Louisa by Ellie Macdonald
I loathe the heroine. She should be a Mortal Kombat character so that I can perform repeated fatalities on her.
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Friday, April 24, 2015
April A to Z – V is for very good apps from Cubus games
Hello gamebookers! We have Quim from Cubus Games talking about their awesome gamebook apps (including the Heavy Metal Thunder series from Kyle B. Stiff, Necklace of Skulls by Dave Morris and some great horror gamebooks!) You have managed to find a wide range of authors for your apps. How did you select them? […]
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The Digital Antiquarian: On S.D.I. (Just a Little) and King of Chicago (Quite a Lot)
In addition to Defender of the Crown, Bob Jacob and Cinemaware were able to deliver two more of their planned four launch titles to Mindscape before the end of 1986. Only Bill Williams’s Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon fell hopelessly behind schedule, getting pushed well into the following year. Of the games that […]
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The Digital Antiquarian: Mike Berlyn Could Use a Little Helping Hand
As some of you who read this blog are doubtless already aware, Mike Berlyn was diagnosed with cancer last September. Whilst undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment, he’s also been accumulating medical bills not covered by Medicare. In short, he needs at least $36,000 to put him in the clear again and let him concentrate on […]
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Thursday, April 23, 2015
Renga in Blue: Wander (1974) release, and questions answered
(For the opening of this saga, you might want to read Anthony’s post first.) There is a text adventure creation system that dates back to before Crowther wrote ADVENT. I’ve been stalking a copy of Wander for months now; I made a blog post about it and some other games I’ve been tracking down. Anthony […]
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Wander (1974) release, and questions answered
(For the opening of this saga, you might want to read Anthony’s post first.) There is a text adventure creation system that dates back to before Crowther wrote ADVENT. I’ve been stalking a copy of Wander for months now; I made a blog post about it and some other games I’ve been tracking down. Anthony […]
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Stupid Parser Tricks:
Just wanted to share what I thought was an exciting bit of IF-archeology conducted by "Ant" of Retroactive Fiction. The author claims to have the source-code for a game called Wander, that's supposed to predate Crowther and Woods' ADVENT. The story, which is more complex than my summary does justice, is told nicely in his blog -- I'm just sharing here because I noticed it isn't listed on
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April A to Z – U is for Underbyte studios
Howdy gamebook lovers! As you may or may not know, gamebook apps have fuelled the revival of the gamebook format and also smashed the boundaries of what gamebooks can do. And today, we have the people from Underbyte Studios to tell us about their latest project, Heroes Guard. Underbyte Studios also have a Facebook page […]
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Z-Machine Matter: Mike Berlyn Needs Our Help
Michael Berlyn, one of Infocom's more prolific authors (Suspended, Cuththroats, Infidel, Fooblitsky, Zork - The-Undiscovered Underground) is raising $36k for cancer treatment. His games touched a lot of peoples lives. Lets do the right thing and help Mike out. Go to GoFundMe to make a donation. Michael Berlyn: Infocom Bio,...
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Storycade: Review: Freshman Year
You’re sitting on your laptop in bed. You live in a dorm with your best friend Jenna. Games like Freshman Year are inherently personal. An autobiographical vignette by Nina Freeman, Freshman Year follows a night in the world of Nina as she goes out to a bar. Like many up and coming interactive experiences, your […]
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Sibyl Moon Games: Seeing Spring
We had a truly horrible winter in Boston (the worst in recorded history, actually), mostly compacted into the month of February. It seemed like spring would never come, and when I went on vacation last week, the snow was gone but the world was bare.
But I came back … Keep reading →
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Temple of Terror – Part 3
Originally posted on Fighting Fantasy Project:
Doubling back from the tapestry corridor, I went down the mural corridor. Quite impressive it sounded too, twenty metres long, depicting a great battle between undead, orcs, men and dwarves. My study of its detail was suddenly broken by a voice behind me, ‘Do you like my work?‘. Spinning…
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Doubling back from the tapestry corridor, I went down the mural corridor. Quite impressive it sounded too, twenty metres long, depicting a great battle between undead, orcs, men and dwarves. My study of its detail was suddenly broken by a voice behind me, ‘Do you like my work?‘. Spinning…
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The Governess Club: Sara by Ellie Macdonald
A whiny special snowflake and a doormat sex-mad bunny boiler, together in love. Just kill me already.
