#Branching Narratives

[nicholasandriani]

Daily Reading: Naming Conventions, and the 362,880 permutations of tic-tac-toe. On Screenwriting, Character Arcs, and Game Design

This morning, we’re exploring two significant concepts: the importance of good naming conventions in various creative domains, from scriptwriting to coding, and the astonishing multitude of possibilities within a simple tic-tac-toe game—precisely 362,880 possibilities! Imagine the potential for branching narratives here. In fact, this sparks an idea – what if we could craft a game that involves…

[thealchemyofgamecreation]

Words that Shape Worlds: Crafting a Cybertext Gaming Experience

In this blog post, I want to share my thoughts on how we can implement cybertext. #GameDesign

As a passionate gamer and avid reader, I’ve always been fascinated by the potential of storytelling in video games. The concept of cybertext, although sounding complex, is actually quite intriguing and relevant in today’s gaming world. In this blog post, I want to share my thoughts on how we can implement cybertext. First off, let’s break down what cybertext mean. Cybertext refers to texts that…

[clambuoyance]

“My Phantom Muse” is now available to play!

You can play through the first episode of this interactive game at https://www.glow.art/myphantommuse or download the app and play!

It’s a mystery GL game about a hopeless romantic named Ophelia, who dies on the night she finally plans to confess her feelings to her crush, Rachel! As a ghost, she knows only her love for Rachel and is determined to find a way to catch her attention…Meanwhile, the news of her friend’s death drives the introverted Rachel to drop everything and embark on an investigation to find out what really happened to Ophelia! As she grapples with her own feelings, she begins to believe that she’s most definitely being haunted….

Will the hearts of these two girls finally collide, or are they doomed to forever be worlds apart? Click the link above to play and find out ^_^

I hope you guys enjoy!! Feel free to ask more about it in my inbox!

[gowerhardcastle]

Professor Gower's Games

I’m Gower, and when I’m not being a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature, I’m writing long interactive storygames published by Choice of Games.

Meet some of my characters:

Do you enjoy games where you get involved in terrible scandals, lose your money in ill-conceived wagers, go on foxhunts, solve mysteries and have a torrid affair with your servant, in an alternate 1930s where all shall be quite well in the end?

My games are light-hearted, super-branchy narratives inspired by P.G. Wodehouse's worlds of well-to-do young folks with more money than sense. My games are designed to have the reader's back no matter what choice you make.

Right now, I'm almost 3 million words deep into my fourth game.

Here's my past games:

In Tally Ho (620,000 words) you play a servant charged with the welfare of your hapless employer who has managed to tangle themself up in terrible romantic, familial, and master-servant difficulties. Play some of it for free at the above link!

In Jolly Good: Cakes and Ale (1.2 million words) you play the employer! Now, with your own servant, you can create the terrible romantic, familial, and financial, and scandalous, etc., etc., situations and let someone else clean up the mess. Or make it much, much worse. This game was the Winner of three 2020 XYZZY Awards: (Best Writing, Best Setting, Best NPCs). Play some of it for free at the above link!

I've also written a Shakespearean comedy pastiche, called A Midsummer Night's Choice. This one is much shorter and less complex.

My current game is the sequel to Jolly Good: Cakes and Ale, and is called Jolly Good: Tea and Scones. Continue the story of your Jolly Good: Cakes and Ale character, visit your ancestral manor, and deal with both your present servant and the servant who quit your employ out of sheer disgust! (I am halfway through chapter seven of eight chapters, and this work-in-progress stands at nearly three million words.)

If you like the sound of a very, very long piece of interactive fiction which is designed to be cozy, funny, and deeply responsive to your choices, check back here--and check out my Patreon for peeks at my work in progress, additional fiction, and musings on what it is like to write long-form, choice-heavy interactive fiction. Each month, you'll be able to see various lengthy tranches of my game. Swing by!

You can play a sizeable chunk of chapter one as a free demo should you care to partake, and the entire, 270k+ words chapter one for patrons.

[sae-mian]

𝕍𝕚𝕖𝕣𝕒𝕡𝕣𝕚𝕝 | 𝔻𝕒𝕪 𝟙𝟝

“Alternate Universe”

BUN(?) FACT OF THE DAY: Nira'sae alone has more alternate universes and timelines than they've had years alive. (and here are some examples, labelled below the cut)

[galleryofart]

The Wood Gatherers

Artist: John William North (British, 1842–1924)

Date: 1869

Medium: Watercolor and gouache with scratch-away and touches of shell gold

Collection: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, United States

Description

John William North’s watercolors of the rural landscape of Somerset unite the seemingly contradictory states of minutely rendered detail with atmospheric effects. Herbert Alexander, the artist’s biographer, described the artist’s interpretation of nature as similar to that of a poet, suggesting rather than describing: "In watercolor and oil an effect of intricate detail is found on examination to be quite illusive - multitudinous form is conjured by finding and losing it in endless hide-and-seek till the eye accepts infinity."

