Difference between revisions of "Choose Your Own Adventure"
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== The PAGE variable == | == The PAGE variable == | ||
| + | At the end of each page we present the reader with a menu of choices, and we only want them to be able to choose those particular options, so we need a way to ensure that only the tasks corresponding to those options can be executed. | ||
| + | We do this by creating a variable that keeps track of which page of the story has just been displayed, and we add restrictions to the tasks that check the value of the page variable and prevent incorrect tasks from running. | ||
== The combinatorial explosion == | == The combinatorial explosion == | ||
Revision as of 08:37, 7 November 2011
This is a different style of Interactive Fiction from that which is normally written with Adrift. Instead of the player directly controlling a characters every move, a "Choose Your Own Adventure" (CYOA) is more like reading a book, but one in which the player is periodically asked to choose what happens next from a given menu of possibilities.
It is similar to printed gamebook style fiction in which each page of the book ends with a list of choices. The reader picks one of the choices which then directs them to turn to a particular page number and continue reading from there.
In Adrift this is usually done by creating a general task for each of the pages of text in the interactive book, and using a variable with restrictions to control which tasks are valid at each point in the story.
Contents
The PAGE variable
At the end of each page we present the reader with a menu of choices, and we only want them to be able to choose those particular options, so we need a way to ensure that only the tasks corresponding to those options can be executed.
We do this by creating a variable that keeps track of which page of the story has just been displayed, and we add restrictions to the tasks that check the value of the page variable and prevent incorrect tasks from running.
The combinatorial explosion
If each of the menu choices on each page links to a new page, then the number of pages that must be written quickly increases to unmanageable numbers. If each page only has two choices then you need at each level: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024 pages. So you need to write a thousand pages just to give the reader 11 pages to read on any particular path, and over a million if you have 4 choices on each page.
Clearly we need to greatly reduce the number of pages, but without limiting the readers choices too much. The simplest is just to make many of the choices dead-ends. If the reader makes an obviously bad choice then the main character can die or fail in their task so that the story ends there.
Bypass loops
Converging branches
Quests
Quests are parts of the story which can be separated into a self-contained sections which can be read in any order. This allows the reader to select which part of the story they read first, usually by choosing to go to a different location at a major branch point.
All of the quests in a group loop back to the original quest selection page, where the reader can then select one of the other quests to go on. Usually a certain number of quests, all of them, or particular quests, must be completed satisfactorily before the reader is offered the option to continue to the end of the main story.
