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The last thread was starting to take too long to scroll through, so I'm starting a new one.

http://chooseyourstory.com/story/becoming-legend

I'll write four pages a day until this storygame is complete, or die trying!

August 15 Progress Report: 46/140

I'm also looking for someone willing to play-test what's finished so far and check for continuity and grammar/spelling mistakes.

I'll do it. (or at least try to)

Thanks Taco! Any and all help is appreciated.

I was already doing it anyway. :) Can you do the same for mine?

You bet!

Yay! Thank you.

In the final paragraph of the page titled "We'll cover more ground on our own." there's an extra "if" in one of the sentences.

In the second paragraph of the page titled "Enter the village" it says "it's" when it should be "it'd".

In Yuon's part of the background information for your teammates, "sincere and sarcastic" should be "sincere or sarcastic".

In the first paragraph of the page titled "Head to the fortress" it says "give into to". In the second to last paragraph of the same page, teammate should be a plural.

The pages "Head straight north", "Head straight north (2)" and "Head to the crater" seem to disagree on whether Aegis [03] is called Elan or Edan.

In the fifth paragraph of the page titled "Head to the crater" it says "to bled this much before he died". On the same page, four paragraphs up from the bottom it says "rictus pain" which I think should be "rictus of pain".

If you go find Rahil and choose to head straight north immediately after, you'll get to a page titled "Head straight north (2)". Yuon is briefly mentioned on this page even though he shouldn't be there.

Four paragraphs up from the bottom of the page called "Find Marissa" that you get to with Rahil, I think there's a "not" missing from "I told you to damage it".

Seven paragraphs up from the bottom on the page titled "Stop Rahil" it says "your" where it should be "you're". Two paragraphs lower from this, it says "her death were for nothing".

In the sixth paragraph of the page titled "Find Yuon" a "he" is mentioned but I'm not quite sure who it is. I'm guessing it's Rahil because I chose to regroup with Rahil then go find Yuon, but it's just not too clear. Also, it's unclear at this point how you meet up again with Rahil if you decide to grant Yuon's request then head north or find another teammate. I know there's a page missing so maybe you'll explain that there.

On the page titled "Find Kol" I should only have Rahil on my team , but there's a paragraph where Aerien tells Rahil to split up (which is ok) and another paragraph immediately after telling his "teammates" to split up. There shouldn't be any more teammates.

On the last paragraph of the same page ("Find Kol") there's a paragraph saying "Your last remaining teammate might be in more danger than you thought" but I shouldn't have any more teammates to save. The order I took was Rahil > Marissa > Yuon > Kol.

In the fourth paragraph of "Jump into the fight and save her" where you look for Marissa, Aerien calls her [03]. I'm pretty sure that's Elan/Edan, not Marissa.

Six paragraphs up from the bottom of the page titled "Stand and fight" it should be "before it's upon you".

On the fifth paragraph of "Throw yourself between Marissa and the wraith" it says "an painful one". Two paragraphs below, I think there's a "to" or an "and" missing in the first sentence.

On the final paragraph of "Find Yuon to the west", it says "more danger then ever".



I remember you mentioning that you were inspired by EndMaster's storygames. I really like how you've done this in that heavily story based feel with plot-driven choices (if that makes sense) and extra pages to background information, yet at the same time you've made it gamey by allowing the player to choose which teammate to save (if any).

And speaking of teammates, you have a nice cast of characters with their own unique skills and personalities, which is really cool. I thought it was good how the contrast between Yuon and Rahil was shown depending on who you decide to go save first.

The artwork is excellent and I hope there'll be more illustrations by the time the storygame is finished.

Really good stuff, so far. It's always nice when someone puts a lot of effort into their storygame, and it shows. It's incomplete but still a really good read. I'm looking forward to the completion of this project.

You've even given me some ideas about how to write sections of a storygame that will be different depending on who's 'in your party' (or with the character). Would you mind telling me how you got your game to do that? I'm guessing you had a variable for each person that could join you and scripted the game to display different text depending on those variables.

Before I say anything else, thank you so much for taking the time to check over this so carefully. I'm utterly floored by the amount of effort it must have taken to find all those errors and keep track of where they were specifically so I could go back and fix them. I really, really appreciate this!

I'm glad you enjoyed what little of it there was, and yes, there will be illustrations on almost every page by the time this is finished - I haven't put them in yet because the advanced editor eats the images every time I go back and edit anything.

As for how the storygame changes depending on who's in your party, that's a combination of variables being set to different values depending on what options you pick. For instance, before you save anyone, all of your teammates values are set to '0'. If you find them and add them to your party, the value gets added to '2'. If they die, the value gets subtracted back down to '1'. I also have variables tracking how many teammates are in your party and how many are confirmed dead.

Then I nested paragraphs and sentences into on-page variable tricks. For instance, if Rahil might be in your party at a certain point, but also might not be, any references to him would look like this in the source:

%%RAHIL%=%0%You search the town alone.%%%%RAHIL%=%1%You search the town alone.%%%%RAHIL%=%2%"We should split up and search," you tell Rahil.%%

That way, if he isn't in your party, you see the text 'You search the town alone.' but if he is, you talk to him. It obviously gets a whole lot more complicated with all the variations of who can and who can't be in your party at different points, but you can always create more variables as needed and nest them in different ways. :P The actual length of some of those pages is probably double what you actually see, haha.

Cheers, hope that helps.

You're welcome. :) I wouldn't have bothered going through all of that if I didn't enjoy your writing, so take it as a compliment.

All that stuff about variables will really help me. Thanks.

EDIT: As for keeping track of the errors, all I did was have a tab open with a reply to the OP of this thread and wrote those as I went along. So it didn't take as much effort you'd think.

You still had to have played through a few different paths in order to catch some of those - that's a lot of reading, and reading carefully at that!

Let me know if you ever need any help proofreading your storygame; I'd be more than happy to return the favor.

Also, for a better guide about on-page variable tricks, check out Berka's article about it: http://chooseyourstory.com/help/articles/article.aspx?ArticleId=3850

 

 

The big space adventure storygame, which is the one I'll need most help with editing, is probably not going to be published until another few years. :P

I would appreciate help proofreading with my current smaller project, though, which should be done sooner. I'll let you know when it's ready for inspection before publishing.

Thanks for the article! I'll need all the help I can get with scripting and variables because I don't know too much just yet.

I also forgot to mention that, when I read Becoming Legend, sometimes I saw bigger than normal gaps between paragraphs. I forgot to keep track of which pages those were, unfortunately.

Oof, yeah, I'm going to have to go back and fix all of those before publishing the game. That's what happens if you use on page variables for something like that has its own paragraph, like dialogue.

<p>%%YUON%=%2%"We can worry about that later," Yuon says with worry in his eyes.%%</p>

That will give you a bigger gap than normal between paragraphs you still see if Yuon isn't in your party, since the page leaves a gap of the empty paragraph.

%%YUON%=%2%<p>"We can worry about that later," Yuon says with worry in his eyes.</p>%%

This will get rid of the gap. However, everytime you save and close a window, then reopen it to edit something else, it defaults back to the first type. :/ So just a heads up if you're planning on using it in your own storygame.

Useful to know.

Perhaps you could use $PAGETEXT to write out the whole page (like in this article), and have multiple versions of the whole page depending on the variables. Maybe not the most elegant or practical solution, but it should get rid of the gap.

You're right XD

I wish I had thought of using $PAGETEXT before I started scripting this game. Not sure if it's worth it to go back and convert all 40 pages done so far into it though...

Then again, this story will probably be upwards of 500 pages by the time it's finished, so it might be worth it. Hm.

It won't. It will just show one blank line. It won't show an entire blank paragraph. 

 $PAGETEXT will? In that case, it does the same thing the on-page variables, right?

No, $PAGETEXT won't show any blank lines, but on-page variable will show as many blank lines as you hit enter. 

