A food for your thought: as a reader, which choice-based IF format would be easier to read for you in this specific case?

Game Development
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I’d like to consider ChoiceScript alongside other formats like Twine, Ink, etc.

I haven’t really played any of these much in the past few years, and frankly, staring at screens to relax for anything has lost appeal to me recently, so it would be great to hear some of your better judgment on this.

Just to clarify, I’m not talking about coding, but the readability of the IF games you’ve played based on the format, and on whichever device/app you may be using.

And to help avoid making this an open-ended question, I will be more specific about the format of the IF.

Side Note:

Privately, I’ve already got opinions from various people not affiliated in anyway with CoG, or the people who hang around this forum, but given how active this forum tends to be, it would be remiss not to hear from you. So long as its genuine, I’d like to hear what you prefer, ChoiceScript or otherwise.

So, you open an IF game, and in short, it’s a text-based (with some maps and designs in the stats menu, etc.) game. Looking at 300~400 words per page, typically, other times fewer. Even fewer, about 5 times to be exact, are sections that play out more like a short chapter with maybe 1 or 2 choices in between.

Some characters like to monologue (you will have a skip option via falling asleep, letting your mind wander to something else, or making them to stop talking).

Some skill checks are not simple fail/success checks.

Management is an important component.

Stats contain aliases, personality/conduct (6 total in 3 opposing pairs), 3 stat-based core skills with 6 misc-skills that enhance their relevant core skills, as well as health and debuffs. It also tracks reputation with various groups. There is also a separate glossary/database section to keep track of the many characters and events.

The longer version, if I’m going to be more specific for myself:

The IF in question is historical fiction. Yeah, it’s been years since I’ve decided to do something based on Joseon Korea during the Imjin War, but life happens and trying to find a Korean source that isn’t another gazillionth book about Admiral Yi, the overrated Minister Yu, or a modern commentary on King Seonjo derangement syndrome takes time and money.

It’s a Hard-Historical Fiction (or semi-hard? like hard/soft-SciFi or fantasy, if that’s even a term), so establishing cultural/societal context is crucial for the narrative.

Structurally, it has the typical IF player-protagonist (you) and a deuteragonist (separate, set character) whose scene play out years after the events of the IF in a novel-like format (~3,000 words typically) in between chapters. The latter serves as a vehicle to provide societal/cultural contexts, reflect on outcomes of the previous chapter, and help set up the events of the next chapter to reduce info dumping in the scenes of the player-protagonist.

Outside of my own shortcomings in prose, I wouldn’t say it’s easy-reading. 16th century Korean nomenclature, taxes, bureaucratic and military structures, societal conventions, and there is a 99% chance that you are meeting historical figures you’ve likely never even heard of, and most of their last names are either Yi or Jeong.

In your gut reaction, which format would help make an IF game like this cause the fewest number of headaches?

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Broadly, choicescript and ink are more accessible on mobile and for screen readers; in my experience custom Twine UI can be difficult to read for long projects because of chosen colour/text size/font/text placement. (I’m not visually impaired myself, but my eyes get tired and sometimes the UI looks attractive initially but isn’t so suited to long periods of reading.)

If flexibility about placement of maps is important to you, Twine or ink+unity might be suitable for that. There is also the ability to save anytime out of the box.

With Choicescript it’s astronomically easier to find and correct bugs because of automated testing, so for long projects with any complexity, that’s worth keeping in mind.

The kind of project you’re describing, it doesn’t sound like the format would make a huge difference either way, so really it’s about your preference and what you find more intuitive to write with.

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ChoiceScript sounds like it would be a good fit for most of what you want to do. As Harris said, depending on what you want to do with the maps, that might nudge you ink-wards.

Also with the management component: you can deliver a reasonably management-heavy game using ChoiceScript (e.g. my own Choice of Rebels) but juggling numbers can often be more satisfyingly done with a graphical interface that other formats will handle better.

With Rebels, the frustrations of doing it without graphics kind of fits the theme – you’re taking on the role of a bandit leader in the woods in a low-literacy, premodern-state context where being told “you have x bushels of grain to feed x of your rebels, and x mules to carry your x sick” is much what the challenge would feel like in real life. Even given that fact, though, I think it’s turned off at least as many readers as it’s attracted. :slight_smile:

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I haven’t published anything yet, so take it with a grain of salt.

ChoiceScript is generally my preference, except when it isn’t. Many times I had an idea for a game feature that would be either prohibitively complex to do natively or simply impossible, and I’m a software developer during the day, mind you!

Twine is very attractive in that aspect, it’s flexible but with enough support so you don’t feel like you have to create the universe to bake an apple pie. On the other hand, I’m not very fond of the syntax of any of Twine’s “Story Formats” (languages, they’re just different programming languages that follow certain standard, I don’t know why they decided to call it ~sToRy FoRmAt~). Just keep in mind what @HarrisPS said about UI and don’t go overboard with it. That’s a reason why every ebook reader app looks dull, it’s just more comfortable for long reading sessions. Another thing to keep in mind (and I think that’s a big one) is that ChoiceScript comes with a built-in audience (though, that also comes with its own drawbacks).

