Creating a Time Table (11/11/2013)

Even though we may be far ahead in our development of the CYOA book (as is the case with me), the lecturer decided that he wanted us to create a time table and a outline for our work in order to show off our organisation and planning skills.

I started my time table off by trying to do an entire one. However, when I remembered that other assignments and lectures could get in the way I figured it would be very empty at points. Therefore, speaking to a friend I decided to write it down as monthly deadlines as seen below.

2013:

• October : Came up a with a number of ideas that I then started to refine. 
• November: Research a number of published CYOA books and online text adventures in order to decide which ideas work the best for me. I will also start coming up with the first drafts.
• December: Will email the first drafts to fellow colleagues in order to receive feedback on the best story and type of game play.

2014:

• January: Will select a final idea from the feedback given and work on making it my final professional piece.
• February: Will come up with a creative way to present my work and hand it in. 

As for my outline, I have already brought up my thoughts in previous blogs thanks to the research I have done.

Our lecturer also wanted us to note down our intended idea for the CYOA book. Thus I have listed my five drafted ideas below.

• A fantasy idea in which the player comes from a tribe. It is the day of them turning into an adult (18), only their village is attacked and, having escaped the attackers the player journeys with their friend in order to gather allies, find answers and rescue their families and friends who were taken during the attack. The game has the player select an object at the start that would then affect all the options they could do later. This prevents the player having to roll dice which I disliked during my play testing. Instead, I don't want my players to have to remember multiple things, instead I prefer them to look back at the description of their chosen item, giving them the opportunity to play the game multiple times in order to see how different objects help them on their journey.
• A 'Call of Cthulhu' inspired game in which the player chooses from a list of occupations with different skills and starting equipment. Depending on their choice, the player will get an unique opening that tells them in various ways that they have received a letter from their brother asking them to meet him at their old family estate. But, he has been dead for fifteen years!
• The third idea was a sci-fi setting with elements of spaghetti westerns which didn't give the player any starting choices and was instead decision based. Thus the game play would consist of the player selecting lots of short to the point options in order to make the combat seem big and dramatic, whilst keeping the story elements in depth. The story would have the player wake up in the middle of a desert road with one of their arms missing and no memory of who they. They are soon picked up by a doctor and later have a bar fight with the local jerk.
• The 4th fantasy idea didn't really get off the ground as I fancied writing one in which the player would need to build up an army in order to win back a kingdom that was taken from them. Although it would have been fun to have traveled the world for numerous allies, I felt it would feel rushed in how quickly you would gather allies. Then implementing them into the game would have been complicated, thus it is likely that I will not go any further with this idea.
• Finally the latest idea that I had takes place in an underwater setting where the player is thrown into mystery and murder. A terrosit attack occurs in order to get hold of the object you had only just collected from a ruined city, thus, after chasing after the culprit who escapes, it is up to you to gather clues and find out where they went. It would be an action packed adventure which would play just like the 3rd idea.

Thanks to my five drafts I plan to share my written CYOA's soon so as to figure out which story to follow and which game play is the most popular. 

I also found out today that there are printers that can make your writing into books. So I may well wish to do this for my CYOA book so as to create a more professional end product.  

Narratives and Writing (4/11/2013)

* Today we talked about narrative and how linear / non linear it can be in both stories and CYOA's.

* Book based narratives tend to give us a story, whereas digital text adventures tend to give us options. Therefore, as I have mentioned before I plan to try and do a mix of the two.
Whatever play style I pick however, if its more like a text adventure then I should map that first, whereas if it's more like a narrative then I should write a synopsis of its whole story which I have already started to do.

* During this session I remembered a friend of mine told me recently, that if I wish to do multiple choices for combat and/or conversations then they should be short 100/200 word paragraphs. Thus, even though they are shorter and less descriptive than what you may want, they will allow you to have snappier choices and big cinematic scenes.

* I then decided to map the CYOA book that I bought myself named 'Light on Quests Mountain' using the program 'Inspiration' which you can see below.
Yellow is my starting point, green are the paths I took, red is death and blue are the other options I didn't take.