Arglefraster. I'd better start converting everything to $PAGETEXT then. 

But $PAGETEXT only lets you manipulate one statement, while on-page variable lets you manipulate any many as you want.

August 16 Progress Report: 46/152

Converted all of the scripting from on-page variables to IF THEN statements that set $DEST to different versions of pages depending on your party members, instead of writing my four daily pages :P

August 17 Progress Report: 53/152

The pages were getting shorter and shorter, so I decided to pack in more plot points. Now they're getting longer and longer, which is kind of the opposite problem. 7 pages was a total of 6,500 words. I wonder how much of it is going to be deleteable purple prose when I go back to edit, haha...-_-'

You can never have too much detail.

@the_quiller

*insert motivational speech here*
have you been writing or have you been to focused on commander?

He has written his pages for today.

Thanks

Thanks for the motivational speech, haha!

I'm trying to cut back on Commander to write more, but then Morgan's writing prompt thread started. So many fun distractions, so little time... XD

August 19 Progress Report: 61/152

I'm getting serious Eternal vibes from this, in terms of the choice setup, at least. Still, I've went through a couple of pages, and it's great. I'll probably try to do a commited playthrough of what you have, later tonight.

This was inspired a lot by Endmaster's Eternal and Necromancer games, so I'm glad it reflects it, haha. I'd be unbelievably grateful for any kind of feedback!

August 20 Progress Report: 62/140

Oof. I have no excuse. I got stuck on writing on particular scene and rewrote it about eight times before I decided I wasn't happy with it and deleted the entire thing to start over from scratch. So yeah, 1 page done today

Tis not midnight yet! (well, not where I am) There is still hope!

I'll try! Three pages in 45 minute, haha...here goes.

u suck

nobudy lykes u

get back to work

*scolds you for being mean in that strict motherly way that everyone's afraid of*

wut bitch yo who u think u r u hav no rite to juge me

RAGEQUIT

XD

Blech. That grammer and spelling is burning my eyes. X_X

I actually had to go back and edit it to make it as bad as it was. I reflexively put in punctuation and capilization. XD

Tis too late. My eyes are already burned beyond recognition. X_X (<- see?)

q u dun ned 2 do tat. i r luv u anywys

Oooooooo   u luv im

i r luv evry1

seling a gramma hut ma ays    no mor 

u cool broh tat y u so-

...

No.

I can't do this anymore, the grammar, the spelling - my fingers are spazzing in protest all over my keyboard.

Just, no. XD

butt srsly u suck

Who are you and what have you done with the real Tan? XD

Admiral Ackbar probably caught him.

I'm sorry guys. That was obviously my 6 year old brother who stole my ipad. Obviously.

>_>

Also, the Admiral might have hacked my account.

Clearly. Because you would never troll us like that. Of course not. XD

For zose who eez don't know, I eez admiral Akbarrrrr.

Allo. Beech.

Goddammit Ackbar. This is a serious thread, get out.

nevaaaaahhhh

Only ven peple stop talking about meh.

Allo. I haz zeen your posts before. Vwelcome backz. (did I do it correctly?) 

STOP MEKING FAUN OF MAH ACKCENT! 

Uguh.

Sorry admiral.

Yeah okay. This was tough on my heart. I don't actually love anyone here

What? So you mean, no bristly mustache kisses for everyone?

:'(

Blech. I need the mind bleach. Would you pass it over to me please?

Thank you. *applies blech. Forgets what happened. Looks at post. Repeat.*

Love and kisses don't always go together though..
Maybe if Aman finds you attractive or something

Wow. It's true that the less time you have, the more you get done.

With 5 minutes until midnight, August 20 Progress Report: 65/152.

I made it! No idea how that happened, but thanks for the encouragement (horrifically bad grammar and all).

Yay! .^-^. Glad to help you on this epic. :D
 

As always, you rock, Taco :)

And as always, you're amazing.

You're making me want to work on one of my longer storygames.

You should! I'm still waiting for Fate Ripples to be published ever since I secretly previewed it.

The problem with Fate Ripples (and Wolf Child to a lesser extent) both is that the amount of work that I want to put in is so much that I need a coauthor to do it all right.

Fate Ripples is planned right now to have:
-  7 Major Paths, with various possible endings
- A random event system during traveling
- Extra story to endings that you gain through certain actions and reactions to random events (maybe a rebellion that happens because you saved someone or a group of assassins kill off your loved one because they were hired by someone out for revenge)
- A collection of in game literature (both fiction in the game world in the story world and nonfiction in the story world)

I want to finish them, but scripting is one thing which I'll probably have to work with to make them possible.

Page wise, I think each path will be around 100 pages. That number is daunting for a first game.
 

'Grats!

August 21 Progress Report: 69/152!

I'm probably going to start adding in links soon so that more of the paths become available in the sneak preview. Haha, I need to buckle down and just finish one path instead of hopping between them randomly like an attention deficit rabbit.

Also, if anyone is willing to read the (Memories) flashbacks on the page with information for your teammates, could you let me know if they're cheesy or overdramatic? They're pretty much the only background info pages that flesh out your teammates' characters, making them kinda important pages, so any feedback would be a huge help.

I jump back and forth and all around while writing.......... I'll check that out in a minute. :D

@the_quiller

It's not working anymore. Did you change the title or accidently turn off the sneak preveiw?

Edit: Nevermind. It's working again.

I think I might have been editing it when you tried to open it, sorry.

You're not that far from the halfway point of your progress counter. :)

Haha, thanks! It's only the progress counter for part I though XD

True, but still that is a decent bit of progress. ^.^

Whoops, without TacocaT's wonderful reminders, I completely forgot to update this thread.

August 25 Progress Report: 77/152

This is going to be the last burst of writing for a while, since I'll be traveling overseas for the next two weeks or so. Still, any feedback/comments would be a huge help, since I'll be brainstorming ideas the whole time while I suffer internet withdrawal.

Just keep doing what you're doing and you'll end up with one amazing storygame that could even become featured.

Thanks, TeV! You too - I can't wait to see your storygame and all its Team Aman cameos :)

Bump? H-have you forgotten about this? 

Edit: Never mind. Didn't see the above few posts. Have fun Quiller!

Taco seems to be having a bumpfest lately. XD

Seth is probably going to be moving this post to a new thread now.

A bump fest? Also, Seth isn't online.

Bumpfest. Get it right. It's when you bump lots of threads.

Seth might not be online right now but recently he's been splitting threads quite a bit.

What threads have I bumped? I only remember doing two.

I don't remember any particular threads but two still seems quite a lot by the standards of CYS. Bumping doesn't happen too often on this forum.

Well, with this thread, I was wondering if quiller had written anymore because he hasn't updated this in a long time. Hmm..... I can no longer remember what other thread I bumped or why.

Finally back from my extended overseas trip, and now I can finally start writing again!

I also had a thought to use the item inventory as a user interface of sorts, with items that link you to your stats, game options, progress, achievements, bonus material, save and quit, etc. There aren't any real items in the game, so the inventory is otherwise useless to me. Do you think it'd add to the game, or would it just be distracting?

Interesting! I'd say try it and see if you like it. 

Here goes nothing then XD

Scripting the status page to update with every new page in the game is going to be a nightmare though, haha.

It'd be worth it, though. Nice idea. Was it Mommy inspired at all?

I'm kinda ashamed to admit that I actually haven't played Mommy yet :P

Does it have a similar system? Having something to reference would be a huge help.

Well then you should play it. :P

In Mommy there's this character sheet in your inventory you could use to look at your stats and traits at any point during the game. I think it also keeps track of certain events that happen during the story. Go check it out.

I'd recommend playing Mommy. It's the reason I joined this site.

I don't know if it would help, but I could show you the items I have. I also have an interesting suggestion.

I'm playing it now, and so far, I'm wowed. I can't believe I missed out on such an amazing game.