Ink is the most barebones of the three. You’ll have to do a lot of scaffolding in order to have a presentable game. However, I’m not too involved in the Ink community, so there may be many tools to facilitate development that I’m not aware of. That said, I despise Ink’s syntax. There’s minimal, and then there’s Ink! Every one of the language’s features uses a minimal set of characters, which makes it a pain in the ass if you’re just scanning the code. Wait, is this a conditional text or a cycling list?! Urgh… And how many levels deep of branching am I right now, I need to gather all branches here… :weary_face:

On a completely different note, I have a project (suspended for the forseeable future) in a fantastical setting inspired by Ancient Korea (not specifically Joseon). It’s the equivalent of a generic medieval European setting. I agree it’s damn hard to find good quality sources for Korean history, mythlogy, and folklore. You can find almost anything about even the most obscure Chinese dynasty or Japanese era, but Korea not so much (in English, I mean), and what is there is so expensive to get. So your project interests me very much.

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I think I can weigh in here a bit.

Firstly, for just reading and nothing else but the text on screen, I prefer Twine. It has a very clean look, and you can basically make it look like anything with a little work. However, I fully agree that Choice of Games has a much better long term viewing. As in, I could stare at a Choicescript game for hours and have very fresh eyes. It’s simply easy to read.

On the code side of things, Choicescript is the simplest language I have ever seen. It just does exactly what it says it does, and as Cup mentioned while you might need to make the universe to bake the pie, you can at least make that universe to your whims with (relatively) ease.

Secondly, as a Korean, I can not imagine the blight you both have to deal with finding our literature. I can’t find things that I want to find, and I live here. I think, and this is a guess, we simply don’t have as many surviving works, and the ones we do have are private.

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Shoot! :joy: So it’s not gonna get better. This is one of the two reasons I moved the story to a fictional setting. I can wave away any slight as “It’s not reeeealy Korea”. Also, it allows me to pull things from different time periods, not only Joseon. The second reason is that I have a natural fondness for the fantastical, and as I developed the plot, it just became more and more fantasy genre. You would play as dokkaebi teaming up with an imoogi, a kumiho, a mudang, and an imae. :joy:

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The best advice for finding Korean books, and you won’t believe me now, is traveling here. We have a vast array of libraries, in fact some are for tourism. Gangnam has Starfield Library in the COEX Mall that is completely open, with floor to ceiling bookshelves. To add on what I meant by private, you won’t find what you want in a library unless it is common interest. Instead, you’ll find them, and things like that, in museums and exhibits, while an even larger amount are in the hands of individual owners. This is what I had to do way back for schooling was to go across country to random private collectors, and ask for ‘the rite to be shown, their great treasures.’

Basically, to both our misfortune, you won’t find it online, and you’ll have to beg someone for a look at something that might not even have the information you want. But still come for a visit!

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As someone who is visually impaired, I prefer Choicescript. There are far too many games that are inaccessible to me due to color choice, game brightness and contrast, too small font, too hard to read font, and the font breaking the UI if I make it too big.

Besides, I don’t need images and chapter headings to enjoy my games. I am content with the writing and thoughtful choices.

Choicescript is also very easy if you don’t come from a coding background. I come from a cybersecurity background, so I often find myself testing the limits of what Choicescript can offer. Which can be very fascinating if you’re interested in that.

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I can barely read modern day korean, much less some archive from Silla. :joy: But I do want to visit some day. :hand_with_index_finger_and_thumb_crossed:t2:

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Well, looks like the opinions here so far have not been so different from the others I asked. Very interesting. Some of the people I asked were not ones who cared much about IF too. Never underestimate visual simplicity, I guess.

I’m supposing in the event that one gets published and ChoiceScript gets like an update like say, more fonts, etc., the author can make their own QoL update and send it to CoG/HG?

“You got any fun in your IF?”

“We have a realistic budget spreadsheet gameplay based on the late 16th-century Joseon Korean economic system.”

Yeah, ain’t that the truth, hence why I said it takes time and money too. Last time I was there was 2020, and I got Covid in Busan and had to skip places like Jinju National Museum. And sites like DBpia or Korean library resources won’t even give you a crumb if you are outside of Korea, and don’t have a Korean phone number + Resident Registration Number. Luckily, the Veritable Records of both Joseon and Ming are available, so I’ve been living off of that.

But honestly, thanks everyone for your insightful responses.

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ChoiceScript Advantages

  • Lends itself well to long novelistic passages. Reads like a book.
  • Simple to get into with a clean markup language.
  • Built-in audience/market.

Twine Advantages

  • Way more customisable.
  • Way more shareable.
  • Complicated historical/cultural terms can be highlighted and expanded on as part of the interactivity of the medium. You can program a word’s definition to appear when you click it.
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