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Hello, I’m Joy and I'm new here. (I am posting in the newbie section...) I just registered two days ago but I've played a few games and I find the idea of interactive fiction enchanting. I want to make my own storygame, a simple and short story about a bartender's son who tries to get up the nerve to ask the girl he likes to a town party (multiple girls to pick from). It is fantasy, late Medieval and yes, the idea is a little cliche, but I just spent a half hour reading posts here where newbies are waved away from anything complicated. So simple would be the best to start with and I also want to write this so I can learn and start getting the hang of writing storygames so yes, simple would be good...

Anyway my point with all this is where do I start? I read the storygame 101 post, 10 ways to making better games, 8 Steps to Writing an Epic, Character Creation, Common Grammar and Spelling Mistakes, Creation of good story plot, Plotting Multiple-Path Stories, Raven's Beginner Guide to Writing Styles, The Importance of Perspective, a few other writing posts and other posts in the website section but I still don’t know how to start.

I opened the story creator and it’s just a page that says:

“This is the first page in your adventure game. To change this text or edit the page further, switch the page view by clicking on the edit button above.

 There are currently no links on this page. To add a link, switch to edit mode.”          

And nothing else.

I clicked on edit, but that’s just a word editor and a button that says "add new link". SO my question is where do I start? Where can I learn about links and how to actually make a storygame and pointers or a walk through or something? I know it’s going to take me a month or something to make the game, what I’ve read so far in the newbie section has alerted me to that at least but any suggestions or advice would be amazing!

(Also, in story games, do they have to be in second person? Do you have to make gender neutral characters? Can you give them names and backstories?)

Thanks!

Hello there, Joy! :)

Welcome to CYS ^-^

The word editor is where you put in your text. :D It's very simple. "Add new link" will make a new page.

Your storygames do not have to be in second person(Read the perspective article again), and you are definitely free to give your characters names and backstories.

Hello Seto, thanks for replying so fast! Where can I learn about links and stuff like that? Do you know?

Hm..I'm going to have to say that your question is confusing me a bit.

What exactly do you need to learn about links? Because if you're still confused about making them, that's fairly simple.

You literally just click "Add new link" and a page will popup. Click "Make new link" and name your link.

Well, what I mean to ask is, when you create a link, how do you attach it to a page

Uh... I don't know how to explain with words so what if my story looked like this:

---Joe is working at burger king. Right now he is cleaning a window and his boss yells at him to go sweep the kitchen. Before he can go to the kitchen, Anne his girlfriend, walks in and asks him to help get her cat, Dean, out of a tree. Just as Anne is asking him, the guy coming to fix his car window pulls up and needs to talk to him too... What does poor Joe do?

-Sweep Kitchen- -Help Anne- -Talk to the car guy- -Ignore everyone and go read a book-

(Say you pick -Help Anne-)

_Help Anne_

Joe and Anne run to the park to get Dean out of the tree. The cat is mewing pitifully and Joe now has to choose...

-Climb Tree- -Call Fire Station- -Run back to the store tearing out handfuls of hair and wailing-

_Climb Tree_

Joe starts climbing the tree but when he reaches the cat, it hisses at him and scratches his face causing him to fall out of the tree and land on his left arm which he breaks. Anne calls 911 and the ambulance comes, taking him the ER where he gets a sling and his boss calls to tell him he's fired.

But... Because he helped his girlfriend with her problem she loves him even more and cooks him dinner for two months while he recovers.

---If my story looked like this... even if I have the entire story plotted out how do I connect the -Anne- page to the other choice pages? And each choice gives you a different ending so do you just create a new link and make that the ending page? I have a feeling it's awfully simple but right now I have no idea.

You mean like this?

*sigh* Okay. Give me a few seconds to make a visual guide.

Wow! Yes <3 That was what I was confused about.

So you just add new links and write that choice into that link?

And you just made that? Wow. That's pretty cool :)

Yup.

^ That's the link above to the google doc. Click it. 

So, first off, click the edit that is circled with red.

Then for the second picture, this is colorcoded because google document is being cruel to me >~<

This is for the title of the page. 

This is for where you put in "Joe is working at burger king. Right now he is cleaning a window and his boss yells at him to go sweep the kitchen. Before he can go to the kitchen, Anne his girlfriend, walks in and asks him to help get her cat, Dean, out of a tree. Just as Anne is asking him, the guy coming to fix his car window pulls up and needs to talk to him too... What does poor Joe do?" for example.

Click the link and it'll lead to 

Where it says "A New Link" put in the choice, for example "Help Anne" The link will be automatically linked to the page.

If it's a new page, just select it from the "Another Page" options. :)

I would normally do this on Photoshop, but my computer is broken, so I apologize for the terrible screenshots and google drawings >~<

Okay. I'm pretty sure I understand, I'll go try figuring it out now. Thank you for helping!

Again, no problem! :D

If you have any more questions, feel free to message me or tag me in a thread :)

Will do. Thanks :)

Oh. No, no, no I'm not trying to take anything from anyone ^^;

Will is definitely more patient and kind than me, anyways :)

To be honest, I think you're both really patient and kind

Think Seto's got you covered here, but yeah. If you try clicking the button that says 'add link to new page' it's pretty self explanatory. Don't be afraid to click around and experiment, I'm guessing you probably could have figured this out for yourself in less time than it took making a thread asking about it.

Anyhow, good luck and welcome to the site.

Thanks. And you're right, I could have figured that out if I had put in enough effort. But thanks Seto for helping anyway.

No problem! ^-^

Hello and welcome to CYS!

I recommend reading any of the stories in the featured sections, particularly Will's How Not To Write story, since it will help you with your future storygames. 

Great, thanks :)