Beginning - fantasy-themed Interactive Fiction

edited in Projects
Made some time last year. There's not a whole lot else I can contribute to this forum from a 'making' perspective, but there is this. ^.^ This is my first real 'game' using Twine to create interactive fiction - I'm not a coder so stuff like this is the extent of my game-creation capabilities and I am ever thankful for things like Twine/TADS/Inform for existing.

http://welshpixie.com/beginning

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Jaco added the minimap and portrait functionality (you can grab the code and read instructions over on the Twine google group) and a friend allowed me to re-purpose some sketches he'd made for another project we were working on a while back as the character portraits. All other (and much more dubious) art is mine.

The map works from coordinates. I drew a minimap as one large image and that's stored in the game files somewhere. Each 'scene' in Twine has coordinates at the bottom and when you click onto that scene, it moves the map to focus on those coordinates. That's the layman's explanation, Jaco can provide more details if necessary. You can see that and the portrait code here:

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The styling of the final page is just CSS. Twine outputs a HTML file and you can both put CSS inside one of the Twine dialogue boxes (it allows you to put a stylesheet tag on a dialogue box and then parses the contents as CSS) or otherwise by directly editing the HTML file.

I'm a lover of fantasy so it's a 'high fantasy' story - elves and magic and stuff. I'm thinking of this kinda as 'chapter 1'. I plan(ned) to do more but it was such a head-fuck sorting out the dialogue flow with all the if/elseif statements to keep track of that I needed several months to recover :P It took me a week, if I recall, to make this much and most of that was pulling my hair out at operators; I'm not very logically minded. In an ideal world I'd write the story and someone else would assemble it for me :D

Here's a screenie of the entire contents of the Twine file:

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Doesn't look like much like that, hehe.

When I'm feeling up for it I'll continue the story. I'm a fan of DnD and fantasy RPGs, so want it to feel a bit like 'questing' with smaller 'modular' storylines and one larger over-arcing plot. Anyway, if you play it, hope you enjoy. :)

Comments

  • edited
    What are operators? When I played with Twine I didn't encounter them?

    I'm also a fan of writing interactive fiction and I used Inform which was a pain because you had to code for all the possible actions the crazy player could do. I like Twine for limiting player agency and I'd like to create a bunch of short adventures like the Lone Wolf books.

    Maybe MGSA should run an IF competition? How many people would be interested in this?
  • I meant statements, not operators >.< See, I'm confused just talking about it :D I've fixed in the text.

    I'd be interested in an IF competition :)
  • I think @Bensonance would be as well, but who else. Would it be fine if it was just the 3 of us?
  • I think @Bensonance would be as well, but who else. Would it be fine if it was just the 3 of us?
  • I'd be *interested*, finding time is a potential problem though.
  • I'd invite artists to contribute to concept art of the characters, encounters and scenery the writers describe.

    I'll also speak to @Hanli for a lecturer from the varsity who can judge for us.
    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • That is a great idea! Collaborations would work great in this space :D
  • hmm, I like the way this conversation is going, I think there are a couple of characters over at Legion that'd be keen too.
  • So here's the idea I've discussed with @WelshPixie.

    I'll setup a world concept, hero and the guidelines for their quest and participants must use these to write a short "Choose Your Own Adventure"-style fiction. This will give writers a common theme to play around with and discuss and players know what they're in for so they can jump into the adventure as supposed to the backstory.

    The story must be in the "Choose Your Own Adventure"-style with the player only choosing between links to the next part of the story. This mean no other mechanics, random chance or text adventures.
    The story must be short (no more than 20 pages to jump between) and have a definite "You Win" ending.

    Any other thoughts?
  • edited
    I'd have liked to use the competition to explore interactive fiction (in a fumbling, probably poorly written, probably disastrous way). I'm not excited about writing a choose you own adventure. (doesn't mean that other people aren't keen, but the constraint on the mechanics I can use, and the prescription of format, takes all the fun out of it for me)

    (disclaimer: I used to write choose your own adventures in high school, I even printed, illustrated and bound them. Although I can write better now, I hope, I have already scratched that interactive fiction itch).
    Thanked by 1Bensonance
  • Hmmmmmmm, I'm not sure I like the restriction of only A to Z with branching paths type mechanic, is that the best way to explore interactive fiction? Of course I'm speaking from a place of utter noobness when it comes to that stuff. Yes I wrote some of those Jackson Lone Wolf type things when I was tiny, but errr.

    How about Inventory? I suppose you can build that into your branches, but...

