Yesterday, I spent five hours trying to make my first page. That didn’t go well so I abandoned it and turned to more simpler cyoa game makers. I managed to make a ‘gamebook’ on TextAdventures (pretty nifty website) and it’s really simple.
Gamebooks on the website aren’t as good as the ones at CoG (although, I mainly play the demos since my mom doesn’t let my buy the full games) and don’t give you much choice (like names, age, gender and orientation). I really like the style of CoG and TextAdventure gamebooks tend to lag.
Today, I took another look at ChoiceScript and it seems simple too. The trouble is, HTML is my kryptonite. I don’t know if I’m the only one in the whole world that can’t wrap her head around all the coding.
Does anyone else have trouble using ChoiceScript to make games?
edit —
when i say html i mean coding in general i guess. sorry for not making it clear. i’ll have another go tomorrow. i swear, i’m thicker than a brick wall
But now on a more serious note. You don’t need to know how to code in HTML to code in ChoiceScript.
ChoiceScript is basically just typing text and a few simple commands in a .txt file and dumping it in the right folder.
Take a look at this and then just follow the instructions:
That should help you along quite nicely.
And if more questions pop up, feel free to ask.
That’s what this whole community is for.
*edit
An other useful source of information for coding in ChoiceScript is:
Choicescript does have a rather steep learning curve if you’re not used to coding at all. I know when I started I was completely lost with it and it took a while for it to click into place. It’s worth it though since once you learn how to use it it’s a lot more versatile than those gamebooks. It’s also code designed for those without any coding knowledge.
I’d say take your gamebook on TextAdventures and try and translate it into choicescript. If you need help on how to just ask and we’ll help. (Or perhaps you can point us at it.)
I’ve found that by far the best way to learn to write games in choicescript is to start by reading their code.
Also it’s of vital importance that you use a text editor (like notepad or notepad++) and not a word processor (like word) in order to write your choicescript games.
I struggled when I first started using ChoiceScript, but the more I tried things and saw what happened, the easier it got. One thing that really helped me was when I realized that when people say the program reads code, it really does. It sounds like a simple concept, but that’s what really helped me figure out how I needed to arrange commands so they’d be read in the right way.
It might be worth checking out how others code, I know that’s what helped me a lot. That and searching through the help forum looking all manners of things up. I got the hang of it pretty quickly after that though there are times where certain parts of the code still frustrate the heck outta me.
Don’t feel bad, @lil_astronaut, it took me a good 2 months to get comfortable with CS. For me, it was overwhelming and I almost quit a few times.
My advice (which I should have but didnt follow) would be to keep it simple at first. As the tutorial points out, you can write a fun game with just choices and gotos.
im not sure how to be more supportive, other than pointing her to the wiki maybe? which people already did, i mean, its not like theres a specific question i can answer or help with… i dont mean to not be supportive, and sorry if it seemed that way.
If your post is not going to contribute anything to the discussion, then it’s better not to post anything at all.
Personally I think choicescript isn’t the easiest method of making choice based games. There’s a number of methods of making text-based games that are a lot simpler. However they’ve also got a bunch of limitations and once you get over that initial bump of learning choicescript there’s a lot of benefits to it. It’s a great language for writing interactive stories in, where the focus is on pushing the plot forward, but where you also have stats. It’s not overly complicated and it makes sense. Also, once you’ve finished a game in choicescript you get to sell it, whereas the other formats have you giving away all of your hard work for free. I love how Choice of Games tells people that their hobby, writing something they love, is actually worth something. I love how it doesn’t just give a voice to authors from all walks of life and experiences, but that it also offers them a method of earning money from telling their stories.
Indeed the learning curve can be daunting, but CS is extremely versatile and once you’ve gotten over that curve it’s truly amazing what CS is capable of doing with some creative combinations of commands. And it’s not like you’ll be facing that curve alone. There’s a small army of fellow CS coders that are more than willing to help.
I’ve started using Choicescript IDE. I think I’m doing okay so far XD
Thanks to Cecilia_Rosewood!
Although, if another character says “Oh, he/she (referring to player) isn’t coming to the party” do I have to manually change the pronouns?
Sorry for all the questions!
And as an added bonus
On the forum you can point out that a certain message is ment for a certain person by putting a @ in front of their name. It will also open some sort of nifty little menu from which you can just select the name of the person you are looking for. It helps a lot against misspelling and is just a lot easier. Especially if they have names as long as mine.
@lil_astronaut
*goto is a command to go to a *label.
So *goto gender will take you to *label gender
I guess that’s not your intention here.
“bad label” if the message that pops up if you don’t have a label named like that.
though there are times where certain parts of the code still frustrate the heck outta me.