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Temple of Terror – Part 3
Doubling back from the tapestry corridor, I went down the mural corridor. Quite impressive it sounded too, twenty metres long, depicting a great battle between undead, orcs, men and dwarves. My study of its detail was suddenly broken by a voice behind me, ‘Do you like my work?‘. Spinning around, I was facing a man […]
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Wednesday, April 22, 2015
April A to Z – T is for Way of the Tiger – an interview with David Walters
Hello gamebook lovers! Today we have an author of many awesome books, who has recently turned his hand to producing awesome gamebooks – this is David Walters, writer of books 0 and 7 of the Way of the Tiger series. You can find David’s Amazon page here. You’ve written lots of books with a Japanese/ninja […]
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Trollhalla’s Inner Sanctum is Back
All hail to our wizard Dekhurrrsio who managed to find the places in the code that runs Trollhalla that had been improved out of functionality. He caught us up to speed in those areas and once again we have a […]Continue reading «Trollhalla's Inner Sanctum is Back»
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The XYZZY Awards: Awards ceremony this weekend
The winners of the 2014 XYZZY Awards will be announced in the usual ifMUD ceremony, held in the Grand Auditorium on April 26th at 12 noon US-Pacific / 3 PM US-Eastern / 8 PM UK. (The results will also be announced over Twitter: @XYZZYawards.) Please join us to celebrate the best IF of the past […]
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Stripperland (2011)
Stripper zombie women vs four people. Now that's a party.
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April A to Z – S is for sound based gamebooks (an interview with Matt Benson from the Pick Your Path podcast)
Hello all! Since the April A to Z has started, a new gamebook podcast has started. It is called Pick Your Path, by Matt Benson. It has currently started a preview episode and the next episode is due in May. Matt has a very wide range of podcasts and other materials on his site, so […]
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Prisoner of the Ant People by RA Montgomery
It's not bad at all, for a gamebook by RA Montgomery.
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Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Mine Tonight by Lisa Marie Perry
This story is doomed from the start, when the author becomes too fixated on the heroine's virtue over everything else.
The post Mine Tonight by Lisa Marie Perry appeared first on HOT SAUCE REVIEWS.
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April A to Z – S is for Emily Short
Hello gamebookers! Today, we have a new addition to the April A to Z series and someone with her own Wikipedia page This is Emily Short, expert at interactive fiction. I’m so glad to be making steps into the interactive fiction world by interviewing Emily who has a fabulous blog. > Tell us about yourself. […]
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Writer Discovers 5 Weird Tricks. You Won’t Believe What Happens Next!
Or, 5 Tips to Market Your Book Online Note: This post originally appeared on the Creatrix Marketing blog. As hinted in my tongue-in-cheek clickbait alternate title, anyone who tells you there’s a guaranteed path to publishing success is probably selling something. Usually in ebook form. As the old joke goes, if you purchase, “Learn how […]
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Monday, April 20, 2015
Renga in Blue: Adventure II: Changes
I assumed, mainly, that Adventure II would add extra rooms and treasures. That part, certainly, is true. Click on the map to enlarge; rooms marked in blue are new to this version. Please note it is likely incomplete. The new rooms (perhaps inspired by greater storage capacity on whatever computer they were using) include longer […]
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Segue: Writing IF with Raconteur, part 3: adapting some text
This is the third part of a series walking step-by-step through developing a game with Raconteur. In this post, I’ll explain Raconteur’s adaptive text features.
Let’s get right to it. I’ll be starting from the complete example from the last tutorial. So far, we’ve only seen situations that have a long String as their content property:
situation 'go_right',
content: """
The tunnel opens up into a wide chamber, dominated by a bright
reflecting pool.
"""
optionText: 'Go right'
Until now, I’ve been hiding one of the key features of Raconteur: The fact that content can not only be a simple string but also a function that returns a string. So we could rewrite this situation:
situation 'go_right',
content: () ->
"""
The tunnel opens up into a wide chamber, dominated by a bright
reflecting pool.