    Oh well I'll probably use this to practice concept art painting anyway :)
  • On the one hand I am rather interested in an IF style comp. Though a choose your own adventure is really not something I would be for, as I'm more of a fan of VNs and more so when they play like adventure games than simply a book one clicks through.

    Also does there have to be a definite "You win" I kinda want to make something with a "You died"
  • Haha, I'd like to have a 'you died' too :D
  • Would like to try my hand at an IF but I would also like a more free dev line than just choose your own adventure
  • So I think in the interests of encouraging more participants it should probably be an open form of IF, yeah :)
  • Although, the capabilities of the supporting software would be something we need to look at, I guess. Does Twine let you track inventory, etc? Or is it basically a series of html pages with multiple paths, and that's all it can do?
  • Kinda a silly question, but do the games have to be web-playable? I have a disposition for Ren'Py so I would preffer working in that :)
  • edited
    Definitely you need to have dead ends in your IF, I'm saying you have to have a definite win condition (minimum 1) as well; you can't have the player in an endless loop or an ending which is vague on if the player was successful.

    I'm also happy to open the format. I do require that it's a text-based game though so no interactive graphics and any graphics or sounds must be strictly optional.

    I would like to have a common theme, but I think the constraint that endings must be a definite failure or success and the focus on text is good enough for our first IF comp.

    Like our other comp, games can be offline or web based.
  • @Fengol if the game require a definitive win/lose state after a certain point, I assume doing a 'stuck in a room' type adventure and giving the player x turns to solve the puzzle would adhere to the general ideas of the comp?
  • So is this taking the place of the next formal MGSA competition then?

    Should I stop working on one?
  • I'm happy to make this the next MGSA comp because I think rAge is going to disrupt everyone in 2 weeks time and I think it's a lot more relaxed than our other comps.

    @Dislekcia do you have any suggests or things to add?
  • Technically, are we building our own FI engines? Are there engines that other people have used? (I know there's Twine, anything else? Something that can handle inventory? :P)
  • edited
    I'm working with @dislekcia and the other committee members properly do this. Bear with me for a couple of moments (Microsoft moments)
    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • edited
    image
  • Out of interest, the image uses the correct spelling in this context. <_<

    Also, while I'm really interested, I'm absolutely flooded with game work.
  • edited
    Thank you for spotting the typo, it's been corrected :)

    I'm also stealing the artwork for our 4xx Client Error page
    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • Everyone draw a bear with their mouse! :D
  • edited
    Here's a picture of a bear playing the lottery.

    image

    It might not show, but I spent a great deal of time studying bears. I found that it was the sort of study that, despite my best efforts, the act of observing bears affected the outcome.

    This bear grew quite familiar to me, during the time I spent observing, so much so that it started adopting my poor human diet... that's why he is fat and has bad posture.

    Thanked by 2Tuism WelshPixie
  • Bear... Bearver? :)
  • Gentlemen, you had my curiosity now you have my attention. I've been playing with Twine for about a week now and I would very much like an IF comp to be a thing. (Since I can bear-ly make any other kind of game >_> <_<)
  • All this talk of the competition... Did anyone actually PLAY my game? :P
  • edited
    I'm busy with it now, will report back when I feel I have a well informed opinion :)

    Also I was more interested in the changes you've made to the Twine output. You've managed to fix every single complaint I had about Twine when I started playing with it so thanks for that
    Thanked by 1WelshPixie
  • Crime is definitely up - this thread just got hijacked like 3 times!
  • can bear-ly make
    I tried to draw this. But then I couldn't :(
  • Goraan said:
    Also I was more interested in the changes you've made to the Twine output. You've managed to fix every single complaint I had about Twine when I started playing with it so thanks for that
    That was probably mostly Jaco's doing. He's written the extra modules (minimap and stuff) to extend Twine. We went joint on the skinning - I'm 'okay' at CSS but he's the CSS guru so I kinda go until I get stuck then bring him coffee while batting my lashes for him to take over ;)
  • Hah, I was thinking the same thing when I read over this thread yesterday. :P

    I've gotten as far as entering my name and loading up the first bit o' writing. Still need to find time to go through it.
  • Thanks Nandrew :) Yeah, it's pretty text-heavy >.<
  • Right so I got to a point twice that said (To be continued) which I assume means the ending is a WIP.

