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Suggestions for improvements and additions to the site.
This feature was rejected 6/25/2014: See comments, particularly Zikara's.

A story tree

9 years ago

Writing storygames may look easy, but unless you want the result to be shorter than a baby midget, you need effort. No, writing isn't hard. Keeping track of everything is hard. Right now, the chapter and page editor keeps track of pages in the order they were made... which is a pain in the side if the story has many choices that branch out in different directions. Because of this, writting a good storygame takes months, years maybe, and not because writing take time, because it really doesn't! I've written 100 MS Word pages in half a day with my left hand broken. The biggest problem is organization. It would be easier for us to see which page branches where, which leads where,  what are the options for each and where each ending is. Like a family tree. A story tree.L

Look at an early scheme tree i did for my future storygame.

http://i.snag.gy/GeGEv.jpg

A story tree

9 years ago

Agreed!

A story tree

9 years ago
That's what chapters are for in the advanced-game editor :P organization of pages.

A story tree

9 years ago

And those are more tedious than they should be, and you know that.

A story tree

9 years ago
I thought chapters were nice... a story-tree seems rather useless since you can only put small ideas and points, and not write whole pages. It's like writing more than you already have to, and you can't proof read a story-tree. I'm not sure if it could be used for anything more useful than a notepad with bullet points.

A story tree

9 years ago

I never said users making their own. I said an automatic feature of the website that keeps track of each page and where it leads, what is linked to it, it's title and the like, with an easy overview, without having to click each friggin page to see where it leads. This way, there will be no orphaned pages, the length of good stories will improve drastically, the stories will be more complex, with so much many choices  instead of just 1-4 choices at the end of some pages.....

If this is ever done, i'm suggesting checkboxes for each page in this overview for whether the page is finished or not, so you won't post by mistake a story with an unfinished page, like I did 2 years ago.....

 

This Story Overview, or Story Tree, would improve CYS by at least 150%. With it , stories can take new directions: having multiple characters each with the possibility of multiple endings without losing track of anything.

A story tree

9 years ago

I love story trees. I use them every time I am writing, whether its stories or material for stage. 

nate

A story tree

9 years ago

Aw man...I wish I had a story tree...then I could grow featured stories in my backyard....

Nah, but in all seriousness, there should be a button that you can click while editing the story that shows a tree of all the pages that you have made, just in case ya wanna go back or somethin.

It would also be a great mechanic in storygames. Every time you enter a new page, it gets unlocked in the story tree.

Then, when you finish the story, before you rate it and stuff, you can go check the tree and go back.

(Oh, totally off-topic, but the new Rich-Text Editor is lookin pretty sweg.)

A story tree

9 years ago

anyone use their notebook in their 'my stuff' tab?

nate

A story tree

9 years ago

You mean "Notepad"?

Yes. Yes I do.

I have a To-Do list on there.

A story tree

9 years ago
Damn I should put a to-do list on mine... that sounds like a good idea. I'm not sure what I need to do though xD my to-do list is right in front of me when I click "My Stuff" - it's 15 half-made stories staring me in the face.

A story tree

9 years ago

my bad. you are correct. Notepad. I use it all the time to write out ideas and such. Its no story tree as previously mentioned. But I always go to it before I create a story.

nate

A story tree

9 years ago

Yeah, when im done with something on my list, I use the strike thing on the RICH TEXT EDITOR to look like I crossed it out with a pen(cil).

Because when I tried to do that with an actual pen earlier, I made a big mark on my screen.

A story tree

9 years ago
Basic text editor ftw - rich text editor is for noobs.

A story tree

9 years ago

BUT YOU CAN'T DO ALL THE COOL STUFF!

AND WHEN YOU NEED TO MAKE A NEW PARAGRAPH, YOU HAVE TO PRESS ENTER TWICE!

AND NO SMILEY FACES!crying

(Which, if I may also add, are also lookin pretty sweg.)

A story tree

9 years ago
I CAN DO ALL THE COOL STUFF

When I make a new paragraph my clip board always has copied. It's easier to navigate and less problems for a person who uses HTML and CSS often :D

Smiley faces are for noobs who can't use actual pictures :3

A story tree

9 years ago

DAMNIT, YOU'RE SMARTER THAN ME!

Well that's nice to know.

I'm going to go CRY MYSELF to sleep now.

Good night/morning/mid-to-late afternoon, Ford.

A story tree

9 years ago
I know.

Sweet dreams, crybaby.

A story tree

9 years ago

DON CAW ME A CWYBABY!

*runs and faceplants into bed, pulling the blankets over his head....rhymes...*

A story tree

9 years ago

Speaking as a complete newbie to writing these, I LOVE the idea of a story tree. I hope this is implemented at some point :)

A story tree

9 years ago

I love the idea and It would make it sooo much easier to keep track of what you already wrote and it would make it sooo much easier to spot dead ends where you forgot to go back to and add onto. It would make it so people could make much more complex, longer stories because they were able to see what had been written, what needs to be written, and see if it's short and if they don't like how few options they give, they can add more, and they could see where they need to add more. It would be AWESOME! 

A story tree

9 years ago

This idea seems like it would make it easier on the creator on storygames and help avoid errors.
It would be a lot easier to see if you missed a link somewhere or if a path of story you meant to connect
to another path of the story was in the wrong spot. For longer storygames with complex paths, it seems
like it would be godsend.

A story tree

9 years ago

http://chooseyourstory.com/forums/feature-wishing-well/message/12786

(If you don't feel like clicking it, killa says "some of the destinations are changed in real time, so it's almost impossible.")

 

My opinion on it is: yeah it would be convenient for you, but there are entire websites/programs out there dedicated to making those kind of visual maps.   I don't know anything about scripting, but it seems like a lot of work for someone to build one of these for CYS.  

A story tree

9 years ago
It looks like a good idea when you're looking at a mock-up with 17 pages, but what about the long ones? People have stories with thousands of pages which would be difficult to map out on a page automatically like that. Not to mention scripting, and how that affects where pages lead. It would be near impossible to implement automatically, I think.

A story tree

9 years ago
Oh, and to see an example of what this would look like for Ground Zero look here:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_GG30-6FZ0ZTmdtQTgwY2hqNDg/edit

Ground Zero isn't even that big of a game compared to some other ones. This would be hard to show on one screen, and when stories get even half this size, they'd need to implement a zoom in/out and pan option too, otherwise it'd be unusable.

A story tree

9 years ago

Holy shit! So cool.

A story tree

9 years ago

About scripting, pages that contain mostly code and scripting would be lined up separately so they don't interfere with the layout.