CYOA Coming Your Way....

Ever since I was a little kid, I have always loved those Choose Your Own Adventure books, and even the Amazon Kindle Store has a bunch of them that aren't just for kids. They have a lot, which is pretty cool. Anyway a few years ago, I read the book Ready Player One before it was made into a movie by none other than Steven Spielberg. The book talked a lot about geek culture and the interactive fiction stuff intrested me enough to look up and purchase books on the history of them, as well as learning how to make them. 

     There are a few different ways to do so. There are a couple of programs that are free to use, and they are set up to help organize everything. I was watching a documentart about Nintendo, and they talked about the first Super Mario Bros. game and the creator showed a piece of paper with the leven hand drawn. I thought it was pretty dang cool that they worked that hard to make a game. 

     A few years ago, Super Mario Maker was released on the Nintendo Wii U, but it was near the end of the era for the Wii U generation, and the Nintendo Switch was released. They took Super Mario Maker, threw in tons and tons of bells and whistles. It's amazing what some people have been able to create. I bought Super Mario Maker 2 when it was released. If you are unfamiliar, Super Mario Maker and the sequel give you all of the tools to make your very own Super Mario levels. Not only that, but you are able to upload them onto the internet, and people from all over the world can play your level. I enjoy making Mario levels for my son Elliot, and the program is so easy to use that Elliot has made some of his own that are online and people have been giving his levels a lot of great compliments.

    Anywho, I talked about that because I have found that I am really into being able to create my own entertainment. Whether it's playing a computer simulator game, or making Super Mario levels, and write music, and write in general, I love it. I like being creative, even if people don't like myself. I am always trying to create and learn new things.

     So, there is a program called Inform 7 which helps you write your very own interactive story. If you don'y know what that is, I will tell you right now. Interactive Fiction, or IF is where the author will give you some story to read, and in return, the story asks for your help or input. Inform 7 is an amazing tool. However, when you use it, it takes a long time to set something up. The program itself doesn't know anything unless you tell it what it is. For example, if you are writing, lets say you want the reader/player to open a door. First you have to explain to the program what a room is. Once it's defined, you don't need to keep telling the program what a room in your game is, but you have to explain to it what a door is, and how it works. A door is an entrance to a room. Once the program understands that, you don't have to keep explaining it, but it can be tedious. For example, if you are explaining what is in a room, you have to define everything. If you want a window in the room, you have to tell the program what a window is, what it's for, what it does. It gets even more tricky when you want something described. If its super cold outside in your game area, and you want to add the detail that there is some ice on the window, you have to design it a specific way. It's really time consuming, but rewarding when one is finished. There are literally thousands of things you can do if you know how to tell the program to do it. With Inform 7, usually your stories will have a character go into a room, which is then described, and you can make comands. Like, maybe you need a key to the locked door, and the key is hidden somewhere in the room, you tell the program the key is under the welcome mat, then when the person is playing the game, and they come to the locked door, they need to find the key to unlock the door. It's a lot more time consuming, but you are literally building a whole world and enviornment to tell your story, and it's really cool.

     Then there is a way that I am starting to use for my first actual Choose Your Own Adventure story game. It's a free program called Twine. What Twine does, is you open it up, and it's blank. When you start a story, it gives you like a little recipe card that you write your story on, but you write what you want to write, then after you have written your passages, you link it to new cards, so let's say in your story, it's really hot outside, you can have the reader choose between choices you as the writer give them. Maybe go outside and run in the sprinklers, or stay inside with a blanket that covers you and the air conditioner. The reader picks which one they want, and they are sent to a new passage. Those are more like the ones you read as a kid. You read a page or two, then make a choice. The fun thing about those books was that you could read it, and then read it again and make different choices. This program doesn't have all of the bells and whistles, and you get to spend more time writing the story. Plus, it's easy to keep track of everything. Once you start having cards branching out with all of the storylines you have written, it's super impressive, And if you make a mistake, it's super easy to find the errors.

I'm not wanting to share what the stories will be quite yet, but I have started writing it, and it's been really fun. I hope you will read it when it comes out. 

     Anywho, I hope you are all safe and being smart. Wear your masks!

Uncky Nate