    My thoughts so far, and I'm not a pro but I like your writing style. I look forward to seeing how the story progresses. I would however like to see the dialogue broken up a bit instead of having masses of text then some dialogue then masses of text on one page, maybe let the player decided to progress with the dialogue making them feel more a part of the current story. It also serves to make the interaction between player and characters seem more important. Additionally add in some dialogue options for the player. You can do this cleverly by making one single response from the character fit multiple choices the player can make giving the player an illusion of agency (Watch this for more info on this idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohPdz8G-_bA)

    Secondly I want to see more portraits for characters, this idea is super cool. I know this is a WIP so there's most likely spans more art you want to add but I really like the idea and I love your art. So keep on keeping on with this.

    I'll give the game another run through once I go through the changes you (and/or others) have made to the output and the code so I can understand where the nice visual bits fit together. But so far I like it, so keep on making it.
  • Goraan said:
    I would however like to see the dialogue broken up a bit instead of having masses of text then some dialogue then masses of text on one page
    Hahaha... yeah. >.< The shift from 'prose writer' to doing this was a bit harsh. I'm using Twine to write the dialogue for our other game, The Maker's Eden, and for that one I HAVE to be brief with text, and even briefer with dialogue options, because of space. So that's been good exercise. Some of the pages in Beginning are waaaaay too long, like that one in the bar towards the end... :/ And yes, re. the illusion of agency - I've also been forced to do that in TME, adding dialogue choices that don't really affect the outcome of the story but give the player choices in directing the dialogue flow.
    Goraan said:
    and I love your art.
    I'll pass that on to Iain ^.^ I can't 'art' that well, hehe. He did the character portraits; they're 're-purposed' from a DnD campaign we were working on a million years ago that nothing ever happened with. I did all the other stuff; maps, adventure poster, the wine. Unfortunately he's busier these days or I'd have had him draw portraits for the other characters in Beginning too :/ I think they add some nice flavour to the whole thing.

    Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed the writing ^.^
  • So I played through it a bit. I kinda hit the same brick wall that I did with quite a few IF games.

    The brick wall was made out of text :P

    I found it really disconcerting that I was only told information when it came to the options: it makes me feel like I am making an uninformed decision.

    The high fantasy works to a detrimental effect, lots of name that I am given and don't know about, which leads to me caring less about the world, or lead to frustrating choices.

    When I was asked to choose between two elven wines I was unfamiliar with each so it was a completely arbitrary choice.
  • When I was asked to choose between two elven wines I was unfamiliar with each so it was a completely arbitrary choice.
    Did you click the wines link? There's a page that has a 'poster' for both wines that describes their history and flavour. I did the same with the placenames introduced in the first part of the story; gave some geography details on them. Unless I missed something (which is very possible :D) I tried to give backstory for every place or other 'unknown' that I mentioned.

    Not sure how to solve that issue in general though, without setting the game in a 'known universe' (The Sword Coast, for example - but then it only 'works' if people are familiar enough with that setting and also incurs some copyright issues) or on our Earth. I'm a storyteller, I like imagining things. That's the whole purpose of writing for me - creating universes and people and giving them stories, and not necessarily always in a fantasy setting. From your feedback I take it it's not specifically that it's fantasy but rather that it's new. I could have written it in a sci-fi setting and mentioned things that don't exist in our universe - I could even have set it 'on Earth' and mentioned Paddagang and Vergelegen and unless you're local to Western Cape those names would probably mean very little. That's why I was trying to give backstory to the things I mentioned - fleshing the world out as the story went along.

    Definitely needs shorter walls of text though if I continue this :D
  • Did you click the wines link? There's a page that has a 'poster' for both wines that describes their history and flavour. I did the same with the placenames introduced in the first part of the story; gave some geography details on them. Unless I missed something (which is very possible :D) I tried to give backstory for every place or other 'unknown' that I mentioned.
    That's a whole lot of exposition ;) I think there is some canonical rule of game stories which is "Show don't tell." I kind of wonder if it might have been better to just bump the player character on the head and go you have amnesia. I know it is an old overused trope but it is there for a reason.
    'known universe' The Sword Coast
    Ye no idea WTF that is. But I have this problem in real life. I gave a talk at the last JHB meet which was really about trying to get more people to events and such and when I was speaking to @Tuism when I told him what my talk was about his response was "Well duh" but then again he was at A Maze, so I spoke to a room of maybe 25 people, and I'm talking about Rami Ismail. And I realized. They kinda have no fucking idea who Rami is.