Since I'm pretty much reduced to bashing my head against the keyboard trying to get these items scripted properly, any help would be great! Interesting suggestions, even better!

=D

Ahh? Well, wanna PM me about it? I could also take a look into the story and try to see what's going on.

As far as stats and progress go, I'm using that in two of my games (Magick Academy, KFSP,) and as far as bonus material goes, I kind of did that in AGOLAD, too. (The photo of Layne and Melissa was more for the reader than it was for the protagonist.) I did consider using an item in the inventory for AGOLAD that would allow you to save, but I made it a one-time item, and after I really thought about how big my game was getting, I scrapped the idea. (That's what the coyote medallion almost was. xD)

Achievements in the inventory? Hm. Well, I like that idea.

Have I mentioned how much I'm looking forward to playing Magick Academy yet? Because if not, I'd like to let you know that I'm practically chomping at the bit to play that game! XD

I'm scripting in a system right now where every choice helps determine your character's personality. (ex: 'You have lost compassion', 'You have gained loyalty, 'You have gained desperation', et cetera). Since the choices that are available at critical junctures will be dependent on your current personality traits, I felt like I needed a way for readers to check their current status.

The achievements are really there to make readers feel good about pulling off something badass or making sacrifices in-story, or feel bad about making choices like leaving teammates to die. I'll probably include a score system in there somewhere as well.

The Save-and-Quit option is there because I want the game to eventually offer 'New Game+', which will unlock the Rahil and Sharea playthroughs, as well as a secret alternate ending for Aerien.

^^' No, not until this post, but I'm really pleased to hear that. I'm really excited about both of my main projects at the moment, so I'm pushing to finish them, but eh ... my schedule is a nightmare.

I've worked with similar stuff. It's also wise to have an item like that so you can check the mechanics of the game yourself when you do test play-throughs. I assumed you'd be doing New Game+ features and that is something I've only seen on one other game here. I'm looking forward to seeing all the possible pathways.

Now if only I could get it to actually work instead of infinite looping!

I can't believe I thought this storygame was going to be around 200 pages when I started writing it. Now I'm looking at about 700~800 pages total. This is gonna take forever XD

How long did it take you to finish GOLAD? (And I agree with TeV, 'AGOLAD' just doesn't feel right, haha).

Infinite looping? What do you mean? =\ I may be able to help.

Yeah, that's why I refuse to set a definitive page goal, unless it's like "I will do 20 pages today" or something akin to that. I can't say "100 of 345" or w/e, because a story I think will require 400 pages may end up being 1000 instead.

I can tell you that I wrote the last 400 pages in the span of roughly two months, but the ground work for the story took me a lot longer. (In total, I spent a year and 8 months on it. :P My schedule is ridiculous and I suffer from frequent writer's block. Aside from that, I'm a perfectionist. I was constantly tweaking it, re-wording pages, fixing mistakes, so on.)

To be honest with you, when I dreamed up that story, I had four scenes, one location, and two items: The dark room, the maze, the vampire's room, and the dinosaur's den + "a haunted house" + the apple and the mirror. That was it. No plot, no Layne, no Melissa, no weapons, no witch, no daughter, no world take over plot, that all happened as I was writing. GOLAD was going to be a short little experimental story, maybe 100-200 pages at the most. That's it. And then I "had an idea" xD ... repeatedly, until it exploded into what it is today.

The items in my user interface have a 'Return to Game' choice that should send the reader back to the story. However, jumping directly between two user interface pages, or combining them with pages that have a 'Previous Page' link, will get the reader stuck going back and forth between the two pages endlessly.

Right now, I'm using $DEST := "@P" + %LASTPAGE to forcibly redirect them back to the story, but that means that if they use one of the user interface options on a page with an achievement or background info on it, it doesn't take them back to that achievement/info page - instead, it jumps them back to the storyline page before that.

...and I realize that describing it makes no sense XD. It's probably easier if you just try clicking the 'Game Options' item on the '(Background Information) The Aegis' page, then hit 'Return to Game' and see what happens.

--

Wow, 400 pages in two months, that is INSANE. I'm amazed by how much of GOLAD was written on the fly, since it comes off as such a well-thought out and cohesive story. I can't even imagine what it would've been like without Layne, Melissa, the witch, and the witch's daughter. That kind of creativity is something pretty amazing, in my opinion. I can't come up with things on the fly at all, haha. I have to have the entire story plotted out before I start or I get stuck - my page count is only exploding as I realize that a lot of things I thought could be crammed into a single page somehow turned into entire side-paths.

Yeah, the previous page loop is a pain. Not as much as a variable loop, granted, but variable loops are easier to fix neatly imho. Actually, I do get what you're saying. (Took me a second because I haven't been awake for very long. xD) Though, it really is much easier to fix a problem when you're looking directly at it, I think. I'll check it out.  

xD If I have the time and motivation, I can bang out pages pretty quickly, but the dedication I showed with finishing that story was more on the level of "I'm going to get this done in time for Spring Thing if it KILLS me." >_>' I missed a lot of sleep.

^^' You know the five weapon pathways? Originally, in the first version of the game, I planned that depending on which backpack you chose-- Spikes or Shell--that you would fight either the vampire or the witch ghost in the attic. My logic was simply that the spikes reminded me of wooden stakes and the bug shell reminded me of a mirror, so one was suited to kill a vampire, the other to reflect a spell off of, and problem solved.

Well, after the first 400 pages, I got burn out. I said I couldn't do it anymore, that was it, I already had my sad ending, semi-good ending, and best ending with three different variations in addition to the vampire pathway, and I figured you guys and I would be content. It was already twice as big as I thought it would be.

... But then someone found the abandoned "witch ghost" path and told me about it. I was embarrassed and explained what happened, and that reader encouraged me to go back and finish it because, truth is, I wasn't happy to have left it unfinished. And when I got there ... I realized I had also abandoned the basement. The basement was just suppose to contain an extra "joke" backpack. -.-' A weapon that wouldn't really work, but would take you to an alternate universe just for kicks. Yeah, um, obviously that is not what happened. That's why the story kind of breaks its own rules a bit by you being able to access Layne in two different spots at the same juncture of the story, he was only supposed to be in the attic originally. xD Also, sorry for ranting.

@Whoever-that-reader-was, thank you for pestering Kiel into making more paths!

On that note, was the foreign-exchange student path also added later? Because I still haven't figured out how to beat it and it's driving me crazy, haha.

 

You're welcome. ;)

Lol... yes. xD Thank you for prodding my perfectionism into driving me crazy, Aman.

I must say, I do think the game is much better for it and I'm happy with it now.

Thanks Aman. XD

On a completely unrelated note, I still haven't managed to kill your mustache in Berka's game, although I did get a lot of scripting ideas from it.

That game is a pain in the ass. I don't think anyone has beaten my score yet. 

I think I have. I mean, it's way into the negatives, but so is yours :P

Well, you see the name "Chronos" in my 'special thanks' section? Chronos is not a member of this site, that's a nickname from an RP we did together, but that person is the one who asked me to make him romance-able. Chronos is ... a very big fan of the RP character who inspired that individual. >_>' Like, full-on, "Omigod, I wish this person was real" which... xD is awkward for reasons I can't fully explain here.

Chronos is also one of my best friends and I just do not know how to say "no." *facepalm* The third romance option was actually the second-to-last new feature that I added for the game, with the last being the final profile badges. xD On that note, are you sure you don't want help? I complied a little answer list for you, juuuust in case.

Aaaaarrrrggggh. Why, why do you do this me?

Just knowing that a little answer list exists is going to wear away at my sanity. XD

I'm sorry? I didn't really know it was possible to drive people insane with a CYOA. 0.o

It would save time for Becoming Legend, though! C'mon. xD You know you want tooo...

Don't mind me, I just get weirdly obsessive over these kind of things.