"""
optionText: 'Go right'
As we know, () -> is CoffeeScript for a function declaration, with no named arguments. Everything indented right of that declaration is part of the function body, which in this case includes only the string. In CoffeeScript, the last expression in a function is taken as its return value, so that the function simply returns that string.
You can make that change to the full example from the last tutorial and run it, and you will find that nothing has changed. But it’s important to note the difference between using a function as a content property, and using a String.
goldPieces = 500
situation 'count_gold',
content: """
You count your gold and find that you have #{goldPieces}gp.
"""
situation 'count_gold2',
content: () ->
"""
You count your gold and find that you have #{goldPieces}gp.
"""
On first glance those two situations may seem functionally identical, but they are actually doing quite different things. count_gold is looking at the value of goldPieces when the situation is created, and “baking” that value into its content. Remember, the #{} syntax in CoffeeScript is equivalent to evaluating the expression inside the brackets, converting it to a String, and then concatenating it inside the parent string. So the first situation will always say “500gp” no matter what happens to the value of goldPieces.
The other situation will work as you might intuit that it should: Because the string has been wrapped in a function, it gets evaluated only when that function is run. So it will print the current value of goldPieces, whatever it may be at the time when the situation is entered.
A content function can do anything – including have side-effects – but the most common use of them is to construct text procedurally based on the story state. In the last tutorial, we blocked a path from the player if they didn’t pick up the lamp outside the cave; let’s say we wanted to acknowledge that they had the lamp in the other branch, too, without blocking it:
situation 'go_right',
content: (character) ->
poolAdj =
if character.sandbox.hasLamp then "bright reflecting" else "dark"
"""
The tunnel opens up into a wide chamber, dominated by a #{poolAdj}
pool. #{if character.sandbox.hasLamp then 'Flickering light from your
lamp bounces off the slick walls.' else 'It is very dark, and you all
but fall into the pool.'}
"""
optionText: 'Go right'
content, as a function, gets passed the same Character and System objects that we saw previously, as well as the name of the previous expression.
Note how if statements in CoffeeScript are themselves expressions, so they can be used inline inside a string interpolation, or as the left hand of an assignment statement. Note that an if-expression can evaluate to undefined if there’s no else branch:
day.beautiful = false
"Hello!#{if day.beautiful then ' What a beautiful day!'}"
# -> "Hello!undefined"
"Hello!#{if day.beautiful then ' What a beautiful day!' else ''}"
# -> "Hello!"
Another important thing about content: Inside that function, the value of this is set to the situation object itself. Situations can have custom defined own properties, so you can use this behaviour to encapsulate something about a situation:
situation 'examine_dog',
breed: 'dalmatian'
size: 'large'
colours: 'spotted'
content: () ->
"""
The dog is a #{this.size} #{this.breed}, covered in #{this.colours} fur.
"""
# -> The dog is a large dalmatian, covered in spotted fur.
This will prove useful when we start dealing with text iterators.
Text Iterators
Text iterators are one of Raconteur’s convenience features, and the first one we’ll talk about that comes in a separate module from the main situation module.
oneOf = require('raconteur/lib/oneOf.js')
oneOf() is a factory, a function that builds a certain kind of object. Unlike a constructor, it’s not meant to be invoked with new. And we’re only really interested in oneOf objects for their particular methods. All this is to say that oneOf implements a way of creating variable text snippet that should be familiar to Inform 7 users. An example:
ring = oneOf('The phone rings.',
'The phone rings a second time.',
'The phone rings again.').stopping()
situation 'phone_rings',
content: () -> "#{ring()}"
choices: ['ignore_phone']
situation 'ignore_phone',
content: () -> "#{ring()}"
optionText: 'Ignore the phone'
choices: ['ignore_phone_again']
situation 'ignore_phone_again',
content: () -> "#{ring()}"
optionText: 'Let it ring'
This is a toy example, but it shows how oneOf works. We create a oneOf object with by passing any number of strings as arguments to oneOf(). Then we call the stopping() method on that object to get a special function, a closure.
