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[Copied and pasted (with some editing) from my profile because rewriting the same thing in different words is boring. Fantasy adventure genre.]

I wanted to start off by challenging myself so I went for probably one of the hardest 'genres' to do well (my opinion) - especially in a choose-your-story format (also my opinion). I have reasonable confidence in my writing ability but all of this is new territory for me. Still, I want to see what I can learn from this foray into storygames. 

Since this is a fantasy adventure I want to include lots of fun things to read whilst maintaining a cohesive narrative 'through-line'.

 

Title: Fantasy Adventure Story Thingy?

Stage in writing (~>):

[*Still happening] Initial brainstorming - developing ideas

~> Eureka! I have an idea. I want to make a medieval-fantasy 'strategy' storygame (emphasis on story since the game aspect of all this is still new to me). By strategy, I'd like to have a story where, as a commander of an army, you need to lead your troops to victory by strategising and so forth. I'd like to base the social + military hierarchy in this story on either Rome or pre-Meiji era Japan (when there were Daimyos and cool shit like that). It could end up being a mix between, or become completely different. So far, the plot will have a narrative throughline of divine(religious?) fanaticism (hopefully portrayed in a similar way to 'His Dark Materials' by Philip Pullman) that threatens to destroy the world. It starts out as a spat against another nation and turns into a 'save the world' scenario. Along the way things happen. My main focus at this point is figuring out what happens in the story and deciding how I would structure the CYOS (https://heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/standard-patterns-in-choice-based-games/). If anyone has any suggestions or wants to talk about this, feed me.

There is very little information here to give any advice worth reading. I know shit all about pre-Meiji era Japan, so no help there. Really, all you've told us is Medieval General vs religious fanatics, which could go any way.

I'm curious -- is this story more about battle strategy and tactics? Based on the description, it sounds like the reader will be faced with choices of tactics and may do well or poorly based on tactics selection. Is that where you're going?

You've said this will be more of a story than a game, but I have the same question Ogre does; is it mostly focused on tactics, etc.? That makes it sound like more of a strategy or puzzle game. At best a hybrid like Achilles.

You not having mentioned any specific characters backs that up as well.

Though I'd agree with Steve that there aren't a lot of details to go on right now as far as feedback goes. But you've at least got your priorities straight, you need to figure out exactly what it is you want to do, and how, before anything else.

It was interesting to me you declared fantasy adventure the hardest genre to write in, by the way. Seems a lot of people feel the opposite.

@Steve24833, @Oqre11

I guess I'll try to answer some questions in this one post.

Them being:

1. Is the story focussed on tactics like a strategy/puzzle game?

2. If so, wouldn't it turn out to be more storygame?

3. I don't know where you're going with the pre-Meiji period stuff, explain (or something like that).

 

1.

Currently I'm going to have most of the narrative stakes tied to the strategy segments of the story. This means that the course of the story and the outcomes of its complications are mostly decided by the reader's decisions during such segments. That doesn't guarantee only significant choices lie in these segments (but considering the scale of how much would probably be in here, who knows?). After those segments are finished, the focus will shift back to progressing the story, which will then build up to another strategy segment.

The 'tension' should look like this, with most of the peaks being spectacles of strategic planning. So yes, in this way it's mostly focussed on tactics/strategy.

Right now, the biggest question I have concerns the actual structure of the story. If you guys have read anything that's in the same vein as this, posting a link to it would be really helpful. Or if there's any suggestions as to where I should take this - that'll be interesting to go through.

2.

By storygame, I mean there'll be less emphasis on items or values and they probably won't be integrated into the story. The focus on strategy shouldn't overtake the story elements.

3.

I mentioned pre-Meiji period Japan because I understand the feudal system era with the lords (daimyos) and kinghts (samurai) etc. etc. I probably should have just said feudal Japan but oh well.

Btw, I think that fantasy adventure done well is difficult to do due to the requirement for engaging world-building – hence, giving substance to the adventure aspect. I find that balancing the breadth and depth of world-building is key in doing this, which should be difficult given how large a CYOS could end up being.

Let me just fix that tag for you:

@Ogre11

Without too much to go on, that sounds like it might fit into a branch and bottleneck format. There is a story, it branches around, maybe there's some love interests or minor quests, etc. Perhaps some of the branches lead to tips related to the best strategies to employ at the next bottleneck point (or perhaps a later bottleneck). Then, the bottleneck is a high point, and a battle of some sort that takes you into the next phase of "non battle" time and lots more branching, maybe some story development that follows from before, maybe some other stuff.

@mizal as well

Thanks for the quality feedback considering how little I've given as material. It's helped answer my immediate questions. I'll be sure to ask for help if the need arises later, but for now I wish you the best in your endeavours. Something like that.