You raise a very good point. However, my stubbornness at the moment still exceeds my frustration, so I'll probably spend a couple more hours bashing my head against the keyboard before I give in and beg you for the answers XD

Eh, I've obsessed over games I enjoyed before. I'm really flattered.

I do, indeed! But I also understand a gamer's pride and while there is no shame in asking for help, I can be extremely stubborn. Either way, I look forward to seeing what you think of it. xD No one else on here has made it there.

I'm sorry, but I strongly feel that AGOLAD, while more accurate, doesn't work as well as GOLAD. I can't quite figure out what it is. Perhaps it's because the former doesn't rhyme with gonad quite as well. :(

xD ... TeV? You're weird. If it makes you feel any better, I usually do call it GOLAD or GoLaD.

So...instead of writing 4 pages like I was supposed to, I instead spent the last hour fiddling with html and scripts to get the links on my start page to do a cool glowy effect when your mouse hovers over it

>__>

I'm utterly incapable of scripting and writing at the same time.

One at a time m'boy/m'lassie, one at a time...

When you use the item, set the variable %PAGE to the $PAGEID first, so it remembers which page it was on before you used the item. Then set the previous link of the item to link back to the page it was on previously, by setting the $DEST to %PAGE. That might sound confusing, so I'll write the codes below, and where you need to paste them.  

%PAGE := $PAGEID < Paste this on the actual item link - that means when you use the item, this will will be executed.  

$DEST := "@P" + %PAGE < Paste this on the previous link of the item - that means when you click the link, it will take you back to the original page you were on before you used the items, or links, or whatever you wanted to make it do.  

Thanks, nmel :)

Is there a way to do this sequentially? For instance, imagine this situation.

I start on P1, which has a link to P2

On P2, I have a link to P3 and a 'Previous Page' link.

On P3, I have a 'Previous Page' link.

Is there a way so that on P3, I can click 'Previous Page' and go back to P2, then on P2, I can click 'Previous Page' and go to P1?

Sorry if this makes no sense.

Um...>.>???

If you want to do it like that you can just set the destination straight up to be their page number. For example, one page 2's previous page link, put in this code: $DEST := @P1, and on page 3's previous page link, put in this code: $DEST := @P2. 

Basically, when you're on page 3, and you click the previous page link, it'll take you to page 2 every time, and when you're on page 2, and you click the previous page link, it'll take you to page 1 every time. 

Should have explained that better, sorry.

Let's say P2 and P3 are both item pages, and the 'Previous Page' link needs to go to whatever page you were on before you used the item.

Then my first post should work in theory. Did you try the steps?

I tried it, yeah. The problem is that when I go to P3, %PAGE gets set to P2, then when I go back to P2, %PAGE then gets set to P3 and traps the player in an endless back-and-forth.

Can you co-author me for a second so I can see what the problem is?

Yeah, sure.

Right now, I have the scripts on the actual items that set %INVENTORY := 1 so that the game knows the player used an item and is now on one of the item pages. That way, %LASTPAGE won't get set to one of the item pages.

%BKGRDINFPG tracks 'Background Information' pages, which are part of the story but have a 'Previous Page' link on them. I don't want the %LASTPAGE variable to get set to one of those pages either.

Do you want it like that for all the items?

All of the items except 'Game Options', yeah. 'Game Options' needs to change the $DEST depending on whether %PICS = 1 or 0.

Well, I used character stats, then I used knowledge, and clicked the go back to story link. It brought me back to the original page. So do you mean, that when you used knowledge you actually want it to go back to the character stats page instead?

No, that works correctly.

The problem is if you're visiting a 'Background Information' page for the first time and then use one of the items. I can't get the items to send you back to the 'Background Information' page. It sends you to the storyline page before the 'Background Information' page.

It's not a problem right now, but it will be a major issue once I add in the multiple-page self-updating journal later in the story.

Okay. How about this?

• (Background Information) The Aegis
• (Background Information) The Empire of Bastion

When you click on the first link, set %AEGIS to 1. On the previous page link of the item, put this code:

IF %AEGIS = 1 THEN

BEGIN

$DEST = @P1

%AEGIS := 0

END

When you click on the second link, set %EMPIRE to 1. On the previous page link of the item, put this code:

IF %EMPIRE = 1 THEN

BEGIN

$DEST = @P2

%EMPIRE := 0

END

I can't believe I didn't think of that.

Nmelssx, you're a genius!!!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Haha. No problem. xD

I wish I knew how you got so crazy good at scripting. XD

Practice makes perfect I guess. My first game was a pain in the ass to script. Took me a whole month. I was a beginner when I first started, haha, so there were a lot of bugs and whatnots, and I had to fix them up along the way. I think the hardest part was trying to make it so that you can make your own password in the game. There wasn't much of a point for that, but I just thought that it would be fun to script, so I did.   

I think I've played all your games, lol.

Which one was your first game?

The longest one, Ninja. 

OMFG, that was your first game?

B-But the stats. And the battles. And the shops. And the skills. And the training grounds. And the leveling system. How...what...

*brain explodes*

Man, that must have been so many variables and so much debugging that I can't even imagine it.

Haha. Yeah, it was a challenge to script that game. In fact, it was so challenging that I didn't get too much of a story written since I was focusing mostly on the scripting part. And yes, there were a bunch of bugs when I published it, and I had to go back and edit it many times for most of the bugs to go away. As of now, I think it's pretty much bug free, as no one has complained about any bugs so far. There's definitely a lot of variables though. Maybe around 200 or more I think. 

I didn't even know you could have so many and not lose track of which one is which.

Wow, I'm definitely motivated to get better at scripting now though (right now, I just keep taking shortcuts with html instead, haha). I probably won't ever get to your level though XD.

I've wasted way too much time making the game look pretty instead of writing these last few days, so I'm kicking my ass back into gear to crank out a few more pages. Let's see how many pages I can get done in the next six hours before today ends. :D

 

I think all that time you spent making the game look good paid off. It's so clean. It looks as high standard as, dare I say, BerkaZerka's games.

Haha, thanks! If it's even half as good as Berka's, then I'll feel a lot better about how many hours I spent trying to add a user interface that you finish the game without ever needing XD

How's Galaxy coming along, by the way? That's also somewhere near the top of my eagerly awaited games list, along with Magick Academy and whatever EndMaster's working on.

What always impressed me about Berka's games was how amazing they were in terms of the advanced editor / scripting to make such a streamlined and polished interface and experience for the player. Becoming Legend is, at the moment, looking that way too.

Meh, Galaxy's still in the spreadsheet/notes stage. I really want to make sure I come up with a hugely detailed universe with a ton of characters, races, planets, history and other lore for that game, before I even start thinking about writing it. I do come up with ideas for it every now and again, but mainly I'm working on other storygames right now, like The Overlord. I think it'll be better for me to work on less ambitious projects, both writing and scripting wise, before I take the behemoth that is Galaxy Tale on. It's going to be a few years at the very least before I publish it.

Wow. Your dedication to worldbuilding impresses the hell out of me. All I've got for Becoming Legend is a rough framework and everything else I'm making up along the way (the Knowledge Pages are more for me to keep track of my setting than for the readers, haha).

Still, if it turns out to be as massive of a project as I think it is, then waiting a few years for it sounds worth it to me :)

Now what's this 'The Overlord' game I've yet to hear of?

Well, even if you didn't spend an eternity worldbuilding and not actually writing the storygame itself, I've always really liked the setting for Becoming Legend. The backstory for the Empire is really interesting and the whole Aegis thing seems to be well thought out. I think I've said this before but the unique fighting styles of individual characters stands out.

Aegis running around at breakneck speeds wielding big staffs and destroying wraiths is just plain badass. So badass, in fact, that you've inspired me to write a fantasy storygame involving staff-wielding mages. I won't be ripping off your idea completely, though. I have some ideas to make it a little different from your average fantasy setting.