Each time you call that function, it’ll return one of your strings – until it runs out; then it’ll keep repeating that last one. The advantage of writing adaptive text this way is that you don’t have to separately keep track of state – the closure contains the text and tracks how many times it’s been invoked. oneOf supplies five methods currently:
cycling: The closure iterates over the list of snippets and returns each one in order, then goes back to the start when it runs out.stopping: The closure iterates over the list of snippets and returns each one in order, then repeats the last item when it runs out.randomly: The closure returns a random item from the list each time it’s called, except it will never return the same one twice in a row.trulyAtRandom: Similar torandomly, except it can return the same item twice in a row.inRandomOrder: Works likecycling, except the list is shuffled first. This guarantees that every item will be shown exactly once before the list repeats.
Execution time
Keep in mind: When you call one of the object methods, like cycling(), you are creating a new function. So you should declare your snippets once and bind them to a name. And, similarly to the caveat above about function versus string content, you should use them inside functions, unless you intend to run them once and then keep the result indefinitely:
poolColor = oneOf('blue', 'green', 'red').trulyAtRandom()
# This pool will always be the same colour...
situation 'mystic_pool',
content:
"""
The pool shimmers with #{poolColor} light.
"""
# ...this one will vary each time it's visited.
situation 'mystic_pool',
content: () ->
"""
The pool shimmers with #{poolColor} light.
"""
Randomness, and saves
Undum uses a particular way of retaining save games: It saves every player input, and then when a save is restored it essentially replays them in order to rebuild their game. This works perfectly well… as long as the results of every input are always the same, ie if the game is deterministic.
Of course, if you want to incorporate randomness into your game, then your game isn’t deterministic. To square that circle, Undum supplies the System.rnd object. This object is a pseudorandom number generator which Undum itself initialises. Because the save game includes the random seed, save games can work. However, this architecture requires a bit of care on the part of the author to only use the Random object supplied by Undum.
oneOf is built ot use that object, but that means you have to initialise oneOf objects that use randomness inside your undum.game.init function, by passing system into the factory methods:
snippets = {}
undum.game.init = (character, system) ->
snippets.randomColour = oneOf('green', 'red', 'blue').randomly(system)
We bind the closure to a name we can reach from our situations – here I’m making a snippets object (local to main.coffee) and binding my snippet to that, but I could just as well attach them to character.sandbox.
randomly, trulyAtRandom, and inRandomOrder all take a System object as an argument. If you don’t initialise them with one, they’ll work – they’ll simply use the general Math.random() pseudorandom number generator that JavaScript supplies. This means that every time a save is loaded, they’ll produce different results. This might be okay for testing, prototyping, or inconsequential text variations, but almost all of the time you want to initialise them properly with system.
Text variations are a really powerful tool, and they give you a lot of flexibility in structuring your story. With text variations, you can ensure that the story is always calling back to previous story events; allow the player to return to previous situations without repetition; and have the same situation present itself differently depending on the state of the story.
One major use of this is to merge branches in a way that flows naturally with previous story events; the “bottleneck” will look different depending on what has happened previously in the story. Another use is to insert variations into a situation that gets revisited, such as a “hub” that the player might see several times over the course of the game.
In the next part of this tutorial, we will look at qualities and what they’re good for. But first, a few parting notes:
oneOfisn’t just good for text; in fact, it’ll take arguments of any type. Mere Anarchy, for example, uses a similar technique to oneOf in various places, including to randomise the “sigil” images that show up at various points in the narrative.- The Undum documentation details how to use
System.rnd, which you can use to randomise things in your own functions. - Are you using Raconteur or reading this tutorial? I’d love to hear about it; I can be reached on Twitter or through the intfiction.org forums.
- Are you failing to use Raconteur because it’s broken in some way? I’d appreciate bug reports and issues at the Github page for the project.
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Adventure II: Changes
I assumed, mainly, that Adventure II would add extra rooms and treasures. That part, certainly, is true. Click on the map to enlarge; rooms marked in blue are new to this version. Please note it is likely incomplete. The new rooms (perhaps inspired by greater storage capacity on whatever computer they were using) include longer […]
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Lautz of IF: Trizbort – 1.5.8.7 released
Released version 1.5.8.7 tonight. This released focused on a few new features and some bug fixes, but the other nice thing is it now includes bundled in the release (as well as in the main repository on GitHub), the documentation that Andrew Schultz has been working hard on. New features in this release: Individual rooms […]
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Westard Dystopia – only 1 day left to get it!