Overall, I felt that it was a good book with the type of writing I want to include in my own CYOA book. However, it also contained far too much text and didn't give me, the player enough choices. Although annoying, this has taught me not to include as much text in my own CYOA book and therefore I should be able to make my own far more balanced.
Also, one of the first choices is instant death, therefore not allowing the player to get absorbed into the experience.

* I then spent the rest of the session going over another idea that I thought of this morning, making it the fifth idea that I am experimenting with.

Analysing CYOA's (28/10/2013)

* As we looked at text adventures last week our focus this week will be CYOA books. Therefore, we started by listening to a presentation named "You Find Yourself in a North-South Corridor".

* CYOA books are mapped more like flow charts, as the player gets numerous choices as opposed to the linear choices in a text adventure game.

* Our lecturer will hopefully get some CYOA book writers to come in to talk to us about the books they have written.

* When we do map a CYOA book we should list the number you turn to, not the whole description, otherwise it will take you forever. Just make sure to list 'Death' or 'Victory' underneath the ones that need them. We don't have to map the whole thing, just enough to get an idea of the whole thing.
We can if we wish also map it as a grid, which was a method used in the past.

* If we wish, we can split the player's path drastically in order to give them freedom and choice. These split paths can then always link again at the points vital to a connected story.

* We were then asked to read some CYOA books that the lecturer had brought in in order to analysis them.

I read the book 'The Forest of Doom' where it asked me to roll stats using dice.

• Skill - 8 (Roll 1 dice and add 6)
• Stamina - 17 (Roll 2 dice and add 12)
• Luck - 9 (Roll 1 dice and add 6)

I also made the following notes.

• It was a lot of fun to play and introduced to me a system in which you rolled stats for yourself. Thus this is something I could always include in my game, providing I feel it fits the game play I wanted. However, it also asked to draw a map which I felt was too finicky to constantly go back to, thus I will definitely not include this in my CYOA book. 
• It also had a long introduction like the one I have so far written at home. Therefore, I may wish to make the opening shorter in order to provide more player decisions, as I am only limited to around 4000 words.
• Another feature I liked was that you could be evil at the start of the game by trying to kill the wizard you were meant to talk to. However, he gives you only the one chance not to. If you still try however, you get turned into a frog and your adventure ends. I quite liked this choice, as it gave the player the option to be mean, but also gave them a warning. Thus not punishing players who might make such decisions straight away.
• Although the dice helped to vary the book and give the player a chance at surviving, I don't think I will include it in my book as sometimes it could get too tedious. I wish to keep my story more narrative driven so as to allow readers to feel as if they are the hero in the story.
• The very start of the book gave the player the option to spend their gold on a whole list of items they could buy, therefore I may wish to introduce a cool feature such as this in my book. Though, if I wish to keep my game simple, so that the player doesn't have to list everything they have and remember only a few things for journey purposes, I may wish not to include this feature and instead keep the starting choice of three distinct items. This would give players reasons to replay the game and talk about how their playthrough was diffrent to others. 
• One thing I found clever was the fact that if you rescued a stranger from a rabbit snare you then had to turn to another page to show that you had traveled. Only then, however would you discover that the stranger was a thief and stole some gold from you. Thus stopping the player from just looking ahead at the consequence and not just redoing their action which I know many people, including myself have done before. 

 * I also got some of my friends to play the CYOA book I wrote when I was younger named 'Gold Lord'.

• They thought the writing was simple and cute, as a lot of my spelling was easily mistaken for other words, especially since the elf king wanted a 'co-co egg' and therefore they thought it was a child wanting chocolate and not the egg of some animal I had made up. 
• They really loved the fact that the story was simple and fun as it didn't over complicate matters and allowed them to jump right in without too much hassle. 
• They also liked that I included how much health you started off with, although I don't think it really matters since there are moments that kill you no matter what.

* Overall, I am glad that I got to play a CYOA book today, as it made me realise that I may not be able to sadly include as many characters as I wanted due to the word count and wanting to keep a good pace in the narrative. Therefore, I plan to think of some more story ideas in order to make sure I find the perfect balance of story telling and game play.