I've made a promised now to the cameo requesters so I have to finish Galaxy, which is probably a good motivator.

You're probably already familiar with Tom Jackson, the narrator of The Overlord, who is a wannabe ruler of Earth. Just not familiar with the title, I guess.

Might just be easier for you to check this thread for a list of my current ideas if you can be bothered to read it all.

EDIT: Also, is Kiel being a co-author for Becoming Legend permanent or is he just helping out temporarily?

The entire reason Becoming Legend exists is because I wanted to write badass scenes with lots of fighting and explosions; I had a bunch of ideas for cool action/battle - I just need an excuse plot to connect them all, and the CYS format meant I could cram more battles into the same story. Then the plot ate my brain and now I'm looking at a projected 800 page behemoth of a project...^_^''

Add your fantasy game and The Overlord to my list of eagerly awaited games too. Especially Overlord - I've been crossing my fingers wishing that story into reality ever since I read that first snippet on the weekly writing exercises thread, haha. Actually, I kind of want all your current ideas to be real games that I can play already, though I imagine working on all of them simultaneously would probably drive you mad. XD

Whoops, forgot that Kiel was still co-author. He offered take a look at my scripting and help me fix an infinite loop glitch with the user interface.

The plot bunny strikes again.

September 15 Progress Report: 84/152 

Six pages done today, but more importantly, ItAintPretty is a lean, mean, editing machine who just kept finding typo after typo for me throughout an entire afternoon. Huge thanks as well to Kiel and Nmel for being mad, mad scripting geniuses willing to help us lowly mortals XD

I shall do this as often as possible. :D

Have you written your four pages for today? Yesterday I guess, since I don't know if you've been on at all today. 
Here, how 'bout this? Have you written you four pages in the last 24 hours? Does that work? 

Edit: Just realized you're on.

Wow, we're on the same wavelength. I literally posted seconds after you did.

And no, still have 1 more page to go for today. ^^

XD 

What about you? How's Werewolves and Magic coming along?

I haven't had more then 3 hours a day max (usually I don't get to get on at all now a days). It's basically gone on hiatus until I get more time on a computer to actually think and work on it. It's a bummer. When I first came to the site, I had my own laptop and everything and was on for 12(+)-ish hours a day. I was able to do 4, maybe 5 pages a day easily, even though I couldn't type faster then 13 words per minute at the time. Now.......... well........ I'm lucky if I could get a few sentences.

Edit: What paths have you added to?

I'm working on the next section of Chapter I, but it's not linked because the scripting is messed up.

I added an user interface menu and made all the starting page links look pretty though :D Check it out if you've got the time and let me know what you think.

Yeah, scripting is really confusing..........

I already saw those. They're awesome! It makes it look more...... official looking (I can't seem to think of a better word at the moment >_>').  

Yeah, I still don't understand what was going on with my scripts. Nmelssx and Kiel were a huge help there though.

I wanted to make 'Becoming Legend' feel more like a game, haha, since it's so text heavy. So 'official looking' is pretty much exactly what I'm going for.

Hopefully, in my game, the extent of scripting will be only deciding which path you go on based on which characters you have gathered, and a hidden 2D3 (example) for certain events, not including fighting. Such as weather or not a new character comes into play on certain pages.

I like it. So far, this is the most game looking story that I've seen.

I really like the idea of using a hidden dice roll to decide the weather, haha. Random encounters with new characters sounds like a lot of fun too, and it'll make your game more replayable.

Also, if you think my storygame looks like a game, then you haven't played Berka's "Dungeon Stompage!" yet, have you? XD

Nope

I recommend it! It's an utterly amazing example of what the advanced editor can do as long as you know how to script.

It's also a ton of fun to play.

Alternatively, try out nmelssx's "1st and Last of the Ninja", which is also incredible.

Okay. I'll go give it a try. :)

I was someone to play test it before he published it. Really cool like the rest of his games. Miracles of the script. 

September 18 Progress Report: 90/152

Sorry, been a little slow on writing this week since the last few pages I've finished have been monstrous 1500+ word pages apiece.

I've also valiantly resisted the temptation to create a cooking game, although my resolve is weakening as my fridge remains depressingly empty right now, haha.

A supreme artist, with a decent amount of writing skills, plus a good understand of the scripting language, when writing a story game equals most likely to be voted as the best story on this site ever. ;P

So if we combined End's writing, your scripting, and the artwork of whoever made "Farewell, My Childhood Self", it'll become a mind-blowing masterpiece XD, considering that any one of those things is already mind-blowing on its own.

That's funny, because the other day I was wondering who I would put in a dream team of five people (that's the author and four co-authors, the max number) to work on a storygame together. Maybe I should start a thread about it. Imma do it.

Wow, I was cleaning up files on my computer and ran across a bunch of comic strips I drew for Becoming Legend back during the planning states, but totally forgot about until now, haha.

I posted the first eight pages that are somewhat finished - in this thread:

http://chooseyourstory.com/forums/the-lounge/message/13906#445833

I'm debating whether or not to finish cleaning up the rest of the pages and making it bonus content in the actual storygame. Think it's worth it?

I absolutely think it's worth it.

Agreed with Kiel. It'd be a really nice touch for it to have bonus content like that, because that's rarely seen on CYS.

This got me wondering whether a storygame entirely made with comics would work.

Hasn't that been done? There was a mystery game like that... I didn't care for it, personally, but maybe it's because I'm picky about what kind of art style I'm willing to stare at for prolonged periods of time. Quillers, for example, would be cool for that. On the other hand, do you realize what kind of effort that must take? O_o' I can't imagine ... *says the writer who has never made a story on here that wasn't hundreds of pages long* xD 

I once toyed with the idea of making a story consisting of a single image per page. My concept was to do it in a serial killer journal style story where I'd have some text within the image and then some appropriate crude drawing.

But even limiting it to one image per page and my crappy drawing skills I knew I wouldn't really have the patience for such a project.

That... actually sounds really interesting. Shame. If you ever develop the patience, you might be able to find an artist for it.

Hm, instead of writing out all the battle scenes, does anyone think I should include a battle system that allows the players to decide how they fight? Or would that break the flow of the story?

I personally think what you're doing at the moment works really well. It sounds to me like you've got ideas for a lot of branches for the story and I think it'll cause problems if you let the player decide how they fight. People already get a lot of choice in what they can do anyway, and that in itself makes it very replayable.

Yeah, but right now, the player has no sense of how much health or mana they really have unless they check the stat sheet literally every other page. I can't help but feel like I'm telling the player "okay, you're out of mana now" for plot purposes >_>

A combat system would be nice, but I challenge you to make it as complex as possible! ;)

Haha, tempting, but I'd kill myself trying to make it complex while keeping it confined to the game's storyline at the same time.

I'm tempted to pre-play your game right now just to see what's it like as of now. 

Feel free to take a look! I took down the links to the parts of the game that are still broken, so you should be able to play without getting stuck.

It's a LOT of reading though XD. The game's about 30,000 words long right now, and I'm not even halfway done with the first chapter.

Then that means the first chapter would be about 60,000 words, if my calculations aren't off? How many chapters are you planning to make it be then? Maybe two? That's a LOT of writing. I think that may be the longest CYS story ever then, when it's completed. 

Each path should be about 4 chapters long. There are, at the moment, three main paths that branch into six different endings.

So I'll need to write about eight different chapters right now. So the whole thing should be around 500,000 words when I'm done.

You're not serious, Quiller? That may take years, unless either you write really really fast, or if you have a lot of time on your hand. Did you set a deadline date for yourself, if I may ask? 

Ahaha...no? At the rate I'm writing, I'll get it finished in about a year and a half.

Alternatively, I could just make the writing less descriptive, and that should cut my wordcount down to nearly half :)

This actually reminds me of something. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to update and publish as you go along, like most story sites, such as fanfiction, and ficitonpress? 