There’s only 1 day left on the Westward Dystopia kickstarter! We interrupt this April A to Z to give you a special Kickstarter announcement – Jeffrey Dean’s awesome gamebook, Westward Dystopia is in need of funding to make it even more awesome. The money required is needed for editing, printing, playtesting and developing for electronic […]
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April A to Z – R is for revivals – an interview with Dave Morris
You have republished a lot of your old gamebooks. Do you think you will write a new gamebook? Never say never, right? I think any interactive story I produce in future would be designed as an app, so it may be questionable how much you could call it a gamebook. I have a couple of […]
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Trollhalla’s Inner Sanctum Has Vanished
Obviously, great and powerful magics are at work here. The inner sanctum is gone, but the Trollgod, and the members all seem to be ok. The Trollgod is working on re-opening the inner caverns for the Elite. Watch this space. […]Continue reading «Trollhalla's Inner Sanctum Has Vanished»
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Emily Short: That Embarrassed Silence Thread
Pippin Barr and Robert Yang write about how they’re able to be indie game creators — and are open about how much of that depends on the support of partners who earn more. I found both posts pretty interesting. And … Continue reading →
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Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire
How many ways can the author portray Australians as freaks of the century? Many, many ways!
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April A to Z – Q is for Quest, Destiny – an interview with Michael J. Ward
Hello wonderful gamebook lovers! Today, we have Michael J. Ward creator of the awesome Destiny Quest series. Michael had quite a journey between writing books one and three (spoiler: it involved writing book 2) and here, he talks about self publishing and finding a publisher. You can visit the Destiny Quest website here. You can […]
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Long Time Gone
Well, I guess that's a quarter of the year gone already! Time flies when you're slaving away over a hot desk. I have been meaning to get back on here and type up some posts, but work and real life always seems to get in the way. Something I'm sure many bloggers can relate to. Rest assured that I have been working hard on a couple of FF-related projects. Here's a sneak preview...
In other news, The Trolltooth Wars graphic novel was successfully Kickstarted, and the release of the Sorcery 3 app by Inkle is only a matter of days away. Not to mention that Warlock of Firetop Mountain game app that features the writing of one Jonathan Green, the Pure Evil FF miniatures we saw at Fighting Fantasy Fest, the mysterious Fighting Fantasy Quest boardgame and an AFF Salamonis sourcebook from Arion Games. Although it doesn't seem like we will be getting new FF gamebooks any time soon, at least we have some exciting projects to look forward to.
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In other news, The Trolltooth Wars graphic novel was successfully Kickstarted, and the release of the Sorcery 3 app by Inkle is only a matter of days away. Not to mention that Warlock of Firetop Mountain game app that features the writing of one Jonathan Green, the Pure Evil FF miniatures we saw at Fighting Fantasy Fest, the mysterious Fighting Fantasy Quest boardgame and an AFF Salamonis sourcebook from Arion Games. Although it doesn't seem like we will be getting new FF gamebooks any time soon, at least we have some exciting projects to look forward to.
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Sunday, April 19, 2015
Westward Dystopia almost there – don’t miss out on an excellent gamebook (or two, or three)!
Back the Kickstarter here Hello gamebookers! Since today is not an April A to Z day, I thought I would do a post, reminding you about Jeffrey Dean’s Westward Dystopia Kickstarter.I did an interview with Jeffrey earlier this month where you can read about his awesome gamebook series. Jeffrey is a mere 900 Canadian Dollars […]
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Saturday, April 18, 2015
Four Nights with the Duke by Eloisa James
The author commits the greatest authorial crime ever: she fails to make me care even a little about her story.
The post Four Nights with the Duke by Eloisa James appeared first on HOT SAUCE REVIEWS.
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Renga in Blue: Adventure II (aka Adventure 440) (1978)
There are so many variants of the 350-point Crowther and Woods Adventure that it might be consider the first heavily “modded” game. I even have to preface by saying the 350-point version; Don Woods himself made a 430-point version in the mid-90s. The number of points possible in a particular port is the “identifying marker” […]
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Adventure II (aka Adventure 440) (1978)
There are so many variants of the 350-point Crowther and Woods Adventure that it might be consider the first heavily “modded” game. I even have to preface by saying the 350-point version; Don Woods himself made a 430-point version in the mid-90s. The number of points possible in a particular port is the “identifying marker” […]
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Furious 7 by Various Artists
Fast tunes for fast cars and hot people. Oh, and that song, which we'd all be sick of before the year is out.