[frumfrumfroo]

Sometimes I get the impression that people in the fandom believe that Finn becoming/being a Jedi would fix everything about his character arc. It’s an idea that’s treated like a healing balm that could soothe the irritation that his bungled arc elicits. Part of me understands the desire to buy in to that belief, but the rest of me knows that the problems with Finn’s character are far from skin-deep.

He doesn’t necessarily need to be force sensitive or be the main Jedi to be a great character. To me, the concept a rebel stormtrooper is more unique on its own than any of the Jedi we’ve seen. As we witnessed with TROS, Finn being revealed to be force sensitive felt like an attempt to appease certain fans, but diminished some of his more compelling moments in the process. All this to say, the issues with Finn’s arc didn’t start with TLJ and go beyond force sensitivity.

He very much doesn't need to be and, in fact, making him Force sensitive does a huge disservice to his character and is actively counter-productive.

And as I also get into in that post, pretty much everything his stans complain about in his arc and blame on TLJ are factors of what TFA establishes.

TLJ is the only film which lets Finn be his own person and treats him as the protagonist of his own plot. It is both comic and depressing that so many of his fans heap abuse on Rian for being the only writer to actually treat their fave like a SW hero and one of three pillars of a narrative trio rather than a sidekick.

[glitchfang]

“every character deserves redemption” truthers when the character does not want redemption and shows no remorse

[blacktabbygames]

doing a last pass on the coding/logic for slay the princess and who the hell added all of this branching what's wrong with him

[cowhound]

also rat grinders enjoyers i wish nothing but fun redemption au fics upon you but. it is dnd and they are actively causing the apocalypse,

[northernsunsets]

I've become obsessed with the Shen Jiu Liu Qingge rivalry lately because I think it's really funny that Shen Jiu started it by ambushing Liu Qingge after a spar.

[kithj]

noel's route is done... two down, two to go

[kosmic-kalamity]

more doodles based off of an au idea i doodled here (words r typed out under the cut)

i just might be getting attached to this idea,,,,,,

clay

- he/she

- had returned to branch only a few days before the escape from the tree; the two got separated, and he believes branch to be gone

- [she] went grey for a few years, but recovered over time with viva's help

- seen as the weird hermit troll due to no longer singing + living on the edge of the village

viva

- she/they

- poppy was lost in the escape from the tree, and king peppy never recovered; she had to step up as queen earlier on [in life]

- is constantly on the verge of going grey, but keeps it together for her people

- the snack pack, instead of being their friends, are just cooper's friends; cooper is like a [little brother] to them

[gowerhardcastle]

Public Demo for Chapter One of Tea and Scones!

I'm happy to say that I have a public demo for Jolly Good: Tea and Scones which includes about one-fifth of the 277,000 word Chapter One as well as the prologues.

Here it is: Public Demo for Chapter One Tea and Scones

If you enjoy it, you may play through the entire 270,000 word Chapter One here: The Noble Gases Club. Swing by for discussion of the demo, of the Tally Ho/Jolly Good world, and lots more.

Join up for tons of stories, analysis, feedback, game design talk, and chitchat, or become a free member if you want to be in the loop about updates. I would be thrilled to see you there!

This is the second game in the Jolly Good series, which is itself a spin-off of Tally Ho--but I hope it is perfectly understandable as a standalone--although naturally I hope it entices you to play Tally Ho and Jolly Good: Cakes and Ale if you haven't already!

Spread the news, play the demo, and let me know what you thought!

[rigginsstreet]

i also think what a lot of people dont understand about billy - or refuse to acknowledge the true extent of the effect of it all - is that this is a kid who has been taught to perceive everything around him as a threat. to him, his life is in constant danger.

and when youre living under that state of mind you really have one of two choices; harden yourself and BECOME the threat to protect yourself, or make yourself small and fade into the shadows

and its kind of asinine to me that you would fault someone for what option they chose

you know its not okay to berate someone for becoming depressed over their abuse or crying about it, why is it okay to shame someone for how they choose to protect themselves?

and its the way people cant coincide in their brain that you can actually say "hey, your coping methods are kinda fucked lets work it out". because to them all they hear is "this person has never done anything wrong and everything is fine"

but then you wanna call other people stupid .... okay

sorry i can hold multiple thoughts in my head. as if its my fault

[bibibbon]

I don't know if I'm alone in the opinion of most series that are long running having bad or mediocre endings.

MHA is going to join the long growing list of series that fans had hope for but were let down with.

Sucks too, because people get invested in series that they think will be worth sticking for to the very end.

Well it depends on what someone's definition of a long series is to be honest but you do have a point. A long series will have more plot points and more plots and arcs that it will need to try and neatly tie up resulting in a satisfactory ending. Also the longer the series the more time we have with characters that we get attached to and the more people are attached the higher the emotions and stakes to have a somewhat decently written ending.

I believe that MHA has branched out too far, too wide when it came to the plot but it actually never dived deeper into already existing material which is why almost everything in MHA feels underdeveloped, underwhelming and overall lacking.

Iam not saying that long series can't be good and well written it's just that it's incredibly difficult to do so when compared with shorter series or stories.