Kind of, yeah XD. I'm almost tempted to break this storygame down into chapters and publish them one by one.

A storygame's different from a fanfiction or an original story though - it's hard to stop right in the middle and pick up where you left off because your choices might be different every time.

So it's basically the finished product or nothing.

 

This actually gives me an idea. What if say, at the end of chapter 1, depending on what paths the player choose, you assign them a different password for each different path, and at the beginning of chapter 2, depending on the password they give you, it starts off on that path? Of course, some things are likely to not be exactly the same as the original chapter, such as other variables, but the general path should be fine. 

Kinda like those old video games that let you start on a different level as long as you know the password? That's a pretty good idea!

I think for now I'll just keep sneak preview on and announce whenever I finish a chapter though, that way if anyone really wants to play the game before it's finished, they can.

I don't think it's on sneak preview. 

Whoops, I keep forgetting to turn that back on after.

Sneak previews should be allowed now.

I find it fascinating that you can toggle all the images off with a simple click. Is it html?

Nope, haha. It's actually not very complicated at all.

I have a variable called "PICS" that gets set to 1 or 0 depending on if you click the toggle on or off.

Then every single picture is nested like this: %%PICS%=%1%<img src="URL HERE">%%

Oh. I didn't know you can actually put pictures inside those! Or links! I thought it just allow words! Nice. xD

But, dayum. Wait. So how did you get the links to look so fancy? That must be html, right?

Yeah, that's html. I can't script worth a damn, but I do know a lot of interesting html tags, haha.

I'm assuming you're talking about the links that glow and show the cursor when your mouse hovers over them? I can give you those tags, if you want.

But where do you put it?

You know when you add a link, you can type the words you want the link to display?

HTML tags work there.

Holy sh*t.

Ah. Okay. You know, I think the most interesting tag is the one that actually changes the words being displayed into a different word.  

Like the 'LOCKED' message on the character selection? That's the 'mouse over' tag. Hang on a sec, I'll copy and paste it for you.

Here's the tag I used:

<img src="PICTURE_ONE URL" onmouseover="this.src='PICTURE_TWO URL'" onmouseout="this.src='PICTURE_ONE URL'" />

It switches out one picture for another when your mouse hovers over it:

Oh. It's an image? I thought it's a text. 

Nope. Last I checked, there's no way to make text glow or change with HTML, sadly.

• "We can't afford to split up our combat strength."

I think this link is broken. 

That entire section of the game is broken right now, since some critical pages are missing/unfinished ;_;

I'll put the link back up once I fix it.

Awww man. 

Sorry 'bout that ^_^'

What did you think of the rest of game?

Well, I'm still reading. But good so far!

Btw, do you want me to point out all the broken links I come across as I read it, or no?

Thanks a ton for the offer, nmel! It's okay though - most of those broken links are broken on purpose because the game's not finished yet.

Dam. The girl died. I wonder if I can save her if I go to find her first. 

*spoiler* You can. It's one of the three main paths. *end spoiler*

Yep. I've already found it. :)

I believe I've read every page available. I still think it's gonna be one of the epics. :D 

Your reminders to keep writing are one of the main things keeping me on task for this game. Have I mentioned today that you rock?

Also, did you see the bonus comic teaser?

XD Have I mentioned today that you're amazing. :D

Yep. You're amazing. :D

Oh wow, that's pretty cool.

Agreed, Nmel, I thought that text change feature was kind of epic. It's a small change, but it's so cool...

If you guys want pictures to use it with, let me know and I can whip some up.

Keep in mind that the code basically maxes out the amount of characters allowed in your link though, so if the image URL is too long, it won't fit.

xD You're insanely nice...

Also, good to know.

Nah, this is totally selfishly motivation here. The cooler all of your guys' games look, the more fun everyone - including me - have when playing them XD

Haha... I'll keep that in mind, then. :P

 

Wow.  I just learned something new.  And how simple, it makes me feel so small not to have tried that myself.  xD

LOL, you'd be surprised how much you can make the advanced editor do if you just spend some time fooling around with it.

I never thought to monkey around with it.  I'm really enthusiastic now to see what I can get to work.  ;)

Good luck and have fun XD

I think a lot of people on here will end up learning quite a bit from your story, Quills. The professional appearance should inspire writers to strive for better in their own work.

Such praise, I'll blush, haha

 

Well, I'm one of them. I hadn't honestly thought much of using HTML in my stories. While I'm improving scripting skills, I want to incorporate them both so I can polish things as much as possible.

Awesome! This bumps my anticipation for Magick Academy up another notch. I'm willing to wait years if I have to XD

Oh, I don't think it'll take quite that long--though to be honest with you, I have no idea. It depends on how the coming months play out. I may be moving to another city, another state, or nowhere. :P

Hey Quil. Do you take off mana points for each spell he cast?  

Yeah - there's a variable that keeps track of how much mana you still have, even if the Stat sheet refuses to update properly right now >_>

Yuon (2) - Attempt the risky healing spell

I think this page is messed up. It only has 1 line. 

Also, when I first went to find Rahil, then Yuon, then Kol, at the end it only shows the link go north, but when you clicked it, it also describes you seeing Marissa's dead body for some reason. 

Yuon (2) - Attempt the risky healing spell

This page should be fixed now.

I probably forgot a line of script somewhere. Going back to see if I can find it and fix it. Thanks for the troubleshooting, nmel - I really appreciate it!

--edit--

Huh, I tried that path and it doesn't seem like the same problem happened. I think it might be because I had one of the pages you visited open when you clicked the link, so it didn't change the variables correctly.

Well, it's still saying that for me. Oh, yeah, I saved Yuon. 

Head straight north (3)

You steel your heart and force yourself to keep going north. You can’t afford to waste any more time or mana. The mission has to continue. If you let yourself stop and think, you'll remember. The feel of Kol's heart stopping under your hand. The red ruin of Marissa's corpse. You've lost teammates before. You thought you were used to it. But to lose two close friends on a single mission - you can't let yourself dwell on it. If you do, you think your heart might just break.

Also, a few of the pages, doesn't have the option to go after Marissa. Idk. Maybe it's because mine's a saved game with different variables then the ones you updated?

Ah, yeah, that would do it.

Wait, you can save unpublished games?

Yeah. 

Wait. That's not it. It's not the save game thing that was messing it up. It was the Save and Quit item. You have how it gives you the option to go to different chapters? Well, going to the title page doesn't reset any of the variables. At least, it didn't reset the Marissa variable. 

You're right! I looked at my script and I left out the line resetting Marissa's variable.

Okay, it should be fixed now. Thanks for the catch :)

I only caught it cause you had the Marissa variable showing when I was going through it. ;P

I turned it on to figure out where it was going wrong, and you still managed to catch the problem before I did, haha

#you'reascriptinggenius XD

Umm.... I think something else is wrong now. It says Marissa is 0 on every page until you either rescue her or see her killed. Then it says Marissa is 2 or 1

Whoops, forgot to hide the variable again, haha. Thanks Taco. It should be fixed now

Okay. I'm always happy to help. 

I'm actually really touched that all of you guys are willing to take the time to play this game right now, even though it's buggy and messed up right now :')

I told you before, it was like I was poking around a work of art. Not all stories feel so ... grand in their early stages.

Prettied-up title page + overdramatic prologue FTW :P First impression are everything, haha.

The rest of it is actually pretty average if you stop and think about it XD

Ere ye daft man, have you read many stories on this site?

*ahem* Average -excluding- the WarriorCats games XD

You're not giving yourself enough credit. Maybe we should be in charge of advertising.

LOL. I admit that I might spend too much time talking to people like Kiel, which badly skews my idea of what an average game should be like. XD

People like me...? o.0' What did I do?

@the_quiller

I agree. Quiller must be really skewed if your writing is average. ; )

I'm obviously no Endmaster or Berka, but starting my story publishing with a near thousand page beast like GOLAD is not what I'd call average, either. It's not that I'm great, just damn near insane. xD I will say I'm positive that Becoming Legend will surpass A Game of Life and Death in popularity quickly once it's complete.
 

