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Wow - sounds like it would be a blast to play! I don't think anything as ambitious as five character choices has ever been done before. I'd definately be interested. I can imagine it would be a huge undertaking to get five different/intermixing storylines going though.

Good luck!

These five characters, will they interact with one another? Make decisions that impact one another? Can someone play through the story as all of them (finishes playing as character 1 and then plays as character 2 with the actions made as character 1 affecting the story from character 2's perspective).

Personally, I think that comes out really cool, but let me tell you that making such a story can be a real pain in the behind.

So you're not going to have the decisions you make as a character affect what happens to the other characters then? Good. That is a very time consuming process. If you do decide to do that however, I'd recommend you keep those decisions to a minimum if you don't want to spend years making the story.

Pretty large project to take on, especially since you said you tried and failed to write stories before.

Assuming you kept the tone serious, it would be new. The zombie games on the site (that I've seen) all tend to not take themselves too seriously. The "Die zombie Die" stories all have a large inventory system, so that won't be too new. However that shouldn't deter you from doing it yourself.

I wouldn't recommend the whole "adding new playable characters" part after it's completed. Most people won't know if you even update it, and even then there's nothing to say they won't want to play this new character. It would take more effort than it's worth IMO.

I think it could be fun if done right. I'd play it for sure.

Making a thread is the only real way I can think of.

Would probably go in this section - the writing workshop.

Yeah you could put up a demo if you want. Most people don't recommend it though, since many will make snap judgements on the finished product based on the demo.

Thanks for the feedback! I can assure this won't be horribly written. It won't be a literacy masterpiece, but it won't make you squint your eyes trying to decipher what just went on. Have no fear XD.

Hello, I'm his friend, and the coauthor of this CYOA, and I'd just like to thank everyone for the support and advice.

Yeah we've started it with a flowchart to go with it. I just have a question, is there anyway to...uhm decrease the amount of pages needed after a decision. Right now we're mostly going with text and after 3 or 4 decisions it ends up with like eight pages of almost or the same page because of all the combinations.

Not sure what you mean here. Do you want to compress two pages together? Do you want multiple links to lead to the same page? You can do the latter but not the first unless you just do it manually (there is no specific way to do that).

Well the way we're going with it right now every decision you make it creates two pages. Then another decision would lead to four pages being made. Because of all the possibilities...

Decision 1: Option 1, Decision 2: Option 1

Decision 1: Option 2, Decision 2: Option 2

Decision 1: Option 1, Decision 2: Option 2

Decision 1: Option 2, Decision 2: Option 1

Each one would need a new page, with further decision doubling it.

You can have the text on the page change depending on variables. If you type:

%%CINEMA%=%0%I don't go to the cinema.%%%%CINEMA%=%1%I go to the cinema.%%

Then the text "I don't go to the cinema" only appears if the variable CINEMA = 0, and if CINEMA = 1, then the text "I go to the cinema" appears.

Alright I'll try that! Thanks! Also, we're putting in an item, an OOC item for all the different sorts of zombies/infected in the story. Is there anyway to have it be updated at a certain point. Like, I want it to start with just the "Basic Zombie" but say you encounter another one the guide would update.

Sort of like a codex or something of the sort?

Yeah, updates at a certain point.

Well, you can have it take you to a page generic page, and then have the links on that page be of all the types of enemies you can encounter, then have variables (let's take examples from Left4Dead) like TANK, and CHARGER and such. Then, the links on the codex page that take to the file about the Tank would have a restriction, stating that the variable TAN*K has to be 1 if the link is to be accesses, and then increase the variable by one when a Tank is first encountered.

I misunderstood what you meant, do what Sindriv said.

Alternatively you could just increase the number of choices that lead to death or otherwise losing the game.

You could just switch out the item for one that looks the exact same, but has different text. You can use scripting to switch the items without the player even realizing it.

Thanks to both of you! I don't think we'll increase the number of deaths, we're trying to make death scenes not too unfair for the player and not really bring any into each character's story until about 20% into each.

For as long as you don't have whether people die or not be entirely dependant on luck, have as many death pages you want. But many writers of zombie stories (myself included), have made decisions like "go right or left", where you die if you go right even though there was nothing that indicated it would lead to your demise (so really, there was no way to know whether you would die or not).

Hey, me again. Just wondering what people would think of adding subtle hints to groups or survivors in certain paths, that you could possibly have met in another path, or maybe will see in one of the other stories that are available. It might be a bit tricky to work in, do you think people would play the same thing enough times to see all of them, and notice that "Oh look, it must've been because of the guy who was there before!" Or would it be a waste of time?

That sounds cool, I love Easter Eggs.

That would be cool but I don't think it should be done publicly. Maybe you could PM the people who ask for it.

Im really looking forward to this game. I was contimplating making my own serious zombie game with multiple playable characters, but I think you got this. I will most definitely play this game when it comes out. Well unless the world is taken over by zombies before it is realised. If you are looking for a play tester in the future I would be more than happy to help.

Thank you very much! We're putting our heart into this project. If we're looking for play testers we might give you a PM in the future.

Also, don't worry we'll be sure to have this out before the inevitable zombie outbreak, hahaha.

Put me down as a possible play tester too, I like getting a first look at games.

 I'd be willing to be a beta-tester for you if that's okay.

Well even if the zombie outbreak does happen the internet should still be up an running for at least a week. At most this CYOA story will be a guide on how to surive the zombies.

Sorry for no updates on the storygame if anyone cared or was curious if this story was dropped. Both me and Wynaro went through some moving and we put it on hold, however once the discussion about continuing the story came up Wynaro said he'd prefer not to be apart of it. I'm still hoping to be able to finish it, but I think I'm going to make a smaller game set in the same universe first to see how the reception for this sort of game will be. I hope to have it finished by the end of August, perhaps early September.