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I was thinking that with a series, you almost always have to go with only one path without all the stats of the previous game. I was thinking, and I believe that I have an idea that might work to fix that if someone was willing to do a bunch of extra work. I'm not entirely sure if this would work though.

So instead of adding to only one variable in a certain important transaction, you add a value to two. Say you have four regular variables, Knowledge, Companions, Mood, and Level. Then one to keep track of which path a reader goes through, and an extra, one that would be a password thing for the next game. The password thing would change when another variable changes, and have a specific variable assigned to each place value.

+1 to Knowledge, +1 (ones place) to password; +1 to Companions, +10 (tens place) to password; +1 to Mood, +100 (hundreds place) to Password; +1 to level, +1000 (thousands place) to password; + 1 to Path, +10,000 (ten thousand+ place) to password.

And then at the end of the first game, put up that password and tell the reader that that will be the key to continue on their path with all their stats in the second game. The way I think it would work in the second game, would be to have one option for people without a password to continue on the main path with a synopsis of what happened in the last game, and then add option to continue on the path they were on if they had the password from the last game. And in the second game, there would also be two variables changed.

Clicks link labeled 1, current number that shows on the page is: 1, and +1 to Password, +1 to Knowledge (here's where the assigned place value comes in.)

Clicks link labeled 1, current number that shows on the page is: 11 and +10 to Password, +1 to Companions

Clicks link labeled 1, current number that shows on the page is: 111 and +100 to Password, +1 to Mood

Clicks link labeled 1, current number that shows on the page is: 1111 and +1000 to Password, +1 to Level

Clicks link labeled 3, current number that shows on the page is: 31111 and +30000 to Password, +3 to Path

Have it so that if Password = ____, have it direct the reader to the next page in the path they had taken in the last game with a brief reminder of what happened in the last game. Of course this could get insanely complex with many options of paths if there are enough variables, but would this work?

I'm not sure if there's a flaw here I didn't notice. I don't think it's this easy, because if it was, then why did people not do this before? Please point out anything I missed.

That would be a lot of work. To be honest, it's easier just to have a Metroid style "Oops, you got hit on the back of the head and lost all your shit" scene.

?

It's not like you'll have a path for every single combination. Just as many as there are endings to the previous story that you could continue on, which may be only three or four. With this, if it works the way I think it would, it should be rather easy to do.

Well, in that case, what's to stop people who haven't played the first game from just inputting 29999 (or so on) and playing through the game with full stats?

You could scramble things a bit, I mean you don't have to have an equal amount in adding to the variable as the link number. It just makes things a little more organized. And not all of the stats would be good, like mood. I don't think people want to play with an extremely uppity or extremely depressed person. Well, then again, it would be rather amusing for some people.

One password variable would make things a pain in the ***, so how about creating five. At the end of any particular path, you could do something like this:

%PASSWORD1 := (the number of the path)
%PASSWORD2 := %LEVEL
%PASSWORD3 := %MOOD
%PASSWORD4 := %COMP
%PASSWORD5 := %KNOW

This, of course, assumes that the values for all stats are less than ten. On the last page (which I presume is where you want to display the password), you would input something like this into the text of the page:

%%PASSWORD1%%%%PASSWORD2%%%%PASSWORD3%%%%PASSWORD4%%%%PASSWORD5%%

What's the point of having a password variable then? We might as well just use the LEVEL, MOOD, etc. variables for two purposes, the little details and being the password in the end. And then that would allow for values more then nine. Which would make things less of a pain.

Just make one game, don't make a sequel.

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