It is really, really good. I've tried to tell Quiller just how good, but I just don't have the words. : (

I hold the quality of your games as a standard to work towards XD

A goal to work towards? (No offense kiel) but I think you've already surpassed his work, if you ignore the part about your story game being unfinished. 

No offense taken, I agree.

Well, you both have me beat. I would just like to finish one . . .

(I don't have to equal the two of you.)

@the_quiller @Kiel_Farren

I look forward to reading it, then. :)

(Good. I'm guilty of trying to equal other writers, but I honestly think it's best not to compare yourself too much. Learning from them is great, but ... if you focus on matching strides, you can forget what makes your work unique.)

I'm looking forward to it as well.

Haha, looking at other writers' work gets me excited about writing again whenever I hit a slump. Just knowing that it can be that good makes me want to try.

Well, so far my stories rarely get past the single page. I admit that they are great first pages, though. But that is where they start tapering off . . . :'(

Edit: I think I've deleted more stories than I've actually written.

I think the only part I have Kiel beat is graphics. Characterization, plot, puzzles, and scripting all have a long way to go yet XD

Really? You have more characters that are unique and have personalities. Plot, you defiantly have him beat in. How could it not when you start out as just another student of the aegis and get to the point where you can save or destroy the world (I'm going off of the description here)? Puzzles, I'm not sure about. If you have more sections like in the beginning with choosing your team, then I'd say you have him beat there too. 

*coughs* Um. Again, I'm not arguing that Becoming Legend is a fantastic game, but ... "How could it not when you start out as just another student of the aegis and get to the point where you can save or destroy the world"

... You do realize that in my game, you start off as a regular high-school student and you do get to the point where you can save or enslave all of humanity, right? Also, my game is built around solving puzzles. 

Yeah. I loved the puzzles. I'm still awaiting the sequel. *wringing hands greedily*

... Which reminds me, I need to get back to it. xD M.A. has been taking up nearly all my attention lately.

You can? I don't think I've discovered those paths. >_> <_<

Hmmm............I suppose I was thinking more about the flow of the puzzle and story together with scripting rather then the complexity of your puzzles with items in addition. 

 

There are a lot of possible outcomes. No one has seen them all, even the people who assisted with beta-reading.

... I'm not sure what you mean. I did use scripting, it's just that a lot of the puzzles involve items.
 

Sorry, I meant that quiller uses only scripting and makes everything seamless in his story, and you have both scripting and items (which seems really hard to do in my opinion) but it's not quite as smooth in the story as quillers. 

I...ah...have to contradict you there. The parts of my game that currently use items are so messed up that I took down the links to them. So seamless is not the right word here XD

Since I already made the built in item system into a user interface, my actual inventory now needs to be a combination of on-page variables and HTML :(

I've actually been trying to get it to work for the last three hours, but it just refuses to cooperate, haha.

 

Oh. That. *shrug* I've received complaints from people about the item system before, saying it felt too much like a game and required too much interaction from the player. Different strokes for different folks. I do intend to make games that don't rely on items at all, but GOLAD is item heavy because of the nature of its puzzles and the large amount of pathways.

Kiel's GOLAD game is like a gift that keeps on giving! So many paths, so many puzzles. I'm probably going to throw in the towel and beg for the guide to the foreign exchange student route soon enough, haha.

Also, you don't start Becoming Legend as a student of the Aegis. You ARE a full-fledged Aegis, period.

If you want to be a student, that's what the prequel game 'Aegis' is for XD

I really do look forward to seeing your opinion of it... xD with all the effort you've put into it, I hope it's worth it to you. >///>;

*nod* I'm pretty excited about the prequel, too, though I assume it'll be quite a while before we'll get to play it.

(I'm honestly still kind of stunned anyone is using my writing as a standard... it's flattering, though.)

... Quills, that's bullshit. You're a talented writer. :P Your work is definitely not "average" and I am excluding warrior cats.

Prettied-up title page + overdramatic prologue + amazing detail that only like 10-15 out of hundreds of other games have + great characterization that only about 10-15 other games have + amazing pictures you drew yourself. I doubt that more then 2 other people have done that + lots of other things that I could point out. It'd take half an hour to list them all.

I think that's way above average.

...you guys. :')

Now I'm all flustered and embarrassed, haha.

In case I haven't said it yet today, you're all awesome and motivating me to keep writing this by periodically inflating my fragile ego XD

Why? It's all true. 

Well, don't get a swelled head. Just keep writing!

Yessir!

XD *cracks whip*

I just like helping. And I believe that is the point of playing it for right now until it's publiched. To point out bugs, spelling/grammar errors, and suggest things that could make it better. Though I can't find anything to suggest. Anyway, we all want to help as much as possible for this epic story. 

There is an option to stop people saving your game somewhere.

Whoa, you're right! I never noticed that little checkbox before.

August 21 Progress Report: 101/160

I'm also in need of some advice - since this game doesn't (and probably will never) have a turn-by-turn battle system, but it DOES have a stat sheet that shows you your current health, mana, character traits, and party members:

Should I mark out when your character is using a spell that consumes mana or taking damage to their health in the actual story? I'm thinking of simply changing the text color the keywords into blue or red, like this:

"You don’t give them time to complete the metamorphosis into their monstrous forms. With boosted speed, you barrel into the furthest one and silently cast disintegrating touch on your hand. The wraith roars in agony as its flesh crumbles away under your touch. You see its muscle and sinew begin to grow back, but your spell is stronger and destroys it faster than it can regenerate. The second wraith leaps at you with its transformation only half complete before you can completely reduce the first to dust. Your reinforcement spell shatters as it sinks it teeth into your shoulder.

Choking back your own cry of pain, you grit your teeth and utter a quick fire spell under breath. The second wraith immediately bursts into blue flames. The proximity scorches your white Aegis robes and burns your shoulder, but the protection spells on the robes hold and keep you from catching fire.

With one wraith reduced to dust and the other reduced to ashes, you finally turn your attentions onto the third. Its transformation is complete, which means physical combat is suicide. It gives you a feral grin as it unsheathes its claws and stalks towards you.

With a resigned grimace, you level your arm and point straight at it as you utter a single word.

“Lightning.”

Brilliant white sparks crackle to life in the space between the two of you, bright enough to light up the entire village like a beacon. You’re temporarily deafened by the roar of thunder, but when you can see and hear again, the wraith is gone with only a black char where it once stood."

I like that idea. It's unique, for one. I've never seen it in any game here. Also, it doesn't break up the text with "You have lost 10 health", "You have used 5 mana," and so on, which I always found a little too jarring when placed in the middle of a narrative.

I think it also adds ... emphasis, if that makes any sense. It gives more gravity to what's going on, if you know subconsciously understand that you're losing something.

(Great combat excerpt, by the way.)

Thanks Kiel. Your advice is always helpful.

^^' Glad to be useful.

Hey, I noticed a bug while playing:

I checked the character stats, and everything that was a variable is at zero. If you would fix it, that'd be great.

Thanks for the catch - it should be fixed.

September 25 Progress Report: 104/152

The game's going to be unavailable for sneak preview while I figure out how to incorporate the time variable into the page display, though hopefully, it won't more than a few hours, max.

I feel kind of dumb for asking, but, when that number hits 152, does that mean the story is done? Since you did say that completing the story would take about half a year or so. On another note, how exactly are you planning to do the time variable?

Nah, don't feel dumb - it's a pretty reasonable question. 152 is for the first chapter only, although it might still go up as I expand certain paths.

I'm going to limit the players to how many different places they can go/people they can save before time runs out and an event triggers. I also want to add a picture in the top right corner of every page that shows roughly what time it is (for example: a moon, a rising sun, etc.)

Ah I see. That's nice. 