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Various States of Undress: Virginia by Laura Simcox
Despite its title, this isn't an erotic romp. It's a good old-fashioned story of two people falling in love. I like it.
The post Various States of Undress: Virginia by Laura Simcox appeared first on HOT SAUCE REVIEWS.
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Friday, April 17, 2015
It Started with a Scandal by Julie Anne Long
It is never about this book. It's all about the next book, when Lyon Whatshisname finally faces the firing squad.
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Choice of Games: New Hosted Game! “No Proper Thief” by Russell J. Dorn
There’s a new game in our Hosted Games program ready for you to play! Attempt to survive your first bank heist! Befriend or betray your team of bank robbers, make difficult choices, survive, go insane, fall in love, and get rich if you can in No Proper Thief, where every choice you make has a consequence. You never wanted a life of crime, but it’s all you know. That doesn’t mean transitioning from a life as a cocky con artist to a greenhorn bank robber, on your first bank heist, doesn’t scare you. In No Proper Thief you are Clyde
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New Hosted Game! “No Proper Thief” by Russell J. Dorn
There’s a new game in our Hosted Games program ready for you to play! Attempt to survive your first bank heist! Befriend or betray your team of bank robbers, make difficult choices, survive, go insane, fall in love, and get rich if you can in No Proper Thief, where every choice you make has a consequence. You never wanted a life of crime, but it’s all you know. That doesn’t mean transitioning from a life as a cocky con artist to a greenhorn bank robber, on your first bank heist, doesn’t scare you. In No Proper Thief you are Clyde
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April A to Z – P is for Paul Gresty
Hello all. Today, we catch up with the excellent gamebook writer Paul Gresty after hearing from him from 2013 and 2014, we see what he’s been doing this last year (besides writing some excellent articles for this blog). You went to Fighting Fantasy Fest. Did you enjoy it? It was excellent. I especially liked the […]
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Emily Short: Beneath Floes (Bravemule, Pinnguaq)
Beneath Floes is a folk tale of Inuit culture, created in collaboration with Inuit contributors; recently a Kickstarter raised the funds to have it translated into Inuktitut (the indigenous language of the eastern Arctic) and Anishinaabemowin. It is both a … Continue reading → 
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Temple of Terror – Part 2
Originally posted on Fighting Fantasy Project:
So having unwillingly entered myself into some sort of hideous, undead version of Countdown there was no time to mess around and so I made a move, going further into the city of lost city of Vatos; and now I think about it, a lost city that was remarkably…
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So having unwillingly entered myself into some sort of hideous, undead version of Countdown there was no time to mess around and so I made a move, going further into the city of lost city of Vatos; and now I think about it, a lost city that was remarkably…
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Temple of Terror – Part 2
So having unwillingly entered myself into some sort of hideous, undead version of Countdown there was no time to mess around and so I made a move, going further into the city of lost city of Vatos; and now I think about it, a lost city that was remarkably easy to navigate to. At the […]
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Thursday, April 16, 2015
April A to Z – O is for off to see the wizard. An interview with Neil Rennison from Tin Man Games
Hello all! Today, we have Neil Rennison from Tin Man games, the company that has brough so many gamebook apps since 2008, it has made my head spin. And there’s more fun stuff coming up… You have been very busy picking up gamebooks about Hamlet, gamebooks by Herbie Brennan, Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, The Forgotten Spell, […]
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Segue: Writing IF with Raconteur, part 2: choices, choices
Last we left off, I had explained setting up Raconteur and writing a very basic Situation: Enough to make simple stories. This tutorial is going to delve a little deeper into using Undum and Raconteur to write more complex stories.
Background information on Raconteur.
The choices property
The situation factory that Raconteur uses will actually create a situation object that has all of the properties you pass on to it in your spec, but a good number of them are special. Today we’re going to look at four of them: before, choices, optionText, and canView. Let’s start with choices.
Last time, I showed how you could use explicit links to connect one situation to another. But there’s another way:
situation 'start',
content: """
You stand at the mouth of a damp, dark limestone cave. Two passages,
left and right, stretch out into the darkness.