    So the assumption of prior knowledge is something that should never be made, in a game or in real life.
    I like imagining things. That's the whole purpose of writing for me - creating universes and people and giving them stories
    We're on a forum for making games. So everyone here loves making things. But a game is nothing if not played, and to the player the fun is in them exploring the world you created, or breaking your mechanics, or being really good at being a triangle and dodging a parallelogram. But you really need to present it to the player in such a way that they can enjoy it.
    That's why I was trying to give backstory to the things I mentioned - fleshing the world out as the story went along.
    You nailed it that it doesn't matter what setting it is in, but the further it is removed from our everyday lives the more information the player will need to understand things. Hence the amnesia point. It's convenient for dumping a load of the information on the player. If you notice in movies often one character will turn to another and go "As we both know . . ." No one in real life talks like that. It is an exposition for the sake of the viewer so that they can enjoy the work.

    So back on to the game, but I am going to generalize here. When it comes to Interactive Fiction or a Visual Novel. I find that there are two type that are done well. 1 is that I am clicking through a short story on my computer, and the other is just an adventure game with a different 'genre'.

    So if you look at adventure games like say Monkey Island there are puzzles, but the dialogue is short and witty, and when I make a dialogue choice I am being presented with four small jokes. But I am playing as Guybrush the entire time. With this game I named my character Marcus son of Fibius. And every time the name was brought up it was really fourth wall breaking. It made it hard to assume the character, because he felt like he was a pre-crafted character like Guybrush.

    Asking your player to go off and read a bunch of text for a decision is rather bad, why not have a part where they walk through the market and talk to some local merchants who happen to have some fine elven wine? It would be a better way of giving the player the knowledge they need.

    WALKING DEAD SPOILERS BELOW

    In the walking dead there is the point that Larry's heart is giving out, you have been fed drips of information in the game, like you just have to die to become a walker. Already makes this an extremely meaningful decision. Larry is about to die and thus become a raving 300 pound zombie.

    But Larry has been an ass so you kinda want to kill him, and Kenny has you back think you should kill him. On the other hand not killing Larry would probably make Lilly like you more. And life at the motor in rather easier.


    All these are prior facts, crumbs, that the game has given you, and now you have to make a decision that weighs like a loaf, but most of the times those crumbs will just lead to some nice pieces of gameplay so of which might have jam, and some marmite, but that just makes them more interesting, and when you work with bread you get crumbs which will be used in the next piece.

    END OF SPOILERS

    So in the game the decision to let the wizard buy you food was kinda a coin flip, but I said no since I apparently had money, and who knows this guy might want to poison and rob me. Come later I have the choice of working with him or the guard who has been nice to me. I went with the guard since the crumbs pointed to that being the piece of toast that had jam on it.

    Also holy crap LONG POST O_O
  • That's a whole lot of exposition I think there is some canonical rule of game stories which is "Show don't tell."
    For the place names it is, yeah. For the wine it's two pictures that are made to look like wine bottle labels. So the barmaid's offering you two choices, showing you the bottles, as it were. But for the places; yeah it's exposition. I've played a lot of games, both textual and visual, though, that work like that and I personally enjoy them; you don't have to read all the extra lore dump if you don't want to, but it's there if you do, and I mostly do; I enjoy backstory. I mean the lore books in the TES games could be considered exposition and too 'tell' instead of 'show', but I could take those few paragraphs I wrote about the mentioned places and make them books in the guard tower or one of the other locations.
    When it comes to Interactive Fiction or a Visual Novel. I find that there are two type that are done well. 1 is that I am clicking through a short story on my computer, and the other is just an adventure game with a different 'genre'.
    I've converted a few short stories into the click-through types of IF, yeah. The other kind, like Monkey Island, are highly graphical. Beginning fits more with the 'converted short story' format, and more like a 'choose your own adventure' book than either of the two you mentioned. I remember reading through a page or more of text in a book and then flipping to another page to continue the story. I wanted Beginning to feel like that in function (so with passages that aren't staccato-short and where the people playing are people who enjoy reading), with some resemblance to 'picking up quests from a job board' and going through these linear-ish short quest arcs. If the only two kinds of IF that work are converted-short-stories or the Monkey Island style point-and-click adventures, then by extension Beginning just isn't going to work in the form that it's in, so as an experiment in 'Will this work if I take the extended text of CYOA books and put it on a computer screen' it's a fail.

