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Kudos for thinking up this absolutely brilliant idea! I love it.

That said, believe it or not, this is actually something in the works, and has been for a very long time. I've actually had a few successful experiments with it, too: back when chocobot was in bootcamp, I used my prototype code to send him printed out copies of some of the stories on the site.

And to tell you truth, given this whole new CYS look, I think this feature should be put on the fast track. I do think it would help the site out given our new writing feel. So that said, here's some things about it:

• Classic Storygames Only - what a better way to give the Classic Storygames more credibitility? Actually this is a technical/physical limitation; items, variables, etc. don't work so well on paper.
• Automated Numbering - There are what are called "Page Id's" behind the scene, but those are not sequential: if you delete the Page with ID of 3, Page Id 3 will never come back. The script that I have, however, assigned real page numbers to each Page and added ", turn to page XX" att he end of each link
• Output Formatting - This has always been a sticky point. However, since originally doing this idea, I've learned to use a new technology (Crystal Reports) that I can use to make a PDF file very easily. The only difficult part I think will be dealing with HTML and Images.
• Templating - So what should the books look like? In the MAG days, they looked "MAGish". Some quick thoughts, but the new book format could be:
• Canvas-textured "jacket" (like the current heading)
• Story title in big font, centered on the front cover, with "by USERNAME" underneath
• Back cover would contain the description of the storygame
• Back inside "jacket" would have About the Author (profile)
• Front inside jacket would have "copyrighty stuff", like they normally have in real books, so that it feels like a real book.

"Many of these complexities can be written in without variables if the reader is trusted - like in Magus: Betrayal."

I agree, I wish we saw more storygames utilizing "items" like Magus did. Remember Lone Wolf series of CYOA-like books? Those were fantastic -- they had variables, randomness, and items -- all with only using a pencil and the back cover.

sweet!!! more lone wolf talk lol. i love it. i have like the first 20 or so. there were some made like into the late 90s i believe. i looked them up at one point and rumors were that there were like 30ish. that was a totally awesome series. i wish people would work more on games like those. maybe we could collab. madglee lol im up for it.

nate

there are way more out there. used book stores rock man! lol i buy those books for 40 cents!!! after the kai skills you get to start into another (uber) level of kai skills. Magna Kai i think. not sure. however, ill start a game concept about it and try to find that combat table.

nate

www.projectaon.org has all the books that you can read and play online. it has the table too!!! ive got it saved now.

nate

take all the time in the world. im pretty poopped with writing right now. gotta get rested up before i take my creative writing class in the fall.

nate

lol you gonna hibernate? lol

in terms of writing, a bit i guess. but im always around the site. ill still doodle on my pirates game that im working on, along with a few of my other games in progress. just not as hard.

nate

and even if they dont, tis no biggy.

LOL -- I'm just trying to visualize a book that some how prevents you from turning to a certain page.

Anyway, i'm still on board with this idear.

:P harry potter type books!

phones are a great idea havy. i know verizon would jump on the idea to charge people for air time while they play through the Walmart game. lol theyd make a mint!!!

nate

Printing your story sounds like an awesome feature! I hope it comes soon :)

I was thinking, it would even better with a random page assigner. You mentioned it could attach ", turn to page 8" onto the end of options, and then the pages would be numbered so you would know where to turn to. However, when writing, most story games would be pretty linear as far as page order is concerned, wouldn't they? I mean, the beginning of most story games is probably in the first few pages, the end of the story game is in the final pages. It would be great if it left the beginning pages alone (letting you specify which pages to leave at the beginning), then shuffled then assigned random page numbers to the rest of the pages, putting the new page numbers on the links, and writing the PDF book file in the new randomly assigned page order. If you get what I mean.

See: The Tower.

Doesn't it do this?

Nearly three years now. Scary.

Ooh, it's actually been SIX years and I wasn't the first to think it up Alex. It was you who thought it up. Observe these posts from 2003 after Magus: Betrayal and Wal-Mart game won a contest and got points.

2003
Hello Again MyAdventureGame.com Friends!

I just wanted to say Thank You for being such great users. For helping us lay the foundation for a really sweet community, I hereby award Karacan, thatguy, Solostrike, ESRTIOKNE, gabi, funkywizard, Ebgames, beholder, Advcom with EIGHT MyAdventureGame.com points. We are keeping track. (If you think I left some one out, please reply and let me know!)

I think march5th00 covered this earlier, but What can you do with MyaDventureGame.com points? Well, there is of course going to be cool merchandise, teeshirts, mugs, underwear, whatever. But we will also be giving "BackStage Passes" to people with high points so you can see what games are in the making. You will also be able to redeem them for Hard Copies of your Adventure Games! (like the classic books, "turn to page 22 if you want to go to the store", etc).

So again, from myself and everyone else at MyAdventureGame.com, thanks!

-- Alexp

Well hang in there chocobot! I'm sure the worst is over, and if it isn't, it will be soon!

For those who may not know, chocobot is refering to a concept we're experimenting with -- printing out MyAdventureGame.com games in a booklet format! This will only work with Classic games (immagine how complex an Advanced Game on paper would be ;-)).

