Gamebook store

Sunday 3 June 2012

Write choices

If you want to write your own digital gamebooks, there are a couple of authoring tools for that purpose. Varytale has a selection of interactive stories online already, and you can publish your own or submit through them. However, when it comes to the reader experience I prefer the way that Inklewriter subliminally guides the eye so that you don't keep having to reorient yourself within the text. They are both worth trying out, though, and no doubt we'll be seeing more tools like this in future.

I'm interested in the way that interactive literature (a subset of interactive fiction, which I use to mean any story that is interactive whether text-based or not) works differently on screen than on the printed page. In traditional print gamebooks, you are turning pages to read just as you would in a regular book, so there is no special compulsion to rush to the next choice - that choice is just an instruction which page to turn to next. On screen, however, there is the powerful allure of the button. There, when the choices are just between two courses of action, I find myself skimming the text in my rush to make the next choice.

What's the solution? Well, you could make the choices more interesting. Rather than read a half-page of text followed by "Do you parry or dodge?" I'd prefer several pages of text and then be faced with a choice I have to consider very carefully. Or you could embrace the speedier read, as Jamie and I did in the Fabled Lands books, in which case your book starts to look more like an old-time text adventure: "You are in the rolling hills north of Metriciens. Go north, west, east or south."

Or you could eschew plot-based decisions in favour of the kind of character-driven interactivity I used in Frankenstein. Ask a friend if they want tea or coffee and it's a snap decision, so who cares how you phrase it? But ask them about a moral choice or what they thought of a movie and you've got a discussion going.

What's interesting about ebooks generally is that they are not just books on screen, in the same way that movies aren't plays and television drama isn't cinema. A subtle difference in the reading experience can have a profound effect on the content. It remains to be seen how this will affect the interactive literature of the future.

12 comments:

  1. An interesting post. It reminds me of RPG style games where choices made in conversation can change the options available to you, and eventually the whole plot. In those cases, it is definitely the moral questions that make one stop and think the longest before clicking onwards.
    One Writer's Mind

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    1. In our face-to-face RPGs, most of the memorable stuff is in-character discussions. Those affect relationships, and relationships alter the framework in which plot unfolds. This is more like fiction (or life, come to that) where story is the second-order result of interpersonal choices. CRPGs have a way to go, as in most cases the decision you make simply triggers the next bit of authored storyline, but the medium is evolving.

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  2. Hey Dave, (very tenuously linking to this subject) is there any news on the new ipad/kindle versions of FL 1 - 6 ? (I got an ipad just for this!)

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    1. They are definitely coming along, Alberto. I'm not sure of a release date yet as we'd really like all 6 to come out at once. I'll post more news as soon as I have it.

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    2. Great news (as long as that pesky 12 item limit and adventurer class restrictions are gone :p !!!)

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    3. Hmm, here we are 16 months later and still no sign. I hope you've found other uses for that iPad, Alberto.

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  3. But Alberto, 12 Item limit and adventurer class restriction are part of the fun! :)

    *went back to restarting on paper Book 1 as female Priestess of Nagil...*

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    1. And I hear that the Game of Thrones videogame is getting praise for bringing in a stringent item limit, Joe. We were ahead of our time, I guess!

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  4. Are you familiar with inform as a means of producing interactive fiction, no idea where or when I came across it knowing my luck it was somewhere on this site.

    http://inform7.com/

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  5. That looks interesting. If I had heard about it, I'd also forgotten :-) Thanks for pointing it out.

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  6. I like how much you think about what interactive fiction can be and how to push the boundaries. At the moment, I'm writing very standard-form gamebooks, but one of my goals, later on, is to do likewise and try to push the envelope. I really like the idea of asking the player/reader meaningful choices. Not just "which way do you go," but some sort of choice that really makes the reader think. In my brief 'example' gamebook that I wrote for the April A-Z-athon, I tried to culminate with a difficult choice that would hopefully engage those moral-dilemma muscles. If you'll excuse my including a link, here's that short gamebook, "Mars 2112," in case you're interested in checking it out: http://www.ashtonsaylor.com/2012/04/c-choice-in-book.html

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  7. Looks good, Ashton, and very much my kind of SF. I recommend going over to Kickstarter, where crazy money is being given away to develop gamebook projects. This one has already netted $57,000 http://kck.st/L97Crd and personally I'd much rather read a book-length Mars 2112!

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