"""
choices: ['go_left', 'go_right']
situation 'go_left',
content: """
The tunnel narrows dramatically as you enter it, forcing you to
squeeze in sideways between the slick limestone walls.
"""
optionText: 'Go left'
situation 'go_right',
content: """
The tunnel opens up into a wide chamber, dominated by a bright
reflecting pool.
"""
optionText: 'Go right'
Use this as the situations in a Raconteur main.coffee story and run it, and you’ll see what happens:
What happened here? Raconteur and Undum have taken the list of situations you supplied in the choices property of start and used it to build a list of options that follows your situation’s content. So far, this is only a different presentation from just writing direct links. To find out what more we can do with this approach, we have to look into canView and Undum’s implicit choice feature.
canView
Let’s make a simple edit to one of our situations:
situation 'go_left',
content: """
The tunnel narrows dramatically as you enter it, forcing you to
squeeze in sideways between the slick limestone walls.
"""
optionText: 'Go left'
canView: () -> false
() -> is CoffeeScript syntax for a function definition; canView is our first function. For those of you who come directly from JavaScript or other programming languages, here’s a quick refresher on CS functions:
hello_world = () -> # The parens are mandatory even if there's no arguments
console.log "Hello, world!" # Function calls in CoffeeScript only need
# parens if they have 0 arguments.
hello_world() # -> Prints "Hello, world!" to the console.
echo = (argument) -> # The argument list goes inside the parens
# Like in Python, indentation defines blocks in CoffeeScript
argument # CS is expression-based, so the last statement of a function
# is also its return value.
echo "Hello!" # -> returns "Hello!"
CoffeeScript’s cleaner function syntax is one of its selling points for writing IF stories. Add the line:
canView: () -> false
To the ‘go_left’ situation, and watch what happens when you run the game. Your list of options should only show the other option – “Go right”.
Whenever Undum is building a list of choices from a situation’s choices array, it consults each situation listed to see how it should appear. It calls their optionText property to get what text it should display. And it calls their canView method, to find if it should display that option at all.
canView should return true or false. If it returns true (Or any “truthy” value), then the situation is displayed as an option.
canView, like most situation methods, is passed three arguments: The Character object, the System object, and the name of the current situation. In our previous example, we didn’t bother to define arguments for our canView method because it didn’t use any – it just returns false, always.
Character and System
Character and System are two objects that are never created or accessed directly in your code; instead, Undum passes it as an argument to various methods you define. System holds most of the methods we use to interact with Undum’s low-level API, and will be the subject of another tutorial.
Character holds most of your game state – qualities (the subject of another tutorial), and the “sandbox”. The sandbox is a general-purpose area for storing game state; initially, it’s just an empty object. We can safely modify the sandbox however we like:
situation 'start',
before: (character) ->
character.sandbox.hasLamp = false
content: """
You are standing at the mouth of a deep, dark cavern. There is a
brass lamp here.
"""
choices: ['brass_lamp', 'enter_cave']
before is another property of Raconteur situations; in this case, it’s a function that gets called before content is output. It’s a good place to put any initialisation code or side-effects of entering a situation. Normally, we would set the initial values of sandbox properties inside our undum.game.init function – but for the sake of this example, it’s fine to put it in before. The function gets passed our usual three arguments – Character, System, and the name of the previous situation; but since we are only using the first one, we only need to define the first one – JavaScript doesn’t check that a function is called with the right number of arguments, so instead it just discards the other two.
Here are the other situations for this second example:
situation 'brass_lamp',
before: (character) ->
character.sandbox.hasLamp = true
content: """
You pick up the brass lamp and light it.
"""
choices: ['enter_cave']
optionText: 'Pick up the lamp'
situation 'enter_cave',
content: """
You walk into the dark cave. There are two passages, to the right and
left; the right one glows with a strange shimmer.
"""
optionText: 'Enter the cave'
choices: ['go_left', 'go_right']
situation 'go_left',
content: """
The tunnel narrows dramatically as you enter it, forcing you to
squeeze in sideways between the slick limestone walls.
"""
optionText: 'Go left'
canView: (character) -> character.sandbox.hasLamp
situation 'go_right',
content: """
The tunnel opens up into a wide chamber, dominated by a bright
reflecting pool.