    Either way it does still need shorter text-walls and more player 'interaction' with the scenes. I don't want to break it down to a sentence at a time like point and clicks, the whole purpose of me doing this experiment was to see if I could 'game-ify' a novel; but if I can manipulate it enough that it still retains a prose feel but without having too much text to digest per passage then I'll call that a win.
    And every time the name was brought up it was really fourth wall breaking.
    Yeah, I mostly put that in there because Twine lets you do it, heh. This was the first proper 'thing' I made in Twine, mostly as an experiment to see how much I could do with Twine, so if I found that function I stuck it in. The same function that calls back whatever wine you chose later on, and I use it in a few more places after that. I also wanted to make a character that wasn't limited to one gender, felt more personal than a preassigned name and less impersonal than a nameless puppet. Alas with some names it does get kinda 'in your face' when the game spouts your name out.
    So in the game the decision to let the wizard buy you food was kinda a coin flip
    That does change the way Malarn talks to you later on. If you brush him off at the market and ignore him at the Inn he'll be a grumpy sausage. ^.^
  • For the place names it is, yeah. For the wine it's two pictures that are made to look like wine bottle labels. So the barmaid's offering you two choices, showing you the bottles, as it were. But for the places; yeah it's exposition.
    I was mostly just using the wine as a vehicle for talking about introducing the player to prior knowledge that the character may have.
    I've played a lot of games, both textual and visual, though, that work like that and I personally enjoy them; you don't have to read all the extra lore dump if you don't want to, but it's there if you do, and I mostly do; I enjoy backstory
    I also enjoy backstory, but I have to be interested in the world first. I was perhaps half way through Mass Effect before I sat down to read through the codex. I can't really think of a situation where one would explore the lore before having a basic comprehension of the world.
    I mean the lore books in the TES games could be considered exposition and too 'tell' instead of 'show', but I could take those few paragraphs I wrote about the mentioned places and make them books in the guard tower or one of the other locations.
    No doubt about the books, but as above the people who are reading the books already know about the world. There are many people who are just getting to know the TES world and are currently learning that through quests and such which would adhere to 'show don't tell' since they are experiencing the world through action, and at a later point might go and read the books as I did with Mass Effect.
    I've converted a few short stories into the click-through types of IF, yeah. The other kind, like Monkey Island, are highly graphical. Beginning fits more with the 'converted short story' format, and more like a 'choose your own adventure' book than either of the two you mentioned.
    Monkey Island graphical, it's kind of the found of the point and click adventure game, but if you look at the more contemporary things like The Walking Dead, or Mass Effect. It's really about the dialogue the puzzle in TWD annoy me and I've never really enjoyed the combat is Mass Effect: I played those games to click through dialogue options. And I know those are big budget games so I'm going to point to Digital A Love Story since it is purely text based, basically entirely linear, rather text heavy, but it is one of the greatest gaming experiences I have ever had. Also it was done by one person.
    I wanted Beginning to feel like that in function (so with passages that aren't staccato-short and where the people playing are people who enjoy reading), with some resemblance to 'picking up quests from a job board' and going through these linear-ish short quest arcs. If the only two kinds of IF that work are converted-short-stories or the Monkey Island style point-and-click adventures, then by extension Beginning just isn't going to work in the form that it's in, so as an experiment in 'Will this work if I take the extended text of CYOA books and put it on a computer screen' it's a fail.
    The reason I have found short novel style to be better than CYOA is the consistency of the story. Digital A Love Story is basically a short story, but the interaction forms and illusion of choice, and it is really good in how it makes you invest in the game. The illusion of choice is actually really important, and Extra Credits did an episode it this week so good timing there :)

    But I think all good entertainment starts from a point of trying to introducing someone who know nothing about your world as easily as possible. So they can enjoy it and put the effort into enjoying it as opposed to getting into it. It's a problem we have with zX since we have no tutorial. Unless you are interested in the type of game, or got excited by how it look, or the premise. You're not going to get good enough to get through most of it, and have fun with it. (Weird enough this paragraph kinda serves my point by being the opposite, since an entire paragraph could have have just been written as "Make it accessible," but I just wanted a chance to mention zX)

    Beginning is kind of weak in the beginning. The tone of it is very much a GM telling me how a game has begun, but I'm not really familiar with the character or the motivation. There is a lot to the world, and I am barely splashing in the shallow end, I know nothing about where I am going so it makes me nervous to go anywhere.
    I also wanted to make a character that wasn't limited to one gender, felt more personal than a preassigned name and less impersonal than a nameless puppet. Alas with some names it does get kinda 'in your face' when the game spouts your name out.
    Typical Elf characters are normally so androgynous that you could get away with giving them a name and I doubt the player would really know.