You always come up with the best of ideas, don'tcha? :)

Haha, nope, just adding little bits and pieces to my game to make it all pretty-looking. XD

Thanks though.

Alright, I've got nothing to do today except writing and scripting, so let's see how much I can get in one day...

Adding a time component turned out to be a ton of work, haha. <_<

Really? How did you do it?

Added in scripts on every single page that checked IF TIME = 1...IF TIME = 2...etc and a bunch of links that have %TIME := %TIME + 1, haha...I wish there was a smarter way to do it, but I didn't know how to get the Global Script to work.

Just put all that in the global link script. You don't have to copy and paste on every single pages! Putting it in the global ink script will do that for you automatically. 

Is there a way to make exceptions for certain pages though? Like the item pages?

Yes. On the item pages just minus time by one. That should even it out. 

Of course!!! Doh, I feel like an idiot, haha.

Thanks yet again, nmel. XD

 

You're welcome. Haha. 

Best of luck, Quills. :)

Thanks Kiel! Glad to see you're feeling better, by the way.

After struggling with much temptation, I decided to give in and re-organized the first chapter to make it less confusing for myself and (hopefully!) more fun for whoever's playing it.

So now, following my new page plan:

September 30 Progress Report: 124/266 of Chapter I.

...I may have added an new choice branch in there. Or two. This project is gonna kill me. XD

And to think I thought I'd be done with my nice, 120 page long Chapter I in a single month when I started this.

How long is this thing going to be after you complete the Rahil and Sharea stories?

Well, right now, Aerien is looking like it's going to take at least 800 pages. Rahil and Sharea will be shorter since they follow the 'canon' events more closely and branch less, so I'd say they'll each be about 200-300 pages or so.

Of course, 200 pages is how long I thought the entire Aerien path was going to be when I started writing this. >_>

...maybe I should just make them into separate games, haha.

 

You can do it Quill!

This is the work of a lifetime, Quill. 

Good luck! :D

Thanks, everyone :D I'll do my best to keep chugging along, haha.

Well, I got the Deserters epilouge... And holy shit, I'm impressed.

I'm glad you liked it! I'm also hella impressed you managed to find the only Chapter I path that's completed and debugged, haha.

Really? Wow... That's pretty cool.  Well, anyway, so far, I'd give it a 7/8. Not an 8/8 yet, that's for completed games. Once it's complete, expect to be on the front page until the day the site gets shut down (If it ever does).

You should play more of the top games before giving out 7's and 8's so easily! This game still has a long way to go (and badly needs proofreading and playtesting first) XD

Thanks for the encouragement though!

Still, the pages are of good length, the grammar is top notch, and the characters... That's where it kinda got stale. I didn't really feel attached to most of them, but the story is still a work in progress, so yeah.

Yeah, thanks for letting me know. I'm realizing that in the 'split up' path, your teammates can die pretty quickly, so you don't really get a chance to feel attached before they get killed off.

Did you get a chance to read the (Memories) pages?

No, I skipped all the knowledge pages.

No wonder. The knowledge pages are optional, but most of the character development for your teammates is on the '(Knowledge) Your Teammates' page.

Hm, do you think I should change that and try to put it into the main story instead?

My personal feeling is that you should keep it as it is. I think it would probably get in the way of the main story. Keeping it as optional content that deepens character development seems like a good use of interactive fiction.

*Shrugs* Your choice. If you want the reader to feel attached to the characters and know about the world, then do it. I just went on the page, skimmed over it, and said I would read it later. I forgot and closed the game before I got a chance to read them.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll probably keep it the way it is then, since I don't want to force people to read or re-read background info that's not necessary for the game.

Holy shit @the_quiller this will be epic and featured on the front page. (based on the first few pages that I read)

I'm glad you thought it was that good! Such praise, I'll blush. Nothing like flattery to motivate the writing muses though XD

Thanks a ton, I'll do my best to finish this before we all die of old age.

Wow, it seems to be coming along very well.

Slow and steady progress now that real life has settled down.

How's yours going (if you're still working on any)? Your fox journal?

As I said "Book of the Fox" was a little cheesy, even for me. Also, I've deleted all of my games.

I thought it was decent. Shame to see 'em go - did you delete even the strategy quiz?

Yes, even that one.

Oh wow, I didn't notice. I actually liked that quiz :p

Why did you delete it?

Same here. I'm sorry to see it go.

If I explained, it would just look like I'm out for a pity party, so I'd rather not get into that. Regardless, I'm sorry for deleting it without consulting you guys, but based off of the ratings, I assumed that it wasn't something that would be missed too terribly much. I guess I assumed wrongly.

A very good storygame so far, there's much potential for it to grow! I agree, I'll be expecting this featured as long as the quality keeps up ^^ Keep on writing!

@the_quiller

Could you host (or let someone host) an Aegis RP? Pretty please?

That's a really cool idea xD

I'd be more than happy to host it if a lot of people are interested. It'll take time away from writing though, so ideally, if anyone else wants to host, be my guest :)

How about making an interest thread to see if anyone would be willing to play, and we'll go from there?

OMGz, yes! :D But maybe it'd be better after Becoming Legend and Aegis were published because it'd give us more accurate info on the world it takes place in.

Which will be probably...around eighteen months later, at the rate I keep adding pages to my original story plan, haha

I have a bunch of worldbuilding notes written up that I work from when I write the actual game, so whoever runs it could just base it off those.

You're right that it'd be kinda weird to have an RP before the game actually exists though XD

I can do it once I finish my storygame, if that's okay with everyone.

That's great! Let me know when you're planning on running the RP, and I can send you random bits of worldbuilding info and Aegis related artwork :)

I'd be interested ^ Sounds like fun.

Have you done your four pages for today? 

You're back to a tacocat!

I is not tacocat, I'm burrito kitty! XD

Also, this profile pic has been up for weeks now.

Your posting have been really infrequent so it wasn't really noticeable. 

True. Hopefully that will change soon.  

Is that a drawing of yourself?

Yeah, but I didn't draw it, I used a avatar creator game thingy to do it. It's also not entirely accurate. 

Is your free drawing thread still up?

Short answer: I guess, but no has replied in who knows how long. At this point, if any one replied, it'd be necro-ing it. And then they'd have to wait forever for me to find time to get online, remember to check it, and then to draw it, and then to find time to get on again to post it. For that process on my part, it would probably take two-ish weeks just for one drawing. >_> Or if they want it fancied up with photoshop, it could take me three or four weeks. So technically yes, it is still up, but only if you want to necro it and wait forever to get a drawing back.

I guess that's more a a long answer then a short one. >_>

I guess a shorter answer would be: Yes, but you'll have to wait forever for me to draw anything. 

Pretty much. 

I'm just starting on my four pages right now, haha.

Nice new profile picture, by the way!

Thank you. How much have you put on the game here in the last, what, two, three weeks? Or was it four....... Anyway, how much do you have on it?

I'm up to 125 pages now, but I added a couple more branches, so the total number of pages for Chapter I is about 266 now, haha.

I added a time element too, so you should see a border at the top of each page that shows the sky from midnight to dawn. If you run out of time, a new event should trigger :)

Interesting. I'll check it out.

Edit: I love it, and the the way mana is kept track of, and the more game-like stats like passionate, ruthless (etc), and everything else you added onto it so far.

Dropping by to show support. Just...wow. I can't wait for the complete story.

Thank you! I'll do my best.

The one thing that sucks about you working on this story 24/7 is because now there will be no Atonement story... I was REALLY looking forward to that!

I'm surprised you even still remember that one, haha. I was really only using it to experiment with the advanced editor.

I still have all my storybuilding notes for it though, so maybe one day, I'll dig it up and finish it.

Well, I hope that one day will come soon.

October 6 Progress Report: 130/266

New thread for this here: http://chooseyourstory.com/forums/writing-workshop/message/14060#453483