I can speed the development on this little project up, if anyone is interested. Right now it needs to be fine tuned, we have to copy everything to MS Word to get a good print out, which really isn't an ideal solution.

alexp

__________

I suppose we can assume none of this is ever going to happen at this point, as I haven't seen Alex or March or choco in as long as I can remember.

I wouldn't use this much (if ever) but it would be a huge draw, I think, so I'm really for this idea.

Ability to convert the site stories into real Choose-your-own-adventure stories would be cool. Only drawback is the limited number of stories that would actually qualify.

I'd say yes, but I'd have it be one of the last new features you work on.

This remains one of my dream features. In all these years, I've learned a bit more about programmatically creating PDF features... and I've learned to stay far, far away. But I do know that other people can do it.

So... perhaps, once the new site launches and we get some other features cleaned up, we can do a Kickstarter to see if anyone would help fund paying someone (like at vWorker, eLance) to do implement this.

Observe how I quietly harass you about this feature each year for five years. Hahaha. How much would it be? I can probably fund it. Linkable Word (or really openoffice or anything) are probably cheaper than PDF, don't know.

Hey Alex, looking near the top, looks like you already have code for this based on your first comments. Has that ability changed? I know the variables and points and stuff don't factor in, but can you actually send printed copies out like you did with Chocobot?

I don't think I have the code any more, but there wasn't much to it. I exported Pages + Links as HTML, then I loaded it up in a web browser, copy/pasted into word, and spent the next half-hour or so playing around with the page layout in word.

Thinking further... I think the big decision to make is whether the stories are exported in an editable draft (Open Office, .docx) or a final format (PDF)?

Perhaps the biggest challenge in this is dealing with multiple-page pages. The first is in detecting if it's multiple pages (remember, there could be images in there), and the second is figuring out how to wrap those pages. Do you just wrap in the middle somewhere? There's no good way to know. Only then can you start converting links to "turn to page..."

I'd say first step is figuring out the multiple-page problem.

What do you mean by multiple-page pages? You mean where the link scripts could take one to a different page regardless, and the links become useless? I do have a couple like that.

Hmm, there is much to be said for stories that "trust" the user and don't make huge use of items and scripts, then, if that's the case.

Another problem I thought of is when the pagetext is different based on variables which are outputting pagetext. Then the programmers would have to somehow record individual clicks throughout and be recording variables to know which things would be printed out. That would be impossible, now that I think of it.

Maybe the printing and saving story could be implemented, but with caveats that the thing will not take into account deeply scripted items or elements and it is up to the user to fix that.

Personally, I'd still be happy if one of my stories came out as a semi-formed blob and then I could go through and page break, etc, and change certain links to "If you made the phone call to CJ, click here," rather than relying on the script on-site/in-game, and I bet most people would be, too.

Multiple-page pages... as in, (storygame) pages with more words than can physically fit on one (printed) page, and must span to two or more (printed) pages. You need to figure out those before you can figure out the "turn to page 34" stuff.

And yes, as you noted, printing could only work with storygames that use only classic features (simple links + pages only). This was one of the reasons classic storygames were kept separate.

Would it be easier to just make the text box on each storypage not be more characters than fits on a regular page with space for links?

I'm definitely against this. Just look at how effectively Ground Zero uses the extra space.

Yeah that's true. It's a real pity that we have yet to figure out a way to save and/or print stories.

And how many characters fit in a regular page?

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

That's 50 W's and 200 i's. Now click the EDIT button on this post and watch the width change.

Also, what JJJ said :-)

Wow, that was actually really cool.

I understand the complexity/difficulty. I was just whining. :)

Well that said, it is certainly doable. Thinking further, I could probably render all the storygame pages + links in bunch of variable-height boxes in HTML, use the magic of jQuery to measure the height of each box, use some simple maths to figure out where pagebreaks would occur, and then number the links appropriately.

I guess the question is... so what then? Export to a Word document (or maybe, just open up the HTML in Word?) to let the author play with page layout a bit? Try to generate a PDF?

Does anyone actually have a storygame that could be printed? I.e. pages+links only; no variables, link restrictions, etc. Not even a "Previous Page" link.

My first story was a "basic." The problem is, I'll always used the advanced editor now, even if I don't use any advanced variables/scripts, just for the advanced functionality. I'm sure others do the same. It's not possible to extrapolate that same data from the advanced, even if you just leave out the scripts and variables? Just to get the words somewhere would be great. I think a "word" type doc would be fine. I used to have a PDF maker type plugin for firefox when you see an HTML page but I'm not aware of an easy way to convert HTML pages into a PDF. Also, HTML pages end up being directory structures.

I imagine all of Endmaster's works could be printed.

I know for certain everything up till Innkeeper and Eternal. I'm not certain of those, but I do believe Innkeeper has some manner of script and as such must be in the advanced editor.

I don't think any of Endmaster's stories use scripting since it isn't available at IS.

Unless previous page links pose a problem. (Sick alliteration)