    But to me if I am giving the choice of name then it is implied that I have some kind of agency over the character: it is a being of my creation and choosing. But beginning is not that the character definite feels like it has its own personality and agency distinct from my own. Very much like I am given a character sheet for a module at a con. I feel like I need to slip into the character and have play as them as opposed to try and control them.
    That does change the way Malarn talks to you later on. If you brush him off at the market and ignore him at the Inn he'll be a grumpy sausage. ^.^
    I kind of guessed something like that might happen, but he was already annoyed with me, and throwing cultists into the mix. Kind of felt like I would walk down a path that he would leave me. I like killing players ;)
  • Okay, that's a lot of text (and I'm talking about this thread as much as the story :P ). But I found the time to play through it! Some of my impressions will reinforce stuff already said here, but I'm going to use different words, so that makes it all okay.

    The wine decision mentioned earlier is a good example of what I found difficult / problematic about how much or how little information was presented in the story, rather than the way in which it was presented (the "link to wine" panel was really charming, more on that later!).

    Among other decisions, I found this choice to be anxiety-provoking. In general, I assume that every decision I make in IF can have potential consequences, and when you're talking about getting drunk in an unfamiliar town / culture, you DON'T just wanna hear about where the wine comes from -- you wanna know relevant stuff like its price and alcoholic strength! Was choosing a particular drink going to empty my coffers, or maybe even send me down Shit-Faced Avenue? In retrospect, the decision didn't seem to matter that much, but I wish I'd known this beforehand. Hell, I needed to be composed in front of my new boss, after all. ;)

    Another example of a weak decision area was the time I found myself in an underground passage, choosing between identical-seeming paths that branched off into the darkness. At this point, I didn't feel armed with any relevant knowledge to help this decision -- it was pretty much just "choose passage A or B" and hope that the one I picked would be the one I wanted to pick (if it was up to me, option "C" of "back the fuck out and inform my superior" would've been nice ;) ). If one was filled with blood and the other with unicorns, I could at least decide what sort of character I wanted to be. The decision would feel more meaningful -- more interesting and engaging -- than just "pick one and go".

    On the other side of the coin, there ARE some decisions which have acceptably little knowledge attached. For example, finding myself in a strange town which was ALSO strange to my character felt acceptable, as my decisions could still be based on that uncertainty (I went straight to the guard barracks because I felt disoriented -- perhaps a braver player would have obeyed their hunger and gone to market). There were many instances where I as a player felt comfortable because my character's knowledge didn't far outstrip mine, and it was a good call to make your PC a bit of a social recluse as a background to help facilitate this.

    --------

    I've gotta go now, but I'll just leave off with this: at the beginning of your story (the first few pages or so), you had very little info presented in the main panel, and instead put "lower priority" info in clickable links and side panels. Great stuff! I pursued extra lore that I thought was necessary, but otherwise I was able to just focus on the main story and skip the stuff I found unimportant.

    I find it a great shame that this tendency tapered off as the story continued, as I think it's a great way to partition and separate info to lessen textwalls and make the tale less intimidating to read. ;)
  • I also enjoy backstory, but I have to be interested in the world first. I was perhaps half way through Mass Effect before I sat down to read through the codex. I can't really think of a situation where one would explore the lore before having a basic comprehension of the world.
    Ah, I play differently. It's precisely exploring the extra lore available that GETS me immersed and invested in a world - I do that as a priority in any game I play, from the beginning.
    the people who are reading the books already know about the world. There are many people who are just getting to know the TES world and are currently learning that through quests and such
    I'd be more inclined to say that in the TES games you really don't learn much about the world from the questlines; mostly just some ongoing politics and current events. It's the books, and (again specifically in the earlier games where one NPC would have reams and reams of extra dialogue) extended conversations with people that really introduce you to the world and its lore and history. If you play the Skyrim main quest you learn about one facet of a hugely intricate universe. If you play the main sidequests you learn about the recent guild politics and movements. But you don't learn about Tamriel and its inhabitants. You don't learn, for example, that there are over seventeen different breeds of Khajiit, their breed being determined by the phase of the moon at birth, ranging from looking like house cats to being near indistinguishable from men. There are more lore-divulging quests that you pick up from reading in-game books that you'd never know about if you hadn't read them. That's why I prefer the older TES games to the newer, Morrowind in particular - the world was far more fleshed out.