"""
optionText: 'Go right'
If you run the complete example, you’ll note that you can only get to the left passage if you previously picked up the lamp. “go_left” has a canView method that returns the value of character.sandbox.hasLamp, which is normally false, but gets set to true if you visit the “pick up the lamp” passage. This simple mechanic – referencing whether a previous story event happened to shut off or open up passages of the story – is the basis of what Dan Fabulich calls delayed branching.
If you’ve gotten this far, congratulations: You can now use Raconteur and Undum to write games with complex branching stories similar to ChoiceScript stories, where events earlier in the narrative can impact events later even if the branches in between were “merged”.
In fact, you can use sandbox to track more complex things than true/false conditions such as whether the lamp was picked up; you can store any value in a sandbox property. Consider the example of a dating sim: You can use the sandbox to track the feelings of the various love interests towards the player character, to decide which interactions will be available later on. You’ve officially gone beyond the point of what a pure CYOA book can do.
Before we wrap up, a few notes:
- Situations can also provide a
canChoosemethod; if that method returnsfalse, then the option will be visible on an option list, but greyed out, and the player won’t be able to click on it. - Situations can have an
aftermethod. As the name implies, that method is just likebefore, but it gets called after content is printed. optionTextis an exception to a number of things in Raconteur: It’s not Markdown, and it can’t be a function. In fact, it’s not even html; theoptionTexton your situations has to be just plain text. This is an underlying limitation of Undum.- Sam Kabo Ashwell had a very helpful post earlier this year about hypertext IF structure, and it’s worth reading. Particularly the part about branch-and-bottleneck structures: You’re now equipped to write games with that kind of structure.
- Join me in a few days when I’ll write about adaptive text and varying what is written to the player.
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The Digital Antiquarian: Defender of the Crown
If you rushed out excitedly to buy an Amiga in the early days because it looked about to revolutionize gaming, you could be excused if you felt just a little bit disappointed and underwhelmed as the platform neared its first anniversary in shops. There was a reasonable amount of entertainment software available — much of […]
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My friends and I have created a CYOA style podcast
My friends and I have written a CYOA podcast. The preview episode is available for download here. The podcast is called Pick Your Path and the first episode will be released on May 1. We'd love to hear what you think about it.
submitted by samecool11
[link] [comment]
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An Island Affair by Monica Richardson
A story set in the Bahamas, and I'm ready to party. Long after the last page, I'm still waiting to party.
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SPAG: SPAG Specifics: Creating, inverting and making good the detective genre
This article is a comparison between styles of two text adventure games in the mystery genre. First off is Deadline. This is the first game in the mystery genre produced by Infocom. The second is Jon Ingold's Make It Good. The later game owes much of its plot and style to the former classic that defined the genre. This paper reviews both games. In the first part we cover Deadline and in the second Make it Good is reviewed. To understand Ingold's game and what it attempts to do one must understand Deadline.
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SPAG: SPAGreads: April 2015
Hi folks! Spring is always a busy time in IF, and this year is no exception: Spring Thing 2015 has sprung, with a bounty of works from IF authors new and veteran. The 2014 XYZZY Award finalists have been announced; you can vote until April 25, the awards ceremony is on the 26th, and we […]
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SPAG: The Year that Was
Sentiment on the Internet seems to be that 2014 was a bad year. Perhaps so. In IF-land, however, 2014 was one of the most exciting years in a decade that’s been full of them. Simply put, IF’s hasn’t had this large an audience and this vibrant a field of creators since the 1980s. A brief […]
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SPAG: Issue 61.5: Letter from the Editor, Masthead, and Call for Submissions!
Today is Groundhog Day. I’ve been holed up in a coffee shop in New York all day, and for the past several hours all that’s been visible out the window is static-thick snow; I can’t imagine what a groundhog, with its slush-eye view, would see. Now Groundhog Day, the movie, is a rather IF-like conceit: […]
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Emily Short: Interactive Narrative GDC Talks (Part 3)
Previously 1 and 2. Here are a few more — the last set, for now, though I note that the GDC Vault has made a lot of past years’ material free, so I may go back and dig out some … Continue reading → 
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