Linear Game Posting

Just a quick question. Im new to writing with branches as choices would create, so I would like to just get some practice in on the script with what im used to. Can a game that has no choices be submitted to the site?

To the forum yes (probably) . As a hosted game I’d say no. They have to be CYOA’s not novels.

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Hi, welcome to the community. ChoiceScript is specifically designed as an IF language, so you’d be limiting yourself designing such a beast in CS.

Here is a link with all sorts of resources including tutorials, wikis and guides. Master-List Links For Beginners by FairyGodFeather in case you are interested.

If you are asking if you can post a game already published as a promotional post, that is not usually allowed, unless somehow related to Choicescript or CoG as a publishing house.

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Including basic choices in your game is honestly not very difficult at all, and as you gain experience with practice you will learn how to code conditions and the like to make things even more interesting and relevant for your readers.

If just glancing through help pages on all the coding stuff is what’s putting you off (it can all seem a little daunting at first) you could perhaps consider trying some software designed to help.

Chronicler is a visual editor for ChoiceScript, using “bubbles” which you connect to create a flowchart of your game, from which it then generates the ChoiceScript code for you.

CSIDE (website) is due to be released this coming Thursday, as recently announced in this forum topic. This adopts a more “hands on” approach, intended to help you learn actual ChoiceScript coding for yourself. It comes with a detailed, step-by-step Interactive Tutorial, Learning Basic ChoiceScript, especially aimed at total newcomers.

Considering the amount of time you will invest in your game in future, I would suggest it’s probably well worth while trying both applications and see which works best for you.

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One word (well, two but connected by an underscore) *fake_choice

Essentially, you can write an entire story just using fake choices, that give a reader the illusion of choice. Basically, no matter what the player does the result will be the same. Readers will notice if they play again (this is referred to as “railroading”), and some games are heavily railroaded.

Actually, my choice to new writers (or even to myself) is to create a railroaded game, and then once you are finished with it you can start to add real branching (at least then you finish something…)

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