    __________
    I assume that every decision I make in IF can have potential consequences
    I think the Chekhov's Gun trope is something I largely didn't consider when writing this, which is interesting for me because it's something I always have in the back of my mind when I'm writing normal prose. From yours and @Karuji's responses I think the game is being played differently to how I *imagined* it being played when writing it, so perhaps calling it a game at all is in retrospect misleading, and it would maybe be more appropriate to just call it an interactive story. I'd never considered any part of the story being particularly anxiety-provoking because I'd never considered that the player might think they were in danger of 'losing' at any point, any more than you think the main character of a book is in danger of 'losing'; when you read a book you know there's a pre-written story and you're just an observer to the narrative unfolding. That being said, though, it's still a failing on my part - but not so much a failing in having every decision lead to a consequence, but in presenting the story in such a way that the player/reader is immediately aware that it's not 'about' decisions and consequences but rather about being an observer to the story. Choosing the wine doesn't do *anything*. It's utterly irrelevant and serves no purpose in the story at all other than 'getting a drink' being something fitting to do when you're at an Inn. I'm a fan of RPGs (can you tell? :P) and always like it when my character can do things that doesn't serve the main story or questline and doesn't further the game in any way. Like being able to buy a drink from an inkeeper; I get no XP (on the contrary most likely I lose coin), it doesn't push the story forward in any way - it just reminds me that I'm role-playing a character who might do those things. I never expect it to have a consequence, and even if drinking an ale in the game alters my stats for a few minutes, it still doesn't have any baring on the game as a whole.
    you wanna know relevant stuff like its price and alcoholic strength!
    I think it would have been weirder to list prices for things you're buying without having implemented any way to check the balance of your character's coin purse or stipulated how much money you're starting with in the first place, or mentioning any specific money-related numbers at all anywhere in the game;

    "You want the Saerloonian Glowfire? That'll be twelve coins."

    How many coins do I have? Is that cheap or expensive? Can I afford twelve coins? - - The point being, it's NOT relevant. Does that mean (genuine question) that I should have left the wine section out entirely, if making no mention of effects or cost or character narration about the decision wasn't enough to show that it was largely irrelevant?
    In retrospect, the decision didn't seem to matter that much, but I wish I'd known this beforehand.
    That's what I'm getting at - clearly I need to be better at showing which things are relevant and which things aren't relevant before crunch time :D
    There were many instances where I as a player felt comfortable because my character's knowledge didn't far outstrip mine, and it was a good call to make your PC a bit of a social recluse as a background to help facilitate this.
    Haha, I did something right then ^.^
    I find it a great shame that this tendency tapered off as the story continued
    Definitely this. I have the attention span of an amoeba, and as mentioned somewhere up there ^ ^ I'm not very logically minded and struggled with keeping track of the variables and statements. I started sacrificing having more player choice in favour of keeping my brain from exploding, and simplifying the story so that I didn't have to deal with so many variables. Ideally, yes, the passages would absolutely have been kept to the shorter length of the beginning passages throughout the game, and there'd have been more things for the player to choose to do - like, as you said, deciding to go back and report to your superiors half way through a quest or punching Malarn in the face for being an arrogant twathead (and then probably getting scorched by vengeful magefire or something). If I continue this IF, or make another choice-heavy IF, I don't think I'll be able to rectify that myself. As it is, in TME, I'm having to spell out the options and variables in ways that I understand (which is mostly very long-winded descriptions like "player only gets this choice if they've visited this person and taken this object" rather than "if variable1 = true and if variable2 = true" and let Jaco configure them properly into the game. The way I think just doesn't connect well to keeping track of logic. So if I DO make something like this again, I'll probably pass that lovely task to Jaco ;p

    But it's been really interesting seeing the feedback and big divide in terms of 'how I thought this would be approached / played when I was writing it' and how people have actually approached it and played it. Things I just didn't consider (like providing completely irrelevant lore for no other purpose than providing completely irrelevant lore) have more far-reaching effects than 'can't be bothered / not interested in extra lore' and start impacting the way choices are made. I write from my perspective of how I personally enjoy playing games and that ends up excluding people who play games differently or find enjoyment through other types of games. I don't know whether that falls into the 'you can't please everybody' bracket, or the 'this isn't that type of game' bracket - or maybe as an experiment game-ifying a story in the way I envisioned just doesn't work in this medium, and fixing all of the above mentioned issues would make it not the thing that I wanted to be in the first place.
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    No worries.

    In terms of the "price and alcoholic strength", I've approached it too technically and by referring to anxiety I may be taking the IF a bit seriously (yeah, I should've guessed that in a game structured like this, *everything* works out more or less the same in the long run). But we could find interesting debate in this while looking at the roleplaying values you embrace -- even though the exact number of coins is arbitrary, in a pure story sense your character *is* working with a careful budget. Being hesitant, at first, to spend money on market food but forking out for gold-flaked red wine (on a weekly guardsman's stipend, my goodness!) can be a worrying handwave.

    Not that I'd be averse to letting your character buy the a expensive wine for some lovely insight. Reluctant to buy food, but spending dosh on fancy booze? It looks like our wood elf may be an alcoholic! Great if I want to project that sort of character, not as awesome if I was trying to roleplay a more money-conscious personality. I'd want to know which wine was cheaper or tasted better, especially if my character was familiar with the drinks in question.

    Giving additional metrics (such as cheap vs expensive wine) still allows you to massage each choice into a similar outcome without affecting the main story, while leaving the player mildly satisfied that they developed their character a little bit beyond "red vs white" (though I'm a dry white drinker, myself).

    When I got to town and chose heading for the barracks instead of going to the market, I told the game that my character was direct and focused (or maybe just scared of new places, heh). When I chose between the wines, on the other hand, I wasn't sure what I was saying about my character at all.

    In the same regard, and as a more extreme example, choosing between the blood-stained corridor and the unicorn passage could have the same outcome (they both rejoin at the dwarf hovel), but in that brief moment the player has the opportunity to state "my hero is either a courageous warrior, or an abject coward (in addition to preferring a nice Sauvignon Blanc)". It gives the decision additional, emotional meaning without resorting to the statistical attitude you're trying to avoid.

    I'll think on these ideas some more if I write my own IF. I'm feeling a bit tired and I'm not used to considering games in these terms.
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    I've played it, and I'm quite impressed with how neatly the branching narrative's been done (especially with how the plot diverges with the major quest branch, and how the companion you end up with affects the catacombs segment). The writing's lovely, and the use of maps, character portraits and incidental posters is really nice. It makes me feel like I'm playing an RPG. All it's missing is the snacks and dice. :P

    One question: why does one branch end with a bunch of "to be continued"s, and another just... ends, with vague plot reference to the other branch? Not criticism, per se, just interested in your rationale for keeping one plot line going and cutting the other short.

    Now as regards its depth of agency, it's very interesting to see the different viewpoints here. Seems that as far as @Welshpixie is concerned, Beginning is a semi-linear narrative (with one major branching point and several minor ones) that incorporates neat user-driven modifiers to personalise the tale being told a little, whereas @Karuji and @Nandrew are looking at it from a traditional cause-effect simulation standpoint - there are victory and failure conditions, choices are challenges that have very real consequences for the narrator and plot, choices are to be weighed carefully with available information lest ye be squished. I'm a systems man, so I empathise more with them in this, but I'm not sure whether their comments are as a result of a design failure on @Welshpixie's part, or whether it's because we just aren't the intended audience. <_<

    I will second the request for more information, though. As the EC video link above states, even if the choices are ultimately arbitrary, the perception of having weighed consequences when making a choice is essential to a sense of agency.
  • in a pure story sense your character *is* working with a careful budget. Being hesitant, at first, to spend money on market food but forking out for gold-flaked red wine (on a weekly guardsman's stipend, my goodness!) can be a worrying handwave.
    I could definitely do things like narrate the MCs decisions from the first person perspective. Justify the choice, address reservations of making that choice, etc.
    It looks like our wood elf may be an alcoholic!
    They're elves after all :D In DnD terms (Wizards of the Coast, anyway), normal 'people alcohol' has no effect on elves, whereas elven spirits completely floor humans, and elves don't 'get drunk' - they just get happy. According to Gary Gygax, anyway. :D That might have been a nice bit of padding to commentate the decision.

    Thanks for the feedback!

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    One question: why does one branch end with a bunch of "to be continued"s, and another just... ends, with vague plot reference to the other branch?
    Because lazy. :P Well, kinda. I worked on it intensively for a few days and wiped out, so made sure I had at least one questline that kinda 'neatly' ends and then dropped it with the intent of finishing the others after a break, and never got back to it.
    but I'm not sure whether their comments are as a result of a design failure on @Welshpixie's part, or whether it's because we just aren't the intended audience.
    And that's what I'd love to know! :D Especially if it's a design failure - if I can improve on the mechanism while still keeping it true to the kind of game *I* want to make, then that's something I do want to pursue.
    even if the choices are ultimately arbitrary, the perception of having weighed consequences when making a choice is essential to a sense of agency.
    Aaaaabsolutely. That was again somewhat down to part laziness and part fear of all the extra statements and variables I'd have to consider if I wanted to make the choices have some kind of impact on the flow of the story, even if all that meant was a character talking to you differently. I'd still like to do that, but I'll have Jaco do all the dirty work while I just do the writing *whistle*
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